Page 3 of Forever Christmas
Chapter 2: Gavin
Despite the decent news, Corabelle definitely doesn’t seem to be doing too well after the doc visit.
“I don’t have to go back to Bud’s,” I tell her. “Why don’t we do something together today?” We approach my motorcycle and I unlock our helmets. “There’s a rock in the desert with our name on it.”
Corabelle peers up at the sun. Summer is approaching,and the morning coolness has mostly burned off. San Diego isn’t one for blazing temperatures, although the desert will certainly be warm.
“I’m not sure I’m dressed for a desert rock,” she says, gesturing to her jeans and long-sleeved shirt.
“Where we’re going, we don’t need clothes,” I say with a wink.
This gets her attention. Her eyebrows lift. “We should make a snack stop on the way. At leastfor water.”
She’s on board.
“Ever practical,” I say, slinging a leg over the bike and waiting for her to settle in behind me. I hide my relief, as if I knew all along that she would come. “I could stand to melt some chocolate on your belly, though.”
This gets a small laugh. “Sounds messy,” she says.
“All the better to lick you.”
Now the bigger laugh.
This is working.
I fire up the bikeand we take off like a jet from the parking lot, the gloomy building, and the freeze-dried nurse.
I’m more conscious than usual, though, of my crotch, the vibrations of the motor. Did this help or hurt my sperm count? I should have asked. I didn’t really ask any questions at all.
Pictures of my insides fill my head. Cartoon squigglies with long pointy tails, bumping around and popping like balloonsuntil only a few remain.
I wash cold with the idea. Damn, I need to ditch that image.
I focus on the city passing by in a blur. Buildings. Trees. We get on the highway and zip alongside cars. Gradually, my buzzing head starts to get quiet. I can see the mountains in the distance, the red-brown of the desert hills before it.
The landscape gets quieter, the streets fewer and farther apart. Weapproach a gas station and Corabelle taps my arm. I pull in.
“I’ll go,” she says. “You stay with the bike.”
She’s always worried about losing the few things we have. I want to keep things easy today. Corabelle’s way, no questions asked.
She’s only inside a minute, coming out with bottles of water and a bag of trail mix. She holds up a bar of chocolate. That’s my girl. She unzips the cargo bagattached to the back of the seat and sticks everything inside.
Then we’re off again, into the desert, the air drying out. Traffic all but disappears, midmorning on a workday, and it feels like the entire world is ours.
I know where I want to take her. It’s a spot we went to early on, when we first found each other again in astronomy class.
My gut tightens, just thinking about how close we cameto spending our entire lives apart.
Our history is long, going back to childhood, my parents’ house across the back alley. Corabelle was my first love, my only love, and we were inseparable even as toddlers. She saved me from my father. He wouldn’t lay a hand on me in front of her. So I practically lived at her house.
Then high school came and she got pregnant. The town helped us out with aplace to live. We had plans to do college part-time with her parents’ help watching the baby.
Then Finn arrived two months early and with a heart condition. He lived seven days in the NICU.
My actions after that are not something I’m proud of. I blew up at Finn’s funeral and ended up walking out. At the time I was nothing but anger, frustration, and guilt. I got it in my head that the worldhad decided I should never be a father. So I drove my car to Mexico and tracked down a clinic willing to do the vasectomy no questions asked, happy for the cash in US dollars.
That’s what got me where we are now, trying to right the wrong, change our fate. I never thought I’d see Corabelle again, much less become her husband.
