That’s more like it.
Ronnie banished the thoughts. They were only a result of Cal showing her that man with his head… She didn’t even want to think about it. It was gruesome and was beginning to bear fruit in her mind. She was a natural born pessimist, though she tried desperately to see the glass as half full. Life just had a way of sticking the knife in and twisting.
Her father had three heart attacks before he passed. The last one was big and took him quickly, but the first two were painful not only for him, but for her as she was home with him when they hit, her mother off at a television studio doing her correspondence gig with CNN.
Ronnie’s brother was a hapless alky, one paycheck away from the gutter. It was only a matter of time before the cash advance stores stopped advancing him money and he went under. Ronnie loved Beau dearly, but his temper after a bottle of cheap wine was frightening, and he seemed to be drinking all the time.
Ronnie was no stranger to the foibles of life and all its unavoidable tragedy. Death, as a concern, was one of those things that could be avoided, at least until it was necessary to deal with, like her father’s third heart attack.
When Calvin asked her if she had ever seen a dead person before, the question startled her a bit. First of all, who asked a thing like that? It was so odd and preposterous that she was left dumbfounded. Then an image she hated came back to her. It was something she wished dearly that she could eradicate from her mind, but it came to her from time to time, sometimes when she was lonesome, sometimes when the heat and noise of the shower blotted everything out, everything but what she could never forget.
Ronnie had seen a dead person before. Nothing grisly or gruesome, but dead was dead, and there was an unmistakable look to someone after their soul departed.
She was there the night her father clutched his left arm in pain. He knew from experience what it was, but it traveled fast, the pain, and before she was off the phone with the emergency dispatcher, he was dead.
After administering CPR, she had sat there with her father, staring into his glassy eyes, hoping upon a hope that he would magically catch a breath and wake, but he was gone.
There were times when Ronnie could hardly remember what her father looked like before that night. Those minutes before the ambulance arrived were seared into her memory, as if that nightmare vision of his lifeless body and empty eyes had been forever pasted over her previous memories of him.
She now lived with her mother in the very house her father perished in. It took a long time to shake the feeling of dread that shrouded Ronnie like her own personal rain cloud. Eventually she convinced her mother to allow her to paint and redecorate, and Ronnie was quite sure that helped with the lingering grief.
Time oozed by so very slowly that Ronnie wondered if it had stopped, then her cell phone rang, a familiar ring that was personalized. It was Cal. She let it ring twice as not to seem like she was waiting with her hand hovering over the phone (which was very close to the truth). It seemed silly, but Ronnie knew that men sensed desperation, and she was damned if she would allow Cal to feed upon her weaknesses, not that he was the kind of guy who would take advantage of desperation. If anything, he might see desperation as a red flag.
Cal told her to come over whenever she wanted. He said he was still tired because of the night shift. Ronnie told him to go back to sleep. Said she would be there in about an hour or so and would pick up a pizza on the way. She hated chain pizza restaurants and elected to go to a little hole in the wall joint a few blocks from Calvin’s apartment that didn’t deliver. Itallia used real cheese and a lot of it.
Ronnie readied herself by dressing and undressing in about ten different outfits before deciding on one, and then, after applying half of her makeup, deciding again on another outfit she had already tried on twice before.
She didn’t know why she was so nervous, but for some reason it felt like a first date. She wanted to look good, and that was her enemy. It wasn’t that she was ugly, she wasn’t (she did, however, tell herself that she was getting fat, but the guys that ogle her whenever she was out in public would beg to differ).
There was something between her and Calvin that was teetering. It was deeper than a senseless video on the Internet, though that was certainly a contributor to their division. But there was that mysterious something—love? Their unborn child?—that caused her to feel so desperately determined to hold onto Calvin, to make sure he knew how much she cared. If he didn’t reciprocate those feelings…
Ronnie ran a tube of lipstick over the curves of her lips—candy apple red. She liked that color. It really popped and accentuated what she deemed to be her best feature. Sure, the shirt she chose had a low cut neckline that, with the right bra and positioning, would create an eyeful of cleavage, but her lips sealed the deal.
Through the vanity mirror, Ronnie could see her mother standing at her door, a playful smile on her lips. And then her mother frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Ronnie turned to face her mother rather than speak to her through the mirror. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“I would say it has something to do with hormones, but I can tell that’s not it. You want to talk?”
Ronnie slumped in her chair. “Cal’s been really strange lately. I don’t know what to make of it. It’s like he doesn’t like being around me or something. He seems distracted.”
“He probably is. He’s going through changes, just like you. I mean your changes are more physical, but it’s not always easy for a man to commit. Back in the day a girl got pregnant and her boyfriend would ask for her hand in marriage right away, sometimes just because that seemed like the right thing to do. Kind of foolish really. You don’t marry someone just to raise a child together, not in my opinion. People shouldn’t stay together if they hate each other is what I mean.” Ronnie’s mother shrugged. “Some times the chivalrous acts of men are fueled by heart and no brains. Thing about Calvin, he’s thinking things through.”
“I guess. Doesn’t really feel that way to me. I dunno. He just doesn’t seem interested. I can’t help but wonder if he doesn’t want the baby.”
“Has he told you that?”
“He avoids talking about important stuff like moving in together and, well, the baby.”
“You’re both still young. You’re not even showing yet. Once you’re showing and he can feel the baby kicking he’ll come around. Calvin’s a good guy. Maybe a little quiet, and you know what they say about quiet guys, but that’s all bull. He’ll do the right thing. You both will.”
Ronnie tilted her head, considering her mother’s words. “I hope you’re right.”
“There’s paternal intuition within both men and women. Men are protectors; women are nurturers. If he’s still distant after feeling the baby kick, then you need to have a talk.”
Ronnie nodded. “Thanks, mom.”
With an overnight bag tucked under her arm—Calvin hadn’t mentioned her staying overnight, but she was pretty sure that’s what would happen—Ronnie said goodbye to her mother, and quickly left the house before she could comment on the overnight bag with an earful of idioms and advice. Ronnie had heard it all before.
It was a good thing she had a key to Calvin’s apartment, because the door was locked and he wasn’t answering the doorbell or his phone.
She figured he was deep in sleep, but what she found was something that, in its own way, seared into her brain much like the picture of the dead man he had shown her.