Chapter 8 – Rick

“Turn here, Daryl.”

“I heard the GPS, asshole, I don’t need you to repeat it to me.” Daryl grumbles, tossing his cigarette out of the window and cutting his eyes at Shane in the passenger seat.

“I didn’t know if you could hear it over this death metal you’re blasting over the speakers. Ya know, riding into Atlanta with this shit on, I’m sure people are gonna be surprised that you have on shoes, and all of your teeth.” Shane retorts, tossing out one of many barbs that he and Daryl have been slinging back and forth the whole 45-minute drive from King County.

“Shut the hell up! I told you fuckers, if I drive, I pick the music. I ain’t listenin’ to no hokey ass moody blues for Rick, and I damn sure ain’t listenin’ to no damn rap music for you.”

“I’m gonna drive back so I don’t have to listen to this shit later.” Shane mumbles, staring out of the passenger side window. “Rick, this is a fancy ass little neighborhood. What these rich folks want with your country ass furniture?”

“Hell if I know. Maggie said the farmhouse look is in so, these rehabbed farm doors turned into a dining room table is what they like. Paid a lot of money for it too.”

“Sure it’s the look of the farm furniture, or the look of the farm boy who made it?” he asks jokingly, chuckling as he turns to the backseat where I’m checking over the paperwork for the delivery.

I don’t even bother answering Shane, but I can tell by the quick dash of Daryl’s eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror that he’s also interested in what’s going on here. I appreciate them helping me out with an early Saturday morning delivery at the last minute, but I don’t really want to get too deep into the circumstances of why we’re in Dunwoody making the delivery to Lori’s friend’s house. It’s a long story.

There isn’t time for me to even begin telling the story when Daryl pulls the pickup truck into the winding driveway of a red brick two story colonial on Vermack Ridge.

On a low whistle, Shane continues to take stock of the fancy house, then teases, “Oh yeah, this shit just screams farmhouse to me, Rick.”

“Shut up. Let’s just get this over with.” I mutter, opening the door to the backseat almost before Daryl gets the chance to bring the pickup to a full stop. Planting my booted feet on the front porch, I take a deep breath, and lift the door knocker. Immediately I am met by not only the purchaser of the furniture, and presumably the owner of the home, but also standing closely to her side, clutching a champagne flute filled with what appears to be orange juice, is Lori.

“Hello, Rick!” she chimes in, greeting me before the homeowner is able.

Not even caught off guard a little bit by her presence, because I should have known she would find a way to involve herself here, I step back a bit and try to use my palm to wipe my lack of contentment from my face, then give her a short, curt nod, hopefully communicating my displeasure. That’s all the acknowledgement she gets, as I immediately channel my attention to handling my business with the purchaser of the furniture. “Mrs. Pearson, we’re ready to bring in your delivery.” Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out the delivery receipt and purchase order for her signature, more than ready to get this transaction over with. Handing it, along with a pen over to her, she brushes her manicured nails across my fingers as she accepts it from my hand. The unsettling touch causes me to jerk my hand back.

“Yes! I’m very excited about my new pieces. So excited in fact that I just had to let my good friend Lori know it was being delivered today. I wanted to show off my new purchases!” She smirks, pronouncing her words in that drippy, fake saccharine sweet way that instantly reminds me of Lori’s family when I met them the one time they visited campus and they caught me out and about. Reaching out towards me, grasping my elbow and urging me inside of the house, the woman ushers me in to stand between her and Lori.

Mrs. Pearson is probably in her early to mid 30s, and is dripping in what appears to be expensive jewelry, as though this early morning furniture delivery required a grander sense of style than my plaid button up and cowboy boots were prepared for. If I remember correctly, she was over dressed the same way when she and her husband came out to the shop in King County. It was another Saturday morning, much like this one, and just as she is now, her neck was adorned with pearls, her fingers and ears with diamonds, and on her arm, a less than interested husband who constantly checked his phone. What I also clearly remember from making that sale over a month ago, was her mentioning that she’s a friend of Lori’s, who recommended that she checkout our furniture.

As though reading my mind or recognizing my discomfort at Lori’s presence she leans closer to me, and attempts what may have been supposed to be a whisper, but given the champagne laced orange juice I can smell on her breath, comes out just as loud as anything else she has said. “And Lori just had to be here to greet her beau. She wouldn’t have it any other way.” Giggling to herself, she winks at me, then gestures by cutting her eyes over her shoulder towards Lori, then back behind my head. “Oh! And you have brought some strapping friends of your own! Guess that makes it a party?”

“Hello, ma’am, I’m Shane Walsh, delivery man and sheriff’s deputy, at your service.” Offering Mrs. Pearson his hand, Shane pushes past me and enters the home behind me, giving her that wolfish smile of his that has been the preamble to many a conquest. I can even tell from where I’m standing that given the up and down look he just gave her, that he’s already made up his mind, whether she’s married or not, that he’s going to have her. This isn’t new. This is classic Shane, and despite my own misgivings about his exploits, I keep mum. We’ve had many a discussion about the morality of not only sleeping around with multiple women, which we have both been guilty of at different times in our lives, but doing so when marriage is involved. Mine or theirs.

With the breakup of my marriage, resulting in me being unwillingly separated, I will admit that when Michonne and I spoke the other night, she had me dead to rights regarding my sexual appetite. Definitely didn’t want to discuss it with her, but deep inside there was some perverse satisfaction at hearing the disgusted way she spoke about it. I know the sight of her with that gotdamned Ezekiel, his arms around her trim waist. His shit eating grin setting on her like she hung the moon. His fucking dramatic voice, confessing his love for my wife and children. Referring to them as family. Fuck! It made me want to strangle the life from him, sending me into a rage that only the face of my baby girl finally finding peace once she had her wooby in hand, was able to quell. I wanted to knock his ass out for stepping onto my porch with my Michonne.

But just like the pissed off scoff in her voice during our Face Time discussion gave me the tiniest glimmer of hope, the way her eyes danced over me, and skittered nervously away from my appreciative stare, I could feel that jolt again. That awakening of energy that livens my limbs, jumpstarts my heart and my senses. I could even smell the faint remnant of her expensive perfume, with just a hint of sweat, Michonne’s own fragrance that thickened my cock in my jeans. All for her. Only a love struck fool would take any of it, even her presence in King County, as some indication that there’s still love for me in Michonne’s heart. Especially given those divorce papers she had me served with.

I don’t care. I’m here, enduring the touch and grins of these women, this Saturday delivery which I never do, especially when my kids are in town, so that I can rush back to the farm and get ready for peach picking. And for Michonne. She texted last night to say she would be coming through to help, and just like I told her on the phone, this is a chance for us to rekindle a lost friendship. At least that. Though I can’t lie and say that I wouldn’t be ecstatic if there was more. I won’t rush her. I won’t rush myself. But… yeah. I just need to get to know her again. Give her a chance to get to know me again. To understand me, what I’ve done. Why I’ve done it.

The thought of spending the day with her drags my attention back to the here and now, and just as Mrs. Pearson and Shane are flirting, and Lori is inching over to probably try to explain her appearance, Daryl’s loud voice echoes from the driveway getting us all back on track.

“Hey! I ain’t got all day for this shit! We gotta make this drop and get to the farm for peach pickin’!”

“Rick, what’s he talking about?” Lori asks, easing herself closely to my side and running her thin fingers through the long dark tresses of her brown hair. Giving Daryl a sideways look as though he is something she would find on the bottom of her shoe, she darts her gaze from him to me, awaiting an answer to my question. As though I owe her one. Maybe I do?

Two years or so after Judith’s birth, and after Michonne and I separated, Shane talked me into getting out more. My mother was in remission, and the only things I ever did were work, and find ways to be with my kids. Fly to them. Fly them out to see me. That was it. When my alma mater, University of Tennessee, was in town playing Shane’s alma mater, UGA, in a football game, he convinced me to join him. A little football and tailgating would be good for me. Get me away from the farm, maybe distract me from what was probably a bout of depression that had set in. Shane is a good friend and a good cousin. Him staying on me about it eventually got me to give in, don an old UT t-shirt, and attend the game with him.

During a Saturday filled with drinking, eating, football, and an evening of partying and tailgating, I ran right into her. Lori. I had completely forgotten about her. About her moving to Georgia after graduation to teach. She was there in the parking lot, about six or so spots down, wearing some of her own UT gear, partying at the RV of some fellow UT alums. Through the fog of beer and a few shots of whiskey, I recognized her skinny frame and long hair, but tried my very best to remain out of her sight. There was no desire on my part to relive that part of my life. I had moved on. But, just as I was making my way back from a thicket of bushes where I had just taken a piss, I ran right into her and her some of her friends playing cornhole. Slightly unsteady on my feet from the amount of alcohol I had consumed, I couldn’t get my boots to carry me away quicker than Lori could wrap her arms around me in a hug.

