Drown #14: we go on, part 3

September 2086. Stephanie and Justin are 26. Willow is 5, Lily is 4, Benji is 3 weeks old. George McCarthy is 32.


Stephanie was terrified when Cynthia suggested that they take the girls out for the day. "Willow needs the distraction. She needs to feel like things are normal again."

But was that wise? Jeremiah could be anywhere. That was how this all happened. They let their guard down for just a moment and he showed up and tried to destroy everything.

"But you can’t lock yourself inside a hospital for the rest of your life," Cynthia said.

"I guess you're right," Stephanie agreed.

So the girls went out with their grandparents and they had a nice day.





Then they brought some ice cream back to the hospital for Stephanie. Her girls knew exactly how to cheer her up.

Stephanie knew that they were right, but nobody could tell her what kind of closure to expect. Three weeks went by and the police found nothing. They had to focus on other criminals and other crimes. They put Jeremiah on some lists and they wrote him off. They decided if he came back or if he tried to cause trouble, they would deal with him then. Otherwise, they would wait.

So there was no closure. There would be no answers. There would be no end. It would just go on and on until he smashed back into their lives again.


Willow was ready for this to be over. Their usually sunny-spirited little girl was now irritable and fussy. If Jeremiah hadn't smashed into her life, she would be two weeks into her life as a normal kindergartner. Instead, she hadn't even begun.

How could they send her to school when the last time they sent her anywhere, all of this happened?

But if normal was what Willow needed, they were getting closer to it. Justin's recovery room had a television and he was allowed to change into his regular clothes. They just wanted to watch him for a couple more days to make sure that he could finish his recovery at home.



He would have some soreness as his ribs healed, but everything seemed to be healing normally.

—

When Justin felt well enough, George met them in the hospital to bring them legal updates. They had some more papers to sign. In addition to Stepanie's divorce case, George would now represent Justin and Willow as well for the attempted kidnapping and assault. He told them not to worry about anything right now, but he would start filing the paperwork. They would press charges to the fullest possible extent. More court dates. A trial, too, possibly. Stephanie felt smothered under the weight of it all.


"But, I can promise you one thing," George said. "Legally, you’re done with Jeremiah now. If he ever shows his face again, anywhere, he'll go to jail for a very long time. And if he doesn’t, well, then good riddance."

"Do you really think he’d leave us alone?" they wondered.

"I think so. The police recovered his abandoned car and believe that he boarded a train in Chicago. If that’s true, then he wants to be lost. If he wants to be lost, then it would be stupid to come back and try to cause trouble. There are warrants for his arrest, and he's on every list we can get him on. My guess is that he wants to lay low. If you ever see him again, it’ll be because he got himself caught, which means he’ll be behind bars. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about him anymore."


"But, if you're still concerned and want him behind bars faster, you could hire a private investigator to find him," George suggested.

"No," Stephanie said, and George looked surprised at her quick decision. She didn't want to find Jeremiah at all. She wanted him to disappear. Finding him would mean that she'd have to deal with him in court again, and she didn't want that. Not yet.

"They will catch him eventually," George said. "Nobody can stay hidden forever, especially not someone as volatile and impulsive as Jeremiah. But I don't think he'll try to bother you again. He'll try to hide as long as he can, and some day he'll be caught. But you don't have to force it, either, if you don't want to."

"But if he doesn't come back, how will I get my divorce?"

"I’m not saying it’ll be quick, but it’ll be pretty simple," George said. "If Jeremiah shows up for court, then he goes to jail and you get everything. If he doesn’t show up, after a certain amount of time, we can file for default and you get everything. Either way, you get everything."

"What do you mean, everything?"


"Everything you want. Divorce, full custody, termination of parental rights. Whatever he owed you in child support can be claimed against what was owed to him in military benefits. I know it's been rough, but honestly, it couldn't have worked out any better for you guys. You're done with Jeremiah now, which is easier than how long it might have dragged on in court. With the recording on Willow's watch, the attempted kidnapping, the severe assault, if we didn't have enough evidence to finish him before, then we certainly do now. Assuming he doesn't come back, I'd say it'll all be closed and done in six months, tops."

"Six months?"

"Sure. And it's just paperwork and processing, so you wouldn't have to be there for most of it. The only thing you have to do now is show up to sign your divorce papers when the time comes."


Stephanie turned to Justin. "I'm going to be divorced. For real. It's finally going to be over."

"I can't wait," Justin said.


"And then we can have a wedding," she mused out loud. "I don’t even know what kind of dress I would wear. I never even thought about it because I never thought I’d get to wear one. Or what kind of wedding would we have? Can it be outside? At what time of year? Where could we have it that would fit all of our family? I never thought much about it because it seemed so far off, but now we have to decide."

"Steph, that’s the best problem we ever had."

—

Justin's bruises turned shades of dark brown and green and yellow as he healed. "It looks gross," he said, "you don't have to look at me."

She said, "It means you're getting better and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Since he'd regained his strength, his doctor said she could bring the baby up to visit.


"Somebody came to see his daddy. Do you think you feel strong enough to hold him?"

"I’ll sit down just in case," he said.



"I feel like we were just here, doing this, not too long ago," he said.

"We were," she said. "Don't forget who gave birth to him."

"I didn't forget."

