Tag Archives: survival

Romance, Short Story, Teddy Bear

Ch. 5-Series Teddy Bear

Leave a comment

Tender Touch Gathers Strength

It’s been a few weeks now, I got a rickety old table at a garage sale for my dining room and the kids and I can eat our bacon and eggs for dinner together there. I can’t afford a whole lot for groceries so our diet is pretty meager. Good thing they like hot dogs without buns. That first weekend was pretty miserable without them, it killed me.  My heart felt like it was torn into.  I don’t think I ever have felt the emptiness inside me so badly, the loneliness, the despair.  It was something I’ve never felt before. I dread every weekend. And every Sunday night, the girls come back in such a state, all weekend their hair hasn’t been combed, it’s a tangled rat’s nest. Their clothes are filthy dirty and not the clothes I sent them to him with and he doesn’t return the clothes back. It’s so frustrating. They come back all upset and in a terrible mood. My youngest was potty trained and now she’s having accidents and cries in her sleep at night. I just wish I was a fly on the wall in that other house. I wish I knew what was going on. I went over there one weekend and he slammed the door on my face, saying I wasn’t allowed while he had visitation with the kids, I slapped him.  I was so angry. I have never been so angry in my life. In fact, I have felt so many new emotions these last few weeks it’s almost overwhelming.  I feel like I’m becoming a whole new person. I am becoming a whole new person.

The only good thing that has happened in the last few weeks is that I met a wonderful man, his name is Teddy Bear. Well, that’s his CB handle, it’s not his real name. But I like it better than his real name. He’s sweet, he’s kind, and he’s really good-looking.  He’s about six-foot-three, black hair, brown, gentle eyes, darker, olive-skinned man. He’s Italian.  I think I’m liking Italian men. He’s got a beard and a mustache and it’s very soft, not scratchy.  He’s kissed me good night a couple of times.  We talk every day on the CB and have coffee whenever we can or whenever he’s in the area.  He delivers gravel and his route in right in front of the apartment building.

He’s been good for me when the kids go to their father’s, staying in my apartment alone is nerve-wracking. I need my children.  I was made to be a mother.  It’s what I was meant to be. His conversation and coffee dates have occupied some of my time, he is planning to take me on a picnic next weekend.

Job hunting has not been very successful, I’m an overly educated, under-skilled woman. No one wants to hire me. But, I am determined.  Also, funny thing, over these few weeks in the apartment, gradually my sense of taste and smell is returning. I’m still pretty weak, and the rash is going away. I still get tired easily, but that’s probably just the stress, but food now tastes much better, maybe it’s just my own cooking now and not my husband’s. It is odd.

 

 

 

Romance, Short Story, Teddy Bear

Ch. 4-Series Teddy Bear

Leave a comment

Tender Touch and Teddy Bear

I listen intently on the citizen’s band radio, it’s quiet. She’s not on these days. I listen from the apartment across the courtyard with all the devices at my disposal. I hear her with the children.  She is putting up a good front for them.  She has managed this week to go the marriage home and day by day pick up few of their things that she could carry by herself.  A small TV for the kids, their toys, more of their clothes, their personal necessities, her clothes, a coffee table, some blankets, some pots and pans, some eating utensils.

But at night, after the children go to bed, I hear her quietly crying, every night. He calls her every day because he notices things are out of the house.  She reminds him, that it’s still legally her home too, she owns these things too.  She decorated the home, she supported him while he climbed the corporate ladder, she supported him and played the good little executive wife. She was a loyal and faithful wife, these are her things too.  He calls her a whore, he tells her she’s crazy and she should check herself into a mental hospital or why doesn’t  she just go back home to Kansas to her mother’s because she’ll never make it on her own. He’ll take away her kids so she’ll never see them again and he’s going to come on the weekend for his visitation.  She says visitation is only fair. But she will have joint custody of her children.  He was never there while they were together he was always gone. Traveling on trips, at parties, gone. She was the primary caregiver, she was there twenty-four hours a day.  He had no clue, but she will be fair.