The remainder of that night was a blur from there. I faintly remember joining Lori’s group of friends for awhile, until Shane came and found me, laughing cause he thought I must have fallen into some bushes, followed by a lewd grin alluding to the kind of bush he really meant. By adding that he guesses that I did, or that I would be, he brought his very Shane-like insinuation full circle. After Lori suggested everyone go back to her place, a small condo that she purchased near the school she was teaching at, Shane wasn’t far off on his prediction.

That was nearly a year ago. Nearly a year that consisted of too many phone calls and texts from her, probably not enough responses from me giving her the reaction she’s desired, and just enough sex to keep the edge off. To drive away the shadows of fleeting dreams. Desires that flit away like smoke between my fingertips. Lori is great at that, taking your mind off of the demons that ride you. Making you feel as though what’s happening in that moment is all that matters. Not the true consequence of all you have or have not done.

Depression was a reality for me for awhile I think, symptomatic of a cycle of sleep, eat, work, recycle. Though I was never diagnosed. Too stupid, too proud to actually see a doctor. Something was wrong with me though, and for a brief moment in time, right after I realized that Michonne had really frozen me out of her life, I again allowed Lori to self-medicate me with her jocular presence. A temporary balm to hide my own suffering. I will take the blame for using her in that way.

It’s been a few months since we’ve hooked up though, but now here she is, and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, this is the kind of thing that Lori is good at as well as being a distraction. Setups. Sneakiness. While she may be beautiful, smart, and a catch for some man, that man ain’t me. I married the woman for me, and regardless of how bleak things have been over the last few years, I’m ready to be hopeful again.  

Anxious is more like it, which is new for me. But I’ll take it because that anxiety is a sign of rebirth. Perhaps I can survive this separation in one piece?

Dipping his head into the doorway, probably aggravated that no one heeded his last yelled command, Daryl grabs a hold of my shirtsleeve and drags me back outside. “Hey, Rick, did you hear me? Let’s get going. You told the kids we’d be back in two hours, and I told Carl and Dre I would show them how to shoot a crossbow today. I plan on keepin’ my promise.” He huffs off back towards the truck.

“Rick, wait. Hey, what is he talking about peach picking? At your family’s farm?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s the season.” Frustrated at Daryl giving Lori any sight into any activities that involve my kids, I hastily give her as little details as possible.

“Oh, ok. We haven’t talked really since your kids came into town. We should catch up.”

“Yeah, I haven’t had much time. Been busy. I got stuff, thangs to do.”

“I understand completely! I’m a teacher, so if you need any help with them I’m happy to assist. Kids can be a handful.” Pausing for a moment, as she flips her long hair over her shoulder, she wraps her arms around mine, pushing herself close to my side, she offers in a lower voice. “And maybe I can help with you too. I’m sure you could use a…release? Keeping up with three kids is a lot. I just want to help, Rick. Don’t you think it’s time for you to let me do that?”

Gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings, but also not wanting there to be any misunderstanding, I pull my arm from her clutches. “Lori, we should talk. Not right now. I don’t have the time, but soon.”

“I agree. We should talk, and catch up.”

“No. Not like that. I-”

“Rick!” Daryl hollers again, his impatience growing with each moment that I’m still talking to Lori, and Shane is still flirting with Mrs. Pearson, and no one is helping him move the furniture into the house.

“I’m coming!” Rubbing my palm down my face, I’m going back and forth in my head, arguing with myself, growing weary of it all. Should I just tell her now or another time when we have more privacy? As I’m thinking it over, Shane trots out of the house, breezing by where Lori and I are standing on the walkway. Slapping me on the back, he gives me a wide grin, one that shows just about all of his teeth, and I decide to at least give her enough respect to not do this here in front of everyone. “Listen, Lori, we should talk. My children are here, and right now all of my time belongs to them. When I have some free time I will call you. Ok?”

“When?”

“Soon.” I promise, and I mean that. Settling things with Lori is a priority actually. It’s something I need to ensure I get done as soon as possible, so that there is nothing that stands between Michonne and I getting back together. Because I’ll be damned if I sign those divorce papers.

XXXXXXX

‘So many tears I've cried
So much pain inside
But baby it ain't over 'til it's over
So many years we've tried
To keep our love alive
But baby it ain't over 'til it's over…’

“Hey, Jr., you mind if I turn this down for a second? Wanna talk for a moment?”

Looking over towards my bedroom door, I find my father, his shoulder leaned up against the frame, a pensive look on his face. I study him for a moment before I answer, taking stock of the man in his usual uniform of dark blue jeans, cowboy boots, and plaid button up. The man who has been the catalyst for so much of what’s happened in my life. Moving our family from King County to Atlanta. Separating our family after the divorce. Then calling me back here to finally fulfill the promise I’d made.

Despite my disappointments in him, or his actions, our relationship has always weathered the ups and downs. There was a time when we were almost like friends, hanging out, drinking, talking all the time. But this time a hardened bitterness has settled between us the longer I am estranged from my wife and kids.  Our once jovial banter has become a series of hastily spoken words, usually updates on my mother or things with the businesses, orders from me on what to work on, what medicine to pickup, reminders of what appointments not to miss. But nothing like the camaraderie we once shared. We both know why, but never speak out loud the words.

None of the words that could be said have even been sufficient. They ones we want to levy at each other. Drop hastily at the other’s feet, maybe just to even get a response. Blame. Guilt. Maybe even one that I try to avoid at all costs. Regret.

What use is it? It’s a symptom of knowing you’ve made a wrong choice. Wishing you could fix it. Realistically unable to change a damn thing. Living with the emptiness of taking the wrong path. Even if there are days, nights, moments of my existence where I find a quiet second. A brief interlude where there’s no whirring of saws, banging of hammers, click-clack of pills in medicine bottles, childlike laughter, computers, bills, phones… Where nothing exists but my memories, where I fall into it. I won’t call it regret for what I’ve lost. Instead I think of it as a moment for reverie. A conscious choice to meander through more pleasant times, daydreams of a future existence that my heart is still set on. One that lately feels more possible than it has in recent years. One where I’m with my family, my wife, every day. Every night. Always.

It’s what I planned when for when I said my vows six years ago. It’s what I’m going to fight to get back. It’s a promise I made myself when I laid eyes on the woman I love a few days ago. When I saw the emotion she still carries for me still evident in her soft gaze, even as it was dampened by the dark edges of sadness, and half-heartedly masked by false happiness. Michonne still loves me. I’m going to prove it, I promise myself, as I rake the comb back through my hair one last time, then drop it on my dresser, inching it the side where no less than ten picture frames with my kids’ images stare back at me. Even Michonne’s and my wedding picture is there, in the middle. Its silver frame holding onto the memory of one of the happiest days of my life.

“Sure. Come on in.” I nod, but I don’t turn off my music, nor do I turn it down. I don’t expect this chat to last much longer than any of them usually do. Because the truth is that we don’t have father – son talks much anymore. Our lives have been boiled down to duty. Bound by what we must do, not always what we want to do. Littered with sentiments, fits and starts to clear the air, that never come to fruition.

Turning to a seat resting next to where I’m standing in front of the dresser, getting ready after returning from delivering furniture and showering, my father picks up the trucks, dinosaurs, and princess wand occupying the chair. Inspecting each item as though he’s categorizing which of his grandchildren each of them belongs to, a small twitch of his lips brings to life the weathered handsomeness of his face. A face that has aged quite a bit with the stress of life’s circumstances.

“They do seem to leave their presence everywhere don’t they?”

“Yeah, they do.” I agree, chuckling that even before I could take a shower, I had to remove ducks, battleships, and soap crayons from the tub.

“It’s a wonderful thing. When the kids are here. So lively. Reminds me of when you and Jeff were kids, playing everyday with Michonne and Glenn.” The mention of her name interjects something new into the conversation, and I can’t help but narrow my eyes at his use of the name he hasn’t spoken in years.

“Ok.”

“Your grandfather said he saw her a couple of nights ago. That she came by here with a friend of hers. Her boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” I admit, dropping my eyes in shame, as I punch at one hand with the other at the remembrance of that night.

“Boyfriend?”

“That’s what he called himself.” I answer feeling myself growing upset at him repeating the question. Needling me with what it implies about how far apart Michonne and I really are.

“You ok with that? Your wife having a boyfriend?”

“I will tell you like I told her, what I like and what I want don’t seem to matter much to anyone anymore. But don’t worry, whatever he thinks he is to her, he won’t be that for much longer.”

