American Heroes Series - 03 - Purgatory (36 page)

As the plumbers carefully
re-plumbed the entire house and re-plumbed and remodeled the upstairs
bathrooms, the HVAC contractors carefully laid out their vents next to the new
plumbing.  Elliot and Hallie were concerned that the least amount of flooring
and walls be disturbed as they made the house twenty-first century habitable,
and with Beau’s assurance, that seemed to be the way to go.

As of July, the HVAC system was
running full bore, fed by the new electrical system, and Elliot had the system
running day and night.  Nash would come home at night and turn it up slightly
and, like some weird sensor, Elliot would somehow know that it was no longer
set at 70 degrees and she would turn it down again.

 Nash finally got to the point
where he would just let her do what she wanted, even when the electricity bill
for the month of July turned out to be almost four hundred dollars. If Elliot
was happy, he was happy. It was a small price to pay.

The rest of the house was coming
along as well, now almost ninety percent complete. All of the painting was
done, the new windows were in as well as the brand new bathrooms, and as of
mid-July, all of the window treatments were up. Gauzy, soft white chiffon
curtains graced the elaborate double parlors with their soft gold and green
tones, while the library had been turned into the ultimate man-cave of brown
leather couches, a fifty-two inch plasma screen, and a big antique desk. 

Nash was in love with the room
and he couldn’t get his brother out of it.  Beau, who was still acting as the
job superintendent in spite of his own work waiting for him back in Bay St.
Louis, would park himself on Nash’s new couch for a good portion of the day and
pretend to work.

The dining room and the ballroom
had been transformed as well. The dining room now had fully restored,
hand-painted walls while the ballroom had become the ultimate family room with
two giant plasma screen televisions and a full-sized pool table.

The kitchen was the one room that
wasn’t fully transformed yet because of the rot and mold that had been found in
the walls and floor.  That room was still being worked on but was functional. 
The creepy back staircase had been restored into a gorgeous wood structure.

The bedrooms were also fully
restored and functional.  Everyone got to choose their own paint color, with
Elliot going for a golden ivory tone to go with her new bedroom furniture,
while Alec chose a chocolate brown and Penelope chose a sage green.

 The smaller back bedroom above
the kitchen had been made into Elliot’s writing room and the middle bedroom
next to Alec’s room had become a guest room with two big queen beds and its own
bathroom, regularly used by Beck and Shane when they came down on weekends from
Baton Rouge.  

The crypt beneath the house was
also still a work in progress.  Dr. Whitney and Dr. Clarke had been fixtures in
the room and Dr. Whitney had found what he believed to be the secondary access
into the room. 

Ground penetrating radar
sponsored by the University of New Orleans had shown an anomaly running north
from the house towards the derelict stables and Dr. Whitney had engaged a group
of grad students to do some summer digging. As the house itself came together,
the garden for about one hundred yards between the house and the old stables
had become an archaeological dig and the landscape architect, revamping the
grounds, had to work around it.

On this Thursday evening in
Mid-August, Nash was trying to get Elliot moving for an invitation they had to
Monty Torres’ birthday party.  It was a fancy affair at the Pelican Point Golf
Club, but Elliot wasn’t moving as fast as Nash would have liked.   She had been
in the bathroom a very long time and Nash was growing impatient.

“Ellie!” Nash was putting on his
Kenneth Cole watch with the black alligator skin band. “Honey, we’re going to
be late. Are you almost ready?”

No sooner did the words come out
of his mouth than the bathroom door opened and Elliot appeared. In a gray
metallic mini-dress and sky-high pumps, she looked fantastic.  Nash took a
moment to watch her appreciatively as she went to her dresser for her jewelry.

“Honey, you look amazing,” his
eyes moved up the curve of her buttocks. “But I’m not sure you can wear that
dress.”

She looked at him, putting her
earrings on without an ounce of humor on her face. “Why not?”

