Uncertain Meanings Read online

  UNCERTAIN MEANINGS

  By Robin Renee Ray

  Dedication

  Simply to my amazing and wonderful, mommy!

  Edna Jeanette Miller…Without her this book would have never come to life.

  “UNCERTAIN MEANINGS”

  By Robin Renee Ray

  ©Copyright Robin Renee Ray July 2013

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  “Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.”

  Uncertain Meanings is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, or places, events or locales is coincidental. These characters are purely of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.

  This e-book contains material not suitable for readers 17 and under.

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  She sat in her own private silence, staring at the oblong brass colored coffin surrounded by her deceased husband’s family. Her mind absorbed nothing but the sight before her and the knowledge of what lie inside. Afflicted with the horror that was swamping her every thought—the events that had put her husband in his eternal encasement. Crystal Rivers was the only child of parents that had long since passed. She now sat among the only family she had been around since she and James were married ten years prior, feeling like she was completely alone in a world of disbelief and utter confusion.

  Folding metal chairs draped with floor-length green covers engulfed her. Flowers of every kind released a mixture of fragrances that blended with horrific emotions, brewed the perfect onslaught of nausea which now coursed its way from the pit of her stomach to the back of her throat. Crystal swayed slightly and James’s uncle placed his hand on her shoulder from behind, pulling her back up against the chair to steady her. She reached back and patted his hand, while thoughts of running to anywhere but where she was invaded her mind, as she desperately tried to regain her composure.

  Every direction she turned she saw someone looking at her, nodding their heads like they knew how she felt, or smiling as if they had some hidden secret she wasn’t supposed to know. So she reluctantly looked back at the coffin and for the hundredth time thinking, How can this be true? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Then a word like ‘forgotten’ or ‘loved one’ spoken by the priest, would slip into her state of mentality and slowly draw her back to reality.

  Chapter One

  The visitors continued to pay their respects for the rest of the day and it was close to seven thirty that evening before the last of them prepared to leave. Crystal’s mother-in-law, Louise Rivers, thanked them for coming while receiving condolences from all who walked out, as her father-in-law, James Sr.—better known as Jim—stood on the lawn smoking his pipe with two other gentlemen who were waiting on their wives. When the last of the well-wishers had left, Mrs. Rivers closed the door and turned around to stare at Crystal with her head tilted slightly to the side, and her hands clasped together in front of her substantially healthy abdomen.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be alright in this big old house, Crystal?” Mrs. Rivers asked. “I just don’t feel right leaving you here by yourself.”

  “I’m fine, I think I just need some time alone,” she replied as she sat down on the edge of the couch.

  “You will call if you need me, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said, standing to give her a hug. “Haven’t I always? You’ve been just like a mother since James and I married.”

  “And I always will be. Now, you get some rest and I’ll call you tomorrow around noon,” she said, kissing Crystal on the forehead.

  Crystal walked her to the door and locked up as soon as she was gone. She walked into the kitchen, turned off the lights and left the mess that was in the sink for the next day. As she ran her fingers along the handrail at the foot of the staircase, she was flooded by a rush of memories that dropped her to her knees. James had carried her into the house the night they’d moved in and made it as far as the bottom step before he had her seated on the third, half nude, christening their home for the first time. It was the very rail that she held now that the two of them had broken in the heat of passion that night.

  She cried, knowing that everything in the house was going to haunt her very being with the thoughts of the love that she and James had shared. At one time he had been her knight in shining armor. He was the most romantic man she had ever known and the most beautiful part that she loved about him was the fact that he had always wanted a family, one day. There was always that pause at the unending tone of his mother’s harsh voice, demanding things be done in an orderly fashion. But there wasn’t anything she could have wanted that he didn’t do his best to give her. James had worked hard to get the promotion at his father’s company that would ensure them the future they so badly wanted. In that timely fashion.

  She bypassed their bedroom altogether and forced herself down the hall to the guestroom instead. She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through her dark brown hair as best she could past the pound of hairspray her mother-in-law had applied. She reached back and unzipped her black dress, pushing it, along with her pantyhose down her legs and onto the floor where she had every intention of leaving them. Leaving her slip on she laid back and collapsed on the pillows.

  It didn’t take long for the exhausting rollercoaster events of the day to take her into the world of darkness. At first, she lay in peace dreaming of nothing, caressing the sanctity of just not wanting to be. The phone rang and she fumbled to find it.

  “Hello?” she mumbled.

  “Hey babe, I got it!”

  “James, is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me, are you okay?” he asked. “Were you asleep?”

  “I...I must have dozed off. What did you get, sweetie?” she asked, sitting up rubbing her eyes.

