Chapter 1

It was a Saturday morning as I can remember. It was raining cats and dogs outside, putting the kibosh on my plans for going to the lake. So I was sitting in my easy chair, watching some old movie, and trying to figure out what I was going to do that day.

Suddenly my day was made a lot clearer when the doorbell rang. Who the hell could that be at this hour? And in this weather? I thought as I went to the door. I really wish I had a peephole in this door. I thought as I got to the door. I opened it and got the shock of a lifetime.

“Jenny Walters? Is that you?” Jenny was an ex-girlfriend who I hadn’t seen in over two years now. She was standing on my front porch, without a coat, and soaked to the skin.

“Oh thank God, Steve, you’re home! I had to take a bus here and I didn’t have enough money to go back home. I just had to pray that you would be home!”

“Well come in, your soaking wet! Come in and let me get you a towel!”

“Yeah, I had to walk the two blocks from the bus stop.” She came in and stood dripping on the tile floor while I ran to get her a towel. I also grabbed my robe on the way back to her. “Here Jenny, get out of those wet things and put this on before you catch a cold!” While she got undressed, I went around the corner into the kitchen and made us both a cup of coffee.

“Here take this and go sit in the living room. I’m going to put these wet things in the dryer. There’s a blanket on the back of the sofa you can wrap yourself in – you must be freezing in this rain!”

I took her wet clothes back to the laundry room and tossed them in the dryer before going back to the living room and sitting down on the sofa next to her.

“Now tell me, Jenny, what’s going on?”

“Oh Steve, I am in so much trouble! I don’t know what to do!”

“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

“Well for starters there’s this,” she patted her protruding belly.

“Yeah, I kinda noticed you didn’t come here alone.”

“That’s only part of it. The restaurant where I worked for my pathetic salary laid me off because they said I was not doing my job fast enough and I was ‘distracting the customers’. And without a job, my landlord is evicting me. I have until the end of the months – two weeks – to find someplace else to live. And I have no money left. I used the last of my money to get the bus ride over here to see you.”

“What about ... what’s his name?”

“Brian? That piece of shit dropped me like a bad habit as soon as he found out I was pregnant. I haven’t seen or heard from him in months!”

“Damn, I’m sorry, Jen. How about your folks? Can you ask them for help?”

“I guess you didn’t hear. Shortly after we broke up Dad had a stroke and had to be put in a nursing home. Mom had to sell the house and move into a small trailer in order to afford to keep Dad in the home. She barely has enough money with Social Security and Dad’s insurance to make ends meet. There wouldn’t be room for me in her trailer and she couldn’t afford another mouth or two to feed if there was.

“Steve I’m really up against the wall on this. I don’t have any money – I mean not a penny to my name. I don’t have a job now, and after this month is over I won’t have a place to live. All that plus I have this baby to take care of. You’ve always been great at fixing things and always been someone I could count on – probably the only person I could count on. I really need your help. Please?”

Looking at Jenny, my mind went back to the days when she and I were “the perfect couple”. Everyone thought that we would be together forever (myself included). But then Brian came along. He was one of those “beautiful people” – you know the type. The quarterback of the high school football team. Prom King. The kid every guy wanted to be. Mr. Popularity with the guys and Mr. Dreamy to all the girls.

Personally, I didn’t trust him from day one, and it turned out I had damn good instincts. It wasn’t long after Brian and his little entourage showed up one day at the restaurant where Jenny worked that she and Brian began getting too friendly for my tastes. I didn’t say anything, but I kept my eye on him. Then one day, Jenny came to me to tell me that she was breaking up with me and going to start being Brian’s girl.

I was crushed, to say the least, but there wasn’t much I could do. And now that girl who broke my heart was on my sofa pleading for my help. Sure, I could turn her out on the streets and let her try to figure things out on her own. And I had every right to after what she did to me. But that wasn’t my style.

“Of course, I will help you, Jenny. I mean, we loved each other once and not all that long ago. I couldn’t just kick you out onto the street in this condition or this weather.”

“Oh, Steve thank you! Thank you! I knew I could count on you to help me. Oh, you are such a sweet wonderful man just like always!”

Then she pulled me to her and kissed me. At first, it was just supposed to be a “thank you” kiss, but it quickly turned into a “thank you very much” kiss. And then into something even more than that. I remembered those lips ... the sweetest I had put against my own before or since.