“That right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Ok then.” Nodding his head, he purses his lips, thinning them into a flat line as he seems to be carefully thinking over his next words. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He raps his knuckles against the wooden arm of the chair he’s seated in, adding finality to his words, then leans back. Making himself comfortable. “The kids say their mama promised to come peach picking today.” Focusing on my face, as though he’s reading my reaction to everything he’s saying, he finally raises his greying eyebrows, and a gentle grin creeps across his face.

Tilting my head, wondering where this conversation is coming from, and where it’s going, I fold my arms over my chest and question out loud what’s going through my head. “Is this going somewhere, Dad? I have to get outside and make sure everything is ready to go.”

Raising his right leg, to rest his booted foot on his knee, he folds his arms and answers my question. “You don’t need a lot of flowery, big words today, son. You and Michonne is an inevitability, and I’m sorry if my bullshit, and insecurities stalled that out. I am truly sorry. Everyday that I see you here, guilt tears at my gut, but… you know me. I’m not good with apologies, and weakness, and that’s my shit to deal with. I want you to know that you’re not me. My failures are not yours to repeat. You are more of a man, a leader, a husband than I’ve ever been, and I know that. We all do. Things break, but they can still grow. Look at your mama and me. I absolutely do not deserve another moment with her. I don’t. And I think my life’s punishment was to have to watch the woman I have loved nearly all my life suffer. To watch my son suffer. Watch my grandbabies shuffle between here and there. That’s my fault.” Sniffing, he steels his jaw, and huffs, seemingly sucking in the emotion that would betray him and cloud his features. “It’s enough now though. I’m gonna help you fix this, son. Now’s the time for your broken life to grow again.”

My father’s transparency in this moment causes my own eyes to sting, but I blink back the sensation. Instead I purse my lips, suck them in between my teeth and clamp down. Grimes men, we’re lovers. We’re fighters. We’re the ones who do what needs to be done when others don’t. Won’t. Because of that I think we forget to give ourselves permission to feel. To simply take in the hurt of what all that loving and fighting and action does to us emotionally. My father is right. His decision to handle things one way, forced me to handle them another, and the suffering caused by both of our approaches isn’t lost on him, he’s just too paralyzed in his own shit to stop it. I guess that is until now. Maybe it’s too late though? Perhaps Michonne is truly lost to me…our love sailed too far into the storm from it’s safer port?

Grinding my fist across my lips I mumble out, inching the words in pieces so as not to spill the insecurity of my marriage’s predicament. “I appreciate that, Dad, but… it isn’t that simple. She served me with divorce papers, and I gotta find a way to get myself out of signing ‘em.”

“Don’t sign them. Just don’t. Michonne is in your blood and I suspect you’re still in hers. Remind her of that. As this fella on the radio just said, it ain’t over til it’s over.”

My father’s words almost move me to tears. Truly. The weight of my emotional burden is heavy. But his admittance of his faults, of his belief that I can fix this? It makes me feel light, buoyant. Nodding. Grinning, I allow the feeling to move through me. To touch my heart. “Yeah, I know that now.”

“Help her remember, son. But first, there is a woman outside looking for you. She is not your wife. I understand that your wife’s arrival is imminent. I would like to know how you want me to handle that?”

“What? What woman is outside looking for me?” Marching over to my window that overlooks the side of the house where the barn, and the main gate where most of the folks who will be visiting the farm today are going to arrive, I don’t instantly recognize anyone familiar.

“Pulled up just a few moments ago while I was working with the kids in the woodshop.” Looking down at his own hands, rubbing the weathered digits over each other, he seems lost in his own thoughts, and rambles away. “Ya know, your kids might be better at making furniture than you or Jeff. That Andre has a real good eye for the aesthetics of good workmanship. Knows what wood is best for what piece. Carl too if he can stop playing those iPad games for a second. He’s good with his hands. Even my baby girl can hammer in a nail without bending it when she sets her mind on it. Gonna teach her to use a power drill soon.”

Frowning, growing frustrated with his meandering, I can feel myself getting nervous and anxious at who this woman might be, and I turn away from him to stare back out the window towards the woodshop, hoping against hope that it’s not who I think it is. I don’t see her in the few people who filter in and out of the doors. It’s opened today to allow visitors to the farm to come in and see the process we go through to hand make our furniture, and hopefully to buy something. Furniture, fruit, preserves, pies, chutney.

After my mother went into remission, I began getting serious about turning this place around as I realized that that was the only way I was ever going to be free again. I had been here for my mother when she needed me, now I needed to figure out how to keep the promise that I’d made to my father over ten years ago to make our family businesses a success. It’s been slow going, and it’s not the run away success that I was hoping for but, the changes I have made around here have been positive.

Turning peach picking season into a festival and showcase of sorts was the first part of my plan that I implemented. Our family always had decent sales of our produce and furniture in town, but once I made the beginning of peach picking season, a way for people from Atlanta who wanted a taste of country life to come out and pick their own fruit, ride the horses, picnic on the land, swim in the pond, and checkout some furniture, we became known for it. Especially after Shane had a little fling with a lifestyle editor for one of the most popular magazines in Georgia, and she did a feature on Grimes Family Farms and Furniture. We’ve become very popular, and now that Maggie is even working on getting us to the point where our website is up and running, and we can take orders for just about anything online. I’m hoping that will be the last piece to make this place profitable enough that I won’t have to be here everyday. Maybe I can run this place from anywhere in the world with Maggie’s help. And with Jeff’s.

He’s graduating with his MBA this year, and after proposing to Maggie’s sister Beth, and deciding on a late summer wedding, he’s ready to settle down here in King County so that Beth can keep working with her father in his veterinary practice. And give me the room to follow my own path again. Be my own man.

Everything is falling into place, and with Michonne being back in town until October, I would be lying if I didn’t feel the hand of fate here, telling me that it’s time for me to set things right again.

Before I can do that though, I have to figure out who my father said is looking for me. Pulling him back to the conversation, I turn towards him. “Dad, can you focus for a minute? You said a woman was looking for me? Do you know who it was?”

“Yep. It was Lori. She asked me where you were. I told her I would see if you’re available.” Rising from his chair, he approaches me and in a way that he hasn’t in years, he places a hand on my shoulder, and gives me that fatherly squeeze he used to give when Jeff and I were in trouble. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Uh…tell her I’m not here.”

“Tell her you’re not here? At your own farm?”

“No wait. You’re right that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nah it doesn’t. But you should probably think of something quickly, cause if I remember correctly, Michonne is always punctual. And well, son, it’s peach picking time.” He chuckles, and with his hand to my back, guides me out of my bedroom, and downstairs to figure out how to get rid of Lori before my wife shows up. “And it’s time for you to get your wife back.”

XXXXX

“Wow! Did you make that all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“It’s very nice. Where did you learn to make something like that?”

“My daddy.”

“Oh yeah? Well I’m Lori, I’m a friend of your daddy’s. What’s your name?”

“I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers.” Andre answers, absentmindedly pushing the tiny wooden car that he and I have been working on, back and forth over the counter behind the register. I can tell by the focus of his eyes, narrowed in on the way the wheels turn, that he’s considering whether or not he should sand them more, add more graphite to the axels. We discussed this yesterday in the workshop. Andre is lighthearted, and a joker, but he is very much a perfectionist. When my father notes that the boys are gifted with woodworking, he is telling the truth. I’ve been working with them since they were strong enough to hold a hammer, and I can honestly say that even if they weren’t my children, I would be impressed with both Carl and Andre’s skill. It is something to see a five-year-old sketch out a rudimentary idea for a wooden car, and he and his brother build it with minimal help.

“Well, I’m not really a stranger since I’m a friend of your father’s. A really good friend. So, see? You can tell me your name, and you and I can be friends too. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“No. You’re too old to be my friend.”

Laughing a little into her hand, Lori leans down further into Andre’s space, inspecting the car he continues to distractedly play around with instead of fully engaging her. For a moment I decide to hang back, and I watch their interaction from behind a wooden column by the front door, out of sight.

Lori’s feathers aren’t ruffled by Andre’s seeming dismissal of her efforts. If anything her training as a teacher has probably prepared her for this kind of behavior, and it seems like she’s digging her heels in. Insistent on making a connection of some sort with my son as she begins to now ask him questions about the car instead of about himself. How clever.

That’s Lori. Clever. Calculating. This doesn’t seem to resonate with Andre though. Her usual tactics of drawing others in, ineffective on my son. It’s as though he can sniff out the inauthenticity in her desire to interact with him. And just as I suspected the many times she asked about meeting the kids, it was really just about sinking her claws deeper into me. I wasn’t interested then, and seeing the fake way that she’s trying to work over my son, I’m definitely not interested now.

Just as I’m about to put an end to the meeting that I was adamant I didn’t want to happen in the first place, Michonne enters from the back of the pole barn with Judith in her arms, and Carl leading the way. Shit.

