my sweetheart #3: feral

August 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Ingrid Thompson is 24, Maria Boone is 26, Johanna is 4.



It was a beautiful summer morning and Coolidge House Country Inn bustled with activity. The wedding was back on, and the big day was coming fast. Lovely as today was, there was a small chance of rain in the forecast for the wedding day, so they planned to hold the ceremony under the gazebo. Jordan had just finished arranging a few dozen chairs in the reception barn, and now he was on a mission to find a few dozen more for the gazebo. Instead, what he found was a heated soccer match in the side yard. 

“Hey, girls, play nice,” Jordan called at them. 

Stephanie’s girls were bigger and running little Johanna around into a frenzy of drama and name-calling. None of the kids here today were his actual children, but Stephanie and Maria were often stuck in the kitchen while he had free roam of the grounds. He felt like such a neighborhood dad and wondered when that happened to him.

“She keeps dropping it,” Lily whined. “It’s not our fault she can’t keep the ball up for more than two seconds.” 

“Yes, I can!” Johanna shouted. 

“No, you can’t!” the girls countered. 

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t.” 

“Why don’t you teach her how?” Jordan suggested. 

Tongues pointed. Noses scrunched. But the girls stopped fighting and gave Johanna another chance with the ball. For now. 

Jordan continued on his quest for chairs. 

He wondered if Ingrid might know where to find them. Out front, she had boxes stacked in and around her truck, candles and crafts arranged for packing, and her easel laid across the truck bed. It looked more serious than just moving some inventory from the Inn to the Gallery. 

“Shit, did you get fired?”

“Ha, no, not exactly,” she said. “Sharon had to let the Harbor Gallery go. Ever hear of the Northern Kitchen Termite?”

“Oh, yeah, that went around here a few years ago. Destroyed a couple businesses.”

Ingrid shrugged. “Welp, now it got mine.”

“Damn, I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“But, maybe it doesn’t? Wanna know a little secret?”



Ingrid took a step forward and waited for him to say yes, eagerly. His rapt attention was a delicious cookie and she needed a bite.

It amused him. “Sure, okay,” he said.

She grinned. She took another step closer. She smelled of vanilla and candle wax. “I hated my lease. Ugh, it was like being owned. Now I’m free! I’m newborn as a bare-assed baby!” She swung back and slapped her own ass. “The whole wide world is my fucking oyster.”

“Huh. Sounds cool, actually.”

“Doesn’t it? You wanna run away with me?”



Jordan laughed. “Sorry, I have to work.” 

Like, he needed to work was more accurate. He needed to save up enough money to find his own apartment and get out of Colette’s hair, and he needed to do it before one of them murdered the other. 

“Anyway, I wondered if you brought back any of the chairs from the cafe?” 

“Nope, sorry, termites got them.” 

“Right. And the candles? Boss wants to know if you saved any of your candles or if she needs to order from the catalog?”

“Let me see what I’ve got.”

Ingrid bent over from the hips, waggling her ass at him while she rummaged through one of her boxes. Then she popped up with a phallus-looking candle in her palm. She stroked it up and down.

“What kind of candles does she want? Long ones, thick ones, ribbed for her pleasure?”

Astonished, Jordan could only stare at the candle in shock. This girl didn’t stop. Jordan was no choir boy, but he almost blushed. 

—

“Oh, for crying out freaking loud,” Maria grumbled, gawking out the front window as Ingrid manhandled her candles and sashayed back and forth like a street-corner hooker.

Maria had stopped dusting the dining room. She lost track of her dusting rag several minutes ago, and now all she could do was watch with contempt. Ingrid had been nothing but friendly to her, but Maria hated her anyway. Or maybe she hated that Jordan entertained her shameless attempts to seduce him. She hated how foolish she’d been to think it was appropriate, considerate, not to jump his bones the second he and Colette were over. But it seemed Ingrid was paying no similar consideration. And that’s where I lose him, Maria thought.  

Maria didn’t hear Stephanie creep in, quiet as a mouse. “You know, Justin didn’t notice me for years, until one day he did. They’re slow to come around sometimes.”

Maria cringed. Although, the sentiment was appreciated. “Oh, is it that obvious?”



