The Daughter in Law (9 page)

“This is for pin, thought it best
to get this shit started from now.” Dad's gift to his unborn grandchild was a
hefty check for his college fund.

"Dad, where do you plan on sending him, to the top four
all at once?"

“Have you been watching the news, following the market? By
the time pin’s ready for college one of two things will be happening: either
we’ll all be dust, or this will cover one and a half years tuition tops."

"You're nuts."

The atmosphere
had calmed down somewhat since dad's little
pow
-wow,
but I could tell Damien was still pissed. The truth is I was still learning about
my hubby and his myriad moods. We'd had maybe eight months together before he'd
been sent off. I knew one thing only, and that was that I loved him something
stupid.

 
When he'd been gone, those first few
weeks had been sheer hell; that's why she'd been able to sideline me so
effortlessly. Just like a serpent in the grass, she'd struck when I was at my
weakest. I also knew he was strong and sweet and he loved me fiercely. My only
fear,
was that hagfish would be able to hoodwink him and
worm her way back in. If I had to live with that fear hanging over my head for
the rest of my life I’d shoot myself.

When it was finally time to leave,
mom had a minor freak out. "Are you sure you're gonna be okay?"

"Yeah mom I'll be fine."

"You call us the minute that's no longer true, I mean
it; no matter what time it is, day or night. You know I ran away from your
father once?"

"Mom?"

"Yep, and it was over this same thing. He refused to
see his mother for what she was, a two headed monster. I swear that woman had
two faces; she could turn on a dime like nobody's business. Anyway, when it
looked like he was going to side with her the last time she fucked up, I waited
until he was gone and hightailed it outta there. He went nuts. I didn't go to
any of the places he'd expect and girl let me tell you, when he finally did
find me three weeks later I was ready for him. Needless to say he put mommy
dearest in her place after that and all has been well from then 'til now.”

I started to cry because I knew
what she was saying, but I didn’t want to be away from my husband, especially
not over this. It just wasn’t fair.

Next it was dad’s turn to give us
the third degree. “You kids sure you’re gonna be okay?”

“Yes dad we’ll be fine. I’ll see that no harm comes to her.”

“I’m not so much worried about her, I’m more concerned about
pin. What the fuck? How did I end up calling my grandkid by that stupid name?
that’s
no name for a little girl.”

“Girl what girl? Who’s having a girl?”

“Calm down
Dami
dad’s just
joking.”

“The hell I am, look here boy. I have six grandsons count
them, six. Vanessa’s the last girl we’ve had in the line for over twenty eight
years, ask her how many male cousins she has.”

“It’s true.”

“So by that token shouldn’t you surmise that we’re having a
boy?”

“No because we’re due. Not to
worry son, she didn’t start giving me grey hair until she was about twelve, up
until then it was
a
cinch. But when you see ten,
eleven rolling around, all I can tell you is hone up on your shooting skills
soldier boy, you’re gonna need them.”

“Dad, stop scaring poor Damien he’s
turning green.”

“Okay then, and you’re sure you’re not going to be walking
into anything when you get back there?”

“I’m positive.” The two men
shared a look and from the way he said it, it was as if he was very sure. Me I
wasn’t convinced. We’d been gone for a week;
Haggie
could do
a whole
lotta damage in that amount of time.
I’m thinking we might want to call out the bomb squad and maybe some of those
sniffing canines or something. Now that dad had brought it up, that was
something else for me to worry my ass over on the plane ride home.

He still
hadn’t told me about this great plan of his and every time I brought it up he’d
change the subject. Last night after I’d ridden him reverse cowgirl and let him
play in my ass, he still wasn’t forthcoming. All he’d say in that southern
drawl of his is that it wasn’t fitting to burden a woman with such things. I
have no idea what century my husband is living in. He thinks he’s protecting me
by keeping me in the dark. What he doesn’t know is that I need to know
everything all the time. How else am I supposed to protect myself when he’s not
around?

He held my hand throughout the
whole plane ride, which I stayed awake for this time. “Look this would be good
for pin.” He was flipping through the inflight magazine and there was a picture
of a carousel.

“Do you really think we’re having a girl?” He looked
spooked.

“I don’t know but there’re ways to find out.”

“Do you wanna do that?”

He seemed so excited at the idea, how
could I say no? I guess when he thought we were for sure having a boy he was
willing to wait and be semi surprised. Now with a daughter on the horizon he
wasn’t taking any chances.

“If you promise not to freak out for the rest of the
pregnancy if it is a girl.” He was turning green again.

“I won’t freak out, it’s just, damn, a girl? I have enough
trouble leaving you home when I have to go, I can’t imagine leaving my little
girl behind.” Aww he’s so cute. He got a kiss for that.

“What’s that for?”