“Dre?”

“Here I am, Mama. Wif Daddy’s friend.” Andre answers, his attention now summoned by his mother’s appearance. Immediately he runs to hug his mother, no longer a care in the world for his car or for Lori.

“With Daddy’s friend?”

“Hello, I’m Lori. I’m Rick’s girlfriend.” Lori stands to her full height, and offers her hand in greeting to Michonne.

With a tilted uptick of her lips, not a full grin, but not a smirk either, Michonne accepts Lori’s hand. “Yes, we’ve met before. Many years ago. I’m Rick’s wife.”

“Technically.”

“In every way that matters.”

Bucking her eyes at the succinct clip of Michonne’s response, Lori seems taken aback by her bluntness. I have to admit, I am a little as well, but I won’t lie and say it doesn’t give me a little thrill to hear Michonne laying her claim on me. It stiffens my spine. Pulls a twitchy grin to my lips. There’s that hopefulness again.

“Either way, it’s nice to meet you. Again. And to meet Rick’s children. I’ve seen their pictures that he has on his phone, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in person. They’re all so beautiful.” Lori’s eyes travel over the faces of each of my children, I assume cataloguing their features, making a mental note of which resemble mine, and which belong to my wife. “Let me see. I’ve met Andre here.” Crouching down she gives her attention to Carl. “You must be Carl?”

“That’s me.”

“You are a handsome fella. You look a lot like your father.”

“My mama says that too. Says that’s why I’m gonna be trouble.” Carl answers, his attention mostly focused on showing Andre something in his hands.

“I can see why. What’s that you have cupped in your hands?”

“Something I found for me and my brother.”

“Can I see?”

Without warning, Carl opens his hands and out hops a frog, seeking its freedom from the sticky hands of little boys. Jumping on its springy legs, the frog bounces onto Lori’s chest, sends her hands flailing and swinging at it, attempting to swat it away from her as Carl and Andre run around trying to recapture the poor thing.

“Don’t hit my frog!” Carl hollers, scolding Lori for fending off the wild hops of the animal. Reaching his hands up in the air trying to catch the amphibian as it escapes Lori’s strikes, Carl’s face is turning red and for a second I wonder if I should step in. Nah, I’m kind of enjoying this, which I can also see that Michonne is as well as she stands there laughing at the boys skittering around the storefront, trying to avoid knocking over furniture, while they attempt to snatch their slippery prize. Judith is enjoying the scene as well, clapping her hands, and egging her brothers on, pointing out where she sees the frog hiding.

With my hand over my mouth I have to hold my own snickers in, and try to maintain my hidden position behind the column without being spotted.

When the boys finally get their hands back on the frog, they instantly dart back outside, ready to get into who knows what.

Lori finally seems to have calmed herself once the boys, and the frog exit. Smoothing down her ruffled dress. Standing, with her palm covering her chest as she heaves out a series of heavy breaths, she gulps a few times, then gathering herself, gives her attention to Michonne. “That was… something.”

“Yeah. Well they’re little boys who live on a farm. You never know what critters they are going to find. Rick and I used to terrorize our little brothers with mice we found in the barn.”

Grimacing, twisting her face in disgust, Lori gasps, “Mice?”

“Yep. Mice. We used to get into all kinds of trouble out here. I guess the kids are following in our footsteps.” Michonne quietly laughs more to herself than anything at her nostalgic recall of our shared childhood. Her eyes soften for a moment, face relaxing as she roams her eyes over the storefront that is a new addition to the workshop, but hopefully seeing that even still some things remain the same. Eventually, she looks over to Judith, and drops a tiny peck to her chubby cheek.

Judith grins at her mother, and gives her a kiss back, giggling at the joyful moment. They are both oblivious to not only my clandestine consumption of the sweet mother daughter moment, one that warms my heart at seeing my girls connect. At witnessing something that our estrangement and my absence has not permitted me to see often enough. It wounds me to realize this. Strikes me in a way that emboldens my resolve to rectify this situation. To do as my grandfather and father have suggested, and set things right.

I’m about to make my presence known, when Lori, seemingly coming out of a bit of a daze at also seeing the moment between mother and daughter, she reaches for Judith. “You must be Judith?”

Uncharacteristically, at the slight brush of Lori’s fingers against her arm, Judith shyly clings tightly to her mother, with her arms wrapped around Michonne’s neck and shoulders.

Judith doesn’t answer, and when Lori attempts to reach for her again, she clasps on to her mother tighter, whimpering at Lori’s advances. Judith isn’t shy at all, and her response is, like her brothers’, quite telling. My kids don’t know any strangers. Andre may be a little wary, Carl seemingly disinterested, and Judith uncomfortable with Lori, but the reality is that most of the time they love meeting new people. When customers come to the farm or the workshop they have no problem chatting them up, telling them about themselves, their favorite things, asking if they have games on their phones. But as my grandmother used to say, children and animals have an innocence about them that allows them to sniff out bullshit. And well, maybe they’ve done just that with Lori?

Stepping out from my hiding spot, I approach my wife and daughter, reaching for Judith to soothe her agitation. Rubbing my hand in circles across her back, I place a little kiss on her temple, and then without thought really, kind of functioning on an innate auto pilot I do the same to Michonne. It just felt natural to step in this way, to be by her side, to calm my child. To kiss my wife.

It doesn’t even seem to catch Michonne off guard. Maybe she senses the casualness of such an interaction between us. How right it seems to gravitate to each other when in the other’s presence.

Lori on the other hand, she’s clearly thrown by my actions, by Michonne’s receptiveness to it, and Judith’s keening under the attentive eye of her parents. Her eyes bounce from me to Michonne, to Judith, then back. Her lips flatten into a thin line.

“Well if you’ll excuse me, that’s enough meet and greet.” Hugging Judith to her side with both arms now, Michonne nods towards Lori, gifting her with a subtle smile as she turns to leave. Looking my way she announces, “I’m gonna go to the stables before we start picking peaches. I want to check on my horse.” With only a short flutter of her fingers, she leaves, heading back towards the workshop to exit in the rear, closer to the stables.

For the briefest of moments, not even a split second, I feel sorry for Lori. The sudden way the plastered smile she painfully held while attempting to fruitlessly connect with my children, and unexpectedly encountering my wife, instantly falls in defeat, is hard to witness. Only a deep sigh follows, her chin dropping to her chest, until she maybe realizes how she must look, and then once again, she’s sporting her game face. Dusting wisps of her shiny, dark hair from her face, ready again to perform her role.

This whole thing, the merry go round that Lori and I rode for years, with me jumping off to be with Michonne, then pointlessly jumping back on to find a little comfort while I licked my wounds, is rusted. Worn out. A broken relic of the times in my life when I was unable to have what I wanted. To courageously articulate and execute on my own dreams, and was instead comfortable with allowing the spin of this ride, powered by the whims of others, to carry me over the humps of my life.

I don’t want to be that man anymore though. Never really wanted to in the first place. But like so many men before me, one particular man in fact, I allowed fear to steer my ship. Other forces to guide my path. I recognize my own weakness, my fear of failure, regret, resentment, its embodiment standing before me, wearing a flower print sundress and a pair of cowboy boots. Offering me the ease of allowing someone else, something else, to choose my life for me.

Resting my hands on my hips as I offer this woman this very last piece of myself that I’m willing to sacrifice for my own growth, I smile briefly in recognition of who she is. A technically beautiful woman. A smart, savvy strategist. She will make a fine wife for some man. I’m just not that man. I already have a fine wife. A great wife. The best.

“Rick, guess I finally found you.”

“Did you get what you were looking for, Lori?”

“What do you mean?”

“You met my kids. Regardless of me telling you I wasn’t ready for that. You pushed the issue. You got what you wanted. Right?”

“Rick, I- I just thought maybe you were being silly about this. You know how you can be about your family. Took me forever to get you to bring me home back in college. You just needed a little push like always.”

“No. I didn’t. But that’s what you do, what I’ve allowed you to do. You push. I don’t stop you. But, this? My kids? That’s different. I told you no for a reason. This thing with us is not permanent. And because of that I didn’t want you meeting my kids, confusing them.”

“Confusing them about what, Rick? I’m not confused.”

Lowering my voice as I nod at a few customers you move about the showroom, I try to contain our discussion and not draw too much attention. “No, you’re not. You know exactly what you’re doing, and you know exactly how I feel. You just don’t care. That’s my fault though. I’ve given you every reason to believe that you can have your way. Not anymore though. My kids didn’t need to be confused about their mother’s place in my life. Michonne is still my wife. We may… we may have lost our way for a bit, but, that doesn’t change the way I feel about her. Not one bit. You telling my kids that you’re my girlfriend, saying that to Michonne? Coming here uninvited? You’ve crossed a line and I can’t forgive that.”