He smiled at her. “Because Monty
won’t be able to look at anything other than you and I might have to deck him.”

A wan smile crossed her lips as
she turned back to her jewelry and put the other earring in.  Nash could see
that she was putting her lipstick into her purse, usually a precursor to them
heading out the door, so he went to the dresser and kissed her on the side of
the head as he picked up his keys.

“Ready?” he asked.

She half-nodded and he turned for
the bedroom door. But a word from her stopped him. “Nash,” she said softly.
“Wait a minute.”

He paused half-way across the
room and looked at her. “What?”

Elliot straightened her necklace
as she gazed into his eyes, finally looking rather miserable as the hand on her
necklace went to her belly.  She approached him with her sexy dress and sexy
shoes, putting a hand on his arm.

“I… I need to talk to you,” she
said quietly. “Can you please sit down a minute?”

He tried not to act impatient.
“Can we talk in the car?” he asked. “We really need to get over to the club,
darlin’.”

She didn’t like that suggestion
at all. “You can’t give me five minutes for something really important? When do
I ever tell you that I need to talk to you?”

She was starting to get upset so
he nodded his head quickly, with thinly veiled impatience, and sat down in one
of the two beautiful high-back wing chairs in their bedroom.  They were
spectacular pieces that fit perfectly into the gold, brown and white scheme of
their bedroom.

“Okay,” he folded his hands and
faced her seriously. “I’m all yours. What’s so important?”

Dander down at his surrender,
Elliot moved quietly to the other chair, sitting down very lady-like and
crossing her beautiful legs.

“I’ve been trying to figure out
how to… hey, buddy, my face is up here,” she pointed at her head. “Stop looking
at my legs for a moment, please.”

Nash fought off a grin as he
looked her in the eye. “Do I have to?”

“
Nash
.”

“Your legs are like a magnet for
my eyes, baby. I just can’t help it.”

“
Nash!
”

He started giggling, suppressing
it when he saw that she wasn’t laughing with him. “I’m sorry, darlin’,” he
sobered up. “I’ll be serious. What do you want to talk about?”

She sighed heavily, irritated. “I
want to talk to you about something very important but you just want to goof
around.”

“So talk, honey. I’m listening.”

She just looked at him and he
could see the thoughts rolling through those big blue eyes. She was irritated,
true, but she also seemed kind of edgy.  His humor started to fade, wondering
what could be so serious, when she suddenly stood up and disappeared into the
bathroom.  Nash called after her.

“Honey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I
didn’t mean to intimate that I wasn’t taking you seriously. I am. Don’t go away
mad.”

Elliot came out of the bathroom
with something in her hand.   Nash found himself watching her great legs as she
approached and the way the skimpy mini dress swung seductively around her
thighs.  He was caught off-guard when she stuck whatever was in her hand into
his face.

“Do you know what this is?” she
asked.

He had to blink and tilt his head
back in order to focus on what she was indicating.  He grasped her wrist and
moved the object away from his face so he could see it.  It was a long white
stick with writing on it and his brow wrinkled as he looked at it.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “What is
it?”

She pointed a red fingernail at
one end of it. “See that?”

“It’s a plus sign.”

“It’s pregnancy test.”

It took a couple of seconds for
her words to sink in.  Then, his eyes widened and he looked up at her, shock on
his face. “A
pregnancy
test?” he repeated.

Elliot nodded. “A plus sign is a
positive. It says I’m pregnant.”

Nash’s jaw dropped.  He looked
back at the plastic pregnancy test with the plus sign on it and he just stared
at it.  Elliot waited for him to say something but he didn’t. He remained
silent, staring at it.  Then, he gently took it out of her grasp, stood up and,
while still looking at it, wandered away from the chair.

Elliot watched him as he came to
a stop near the front window, feeling increasingly distressed.  He hadn’t said
a word, nor had he even looked at her.  He just stared at that pregnancy test,
the weight of his silence weighing heavily between them.

“Please tell me what you’re
feeling,” she pleaded softly.