“Because you’re so cute and I love you to bits.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” I love this, just us
being so free with not a care in the world. Now if I could just Shanghai
Mengele and her part humanoid offspring I’d be good as gold.

I actually broke out in a sweat
when we made the turn off for home. He sensed my nervousness because he took my
hand and squeezed it before kissing my fingers.

“Calm down baby nothing’s gonna
happen.” There was something new about the gate and I couldn’t quite put my
finger on it until I saw the little post thing there with a man sitting inside.
Oh shit he’d hired security, no wonder he’d been so sure nothing was wrong.

“Hey Gibb anything?”

“No sir it’s been quiet since the last time we spoke sir,
nothing to report.”

“Excellent, why don’t you come on up to the house in a
little bit and I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

“Sure sir.” I craned my neck to
see what all he had done in the week we’d been away.

“When did you arrange all this?”

“A few days after the break-in.”

“Is he like, permanent?”

“He’ll be here as long as he needs to be.”

And that’s all he’d say on the
subject. I wasn’t too worried about walking into a trap after that and was
finally able to relax and enjoy being back home in my own house.

Two days later
I was out shopping for, just stuff. I like to shop, that little flirt in New
York had only whetted my appetite and now I’d caught the bug. There were so
many cute little things for kids that I was hard pressed not to buy out the
stores. Damien said he was
gonna
get started on the
nursery as soon as we found out what we were having, he wanted to color
coordinate I guess. He was a little calmer now about the whole baby girl thing
or at least he was pretending to be, but I noticed he’s been reading up about
it a lot since we got back. I wasn’t quite sure what he thought the difference
was going to be between raising a girl or a boy, except for the obvious; but
the way he was acting you’d think she was a different species. I know one
thing, if she was anything like me, that list of don’ts he has is in for a rude
awakening. Southern boy! He has no clue.

By the third
store I went into I noticed the same guy following me around. At first I
thought it was a coincidence, but he didn’t look like the type to wear La
Perla
so I got spooked. My first thought was that crackpot
had hired someone to off me, but it was broad daylight. Maybe he was here to
snatch me? I dipped into the changing room and peeped out to see what he was
doing. He was trying to be inconspicuous but he had a direct view to where I
was. What to do what to do? I can’t call the captain, that number’s for
emergencies only. He has to hand in his phone or turn it off or something while
he’s doing army stuff I think.

I decided to alert
the sales clerk and get help. Maybe she could call the cops or something. Then
I just got pissed the fuck off. This was too much even for the ass. Besides we
were in a roomful of people if I were going to confront him now would be the
best time. I walked out of the room unexpectedly and he tried to veer off and
pretend like he hadn’t been staring holes in the direction I’d just come from.

“Okay asshole why are you following
me around?” I spoke loud enough to draw the attention of the other patrons.

“Excuse me?”

“No excuse, you’ve been
following me around for the last hour or so, what gives?” By now we had a nice
little audience and Mr. Hot shot was backpedaling fast. He tried to leave but I
blocked his path. “Oh no you don’t you tell me who you are or I’m calling the
cops.” I held my phone up ready to call. He held up his finger and I almost
snapped it off. “Hey, one minute just chill.” He reached for his phone and all
I heard was ‘she made me’. Then he held the phone out to me. I gave him, and
it, a curious look, like it was a snake coiled to strike.

“Hello?”

“Hello sweetheart I see you’ve met Tony.”

“
Dami
, you know this guy?”

“Yep, he’s your shadow.”

“My what, why do I need one of those?”

“Because I said so.”

“But…”

“He stays. I’ll see you when I get home, love you.” He hung
up the phone. What the hell? Why did I need a guard following me around? Was
this about Yeti? What the hell had gone on in that hospital room anyway?
Tonight he’s telling me everything or I’ll light the damn place to the ground.
This shit was just beyond.

“Damien.”

“What?”

“I know you can feel me boring holes in your head with my
glare.”

He forked another bite of my
succulent wine steak in his mouth. It’s my own personal recipe that I made up
when I was experimenting a while back, kind of my twist on hunter’s stew if
you’d like. I soak the steak in port wine and some other herbs and spices, let
it marinate for a spell, and then char broil it. Damien just about gnaws his
fingers off when I make it for him. The creature from the black lagoon claims
her son only likes her cooking, and I should take lessons from her. My ass,
I’ve never seen him go back for seconds any of the million times she’d made us
come over there before his deployment. Looking back I wish I’d gouged her in
the eye with a fork.

“I was wondering if you were having
some sort of mental pause.”

“
Har
,
har
funny, start dishing big boy, what’s with the security at the gate and now this
shadow guy?”

“I told you, they’re there to look after you while I’m not
here.”

“Um; lots of men leave their
wives everyday and go off to work, I don’t think they all hire extra muscle to
follow them around. What happened, did your
momsie
dearest threaten me?” He kept plugging away at that steak like he hadn’t heard
me.