Moving towards me, Lori comes to a stop so close that her breasts nearly rest against my chest. “What about her, Rick?”

“What about her?”

“You think she’s just waiting around for you? You don’t think she has a boyfriend who’s doing with her exactly what you do with me?” Her words sicken me in their truthfulness. Stun me into silence. “Rick, this is what you do. You can’t make up your mind, so you force me to do it for you. That’s all this is. Your feathers are ruffled, but I have the fix for that.” Placing her palms flat against my chest, she drops her eyes, almost as though she’s bashful, but when she lifts them to me I recognize what she really wants. What her fix is. I don’t need fixing.

“You keep that. Whatever this toxic thing was with us is over.”

Allowing her tone to raise, her voice to become shrill with anger and spite, Lori asserts herself. “She won’t take you back, Rick. I know you. You’ve allowed too much space to grow between you. You’re not kids running barefoot around this farm anymore. You can’t live in that past. Wake up! You and your little best friend have grown up, and apart. It’s time to move on.”

Gently gripping both of her wrists, I circle my fingers around her delicate bones, and remove her touch from my chest, and back to her side. “You’re right. It is time to move on. That’s why you should go. There’s a man out there who will be happy with what you’re offering, but that man isn’t me. I have a wife, children. I have a family. They are my past, my present, and my future. I’m done pretending I can live any kind of life with them. Without her.”

“But-”

“You should go.” Sidestepping Lori before she can offer any other rebuttal, any words that might force me to be harsher with her, I follow in the direction that my wife took earlier. Taking the path that will lead me back to her.

XXXXX

“You’re such a flirt, Shane, I swear!”

“What? The woman came on to me. What was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, remind her that she’s married and walk away?”

“Now why would I do that? Ain’t my vows being broken.”

A deep sigh comes from Michonne, and as my steps carry me closer to her up the pathway between the rows of the large sweet smelling peach orchard along the back half of our farm, the greenery conceals my approach amongst the trees, and I can barely make out a soft mutter from her. “Well, it isn’t so easy to…break those vows. You remember that.” Dropping her head, she eases a few peaches into the basket she’s using to collect her haul.

Pausing to consider her response to his claim, Shane seems to see how his words have hit a little too close to home for her. They halted me a bit as well. The truth hurts, though, and they’re both right. “Hey, Chonne, I ain’t mean nothing by that. You know that right? You and Rick, that’s different.” He offers as somewhat of an apology, lifting Judith on his shoulders for her to continue grasping her small hands around the fleshy fruit to give it a tiny squeeze to check the ripeness of the Goldprince and Southern Pearl cultivars of peaches that we grow here. She may be growing up partially in LA, but I see that my baby is a southern girl at heart.

“Maybe.” Michonne nods, and swipes the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping the sweat from her brow.

With the sun still high in the sky, cascading its glow across the land, bathing my wife in its beams, my breath arrests with the full sight of her. In a tank top, her shoulders, arms, and back are bared to me, as is the glint of her gold necklace, from which the ‘M’ charm I gave her rests, along with another treasure I’ve given to her. Her wedding ring. Settling close to her round full breasts, I have no choice but lick my lips, control my impulse to run to her. Grab her up in my arms and bury my face in the sun kissed warmth of her skin.

Michonne drags her hand across her shoulders, calling my attention to the scar on her collarbone that nearly blends with her coloring now. Faded with time. The same one she earned from the jagged tip of a wayward branch in the thicket of trees that border this very farm. How many days and nights have I placed my lips there, kissing away the memory of her screaming at the sting of her injury. Sweat beads across my own forehead, and I can feel myself growing hot, wondering if its from seeing her this way, the specter of our lives together heavy in the air, emitting from the memories embedded in the land, branded on our hearts, or from the heat of this early summer day.

Swallowing thickly, opening and then closing her mouth as though she’s hesitant to speak, Michonne sends her gaze to her right, surveying the land, then raises her wrist to check her watch.

“Judy Bear, it’s about naptime. I don’t know where your father is, but I’m gonna take you into the house ok?”

“Nooo, Mama! No nap!”

Approaching the small gathering, I unceremoniously reach up for Judith and pluck her easily from Shane’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s time to take a little nap like your mother said, ok?” Keeping my tone firm, brooking no argument from our whining toddler.

Rubbing at her eyes with her tiny fists, making it clear that after a long day of eating, playing, running with her brothers, and picking peaches, she gives the signal that it’s definitely time for her to take a nap. At three years old, Judith adamantly disagrees, every day, every time we bring up naps, but if she doesn’t take them we’re all going to pay for it, so I don’t let the water gathering in her large, blue eyes to sway me.

“Daddy, no nap!”

“Yes. Nap. Come on.”

“I’ll take her, Rick. I need to clean myself up some anyway. I told your mother I would help her in the kitchen for dinner.”

“Oh yeah, you’re gonna stick around a little longer?”

Tilting her head, a bit of a challenge in her tone, Michonne questions me. “You got a problem with that, Rick?”

“Absolutely not. You’re always welcome here, sweetheart. This is your home.” I declare, hoping that she understands exactly what I’m telling her. We haven’t had much opportunity to be together today, not like I had hoped. The large crowds of people that we’ve brought in have been good for business, but bad for me catching up with Michonne. She spent most of her time helping customers who are not familiar with the proper way to pick peaches. How to check if the ground color of the fruit is that yellow/orange gold color, as those are the ripest to pick. How to firmly palm the flesh, but to tenderly pluck its stem from the tree, free of bruises. Michonne has always been good at this, her touch assured but gentle. It’s her general way with everything I suppose, charging ahead with certainty, but always mindful of keeping a measured approach. It’s why she’s so successful. And it’s probably why my grandfather asked her to help out back here with the city folk as he calls them, making sure they don’t make a mess of his orchard.

After ensuring that Lori left the farm without further argument, I searched for and found the boys behind the house, by the pond with Daryl, and just as he promised, he was teaching them to shoot with a bow. Having secured their frog in a small box, they were taking turns learning a new skill. Taking note that they were fully occupied, and reminded by my longtime friend that they were under the watchful eye of their Uncle Daryl, I took my leave of them and headed into the workshop and store front to see how things were going.

My father was holding court there, being his usual charming self. Though he wasn’t talkative, he was affable, easy to like. Handsome enough that women were drawn to his measured way of communicating, locking them in with his electric blue eyes. And not too handsome that men felt intimidated by his alpha posturing. Joining him I helped out a bit, sold two rocking chairs that I had recently finished myself, and spoke proudly to an architect from the city who was admiring the sketches and progress of a doll house that the boys and I are building for Judith.

Promising that once the house is done, I may be open to take a commission for another, one for his own daughter, I took my leave of him, and decided, with my wife and daughter fresh on my mind, to go find them as well.

As Michonne gathers Judith from my arms, she gives me a brief once over, her eyes intent, searching, set on my own. Possibly digging for the underlying intent in my words, questioning the kiss I laid on her earlier. Wondering. Thinking it over. I lay myself bare for her though, I make myself plain. It’s the only way I know how to be with her. It’s what she deserves from me after what I’ve done to her, to us, to our family.

“You belong with your family. We belong with you. All of us.” Before I can stop myself, wonder at her response to my words or my actions, I’m cupping the side of her face with my palm. Grazing my thumb over the silk of her skin. Her cheek is soft, warm from her work and the sun, and in that moment I keep moving forward. My will is not strong enough, and I lower my face to hers and place another gentle kiss on her. This time to her heart shaped lips.

Only the subsequent “Ew, Daddy!” from my daughter breaks the spell Michonne’s full lips have on me, and causes me to subtly pull back from her. But not completely out of her space. I can’t. The sweet scent of her sweat, stickily glistening across her face, her bosom safely cushioning where her wedding ring settles, it all sends a jolt through me so strong I almost reach for her again, sending me back into her orbit. She’s my sun. Because I don’t care that Shane stands a few feet away from us, grinning, his head swinging back and forth between Michonne and I. Waiting on her reaction. It’s like he’s watching a tennis match, waiting on her to return my serve.

It doesn’t matter. I don’t care that there is a wall of separation between my wife and I that time and circumstance have stubbornly erected with my own sacrifice adding its labor to it’s production. I simply do not care. That wall means nothing. I will scale it. Knock it down with my bare hands as easily as I allowed it to be built. Anything to get to her. To have her.

The only thing that shakes me fully free of the desire that clouds my senses is the way Michonne quickly raises her delicate fingers to her lips, dancing across where I’ve left my kiss, then inches them out to my own lips, re-electrifying our connection.

Dammit, I want her right now. This minute. My fingers skim against each other, energized to action but-

Twisting her lips and frowning up at me, Judith’s baby like voice crushes through the haze. “Daddy! Ew! You kiss Mama!”