  “I got the promotion. Next thing you know, I’ll be president of the company just like the old man. Looks like we can start working on that family now,” he proudly proclaimed, then softly whispered, “You’re the finest Crystal God ever made, you know that babe?”

  “James Rivers, have I told you that I love you today? Oh yeah, one more thing before I forget,” she said and then paused, fishing for him to say the word ‘what’.

  “Am I supposed to say what?” he asked laughing.

  “Don’t make me use your middle name, young man, but seriously…”

  “Okay…what?”

  “I stopped taking the pill three months ago,” she blurted out in record time, fumbling the words.

  “You’re not stacking the pillows?”

  “James!” she yelled with a snicker. “I stopped taking the pill three months ago.”

  When he didn’t reply right away, she cleared her throat and got ready to explain herself, but suddenly she heard a beep over the phone.

  “Sorry babe, I had to charge the battery. So, are we pregnant yet?” he asked, sounding nervous and excited at the same time.

  She smiled, biting at her bottom lip then with the same tone replied, “I wanted to wait to take the test when you were home, but I should have started around ten days ago.
”

  “Then we have a chance, a huge chance,” he cheered with joy.

  Then all she heard for the next few minutes were hollers of “Yes!” and “I’m gonna be a dad!” and even one “That’s right, buddy, I’m gonna have a baby, you got a problem with that?” She laid back on the couch and smiled as he carried on the small conversation with the passing traffic. He eventually came back on the phone and called out her name. “Crystal!”

  “I’m still here, you just blew out my eardrum,” she replied, giggling.

  “I’m sorry. I completely forgot I was on the phone. I have to stop for a bottle of wine and maybe even that green stuff you like so much.”

  “James, if there’s a chance that I might be pregnant, do you think it’s a good idea that I drink?”

  “You have a point. Hey, I’m a first timer here,” he laughed. “But a bottle of wine can’t hurt the father-to-be. You haven’t mentioned any of this to…”

  “Why would you even ask?”

  “Sorry, I know, stupid thing to ask. I’ll see you very soon.”

  “It’s late, you be careful. Call me on your way home and I’ll talk dirty to you,” she teased.

  “Promises, promises. I have you on speed dial, baby, you’re my main squeeze.”

  “Love you,” she said.

  “Love you, too, momma,” he replied, then hung up to her giggles.

  It was an extremely dark night on the edge of the city and not the safest place to be stopping during the day, much less after the sun went down. James knew he would have to turn around and drive several miles back into the city to find a good place to pick up the wine, which would cost major time, or he could just suck it up and pull over at the little liquor store that was in between the city and the suburbs where they lived.

  He decided to take the short route and stop at the one on the way home. He pulled up beside an old blue truck that was covered in patches of rust and primer. He stepped out and stretched. After taking a look around, he noticed there were no other vehicles in the parking lot but his and the truck, and felt it was safe to go in. He took out his phone and snapped a photo of himself standing in front of the florescent-lit seventies style liquor store, then sent it to his wife as a joke. Something they often did when they couldn’t be together and found themselves in front of odd or old things.

  As soon as he walked around and opened the door, the blast took him in the chest, spinning his body back out the door and plunged him onto the cracked cement sidewalk. He painfully opened the phone and hit the only number that meant anything to him.

  “Hello? James, are you there?” she asked, recognizing his number on the caller ID.

  “I…love…you,” he said, forcing the air out with every word.

  “Honey, what’s wrong? Where are you?” she asked frantically.

  “He’s got a phone!” she heard a man yell from a distance, followed by a sound that shook her world; the second blast of the gun—the blast that took James’s life.

  She shot up in the bed, covered in sweat, the same way she had every night since the night he was murdered. The sun was peeking under the window blinds, indicating that she had been asleep the entire night and not just two or three hours, which was something that didn’t happen often. She climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. After brushing her teeth, she turned on the shower and undressed while the water got warm. She ran her hands slowly over her nude abdomen. She knew she needed to take the pregnancy test sooner or later and decided to do it after her shower.

  She took her time washing the multiple layers of hairspray out of her hair, swearing to never let her mother-in-law get near her head again. She opened the shower curtain, grabbing the towel from the rack, and dried her hair a bit before wrapping the towel around her body. She stood and stared at the medicine cabinet a good five minutes before she opened it and took out the test. She opened the bright pink box and read the directions, gathered what she needed and then did as it instructed.

  A few minutes later, the test strip lay on the counter while she paced the large bathroom wearing nothing but her towel. The timer went off, causing her to jump and spin around, whacking her knee on the edge of the cabinet. As she bent over to grab her knee, she looked down and saw the pink line that ran across the white test strip. The sight took her by surprise, which made her other hand miss its mark on the countertop, causing her body to collide with the bathroom floor.