“Vanessa I already told you that’s
not something we’re going to discuss…”

“Now see, that’s not gonna work. I’m in the need to know
business, I need to know exactly what Eva Braun said, did and thought.”

“Who are you talking about now, is that Hitler’s
girlfriend?”

“That’s one of my names for your incubator, now stop
changing the subject and spill.”

“I said no, now stop asking. Your problem with my mother is
that she’s too controlling right?
that’s
one of the
things you said? So why are you now trying to control me?
is
it your idea for me to slip one noose for another?”

“I’m not trying to control you, you ass; I’m trying to
prepare myself for whatever asshole scheme that demon from Satan’s armpit comes
up with next. How can you be so damn clueless?”

“Don’t get yourself all upset, I wish you would just calm
the hell down and stay out of it.”

“I can’t stay out of it because
she dragged me into it a long time ago. She started this shit and contrary to
what you think she’s never going to leave me out of it. You just don’t get it,
her fight’s not with you, you’re her precious golden boy; I’m the one she’s
trying to eliminate.” He was so working on raising my blood pressure right now.
I was giving some serious thought to lobbing a baked potato at his head.

“She’s not going to get near you
Vanessa stop worrying about this shit. All you’re doing is making this shit
harder on me. I told you I have it under control so just leave it.”

“No.” That threw him for sure.

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean that I have a dog in
this fight and I mean for him to win. Now either we do this together or I do my
own thing, because your track record where she’s concerned isn’t that good, and
quite frankly I’m not sure I trust you to see through her shit. Trust me, if it
took you this long to glimpse her strain of bat-shit cray-cray, you really have
no idea what you’re dealing with.” He folded his arms and sat back.

“Okay so tell me, exactly what is
your big idea of how to deal with her?”

“I’m of two schools of thought on that one. One, either let
Tommy handle it and tap her one in the back of the head while she’s sleeping,
or total non contact.”

“Since murder is illegal I’m
working on your last suggestion, but your involvement is going to keep setting
me back because you think like a female, all emotion and irrationality.”

“Bite me asshole, you’re not the
one she terrorized for a year, I want to get some of mine back and you’re gonna
let me or there’ll be no anal sex in this house for years to come.” He
swallowed hard at that one but I knew I hadn’t won the battle yet.

“I’m pretty sure you know that I’d take that shit so that’s
an empty threat, not to mention you like it too so you’re full of shit. And the
answer is still no.”

“I ought to nut punch you.”

“What, why?”

“Because you’re being a Class A
jerk
right now. I understand you wanting to handle hagfish
on your own and all, but what you’re not understanding is that I will not be
happy unless I get my pound of flesh. Which I will get with or without you.”

“So what you’re saying is that after I’ve asked you as your
husband to let me handle this situation, you will go behind my back and do as
you please.” I didn’t too much like the way he said that, or the way he was
glaring at me.

“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.” Now I was squirming in
my seat.

“I just don’t want you sweeping
this shit-
uation
under the rug because you fell for
one of her sob stories or one of her
fauxpologies
.”
That really was my biggest fear, that she’d somehow get to him when I wasn’t
there; and how can I be there if he was shutting me out of the operation? He
didn’t say anything for the longest and I was beginning to wonder what the hell
was going through his head.

“Vanessa do you doubt that I love
you?”

“No, I don’t know.”

“What kind of answer is that? Either you do or you don’t.”

“It’s not that, I just think you like her more than you do
me.” That last was said in a whisper because when spoken out loud it sounded
kind of cray-cray.

“What?
come
‘ere.” He pulled me out
of my seat and into his lap.

“Baby that’s crazy, the love I have for you is not the same
as the love I have for her.”

“But I don’t want you to like
her anymore after she’s been so mean to me.” I sounded like a whiny brat but I
didn’t care. Let him blame it on hormones like he’s been doing everything else.
He kissed my temple and hugged me close.

“It doesn’t work that way baby. I’m
very angry at her for the things she did to you, but to just stop loving her
after years of her caring for me isn’t that easy. I understand where you’re
coming from, you want my loyalty and you’ve got it. I told you I get it didn’t
I? I didn’t doubt your word about anything did I?”

“No you didn’t.”

“And I told you that you and
pin comes first right?
so
let that be enough for now.
There’ll be time enough for you to learn what’s going on, just not right now.”

I tried to accept that even though
it didn’t sit too well with me, but he sounded so sincere, like he really had
his finger on the pulse of things. Maybe I was being unreasonable and should just
let him handle it like he said. I just hoped he really knew what he was dealing
with. One of my issues was that he really didn’t know this monster; he only had
second hand knowledge of her evil, having never experienced it himself.

“I’ll give you point for now but I reserve the right to twat
punch that hag if she comes within spitting distance of me and that’s
non-negotiable.”