Blinking away the fog, I hear her voice. “I- ahem. I-” I stutter against Michonne’s finger, almost apologizing though I’m not sorry. But she surreptitiously halts my words and drags her finger down from my lips, grazing my chin, softly against the Adam’s apple that bobs restlessly in my throat, then rests in the open neckline of my shirt on my chest. My eyes won’t leave hers. Hers won’t leave mine, not until she turns slowly on her heel, and sways her sexy ass up the orchard path that will lead her to the house. And if the hound dog in me had its way, I would follow her pretty ass right now and have my way with her.

Clapping me across the back so hard I almost stumble, Shane raises his eyebrows, wiggling them suggestively and lets out a holler. “Wooow shit! My boy still got it, huh?”

“What?”

“I haven’t seen you and her like that in a long ass time. It’s about damn time too.” Clapping his hands together he turns me towards the tree he was working on. “Come on and cool off, Casanova. Help me finish with this tree so Granddad doesn’t cuss me for not finishing what I started.”

“I need to-”

“Yeah I’m sure you fucking do, but give her a minute. I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”

“Why you say that?”

“Just a hunch, cuz. Come on. Quicker you finish here, quicker you can finish chasing after your wife.”

XXXXX

“How many times
Did we give up
But we always worked things out

And all my doubts and fear
Kept me wondering
If I'd always, always be in love…”

I mumble the lyrics of the classic song to myself, restless, unable to sleep. Thoughts racing. Constantly meandering back to think of her. My brain won’t stop. It’s like the very idea that she’s been here all day, that’s she upstairs in my bed sleeping right now… it won’t let me rest. I’ve gotten up from the couch and approached the stairs more than once, rationalizing that I just need to check and see if she has what she needs. If she’s comfortable. Not too warm. Not too cold.

After peach picking, helping my mother around the kitchen, then staying for dinner, it got late in the evening and the kids wanted Michonne to stick around for bath and story time. Heading way past their usual nine o’clock bedtime, the kids were in a good mood, being silly, running around, seemingly just enjoying their mother and I both being there to manage their evening rituals. It didn’t get past me that Andre and Carl both kept begging for one more chapter of Michonne’s reading of The Hobbit. Or that every time Michonne and I tried to close the kids’ bedroom door to finalize bedtime, someone wanted water, someone had to pee, someone needed Daddy to check under the bed for monsters, someone wanted one more hug, and on and on and on… Until finally the kids ran out of excuses, and steam, and bid us a final good night.

 I won’t lie and say that it didn’t feel good, maybe even a little odd, to have my wife here tonight. Perhaps we all felt that way. My mother seemed so happy to have her help in the kitchen, despite the fact that Michonne isn’t really a great cook. When I came in the house looking for her, ready to eat dinner, and hoping to get some alone time to talk with her, she wasn’t doing more than sitting at the kitchen island, drinking a glass of milk with a piece of pie and talking to my mother. Halting their laughter and talking as soon as I walked in, with me only catching the few words “the babies keep coming!”, they were clearly enjoying each other’s company. So much so that not only did my mother talk Michonne into staying for dinner, but Granddad, who was the real star of the evening, somehow convinced her to spend the night here. All he had to do was remind her that with the rain coming in, and the late hour, it was simply too dangerous for her to be driving these dark country roads tonight. I kept mum because I didn’t want her opinion to be swayed by my feedback, but in the back of my mind I was on pins and needles hoping she would stay.

She stayed. I offered her my bedroom, a pair of old pajamas I had, and I took the couch. She stayed.

And now I can’t think about anything else. Anyone else. Because…well…she stayed. She didn’t have to. She could have left. The apartment she’s staying at in town isn’t that far away. But, she didn’t. She’s here, and I’ll be damned if that doesn’t also mean something. Right?

Even the cadence of the rain outside, covering the earth, tapping its steady rhythm against the roof and the windows of the house, a sound that usually lulls me into a comforting sleep, isn’t working tonight.

With my arms propped behind my head on a pillow up against the arm of the couch, I can faintly make out the sound of a door opening upstairs, and the creaking of that one board in the hallway between my bedroom and the kids’ room. It’s probably Carl. That boy had nearly three glasses of lemonade at dinner. I shouldn’t have let him. Normally I wouldn’t, but I was distracted. Watching her laugh. Joke with the kids and my parents. Even my father who seemed to be in an especially good mood today was teasing her about not wearing cowboy boots out to the farm. She should know better. My father doesn’t go a day without a pair of them, and that’s been a thing forever down here. Michonne laughed it off, but promised she would dig them out of her luggage and wear them next time.

Next time. There would be a next time.

Rubbing my hand over my tired eyes, I pinch them a little with my index finger and thumb, then squeeze them closed tightly. My body is exhausted. It’s been a long day. I need the rest, smarting at the strain in my shoulders as I stretch my limbs and try to get comfortable on this old couch. I can hear the wind howling now as the rain picks up, coming down even harder, then followed by the telltale sign of a true southern storm. Thunder. A pulse of lightning rips through the sky, illuminating the darkness outside of the living room window.

Closing my eyes, I try to relax, to allow nature’s rumblings to lull me into dreamland, but just as I feel myself sinking into the cushions, my body growing heavy with the pending slumber, I hear a soft, familiar whisper.

“Rick?”

“Huh?”

“Rick?”

Cracking my eyes open I make out the outline of her curvy frame against the backdrop of the living room window. Draped in the overwhelming size of my pajama top, with her long, bare legs peaking out from the bottom, Michonne is standing next to the couch, reaching a hand out to me. Wordlessly, she beckons to me with a simple wiggle of her fingers. Of course my body responds without question because I recognize this.

Accepting her hand, I toss away my blanket, and allow my wife to lead me upstairs to my bedroom. Quietly, I shut the door behind me, as Michonne situates herself in the middle of the bed, and holds the blanket up for me to join her. Without any hesitation I take my place behind her, easing my body up close to hers, and swaddling her in my arms.

Familiar. Yeah this is familiar. This is reminiscent of so many nights we’ve spent like this. The world outside washed anew by the rain. My girl, my best friend by my side. Nostalgia floods my brain, a highlight reel of every moment that I’ve had with her like this. She backs up closer to me, locking her hands with mine, and I can’t help but to inhale a whiff of her, the cottony tufts of her locs, and their lavender fragrance, brushing against my face. Throwing my leg over hers, I secure her within my embrace as I feel her sag the rounded curve of her behind into my groin, then stiffen with the banging of the thunder outside.

“The storms just…ya know.”

“I do. It’s ok. You’re safe with me.”

“It doesn’t storm like this in LA.”

“But you can’t get this in LA either.” I answer, squeezing her tighter, hoping that the stability she feels in my loving hold gives her security. Comfort.

Michonne’s grazing her fingers over my forearms, tickling at the hair. The sensation is so familiar. Torturous in its intimacy. If I close my eyes, it’s like nothing has ever changed. Circumstance has never tried to break apart what the universe has bonded together. We’re kids again, hiding from the turmoil of life. We’re new friends, basking in the breaching of new romantic territory. We’re lovers, finding respite in each other’s embrace. How did I ever survive without this? I didn’t. I subsisted on the smallest parts, the crumbs of a lifetime of memories. The piece of her that lives in our children’s smiles. In the pictures that captured our life’s moments. Together and apart.

The stroke of her hand lulls the both of us as she begins doing that breathing thing, the meditative chant accompanying the in and out. I do it with her. Attempt to anyway. I had a few beers earlier. She had two glasses of wine with dinner. It makes my brain somewhat foggy, my tongue lazy in its dull pronunciation of the sounds. But, neither her drinking or mine are a match for her nervous disarray from the warring in the clouds, or my anxiousness from her allowing this moment of desired closeness.

Breaking through the stillness, her voice, its succinct huskiness twinkles back to life on the end of her last whispered mantra. “The dollhouse you and the boys are making is beautiful. Judy Bear is gonna love it.”

“Thank you. She’s such a diva, she doesn’t want to help, but she’s got tons of demands on what she wants in her dollhouse. She even wants us to build a doghouse for Lily.”

“Lily is getting up there in age. She could probably use her own house away from the kids’ noise.”

“You can send for her. She can be here with the kids ya know.”

“Thanks. Lily’s like Judith though, she’s a California girl. Don’t know how she would take to the heat in Georgia.”

“Judith is only a California girl half the time.” I correct, for some reason the title makes me feel some kind of way. Discounts her time spent here. With me.

“You’re right. She eats like a southern girl. Putting away two whole chicken legs, and corn on the cob. I was impressed you got her to eat her green beans without a fight.”

