Read Online No Defense by Rangeley Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

that
smile. He seemed surprised at what he saw, and I felt a connection
between us that had been missing for some time. I took his hand.
Together we walked through the sliding-glass hospital doors into
the fancy new building not fifty yards from the old hospital snack
bar where we’d first met.
    Will and Hank were born ten hours later,
identical twins. Will weighed six pounds nine ounces, Hank six
pounds five ounces.
    The afternoon following the births, Eddie
came to my hospital room carrying a grocery bag in the crook of his
arm. I was sitting up in bed in a standard-issue blue and white
hospital gown. He set the bag down at the foot of my bed, kissed
me, then stood for a few moments with his back to me, watching his
two sleeping sons in their clear plastic hospital bassinets, both
swaddled in blue receiving blankets. They were turned on their left
sides. Tiny white cotton caps covered their thin, fuzzy layers of
light brown hair.
    “I nursed them twice,” I said proudly. “Once
in the middle of the night. Once this morning. They’ve slept the
rest of the time.”
    Eddie turned to look at me. “They’re playing
that trick Jessie played.” He laughed. “Being real good, sleeping a
lot in the hospital, waiting ‘til they get home to stay up all
night. How do you feel?”
    “I feel great,” I said. “I took a shower,
ate a huge breakfast, and even slept some.”
    “Those are the good hormones. They just give
those out in the hospital too, if I remember correctly,” he
said.
    “I wasn’t that bad last time, was I?”
    “You were just exhausted. And this time will
be three times as hard.” He rubbed his hand across the stubble on
his chin.
    “Did you get any sleep?” I asked.
    He pulled up a chair next to my bed and
shook his head. “Instead I drove out to Six Flags this morning,
thinking I might apply for that job I told you about.”
    “And I told you not to even think about
that,” I said. “You could never work there, Eddie. We’ll figure
something out.”
    “We don’t have any choice,” he said. “We
need help. We need a bigger place to live. We need money. We have
three children. So I went to Six Flags. I watched four people
drawing these ridiculous pictures of tourists. Making a big nose
bigger, a cowlick higher, and on and on, people paying half-assed
artists to make them look stupider than they already look. For two
hours I sat at a picnic table in the shadow of this huge roller
coaster called the Cyclone, where people stand in line for hours
just to scare themselves silly.” He sighed. “You’re right, LuAnn. I
couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t work there. I’d be dead or crazy
within a year. So I have a proposal We’ll go to Tallagumsa for that
year instead and see how it goes.” He held up one finger. “One
year.”
    Suddenly my mind was made up too. “Oh,
Eddie. Do you really mean it? You do! Tallagumsa will be wonderful.
I promise. How can it not be better?”
    “Lots of ways,” he said. “Anyway, I stopped
at the Piggly Wiggly and got boxes. They’re in the car. And I got
this.” He opened the grocery bag and pulled out a pie, paper
plates, and plastic ware. “Miss Reese’s strawberry pie. I think we
should buy one every week after we get there to remind us that we
can leave; that if the time comes to leave, we go the way Liz Reese
did-as fast as we can and we don’t look back.” He cut a piece of
the pie and put it on a paper plate. “Pie, anyone?” he asked.
    “Yes, please. I’m starving.”
    He handed me the piece.
    I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you,
Eddie Garrett.”
    “One year,” he repeated. “I love you too,
LuAnn Hagerdorn.”

 
    CHAPTER
SIX

    As soon as Eddie left my hospital room, I
called my father for the second time in less than twenty-four hours
and gave him the latest good news: We’d be moving to Tallagumsa as
soon as we could pack and say good-bye to everyone.
    “I have no idea how long that will take,” I
warned him, “with