When we broke the kiss, I told her my ideas on her situation. “Listen, Jen, This is a two-bedroom, one and three-quarter bath house. There’s one full bathroom across from the guest bedroom that you can use. The bath attached to the master bedroom has a shower, sink, and toilet. I can use that one. So there’s plenty of room here for you to stay as long as you need.

“As for your things, we can go to your place and get your clothes and personal stuff. The larger things like furniture and stuff we’ll get you a storage unit for until you decide what you want to do or where you are going to go. Since your landlord is evicting you, you don’t have to worry about giving notice, so that’s not a problem as long as you are moved out before the end of the month.”

“But what about ... don’t you have a girlfriend? Won’t she mind an old girlfriend staying with you?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t have a girlfriend or anything, Jen. I never got back into the dating and girlfriend thing after you left. You’re kind of a hard act to follow, you know!” I said.

“Oh,” she paused for a couple moments. “Well Steve honey, this all sounds wonderful, but I don’t have any money or a job to get any. I won’t be able to help much with expenses until I have the baby and can go back to work.”

“Don’t worry about that, Jenny. The fact that I know you are taken care of and not out on the streets is good enough for me.”

“But Steve, there’s going to be doctor visits, prenatal care, and the hospital stay...”

“Jenny, honey, you came to me because I am Mr. Fixit. So you let me worry about the money part. Your job is to take care of yourself and this little one, got it?”

“Yes, Sir!” The smile and relief I saw on her face was more than payment for whatever I would have to deal with.

“So how far along are you?”

“I’m on my sixth month now.”

My mind automatically flipped into planning mode. “I see. Well, we are going to need to get a few things in the coming months. Do you have a crib or a changing table or any baby furniture?”

“No, nothing yet. I was hoping to get to the local second-hand store and see what they had there.”

“Well, we have a little time for that. But yes, you are going to need a crib, changing table, and dresser for the baby things at the very least. We’ll get you a rocking chair too so you can rock the baby and feed it. Then there are bottles and diapers and clothes and a car seat...”

Jenny giggled. “Woah, honey! Let’s do this a little at a time! You act as if the baby will be here by morning!”

“Sorry, force of habit. I guess you’re right. I just want to be prepared. The next three months will go by before you know it.”

“That’s why I came to you, honey. You are always prepared. But let’s get what I have moved before we got more stuff!”

Because it was raining for the rest of the day, we decided that we would get her clothes and personal stuff the following day. Once her clothes were dry, she was able to get dressed again and we started thinking about dinner.

“What were you planning for lunch, Steve?”

“I hadn’t thought about it just yet, to be honest. I don’t normally keep a lot of groceries here, just cooking for one, you know. How about going out and grabbing a burger. It looks like the rain is letting up.”

“A burger sounds fine.”

My house has an attached garage so we went out to the garage and got into the car then left for the burger place. It took us a few minutes to get to one of my favorite hangouts, Joe’s Burger Shack, a small place that made the best burgers I’d ever had. “This is one of my favorite restaurants, Jenny. They make fantastic burgers. I eat here a lot.”

“Well, I’ll let you order for me then, since you know this place.”

I went up to place the order and then returned with the table marker so they could give us our order when it was done. By the time we had gotten our order and finished eating, the rain had stopped and the skies had begun to clear.

“It looks like the rain has stopped. It’s still early enough, do you want to go to your place so you can get some clothes and things at least for the next few days?”

“That would be nice. I don’t particularly want to wear this for the next three or four days!”

So we went over to where Jenny used to live and I waited while she “threw a few things together”. She came into the living room tugging on two wheeled suitcases and left them by the front door. Then she went back and a couple of minutes later came out again with a carry-on type case. “This is my makeup and some other stuff.”

After Jenny locked her apartment door, I took the two suitcases out to the car and put one in the trunk and on in the back seat. There was just enough room in the trunk for her “makeup case” so I put it in with the suitcase and we headed towards home.

Once we arrived back at the house, I unloaded her suitcases and took them to the guest bedroom for her to unpack and put her things away.

I was sitting in the living room trying to find something on TV that we could watch when she came in about twenty minutes later. She came over and sat next to me on the sofa and turned to me, taking my hands in hers.