Drown #9: the best laid plans, part 1

*** please be advised that Drown #9: the best laid plans, part 1-5, may be troubling for some readers. Sensitive readers should review the general content advisory for these stories. 

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December 2085. Stephanie Nova is 26, Willow is 4. Jeremiah Day is 28.  


"Look, Momma!"

"Come sit with me, girlie."


"I’m not gonna break it."

"I know. I just want you to hold my hand."

"I won’t get lost."

"I know. That’s not why I want you to hold my hand."



Stephanie held Willow close, feeling anxious and uncertain. Her parents were supposed to be here with her, but they didn't make it. The snow had barely started, but someone had already skidded in the icy slush and caused a ten-car pileup that now stretched five miles long before the nearest exit. Her parents were stuck in it and going nowhere.

They heard voices in the corridor before anyone opened the doors. Stephanie tried to pick out Jeremiah's voice from the chorus, but she couldn't hear it. He wasn't speaking, she noticed, but was first in the crowd through the doors.


"My girls," Jeremiah said. "You're both so pretty it almost breaks my heart."

Stephanie's husband was taller than she remembered. His hair was longer than she remembered. But she remembered that he had a nice, friendly smile. She remembered that his smile was warm and his eyes were icy cold, and the two things were so bold and opposing that you could never tell which was the truth about him.


He chuckled once. "You know, I was half convinced that you wouldn't be here."

"Why would you think that?"

"Just a hunch," he said. "I was getting ready to call some friends to pick me up. I do have a friend or two."

"How come you never talk about them?"

"There’s a lot we don’t talk about, Stephanie."


She expected that he might want to hug her, but the kiss was a surprise.


He kissed her deeply, forcing his tongue between her lips and running into her clenched teeth. He stopped when she faked a cough and pulled back from him.


She cringed, glancing around to see who was watching. But nobody noticed a thing because husbands and wives and lovers were reuniting like that everywhere right now and Jeremiah had his hands on her hips. She felt smothered in this room, in this crowd of lovers, this sea of affection. It felt like drowning.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," he said. "You’re shy, aren’t you? Well, we’ll have time for that later."


She had been sure that he knew what she'd done, but she didn't know what his intentions were now. He didn't know what her intentions were, either, but she got the feeling they weren't in agreement about what kind of reunion this would be.

He turned to Willow.

"You probably don’t remember me. Can I give you a hug?"

Willow said, "Okay."

"You got so tall already! You’re going to be tall just like me, aren’t you?"

There was no point waiting for her parents to meet up with them. It would be hours before they could get through the traffic and other families were already starting to go home to beat the snow.

"Let me drive home," Jeremiah said. He looked giddy at the idea of it. "I haven't driven a car in three years."


He slipped into the drivers' seat and shifted the car into manual.

Stephanie was worried. "Since you haven't driven in three years, maybe you shouldn't drive manual in the snow?"


"Stephanie," he said, "I've flown a rocket ship into low-orbit, I think I can handle a little bit of snow."

He did just fine, perhaps remembering that his daughter was in the back seat. He got them home safely before the snow got too thick.


They had updated the forecast, and what began as possibly an inch or two of snow would now be at least six inches.

She still hadn't decided when she would tell him the truth—that they wouldn't be trying to salvage this marriage. The hasty part of her wanted to tell him as immediately as possible, tonight, after Willow went to bed. The sensible part of her decided that she wouldn't do it alone, which immediately contradicted the hasty part of her. The accommodating part of her wondered if maybe she should put it off until after Christmas, because who asks for a divorce on her husband's first night back from war just a week before Christmas?

And she still didn't know what to do or when to do it.

She turned her phone on silent because Justin had been texting her on and off all day. She was glad. His messages were a comfort to her, to feel like she wasn't absolutely alone. She'd pull her phone out of her pocket every hour or so and find a message from him.

Justin made her promise that her parents would be here the whole time. They didn't understand why she was so adamant about it, but they'd agreed. She didn't even know what she thought was going to happen—nothing, she hoped. But she didn't know that for sure. 

Steph: We're home now.  

Justin: How did it go? 

She thought about this and decided not to tell him that her parents didn't show up. She also didn't tell him about that shocking kiss. I'm sorry, she wanted to tell him. I didn't want to do it, please don't be mad. He would be here in five seconds flat if she told him that, so she didn't.

Steph: Fine. 

The snow only got heavier.

Stephanie's mom called from the road.

"We've hardly moved a mile in the last three hours," Alice said. "How is everything there?"

"Fine, I think," Stephanie said. "Jeremiah and Willow are talking about snails and space squids and all of the other animals in the universe. It's okay."

"I'm sorry we couldn't be there," Alice said. "Tell Jeremiah we said welcome home. We'll try to come out later, as soon as we can. Some people are driving across the median to head back in the other direction. But that takes us out of our way. Maybe after the snow stops, we could try again."

Stephanie felt ridiculous to even consider that her parents would drive twenty miles in a snow storm just because she was a coward. Grow up, she thought. Fix your own mess. Quit being such a goddamned mouse.


"No, don't try again later, it's too dangerous and it's too far to drive. We're fine here, we'll be fine."

Maybe it was true, though. Jeremiah seemed happy to be home. He didn't seem mad or anxious. She showed up today, which was better than he'd expected, so maybe that was good enough for him. If she didn't mention anything, then maybe he wouldn't either. And maybe they would wait for Christmas to happen before they blew it all up. She felt silly for all of the fuss. What did she think was going to happen?


Alice said, "Maybe you didn't want to have that conversation tonight anyway. Not on his first night home?"

"I think you're right," Stephanie said.