The two of them sat and gossiped a little longer about Ingrid, and Jordan, and Ingrid’s candles, and Jordan’s baby momma, and Maria’s seething crush, and how some of it was so deeply serious, while other things were maybe not so much. 

Finally, Maria remembered that she had work to do and that Stephanie must have wedding preparations to attend to. 

“Hey, you need to go home! You’re getting married in less than two days! I promise we’ve got it taken care of! Your niece is vegetarian. There’s a tofu saltimbocca coming right up. I’ve got your recipe, I can do it.”

“Okay, I guess,” Stephanie said. And in their short silence, the two of them glanced back outside at Ingrid, who was still showing Jordan her pornographic inventory of candles. 

Stephanie said, “Did you hear she’s leaving?” Meaning, Ingrid. 

“Good,” Maria muttered.

—

Outside, Ingrid had finally shown Jordan every candle she had. He took pictures of a couple and texted Sharon to make the final choice. While they waited for Sharon’s decision, Ingrid went on about everything she might do with herself now that the gallery was closed. 

“Out west, of course,” she declared. “The world is my oyster, but the Midwest doesn’t suit me. I’m a free spirit, you know. I gotta see the world. I gotta find my people. I just gotta get my camper running.”

This, above everything, finally caught Jordan’s attention. It caught his attention hard. “You have a camper?”

“Yeah, I bought it for two hundred dollars. It smells like weed and piss, but it doesn’t run. Yet. But hey, you’re a handy kind of guy. Maybe you could help me fix it?”

Let me fix your camper so you can run off and have an adventure, Jordan thought. Feelings of resentment and jealousy swirled. What a life. “I don’t know. I’m kinda busy.”

“You have to understand,” Ingrid said, “I gotta get this thing working. It’s like, the nexus of my whole plan. I’m gonna drive out west and stream the whole road trip. You know, all that aesthetic. Snow-capped mountains, misty forests, yoga on the beach in my bikini. Follow my channel, you don’t wanna miss it.”

Why did that sound like the most fun and frivolous life imaginable? Again, Jordan felt a cage tighten around him.

“So, what do I have to do to convince you? Can you look at it? See what’s wrong?” She smiled suggestively. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

“You can pay me in cash. Cash is fine,” he said. “Yeah, sure, I’ll have a look at it sometime. No promises, though.”

Ingrid winked. “Promise? I wouldn’t dare.”

She grabbed a Sharpie from one of her boxes. “It’s parked at my sister’s place. Here’s the address.” 

She went for his arm, but he pulled away. I’m too old for this, he thought. Although, at twenty-eight and twenty-four, their age difference wasn’t so extreme. It was maturity, mostly. Ingrid made him feel old. 

She looked confused and disappointed. She had really wanted to write on his arm.

But then he heard shouting and crying from the side yard and it sounded like those girls needed a referee.

“Text it to me,” he told Ingrid, and he went to check on the kids.  




Now little Johanna was raging at the bigger girls. She was a tempest of fury, arms thrashing, teeth bared. The big girls backed off. 

“Hey, Mr. Felix’s dad. She started it,” Lily tattled. 

“But she’s little, and you two are old enough to know better.”

“I was trying to be her friend,” Willow said, “but she’s so mean! We don’t wanna play with her anyway.”

“I don’t wanna play with you anyway!” Johanna shouted back.



“Uh oh,” Stephanie said, coming outside to collect her girls. 

“It’s okay, it’s over now.” Jordan said, “Come on, Jo Jo, let’s go find your mom.”

Johanna glared at the big girls as they followed their mom home. Jordan reached for her shoulder in case restraint was needed, but there were only teeth snarled and no claws drawn today. 

—

Jordan followed a delicious scent to find Maria working in the kitchen. Johanna burst into the room and into her mother’s arms. “Mommy! You’re my favorite. I don’t need to make any friends, you can be my best friend.”

“Oh, baby, you’re mine too. What happened?”

“Just a little play yard scuffle,” Jordan said. “She wanted to keep up with the big girls.”



“Oh no, she has such a temper sometimes, I don’t know what to do with her. She’s a wild animal, I need to get her a rabies shot.”

“She’s a firecracker,” Jordan agreed. 

“She doesn’t get it from me.”

Jordan nodded once, then Maria felt self-conscious that he agreed. So he didn’t think she was a firecracker? Noted. Maybe he liked firecrackers. Like Ingrid. 



