Chapter 13

“What? What on earth are you talking about?” She was totally confused.

“The diamond stud he gave you for your belly button. Are you still wearing that?”

“John, will you for once get your head out of your ass? Did it ever occur to you that I might have bought it for myself? I can afford things like that, better than either he or you can, so why not? I saw a friend wearing one, thought it looked cool, and bought one.”

Okay, now I really felt stupid. Before I could say anything, she went on.

“And then you pulled your usual trick of running away. If you’d stuck around a little while, you’d have seen him spit in my face and call me a ‘ball-breaking bitch’. You’d have seen me slap the asshole and walk out. Did you see that, John?”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I wanted to get Sareen out of there before she saw you.”

“Oh,” she said. We were both sitting there feeling stupid, then our eyes met, and we were laughing together.

“He spit on you? Jesus, Sara, that’s some boyfriend.”

She smiled wryly. “Yeah, I can pick them, right? The man I love moves to freaking Alaska to get away from me. Then I get a creepy stalker who spits in my face.”

“I’m sorry, Sara,” I said. “I shouldn’t have run away like that. I was hurting, okay?”

She reached out and ran her fingers down my cheek, trailing fire that burned long after the touch was gone. “I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I caused that hurt, John. I’ve been thinking about that. I know I told you I didn’t regret moving out, but I’m not sure of that any more. I do know that from here on, I want us to deal with everything together, if you’ll let me. Can we get past all that hurt?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Do you want to try?”

“More than anything,” she said.

Our lives began to fall into a pleasant routine. I had Sareen on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. We tried to do something together as a family at least twice a week. We still had our issues and awkward moments, but they were getting fewer and farther between.

Sara and I were dating again. We still hadn’t gotten very intimate. We’d had some hot make out sessions, but we hadn’t jumped in the sack. I think we were both being cautious, not wanting to push ourselves, or each other. We’d been dancing around it and I had a perpetual case of blue balls. I think we both knew it was just a matter of time, but we wanted it to be just right.

Sara had a Saturday off, and we took Sareen to a movie at the mall in the afternoon. We took her to the food court for one of those orange smoothie things and we were sitting at a table watching her eat it. I saw Sara glance up over my shoulder, and she leaned down, hissing at me.

“Uh, oh,” she said. “Here comes trouble. Jeff Conley is coming over here.” We both stood up and watched him approach.

“Jeff,” Sara said, “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think, bitch?” he said, “I’m here to take you and the brat back where you belong.”

“Jeff,” Sara said calmly and slowly, “I told you, I found my ex-husband, and I’m trying to work things out so that we can get back together.”

“Well, I’m telling you that we’re not through until I say we’re through, so pick up the little brat and let’s go. You can’t just dump me anytime you want. I dump women, they don’t dump me.”

He moved toward Sara, and I felt her bristling, so I got in between them. “Listen, Mr. Conley,” I told him. “This is my wife and no one talks to her like that. I think you should calm down and leave. She and Sareen aren’t going anywhere. You don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Trouble?” he sneered. “You don’t know what trouble is, wimp boy.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a straight razor! Who the fuck even has a straight razor anymore?

Before I could react, he was taking a swipe at me, and Sara came flying in between us, getting a nasty gash on her arm. She screamed and crumpled to the floor, blood gushing from her arm. I think he was a little shocked and I took advantage, grabbing his wrist pulling it under my armpit and getting a good lock on it. The razor fell to the floor and I dropped, putting my full 220 pounds on that arm. I heard some tearing and he screamed, falling to the floor behind me. I rolled, keeping that arm locked up and he gave a thin shriek. That ended quickly as I elbowed him six times in the face. He went limp.

I looked at Sara. Her face was white, and blood was gushing out of the wound.

Sareen was screaming. “Mamma! My Mamma’s hurt!”

I pulled off my belt to make a tourniquet.

“Somebody call 911,” I yelled as I knelt beside Sara, wrapping the belt around her arm.

One of the passersby was a nurse, and took over the tourniquet.

“Take off your shirt,” she said.

“Huh?” I asked, confused.

“Take off your shirt,” she said again, “and apply pressure to the wound.”

I did as she said, then I noticed all the blood, and wondered how she could survive losing so much blood.

She must have sensed my unease.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “it looks worse than it is.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant it, or was just trying to reassure me, but I had no choice but to believe her; the alternative was too horrible to imagine.

It seemed like it took forever, but finally the paramedics arrived to whisk Sara off to the hospital.

Sareen and I had to wait for a few minutes while the police hauled Conley off and I gave them a brief statement, promising to come in to the station as soon as I made sure that Sara was going to be all right.

By the time we got to the hospital, Sara was already in surgery. Sareen and I went to the waiting room and I spent the next few minutes calming her down, then I called our parents so that they could come down, as well.

While I waited for our parents to arrive, I had time to really think about our relationship, going all the way back to our break-up until today.

I couldn’t imagine the Sara who left me to “find herself” throwing herself in front of a lunatic swinging a straight razor. Could she really have changed that much? I certainly hoped so. I wanted Sara and Sareen in my life. Would that mean re-marrying Sara? That was a question for another day.