Ignoring her testiness, he flopped face first onto the mattress, which squeaked like a colony of mice lived insid
e—because they probably did. “Maybe I’ll dream of paradise,” he said, before dropping off to sleep.
Less than an hour later, his eyes popped open and he announced, “I need food, fun and fucked, in that order.”
Rebekah, who was standing near the window, turned up her nose. “We’re going to have to do it standing up, because I’m not touching any surfaces in this place.”
“Shower sex then,” he said, springing from the bed and dropping a kiss on her neck.
“Only if I can wear my flip flops.”
He chuckled, imagining how adorable she’d look with her legs wrapped around his hips, flip-flops dangling from her toes. “Let’s go eat before we attempt fucking in flip-flops. I’m starving.”
The food at the nearby restaurant was surprisingly delicious and roach-free. Rebekah seemed much less cranky after she’d eaten, which was good, because he always wanted a smile on her face. On their walk back to the motel, Eric found the fun he’d demanded. “Let’s build a snowman.”
“A snowman? I thought you hated the cold.”
“Explicitly,” he said, and dashed to the VW for his snow pants, parka and other arctic gear. “And you were the one who suggested it, remember?”
Neither of them had ever constructed a snowman, but Eric was sure he knew the proper technique. He made the bottom layer by rolling a snowball around the edge of the parking lot. By the time he was satisfied with its size, the frigid ball of dirty, dead-grass flecked snow was waist high.
“I think you overdid it,” Rebekah said, the snowball she’d made for the head far smaller in comparison.
“Nonsense.” The middle snowball was too large for him to push into place by himself, so Rebekah helped him roll it up the side of the massive bottom.
Eric had to stand on tiptoes to put the tiny head on top.
“I don’t think they’re supposed to be this enormous,” Rebekah said, eyeing the tottering structure that towered over her.
Eric packed some extra snow around the snowman’s waist to keep it from collapsing and crushing his wife. “He’s awesome. He just needs a face.”
They scrounged through the Volkswagen for parts, coming up with a few stale cheese curls, a half-eaten Slim Jim, an empty Mountain Dew bottle and a pair of drumsticks.
“I didn’t know you brought drumsticks,” she said as they returned to their giant snowman.
“I never know when an impromptu drum solo might be required.”
Eric lifted Rebekah onto his shoulders and handed her the cheese curls to serve as eyes and the slender bit of greasy sausage for the mouth. He stuck the drumsticks in either side for the arms.
“Give me the nose,” Rebekah said, leaning over his head to peer at him upside down.
“We don’t have a nose,” he said, ramming the green plastic bottle into the snowman at crotch level. “It’s a boy!”
“Eric! That’s totally inappropriate,” she admonished, but she was laughing so hard, she was at risk from toppling from his shoulders. “And some little kid might see it.”
Eric pulled the bottle out of the snow, leaving an open hole behind. “It’s a girl!” He handed the bottle up to Rebekah and, as the bottle was too large for the smallish head, she just used the cap to make the nose. She also pulled off Eric’s hat and slipped it on the snowman’s head.
“Well, now I’m cold,” Eric said as the chill seeped through his sweat-dampened hair. “Let’s go in.”
She didn’t have a choice but to go where he wanted, as he held her trapped on his shoulders, her calves pressed securely into his chest. He nearly knocked her out on the door frame when he entered their rented room. The bed looked more inviting now. Maybe because his companion was laughing now. And he knew that after fun came fucking.
He tumbled her off his shoulders onto the bed, cursing winter tenfold as he struggled to remove layer upon layer of outerwear. He was really looking forward to Tahiti—if for no other reason than having far fewer clothes to remove when the mood struck him.
Chapter Ten
When they crossed the border from New Hampshire into Maine the next day, Rebekah turned her head to read the big blue sign: Welcome to Maine: The Way Life Should Be. She hoped that sign proved true, but she feared Eric’s life shouldn’t be this way at all. The closer they got to Bangor, the further Eric retreated into himself. Maybe they should head directly for the airport and skip meeting his grandparents. If he suggested the idea, Rebekah would support his decision, but he never brought it up. Perhaps she was reading his silence wrong. Maybe he was excited. She’d never known the man to be withdrawn when he was excited before, but she was always discovering new things about him.
They rolled into town mid-afternoon. Bangor had seen snowfall too, evidenced by banks of dirty snow on the edges of the road. The trees were bare and patches of yellowed grass peeked through the thin blanket of white. As they journeyed to the suburbs, Rebekah smiled at the whimsical, lopsided snowman in one yard. The one she and Eric had finished at their hotel the night before had been far superior—or at least larger.
She craned her neck to gawk at a spectacular nativity scene. Rebekah noted that with a wintery backdrop, Christmas decorations didn’t seem out of place the way they did next to palm trees in California. Except those nativity scene camels. Camels looked much better in sand than in snow. She reached over to their Christmas tree now decorating the gap between the front seats and touched the glass ornament Eric had selected. He’d found his heart this year, he’d said. And now he would find his family. What could be better than that?
The navigation program on her phone instructed them to turn into a cul-de-sac. “Your destination is on the right,” the feminine voice said as the van rolled to a stop.
“There it is!” Rebekah pointed to a giant contemporary-styled house that looked very similar to every other giant, contemporary-styled house in the subdivision.
“It doesn’t look like the kind of house grandparents should live in,” Eric said, craning his neck to take in the entire structure.
“What kind of house should grandparents live in?”
He focused his gaze on her face. “One like mine.”
Her heart produced a hard thud. She had always suspected that he’d bought his whimsical Victorian-style yellow house to compensate for his missing family. His admission pretty much proved her theory.
“So what do you want to do?”
He shut off the van and engaged the parking brake. “I’m not sure. Can I just sit here and think about it for a minute? I don’t know what to say to them.”
“Just introduce yourself.”
He scratched his neck. “I was just in the neighborhood after driving three thousand miles and thought I’d stop by to say hey, you have a twenty-eight year old grandson you’ve never acknowledged.”
“Maybe something a little less accusatory,” she suggested. “They obviously have no clue you exist, or surely they would have taken you in. Based on the size of this house, they could easily afford to.”
“They could have recently hit the lottery or something. My mother was a crack whore. Rich people don’t raise crack whores.”
“I wish you wouldn’t refer to her like that,” Rebekah said. She knew his mother had abandoned him, knew that his childhood had been horrible and lonely, knew that he had no reason to think of the woman kindly, but she was his mother. Shouldn’t that require at least a little respect?
Eric snorted. “I’m not referring to her as anything she wasn’t. According to my medical records, I was born addicted to crack. According to police records, the woman was arrested for prostitution. So I think I’m entitled to call her whatever I want to call her, especially if it’s the truth.”
It was so hard for Rebekah to relate to that part of his past. She’d been very sheltered growing up. She’d never even seen a crack whore, much less could she claim one as her mother.
“Perhaps we can refer to her as a lady of the evening instead,” Rebekah suggested.
“Cra
ck lady of the evening doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“Maybe we just call her your mother and leave out any description.”
There was a loud rap on Rebekah’s window. She jumped at the sound, not having heard the approach of the woman standing next to the bus.
“You can’t park here,” the woman yelled through the glass.
Rebekah rolled down the window and found herself looking into eyes so like Eric’s that she couldn’t draw air.