The weekend comes and he comes to pick up the children on Friday night.  She hugs them tightly and kisses them with tears in her eyes as she watches them drive away.  This is the first time she has been without her children overnight, let alone a weekend. She’s devastated.  She runs up to the apartment, this time, she doesn’t cry quietly. I hear sobs, resounding sobs of despair.  She cries herself to sleep that night and wakes early in the morning to face a weekend alone for the first time in her life, she is totally alone.

I watch her get in the van and drive away.  I get in my truck and follow.

“Breaker, breaker one-nine, breaker breaker one-nine, Tender Touch, you out there?”, I query, hoping she has the radio in the van turned on. Crackle, crackle, “Breaker, breaker, you’ve got Tender Touch, is that you Teddy Bear?” She’s on.  I’m thrilled.  “Yep, sweetheart, it’s me, how you doin’ today?  Haven’t heard you on in a while.”  She weakly says, “Ok, hangin’ in there, hey, how about that cup of coffee, want to buy a girl a cup?” I smile to myself.  “I thought you were a happily married woman”, I radio back.  “That was last week, darlin'”, comes the reply.

We finally meet at Rosie’s Diner for that first cup of coffee and I get to see those beautiful green eyes, although red-rimmed from tears, they were the kindest and most gentle eyes I’d ever seen.  I ask her what she means by the last week statement knowing full well everything that has been going on.

I know things that she doesn’t.  I know about her husband’s affair with the young girl and the drugs.  I sold him the drugs, I hate to admit it, but I did. I’m not a nice guy.  In fact, I’m a really bad guy when compared to most people.  I’m the kind of person, you would not take home to mother.  I belong to a couple of organizations that, well, let’s say, I can’t tell you about, or I’d have to kill you, you know what I mean. I’m a biker. I’m Italian. I live on the East coast. Let’s just leave it at that.  She doesn’t know this about me. I’m a truck driver, that’s all.

Anyway, all she says is that she and her husband have separated and probably will not get back together again.  She doesn’t say anything bad about him. She just leaves it alone.  She does say he’s got the kids this weekend and she misses them terribly and she is looking for a job. But today, she’s got go to the garage sales to get her new apartment in better shape, to make it more like a home for the kids.  She also has to buy a typewriter to start writing her resumes and sending out job applications.  She hasn’t worked since she’s been married and although she has a degree she has never used it.  She’s a little worried.  She’s running out of money and soon summer will be over and she really needs the job before school starts.  Her oldest will start kindergarten and the youngest will be in preschool.

I buy her breakfast and we just sit and talk for a couple of hours about absolutely nothing. She doesn’t talk about him or her problems. She talks about what’s she’s looking for, the kinds of jobs, I talk about my family and all that kind of stuff.  I’m falling for her and beginning to feel guilty as hell at myself and angry as hell at him.  We part and I watch her drive away in that big blue van, I smile. I want to see her again, personally this time, not professionally.

 

Short Story, Teddy Bear

Ch. 3-Series Teddy Bear

1 Comment

Tender Touch’s Strange New World

I watch my husband drive away with his friend leaving me there in my new “home” with the girls and nothing but the clothes on our backs. Wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do now. I don’t have a job, he gave me a little money for groceries and he said he’d pay the rent and utilities until I got a job. I’m so sick. The doctor ordered complete bed rest for me, for me not to even get out of bed to eat, only to go to the bathroom and only to be on the main floor. How am I supposed to cope with all this?