“She’s competitive like her mama. She’s always just trying to keep up with the boys. If they eat ‘em, she’s gonna eat ‘em too. Remind you of anyone?”

“Nope. If I recall you were all trying to keep up with me. Not the other way around.”

“I think you recall wrong, but I’ll let it slide. You know I always got your back.”

“Yeah… you used to.”

“I still do.”

“Well… that’s not really your place anymore though.” Michonne snarks, sarcasm drenching her tone, and I can tell she’s preparing for a little fight. She’s upset with me. It’s the underlying subtext of things with us. I know that. I won’t shrink away from it anymore. It’s time to put it all out there.

Pushing back at her declaration, I don’t let either of us off the hook. “Isn’t it?”

Kissing her tongue against her teeth in that way that reminds me of her mother, she shakes her head. “No. It’s not.” She flatly denies.

“Michonne, come on. You’re in my bed, in my arms. You chose to do like you always do when it thunderstorms. You came to me. And you let me be there for you. That’s what we do. That’s who we are. Rick and Michonne is not something we think about or plan…it’s…what we do, who we are. It’s the life we have shared and created together, and can have again. It’s everything. You’re angry with me, and I get that. I accept that cause you think I actually chose something over you. But, sweetheart, the truth is that I chose you over everything. And if you think I got out of that choice in one piece, then you’re wrong.”

“This is why I keep distance between us, Rick. It’s too hard.”

“Nah, it’s easy.” Molding my chest to her back, I drop my chin to her shoulder. “Being apart, that’s what’s hard. We’ve lost so much, Michonne, don’t you think it’s time we stop sacrificing and punishing ourselves, and just…win a little?”

On a heavy sigh, Michonne tilts her head to the side a little, just enough for me to see her profile, the frown knitting her brows together. “It’s not that easy, Rick. You know that. It’s not fair to Ezekiel. Or to…Lori. People other than us can get hurt. We’ve caused enough damage already.”

“You know as well as I do that they are both just distractions. We’ve hurt each other enough, Michonne. We’re not over. It’s time for us to be selfish, and to heal. I’m sorry for not being able to do that sooner. I can’t let you go again. I’m not that strong.”

At that I can’t find more words. They don’t come. There is so much weighing heavy on my heart for this woman, I want to gift her every single word. She deserves that. And more. Apologies, pleas, even my own simmering anger, let her see the fight I have left in me… But, for some reason my senses are so interconnected to the simplicity of her presence, of her in my arms, that any further attempts to vocalize my feelings are stalled out. What’s left is what I can communicate with my body, with my actions.

As though she can anticipate that the time for words is over, Michonne turns to face me, stilling me with her stare. Those eyes, warm, imbued with the emotional memory of recognition. A recognition of who we are to each other. Not simply friends. More than lovers. Husband and wife is insufficient. The essence of my very being is wrapped up in her, and her with me. Our souls continuing their infinite dance.

Even the moon’s glow that should shine brightly through my bedroom windows is muted by the caul of clouds, and yet, I can see her. The tears that shine, an incandescent brightness in every pinched blink. The pain that pulls at her features, warring against something else that’s pushing against that negativity. Something that wants to escape the anxiety of uncertainty, and to cling the possibility of the reconciliation I’m offering her.

Framing my face with her hands, Michonne’s gaze sweeps over me, searching for a safe place for her heart, a port in a tumultuous storm. “I want to believe in you, Rick.”

God help me, that’s all I need to hear. Instantly I can feel the heat building in my groin and my gut. My cock swelling, growing impossibly hard as she pulls me in to her and kisses me. The sweet softness of her mouth opens for me and it’s just that tiny hint of her that spurs me on, pushes me to action. Ravenous, I sweep my tongue into her mouth, nip and suckle at those lips that belong to me.

Gently pushing her over to her back, my hips nudging her willing thighs wider, I settle in between her legs. Sucking at the sensitive flesh of her neck, her collarbone, her large breasts, I realize that my girl is softer than I remember her, curvier, and I’m eager to discover the wonders of this Michonne. This woman whose body has given me so much pleasure, housed a kindred spirit, welcomed and nurtured my children. Worshipfully, I bow my head, and with two brimming handfuls of her fat ass in my palm, I begin a journey to reclaim my right to explore her, pleasure her.

Soft mewls of pleasure emit from her sexy lips with each panted breath. Michonne’s fingers thread themselves in my hair, directing me with gentle pressure to continue my measured focus on her dark nipples, clearly delighted at the licks and bites I give them with the edge of my teeth. Pebbling, turgid and firm against my lips and tongue, her nipples, her succulent breasts trap me, enfold me in the scent of her sweat, infused with her innate sweetness as my little Georgia peach. I bury my face between them, abrading their softness with the scratch of my beard. I remember how much she loves that, the scrape bringing her senses alive.
And she doesn’t disappoint. Her immediate reaction is to lift her pelvis into mine, seeking what she wants. What I know my sweetheart craves. Offering to give me back what’s mine.

“Rick, baby…”

“Mmhmm…”

Wiggling against me, hungry for something more, her hand frees itself of my hair and digs down into the front of my pajama pants. Wrapping around my thickness, the grip of her hand is exquisite torture. The most delicious of sensations tingles from the tip of my cock in thick pearly drops, dripping into her hand as she pumps it, twisting from tip to base against the sticky lubrication to nearly kill me with pleasure.

Working me with one hand, the fingers of her other lift my face back to hers, the nails scraping against my cheek, then playing against my kiss swollen lips. Biting my chin, then my cheek, she huskily whispers over my lips. “I want you to fuck me, Rick. Please…”

Her request strikes a cord within me, creates a rush of something powerful, carnal. Pecking and licking at the swell of her heart shaped lips, I smile in recognition. “I intend to.” I huff out, inching my hips away from the circle of her hand, needy for the depths of her in a way so visceral it’s bordering on painful.

Urgency is apparent in my movements. My pants an inconvenience that won’t stop me. There’s no time to remove her panties. Instead I inch the soaking wet seat of them aside with my fingers, then ease my middle finger past the puffy lips and sink it down into her. A strangled gasp inches from her mouth. I steal that gasps for myself, kissing at the corner of her mouth.

“You’re already so fucking wet. That for me?”

Shakily nodding her head, I can feel her pushing her pussy down onto my hand, her greedy little pussy begging for more. Stirring my finger in a circle, I’m loosening my wife up for me, just a little. Not too much. Just enough to get her on the precipice of what she wants, a little tease of anticipation added with the back and forth grind of my thumb over her swollen clit.

Growing louder with every swipe of my thumb, Michonne’s cries join the wet sound of my hand between her thighs, and as I feel the tension tighten in her pussy around my finger, I stop. I don’t want her to come yet. I want her pleasure at its peak. I want her as high as she can go. I need her to quiet down though before she wakes the kids.

Dragging my hand from between her thighs, dripping with her honey, I push my fingers into her mouth, where she proceeds to lick them clean, groaning at the taste of herself. Jealous, I steal my hand back and have a taste for myself.

“Sweetheart, you are the tastiest peach.” I proclaim. And it’s the truth. If I could bottle and sell what this woman has, I would be a millionaire. But I’m greedy and jealous, and all I can think as I grip my dick and rub it against her flowery petals, is that I will kill another man if they even think of touching her again. It’s not a fleeting thought. It’s not new to me. It’s a dark, familiar feeling that has ridden me every day that we’ve been apart.

It’s this darkness that pushes me to grab a handful of her voluminous locs in my fist, tilting her head back, baring her throat to me. Latching my mouth to her pulse, I push her left thigh high with my other hand, raising her pussy, and allow myself to fall. Deep. Deeper still, my wife’s most intimate place sucks me down into her, and I close my eyes against the feeling to instantly nut. She’s simply too much. Too tight. Too wet. To fucking soft, and delicious, and…

“Michonne, whew… gotdamn! Mmm…”

Pressed tightly together, seamless in our connection at every juncture, sweat gathers on my brow, between the kiss of our bellies, her breasts cozied to my chest, as I thrust into her. Measured and smooth at first, giving her a chance to get used to me again. To adjust, to accept every inch. Cause that’s what I need. I need her to envelope all of me. To allow me to once again touch all of her. Eventually though, with her hands on my ass, her pleas urging me to go harder, faster, I release my restraint, and my need to gently make love to my wife. To connect with her. That’s not what she wants, nor is it what she needs.

My sweetheart wants me to fuck her. The filthiest words erupt from her sexy mouth as she squeezes me with the restrictive walls of her drenched pussy, pulsing rhythmically against every upward plunge I give her.

“Put your name on this pussy, Rick! Harder! Harder!” she commands, as one hand inches in a series of walking tickles up my back, over my shoulders, and into my hair. Tingles and goosebumps erupt over my skin at her touch, her wrapping her silky legs tighter around my waist, her demands. The way she’s grinding up, meeting every pounded thrust of my hips. “God yes! That dick feels so good! So good!”