Nash was still staring at the
test. “I… I really don’t know.”

Elliot burst into quiet tears. 
Nash turned swiftly to her, throwing his arms around her and holding her
tight.  The plastic pregnancy test clattered to the floor.

“Honey, don’t cry,” he begged. “I
didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m just…. Ellie, if you want me to say I’m sorry
about this, I’m not going to say it. I’m not sorry at all that you’re
pregnant.”

She wept pitifully against his
chest. “I told you I wasn’t on birth control,” she sobbed. “More than once we
haven’t used a condom.  We tried to be careful, but….”

He abruptly held her out at arm’s
length, looking into her wet face. “Are you saying that you’re sorry about
this?”

She shook her head. “No,” she
sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “I’m really not. But I am scared.”

“Scared?” he repeated, sounding
distressed. “Why?”

She wiped at her nose, trying to
compose herself. “Because… Nash, I’m forty one years old,” she said. “I’m too
old to be having a baby but on the other hand, I want this baby so badly that I
can’t even verbalize it. I want this baby because it’s part of you and part of
me, someone that belongs just to us.  I’m so scared that you won’t feel the
same way.”

His eyebrows flew up. “Are you
crazy?” he exclaimed softly. “Ellie, I said I didn’t know how I felt because
there was so much joy and excitement spinning around in my head that it
momentarily overwhelmed me.  This baby… this will be the most loved and
anticipated and welcome child ever born.  It’s going to be loved beyond belief
and spoiled like crazy because every time I look at it, I’ll see you.  I’m thrilled,
honey, truly.”

She gazed up at him with her big
watery eyes. “I need a tissue.”

He darted into the bathroom and
came back with a wad.  She took it and wiped at her eyes as he stood there,
watching her anxiously.   She went to sit back down on the chair and he
followed, standing over her as she composed herself.

“You know,” she said softly, “if
one of my kids had come to me and told me they were pregnant, I would have gone
through the roof – especially if I found out they hadn’t used condoms and relied
instead on the all-powerful withdrawal method like we’ve been doing.  I knew
better but I guess I really didn’t care all that much.  Maybe deep down, I
wanted to have your baby.  How do I explain this pregnancy to Penny and Alec?
I’m supposed to be the grown-up here.  Things like this aren’t supposed to
happen.”

He crouched down in front of the
chair, one hand on her knee and the other on her shoulder. “I love you, Ellie,”
he murmured. “You know I love you more than anything and your kids know I love
you more than anything.  There’s no shame in this; we love each other and we’re
going to get married.”

She fixed on him. “When?”

“Tonight. Tomorrow. As soon as we
possibly can.”

She gazed at him a moment, seeing
the light of happiness in his eyes coupled with a good deal of anxiety due to
the way she was reacting.  He was afraid things had somehow changed between
them. After a moment, she wrapped her arms around his neck and he pulled her
close, holding her tightly with his face buried in her neck. She took a moment
just to feel him against her, to experience the joy of the love they had for
one another and this unexpected yet not unhappy news.  The more she thought on
it, the better she was coming to feel.

“I don’t need a church wedding,”
she told him. “We can just go to the Justice of the Peace or County Clerk.”

He pulled his face from her neck
and looked at her, smiling. “I know a few of those,” he said. “In fact, Monty
has the authority to marry us. He can do it tonight.”

She returned his smile, although
it was dubious. “But I want the kids there, all of them.”

He nodded. “Me, too,” he said,
backing down. “Sorry, I was just excited. I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Her smile grew and she touched
his face, smooth since he had shaved. “I love you so much.”

He leaned forward, kissing her
sweetly. “I can’t tell you how happy I am right now,” he murmured as he kissed
her again. “This is all like a dream, Ellie, a dream that I don’t want to wake
up from. I feel like I’m getting a chance at a whole new life with you, and now
the baby… it’s all like a dream. That’s the best I can do to describe it.”