  She rolled over on her back, too afraid to look again and mesmerized because she already had. She opened the towel over her lower body and placed her hand lightly on her belly, just above her pelvic bones. Tears found a path down the sides of her face as she remembered the last conversation she’d had with her husband. He had given her a gift beyond words, but as she lay there, she realized she had to get away from all that she and James once were. Life without him was more than she could bear, even without all the constant reminders in this house, starting over was the only way she could see to help put her mind where it needed to be to raise their baby.

  ***

  Two weeks later, she was sitting in their lawyer’s office, listening to him ramble on about things she had absolutely no interest in. She was staring out the window when he asked if she’d heard anything he’d been saying.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mrs. Rivers, this is a very serious matter and your attention would be highly appreciated. I know this is a delicate matter to deal with, but a matter that needs to be dealt with nonetheless. There is no need for you to ignore me, it’s childish, don’t you agree?” he attempted to speak professionally.

  “Mr. Warner, I’ll give you ten minutes to wrap this up before I get up and walk out of this office for the last time, and if you ever speak to me like that again, it’ll be you that needs a lawyer,” she replied, never once taking her eyes off of his.

  “Yes, let’s get on with this, shall we?” he said clearing his throat after every other word.

  Once he’d finished, she found out that James had taken out a large life insurance policy a month after they were married. He had added a new plan to it every year of their marriage, bringing it to over a million and a half dollars in the ten years that they had been together. James wanted half of the money to be split in each of his children’s account, if he had any at the time of his death, and the rest was left to Crystal to be used as she saw fit. The home belonged to his side of the family, long before they had gotten married, and his wish was that it remained in his family if he had no children to inherit it.

  Louise was a bit more proud than Crystal thought she should have been about taking the place she and James had called home for the past ten years, even “requesting” that Crystal find a new place as soon as possible, so that she and Jim could “move on”. Crystal was taken aback, not so much by the request, but by Louise’s apparent disregard for her feelings. To Crystal’s amazement, she actually appeared upset that she didn’t get more, scorning after each new revelation and whispering who-knows-what into Jim’s ear, who simply continued to stare down at his hands.

  Crystal thought long and hard about telling the Rivers family about her unborn child, the only thing left of their son, but couldn’t get over Mrs. Rivers reaction at the reading of the will. Were they only kind to me because of the love that James had for me? she thought as she left the lawyer’s downtown office.

  “Would you like to join us for lunch, dear?” Mrs. Rivers asked.

  “No, I think I’ll just go start packing.”

  “Now don’t be upset, it’s not like he left you with nothing,” Mrs. Rivers snubbed.

  “Is this how it’s going to be now that James is dead? You can have the house, I only stayed there because he wanted to, not because I ever liked it,” she said as tears streamed down her face. “I was already thinking of leaving. Now I have two reasons.”

  “Now, Crystal, we need to sit down and talk about this,” Mr. Rivers said taking her by the arm.

  “Let me go, Jim, I mean it. I’ve had al
l I can take,” she glared, pulling away from him.

  “I’ll be out by the end of next week and you’ll never see me again.”

  She ignored the crowd of people that had stopped to watch the growing argument and walked right through them like they weren’t even there. She drove from the city in the same direction that James had taken the night he was murdered, paying no mind to the choice she’d made until she saw the yellow tape still blocking the entrance to the liquor store. She swerved the car and hit the brakes, sliding in front of another car, almost causing a collision. She eased the car to the side of the interstate, letting the other vehicles pass in safety and killed the motor.

  Her heart beat so hard she could feel it in the base of her ears. The fear of not only her near miss, but the event that had happened less than a month ago was all too overwhelming. She slowly raised her head to look around and noticed she would have to back up ten or fifteen yards to be back in front of the liquor store. The impulses inside her were pulling her in two different directions; one telling her to put the car in drive and never look back, the other giving her no choice but to go back and see where her husband took his last breath. In the end, the latter won.

  Crystal backed the car up until she faced the drive that led up to the front of the store. She put her hand on the gear stick, tapped her finger a few times and then put the car in drive. She didn’t put her foot on the gas, but instead let the car coast up to the store as she watched the ever growing yellow tape. It wasn’t until she stopped the car and hit the high beams that she saw the white marks on the sidewalk next to the door.

  She stepped out of the car, leaving one foot in and looked around, still not sure that what she was doing was even close to the smartest thing she’d ever done, but the compulsion was more than she could control. Crystal finished stepping out but left the door open as she slowly walked around to the front of the car. It was only then that she figured out what the white marks on the sidewalk were; the outline of James’s body, the very spot where he had died.