She sighed. "I won't be sad if we never have to see this place again. But I'm grateful, too. They did a good job with both of us. Poor little guy, he doesn't even know what his family has been through. But I'm glad he doesn't know."


"I have a feeling, Steph," Justin said. "I feel like this is where everything starts."

"Really? You really think so? Tell me it’s true, and I’ll believe it."

"It's true, Steph. We'll make it true."


"Yes, we'll do that," she said.


In the morning, Justin was discharged and sent home to finish his recovery.



Home was just about how they left it. Justin's dad fixed the sparking television while they were gone, and they were appreciative of that.

But a mouse also moved in while they were away.


If a mouse was a problem, then it was the second-best problem that Stephanie ever had, next to her indecision about wedding dresses. Third-best, maybe, if you counted her thoughtless sister. She could deal with problems like these.

Whatever it was she did wrong—was it leaving Jeremiah, lying to him, marrying him in the first place—Stephanie wondered if she'd redeemed herself by now? What is the price you pay to get everything that you want? Had they paid it yet? Were they square with the universe now? Were they done?


Did you really think I wouldn’t find you? Don’t be naive, Stephanie, I could find you anywhere.

It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?

Maybe the price she'd pay was to look over her shoulder for him for the rest of her life.

But what were her other options? Wait for him to turn up and get him legally, or wait for him to show up illegally and ruin everything again?

You're killing me, Stephanie. I know you always wished I would have died out there.

Stephanie couldn't kill the mouse. Killing the mouse wouldn't accomplish anything anyway. A new mouse would move in next. What they needed was to hire a contractor to close the hole because Justin couldn't do that himself in his current condition.  

Killing the mouse felt weighty in a way she couldn't explain. 

She never asked for the mouse. She never asked for the burden of exterminating it either. She just wanted the mouse to go away, like it had never existed at all, to wander back out into the woods and have a happy mouse life somewhere else. 

She wished Jeremiah dead. She said it in anger, but she didn’t take it back. Not completely. Which was not the same as wanting to murder him with her own hands. She didn't want that. She wanted him dead like he had never been born. 

She didn't want him caught, because she didn't want to attend his trial. She didn’t want to look for him because she didn’t want to find him. She just wanted him to stay gone for good. But she didn’t want to live in fear, either. She just wanted to raise her babies and marry her love and live a reasonable amount of happily ever after. It wasn’t too much to ask.

But the mouse was just an ordinary field mouse. 

"That mouse never hurt me," she said. "Why should I kill the mouse?"

"Steph, you don't have to kill the mouse. I'll call one of the guys out to help me with the hole. Cooper will probably do it for six-pack of beer and some meatloaf."

"Okay, I can make meatloaf."

How long should it take to move on? Longer than three weeks, of course. But if the right time was three months, or a year, or five years, should they stop living while they waited for it to come? No, they couldn’t do that. They had too much to live for. Willow needed to start kindergarten, and Lily needed to be driven to her violin tutor. Sharon needed Stephanie back in the kitchen by Thanksgiving, and Justin was anxious to get back to work on new preservation exhibits at the mines. The plants needed to be harvested. The baby needed to be cuddled and snuggled and watched as he grew. Life needed to be lived.

So there was only one option left: stupid hope. Stephanie didn’t know if she was cut out for that, but you have to start to trust the universe again at some point.


So she tried. She went to the school to meet with the principal and Willow's kindergarten teacher.


Even if you wanted to, you couldn't really sit outside the school house for six hours to make sure nothing bad happened. Stephanie had an infant and a four-year-old and a wounded fiancé at home to take care of, and eight frogs, a fish, and a mouse. But she explained everything so that they would know what was going on, and they promised that Willow would be safe here. Nobody could enter the building or remove a child without a government-issued ID, and they would certainly keep a photo of Jeremiah to make sure their staff were familiar with him.

"Okay," Stephanie said. "That will be okay."


So, on Monday, Willow would start school like a regular kindergartner. And today, Stephanie decided, would be the official first day of their future.

They would be done with Jeremiah and he would not bother them. Of course, he could bother them if he wanted to, but she couldn’t control that. She couldn’t decide that for him, and she wanted to be done. She wanted it to be true. She wanted to believe.

If you could do anything you wanted to do on the first day of your happily ever after, what would it be?

Stephanie had actually thought about this a lot.

It was starting to get colder outside as fall began and graced the trees with the first hints of color. It was chilly, actually, but the sunshine was warming and Stephanie had something to do. She had watched everybody else on that water slide all summer long while she was pregnant.

Today, it was finally her turn.

Watch out, life, she thought. Are you ready to have the most fun ever? 

They didn't need closure or answers or for anything to end, because this was the start of everything. Justin promised her that it was, so Stephanie would believe it. Because he was the little boy who brought her two presents on her birthday so that she wouldn't be sad, and he was the man who would do it all over again before he'd let anyone pull a single hair on her head.  

Then let it all go on and on and on, just like this. Stephanie couldn't have hoped for a better life than that.

—

* the end, kind of *

… meaning, the end of the Drown story in its focused and wordy format. Steph & Justin and their precious little kidlets will now rejoin the whole cast of Postcards from Sierra Nova, more notes to follow. ;)


footnotes: the mouse

outtakes: lazy weekend // you know Willow wants to keep that mouse // slide mishaps // sunbathing beauties