“You never know, kids are random,” he said. “Our Felix is like a perfect blend of both of us, sporty like me, assertive like his mom, but Milo, he’s a total wild card.”

“Well, what if she does take after her dad, though? Even though she hardly knew him.” Maria wondered this out loud. She often wondered what impression Johanna might take from the father she barely met. She wondered, if she were lucky enough to find a stepfather for the girl someday, would Johanna fashion herself off of that man instead? Or would she grow up without a father’s influence at all, as she had for the first four years of her life? Maybe that was the problem. But Maria hadn’t meant for Jordan to dwell on this.  

“Did he have a temper?” 

“Joseph? Oh, well, no, not a temper, really. He wasn’t like that. He was never really mean. I think it was more like he was stern. Very serious.”

“Really? Serious? But you’re so funny. I can’t see you with someone serious.”

She swooned inside. “You think I’m funny?” 

“Well, yeah.” He smiled. “In a quiet sort of way. It’s a good thing.” 

A good thing, also noted. So maybe he liked funny women. Was Ingrid funny, too? Please, God, don’t let Ingrid be funny, too. 

And please, God, let me have this, Maria prayed sometimes. Granted, she was well aware that praying for a man was probably far beneath an almighty being’s concerns. But this, specifically, she needed this. What she felt for Jordan was special and gentle and pure, and she’d been alone now for years because no man she’d ever met could match what she felt for this one. 

“You don’t talk about him much,” Jordan said. 

“Oh, talk about who?” Maria was still lost in delightful reverie. 

“Joseph.” Jordan laughed. “What was he like? Like, what kind of guy was he? I mean... unless it makes you sad to think about or something.”

Jordan seemed genuinely interested to know, so she told him. “Oh, no, it’s okay. It’s not too sad anymore. Well, he was an officer in the Air Force. He was only a couple of years older than me, but he always seemed so grown up. Like, he was probably even grown up as a little kid. He liked classical music and tennis and crossword puzzles. Um, he wasn’t super religious or anything, but he always went to church, like it was something he felt he need to do. He volunteered. And he was really good at saving money.”

Jordan nodded. “The kind of guy who has all his shit together.”

Maria shrugged. “I guess he did. He didn’t need me for anything.”

“Don’t say that,” Jordan said. “People have all kinds of needs.”

“Okay, maybe he enjoyed hearing me play my violin.” 

“You never told me you play violin.”

“I guess because I don’t play much anymore. It was a long time ago. I’m out of practice now. I lost track of it when we got married, then I had Johanna, then the war and everything... and now here I’ve come to my final resting place.”

Jordan laughed. “Yikes.”

“Well, I’m a single mom, you know. Who wants all that baggage?”

He tilted his head. “She’s a kid, not a prison sentence.”

“Are we talking about the same kid? That kid over there with rabies?”

Johanna clicked away at the keyboard. On her game, a tiger roared.   

“Even that kid,” Jordan said. 

“Well, anyway, I don’t even remember how to date. It’s rough out there. Stephanie invited me to this wedding as a guest, plus one. I don’t even know who I’d ask. I don’t even know people, except my lesbian neighbors on one side, and the elderly couple on the other side. And the people here at work. Unless, maybe, you’re not doing anything tomorrow night...”

He smiled kindly. “I’m on the roster as staff.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “Damn. You should have been nicer to Stephanie.”

“Next time, for sure.”

“Stephanie’s next wedding?”

“Ha ha. I mean, you know, anyone’s.”

What on earth? Did he just say he’d go to a theoretical someday wedding with her? It made her heart race and her mind bend into twists trying to figure it out.

“Sorry, the kids were distracting you,” she said. “I bet you have a lot of work to finish.”

Not work to finish with Ingrid, she meant.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I need to find something for lunch anyway.” 

“I’ll make you some lunch. I was going to whip something up for Johanna anyway. It’s the least I can do. For looking out for my little feral animal. Thank you.”

“Anytime.”



He took a seat at the counter next to Johanna. She was playing a computer game about matching animals to their habitats. “Hey Jo Jo, what kind of animal are you?”

“I’m a wolverine, grrr!”

Jordan laughed. “I believe you.”

—