"Are you sure everything is okay? We’ll stop by tomorrow morning after the roads are cleared. Call us if you need anything at all. Call Justin if you need to, sweetie. He's only a mile away. Don't worry about what Jeremiah would think about it."

"Okay, Mom. See you in the morning."


So everything would be fine. They'd play with Willow and make dinner, and he could tell them stories about space, and then she and Willow would go to bed and lock the door.

Oh, shit, how would that work? How do you lock a husband out of your bedroom without telling him the marriage is over? I'm on my period, she would say. I have a headache. She remembered what Justin said, to be as gross as possible. I have diarrhea, she would tell him. She chuckled at this. Justin had actually fed her beans last night, but she'd had so little appetite that today she didn't feel gassy at all. Just queasy and anxious.

But it was okay. Women must do this all the time. With a divorce rate of fifty percent, there must be conversations like this happening all over the planet, people telling their spouses that they want a divorce. She felt sick at the idea of it, but it would happen how it happened, and it would be okay. They would just talk, and since Jeremiah must have known half of it already, saying the rest would be a piece of cake. They'd have a tearful little chat and then they'd each go to their separate beds and sleep on it. Her parents didn't show up, so he could even sleep in their bed instead of the couch.

There, she thought. See? Everything would be just fine.


"Stephanie, Jesus, if you got any farther away from us, you’d be in Ohio."

He laughed happily, so she offered him a smile.

She didn't have time to get cozy, though. There was a knock at the door and Stephanie rushed to answer it, thinking it might be her parents or a neighbor or maybe even Justin.

It wasn't. She didn't know who these people were, but she was happy to welcome anyone into her home right now.


Sheila and Ronnie had been stationed with Jeremiah on Europa. They weren't dating, which was not to say that they hadn't had sex with each other. They had.

"Three years in space," Sheila explained in as polite terms as she could in front of a child. "You know, people just got with whoever was around." Then realizing what she'd just said, she added, "Not yours though. Nope, don't you worry about that! Jeremiah was a good boy the whole time. He only had eyes for you."


Stephanie didn't really want to hear about how faithful her husband had been. In fact, she might have felt better about herself to know that he wasn't faithful. But anyway, she was much more interested to hear about Europa and space and the war. Sheila had been a shuttle mechanic and Ronnie was a medic, and Stephanie enjoyed hearing their stories.

She didn't even know that Jeremiah had any friends. Maybe going to war had changed him, made him softer or more trusting. She was glad for it. And she was glad they stopped by. The house felt better with more people in it.

Justin still sent her messages throughout the night. She popped her phone out to read them every hour or so, and she wrote back so that he'd know they were okay.

Steph: Jeremiah's friends came over. They're nice. This woman has the biggest boobs I've ever seen! 

Justin: don't stare too much, Jeremiah will be jealous.   

Stephanie laughed.

Justin: Lily wants you to come over and make dinner because she hates my mom's cooking.  

Steph: aww, poor girlie. I'll make her favorite spaghetti and meatballs as soon as I can. Tell her that I miss her. But don't tell her that I miss you more.   

Justin: we miss you, too. 

"Hey mister," Willow said. "You look like Justin."

Oh, no, Stephanie thought, trying to read Jeremiah's expression for any sense of impending doom.

"Yeah, who’s he?" Ronnie asked. "Is he a pretty cool guy?"

"Yeah." Willow giggled.

"Is he cooler than me?"

"Yeah." Willow giggled again.

"But not as cool as your dad, I bet."

Then, suddenly overwhelmed with the complexity of a question that she couldn’t answer “yeah” or “no,” Willow stopped, she scrunched up her nose at them both and grinned.

Jeremiah's tight-lipped smile didn't completely hide the angst that Stephanie knew was bubbling up inside him at the mention of Justin. He was working on it, he had told her over the phone once. He was learning meditation, he was trying to train his fickle mind. She saw now that he was trying very hard.

"She’s cute," Ronnie said. "My girl hates kids. Sheila likes kids. I should have stuck with Sheila."

"In your dreams," Sheila said.

"You’re a lucky man, Jeremiah," Ronnie said. "I would have waited three years, too, if I was coming home to this."


Ronnie was looking at Stephanie when he said that, and he should have looked somewhere else if he didn't mean it that way. And if he did mean it that way, he shouldn't have. Stephanie blushed, and she probably shouldn't have blushed, either, although she didn't know how to stop that from happening. Jeremiah was looking at them weird now. She didn’t say it out loud, but before, she used to joke with her male friends, You better watch out for him, he's the jealous type and he has a temper. How funny. Except thinking back on it now, it shouldn't have been funny at all. Ronnie wasn't very attractive, and he didn't even look that much like Justin, in her opinion, and she hadn't spoken more than three words to him since they arrived. But she could tell that Jeremiah was bothered by him.

"Yeah, she's all mine," Jeremiah said.

Jeremiah waited, because it was in his best interest to wait for the right moment, when the awkwardness had passed and nobody would draw any conclusions or suspect anything amiss about his intentions. He was much better at that now, Stephanie thought, perhaps because he'd begun to train his fickle mind.

They finished dinner, mostly, all but the last few bites. Then Jeremiah stood up and started to collect their plates. "You know, I think you two better head out before the snow gets too deep to drive in."

Please stay, Stephanie almost started to protest, but then she thought again about contradicting Jeremiah in front of his friends.

"It’s dangerous out there," Jeremiah added, tilting his head and adding a gentle smile so that he looked so helpful and considerate. "I just want everyone to get home safe."

— to be continued —

notes: I didn't want to break up this chapter, but it got too long to post all at once, so this night will continue on directly in the next piece. 

gameplay, notes, and outtakes: don't talk to my woman, a true story // Ronnie’s girl is Keri’s friend Dominique, who loves Ronnie who loves Sheila