Kissing her I swallow each and every one of her words, her pleas, her screams. They belong to me. I did that to her. I gave her the orgasm that’s traveling the course of her limbs, strangling her vocal cords in ecstasy. Drowning my dick and balls with cum.

Removing her legs from my waist, I raise them even higher. Push them to her chest, and find the punishing pace that slaps my balls against her ass in a wave of hard bangs. Michonne is so wet, so sticky, I can see the white essence of her pleasure, pearly against the chocolate of the bareness of her pretty pussy lips, and all over my groin, my thrusting cock, and my pubic hair slick against my skin.

“I could stay inside of you all night, sweetheart. You feel so fucking good, Michonne… My pussy feels so good…”

“Ah, ah, ah!” I can’t even think straight enough to remind her to try and be quieter. It wouldn’t even matter. My own groans and grunts are elevated, ripping through the air on a song whose harmony we have not forgotten.

Lowering on her again, the back of her thighs against my chest, I keep my hand between us, and use my fingers to add pressure to her clit, along with the grind of my pelvic bone. A series of licks to her breasts, accompanied by a punishing little stinging slap from my hand to her nub, and it’s the choking strangle of her pussy clamping down on me with that syncopated pulse that does me in. That pulls from my tightening balls every ounce of cum I can muster. The best I can do is use my forearm to try and keep all of my weight off of her, but other than that, I have little control of my faculties. Michonne owns me, and every spurt of my milky cum, bathing her womb, as she winds her hips and cums with me, secures her hold over me even more.

“Uhhh…grrrr…oooohh…fuuuuuck!”

Fireworks blast off behind my eyelids. My release like the tiniest of deaths, sending my spirit seeking hers, lavishing in our rekindled connection. Sex is always like this with Michonne. As emotional an experience as it is a physical one. As sexy as it is spiritual.

“You ok? Rick?”

“Hm?”

“You ok?” skittering her fingers across my face, my eyelids, my lips. She takes stock of me, measuring my response to her touch. “You still alive in there?” she teases as I try to relieve some of the pressure from my body on top of hers, sliding my cock from her, and easing her legs down to the bed.

Chuckling at myself, I lean over to my side, and pull her leg over my hip, wanting to maintain our connection. “I am now. You know you how it is with us.”

“I do.” She giggles, then raises herself to mount my hips. Placing her chest flat to mine, she rests her chin on her folded hands. “Can I tell you something, Rick? Be honest?”

Tiredly wiping the sweat from my face, I give her my full attention. “Of course.” Yeah she can, but I won’t lie and say the specter of whatever she wants to be honest about grips my heart in a fearful grasp.

“I don’t know what this all means for us. I don’t.”

“Ok…”

“But I know I still love you. Being here with you and kids today, and your family-”

“Our family.” I interrupt, popping a kiss to her lips.

Rolling her eyes, she smiles, but as her thoughts continue to race it falls again. “I know I hated seeing her. I hate you for creating this space between us. Like, to allow her to be there, ya know. In your life again. I don’t have the right to be jealous.” Hiding herself behind her hand for a second she halts her words. “And I hate myself for being weak and accepting your choices. Allowing this to happen to our family. I was… I am so angry with you. I thought I was better than that. I’m not. Am I?”

“Better than anger? Than jealousy?”

“Yes!”

“Sweetheart, haven’t you earned the right to both of those things? Don’t hate yourself. I hated seeing him with you. I’m angry. I’m jealous.”

Incredulous at my charge of anger, as though that’s all I’ve said, Michonne’s eyebrows raise high on her forehead in question. “You’re angry with me?”

“Yeah. Yes, I’m angry with you. Probably for the same reasons you’re angry with me. I was forced to make an impossible decision, and you knew that. You know that you are the most important person in the world to me. You always have been, you always will be. But, I had a difficult choice to make. A choice about dreams, and destiny, and survival. It wasn’t easy.”

“But you didn’t ask me. You just did something. You unilaterally decided like my opinion didn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters! But, I wasn’t going to let you make a wrong choice. You can’t be the Famous Michonne Grimes if you’re here, and not there. You would have eventually blamed me, you do now. But at least now you’re a famous, rich woman, who has everything she ever wanted. I can take the blame for that.”

“I don’t have you though, Rick. That’s all I ever really wanted. Just you.” Michonne places her lips to my chest, caressing the damp, feverish skin, imbued with hints of her, right above my heart. “Why do you think all those years ago, that I chose you to be my first?”

“Cause that jackass Mike fucked up.”

“Nope. Cause you were who I always really wanted. I could have called Sasha to come pick me up that night. But I called you because it was the first time it ever occurred to me that I could really have you.”

“Really? You never told me that before.”

Shrugging she scoffs, “I’m telling you now. I want you to know that I didn’t separate our family just because it was easy or I was hurt, I was devastated not being with you. Nothing with my comic books or any of that was the same without you. So yeah, I’m angry too.”

“That’s fair. Maybe we both could have done some things differently, but every choice has given us something special. Our children. Your career. My mother’s health. Sustainable family businesses.”

“Lori. Ezekiel.”

“I don’t want to talk about either of them.”

“Rick, I want to be free of the anger and the sadness. Don’t you want to move on?”

“You want to move on with him?”

“I think I did. I don’t know.” She confesses as though this is a shameful secret. The hardest hitting of the many she’s divulged tonight.

Her truthfulness wounds me to an extent, but I can’t fault where she’s coming from. We did this to each other. “Come here, Mrs. Grimes.” Pulling her back up to me, I proceed to quiet my wife’s confessions for one evening, and kiss her lips. Reseal our fates under the guise of renewed hopefulness that we can figure this out together, or at least give it one last try.

XXXX

“And then after Dre, here come Judy, and we all swept in my bed cause we’re all a-scared of the storm.” Carl grumbles around a mouthful of pancakes.

“Your mama used to always be scared of thunderstorms too, ain’t that right, Rick? Michonne always hated the thunder something awful. Almost turn my favorite girl inside out.” Granddad cackles.

“Am I you favwite too, Gwandpop?” Judith asks, dropping her head onto her upturned hand and fixing my grandfather in her sights with her question, seated between my father and my grandfather at the kitchen table.

Smoothing down her wild curls, he grins at her, his eyes squinting behind his thick glasses. “Of course you are, jelly bean. Your mama just got here first is all.”

“Wonder how Michonne made out last night. That was a hell of a storm. She alright, Rick?” My father questions, raising his eyes from the iPad he’s using to read the news. “Thought I heard some noise last night.”

Across the table from my father, seated to my left, my mother smarts at his knowing comment. “You were snoring so loud, Richard, you probably just heard yourself.”

“I heard screaming! All night long we hear screaming.” Andre adds after a gulp of orange juice, agreeing with my father on the noise level in the house. “Everybody a-scared of the storm I guess.”

“Maybe it was just some of the animals in the barn?” My mother adds, offering up an excuse for the sounds, that really boil down to their mother and I enjoying our time with each other. They’ve never heard that before.

“Never heard it before when it storms.” Carl asserts, stabbing at his pancakes and shoveling bigger pieces than he should into his mouth.

Covering my grin with my hand, and clearing my throat, wanting to put the issue to bed, I try to close out the conversation “Gran is probably right about it just being the animals. Ok?”

“What was the animals?” Michonne asks, entering the kitchen, and stopping to kiss each of the kids on the tops of their heads. Without an empty chair for her to sit in, she stands to my side, and steals a strip of bacon from my plate.

“The caterwauling last night. Sounded like a wild polecat maybe?” Granddad cackles again, his white eyebrows wiggling over the frames of his glasses.

Michonne dismisses his suggestion and shrugs it off. “I didn’t hear anything other than that awful storm.”

“Hey, you want my seat? You wanna eat? I can fix you a plate.” I ask her, raising my head to her with a smile, ready to rise at her command. Her locs are pulled back into a ponytail, face scrubbed clean, and she’s wearing her jeans from yesterday with one of my t-shirts tied around her frame in the back. I’m struck by how beautiful she looks despite the fact that I barely let her sleep last night. I couldn’t get enough of her. And in between romps, we talked, as much as we could really, some things still too sore for us to hash out in one night. The divorce papers. Where things stand with me still being here. But at least I realized something, and I hope she did too, we may have been separated for awhile, estranged, but our love is still alive.

Plopping down on my lap, and surveying the gamut of wide eyed stares of shock from the kids, smirks from my dad and grandfather, and a loving smile from my mother, Michonne makes herself comfortable and takes a sip of my coffee, then a bite of my pancakes. “I’ll just eat off of your plate. I missed your cooking.”