We go up to our apartment and try to settle in.  The girls have a couple of their favorite toys, I’ll go back to the house tomorrow while he’s at work and get more things for them.  I don’t have the strength to do more or to argue with him.  We look around at the empty apartment.  The girls will sleep on the twin mattress, I’ll take the floor with a blanket.  Did I have one? There were some in the van.  I don’t have any food, I need to go shopping.  But I don’t have any utensils, dishes or anything.  Paper plates tonight, the house tomorrow.  Make a list of the essentials.  Get yourself together, girl, you can do this.  You don’t want to be with him, you know he’s cheating. You know he’s been acting strange lately. You know he’s been going out late three or four nights a week to “retirement” parties and going out for “doughnuts” early on Saturday mornings and not coming home until late.  You should have seen this coming.  You thought maybe he’d leave.  Not kick you out.  But lately, you’ve been getting so sick. You’ve had such bad headaches you couldn’t see straight, you’ve had to call him to watch the kids while you wished you could die.  You can’t taste anything, nothing smells good, everything smells like rotten eggs.  Your heart literally hurts, your body hurts, your bones hurt, you have a rash all over your body, you can barely move.  Yet he does nothing to help, except cook your meals. That he has helped with, thank goodness.  You can’t stand the smell of food.  You’ve lost a lot of weight.

Seeing the doctor yesterday was alarming to the doctor even, he was really worried about me.  Told me not to even try to drive home, I was in too bad of condition. An infection around my heart, myocardial infarction, I think he said and a bunch of other things, I can’t remember. I was about to pass out.  I waited in the bed of the van, I waited so long.  Finally, my husband came to pick me up at five o’clock.  We picked up the girls from the neighbors and he fixed dinner, I laid down on the sofa to rest. They watched TV.  When the girls went to bed, he came to the sofa while I was dozing and forced himself on me.  I told him no, over and over again. I was too sick, I hurt too much. But it didn’t matter to him. Then he went upstairs to bed and left me there. I stayed, I didn’t want to sleep with him. I couldn’t move anyway.

What am I going to do now? I’ve never lived on my own, let alone with two little ones depending on me.  I am alone, no family for thousands of miles, no friends, and a new world before me.

Short Story, Teddy Bear

Ch. 2-Series Teddy Bear

Leave a comment

Shattered Heart

I got a message on a private channel on the radio to call in, it was from him. She told him that the doctor had discovered that she was seriously ill, mysteriously ill.  She had an infection around her heart and was not to drive home.  He sounded anxious and nervous.  He said he had to do something quickly, he was soon to be discovered and had to get her out of the house.  He was supposed to go pick her up at the doctor’s, she wasn’t supposed to drive, but he had to get a few things settled first.  He told me to meet him at an apartment complex right off route 40.

What the hell was going on?  She was in pain and seriously ill, why wasn’t he going to pick her up?  I met him at the apartment complex a half an hour later. He had just signed a lease at the apartment and put it in her name, he had also signed a lease for an apartment across the courtyard for me—for surveillance. I was going to continue the watch, in fact, that’s not all he wanted me to do. He told me to set up the wiretap on the phone in her apartment and listening devices in the apartment across the way.  I was still supposed to seduce her, he was going to take away the children so she would never see them again. “She will be broken, she won’t be able to continue and will never be able to make it on her own”, he said.

It was getting late, close to 5 PM and she had been waiting in that van for him all this time. I can imagine the pain and anguish she was going through wondering where he was. He was putting the finishing touches on the betrayal, closing all the bank accounts, saving accounts and safe deposit boxes.  He took her name off all the credit cards. She hadn’t worked since they were married, she was a stay at home mother, she supported him climbing the corporate ladder, but he didn’t want her to have anything. He wanted her broken.

I stayed at the new apartment and set things up, tapped the phone line in the basement, then went over to my new place of operations.  Now, what did I need? Listening dish, recording device, what else.  I didn’t like this. He was too nervous and too hyper today, he just looked weird, he’s eyes looked glassy.  I felt uneasy at the thought of her alone with him tonight.

The next morning, I was ready and everything unfolded before me, I was mortified how he had treated her.Her illness was evident, she looked worse than yesterday, but today, tears were streaming down her face in confusion, as he unpacked the van with her and the two babies. He showed them their new home.  He left them with a twin bed mattress, a picnic table, the clothes on their backs and the van. He had a friend pick him up and sped away. She stood there with a baby in arms and a toddler, not understanding,  holding on to her hand. Her heart not only in pain from the illness, but shattered beyond repair.