Color of Forgiveness (40 page)

He has numerous messages from people wanting
work done on their houses. He deletes every one of them without
even listening to them. There are several from his mom and Natalie,
which he also immediately deletes. He stops and listens to one from
Chad. “
Bro, answer your goddamn phone. Don’t pull this avoidance
shit on us like you used to do. Call me back and I promise I won’t
talk about what a douche you are. We’ll talk about happy shit like
Gears of War or something. And if you don’t call me back, I promise
you that I’ll make a little visit to Nyssa and put your douchey ass
in a headlock.”

As Dylan hits delete, he can’t help the
small smirk that creeps up on his face. He’ll call Chad back later
because he knows his brother will keep his promise and show up and
kick his ass.

Once he gets his voicemail cleaned out and
finishes his cigarette, he tucks his phone back in his pocket and
gets out of his truck, stretching his back. He walks up to Myra’s
door and lets himself in, locking the door behind him.

“Dylan?” Myra softly calls his name.

He stops and shoves his hands in his pockets
and turns to look at her sitting on the couch. “Can I talk to you
for a minute?” she asks.

“Not now,” he grunts. “I’ve got shit to
do.”

“Please? It’ll only take a minute. It’s
about last night…”

“I don’t have time,” he snaps before he
stomps off towards the kitchen.

* * *

“Did you make a doctor’s appointment yet?”
Susie asks before she makes loud crunching noises in Myra’s
ear.

“What are you eating?” Myra asks.

“Why? Do I sound like a pig in a trough?”
Susie retorts before snorting loudly. “I feel like one. I’m at that
Mexican restaurant we used to go to by work. I needed to shove my
face in some nachos today. I’m having such a pissy day. Lori was
supposed to come with me, but she canceled. And I don’t want to
hear anything about my diet. I’ve fallen off the chuck wagon again.
No, I’ve not fallen off; I’m actually
eating
the chuck wagon
right now. God, I hate myself. Now quit distracting me and answer
my question.”

“Yes, I made the appointment. They can fit
me in next week. Natalie called me yesterday and asked me about it,
too.”

“I’m really starting to like this Natalie
chick. She sounds pretty awesome. Oh, blasted hairy monkey
balls,
”
she mumbles. “Hang on.” Myra hears a lot of
commotion and more mumbled curses before Susie finally comes back
on the line. “Damn guacamole. I just dropped a humongous chunk of
it. I think I did that the last time we ate together. Ugh! It
bounced off my tit and landed with a splat on my lap. I do this
every single time I each nachos. I now have a big green blob where
my nipple should be. Stupid green goop,” she growls, causing Myra
to giggle.

“See? This is how my entire day has been. It
started last night in the middle of the night. I got up to go pee
and walked into the bathroom in the dark, feeling my way around. I
plopped down on the toilet, did my business and reached for the
toilet paper, and guess what? Of course there was nothing there but
the empty roll. Jeff, that ignorant idiot, was the last one in the
bathroom last night, and he didn’t bother to change the roll or
tell me about it. So I reached in the bottom of the cabinet, and of
course there was no more toilet paper.

“So I just sat there in the dark, half
asleep, trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Then I
remembered I had a box of pads under the sink so I reached over to
pull them out, and the box was empty. So the only option I had left
was to use my hand towel, which I absolutely refused to do because
I love those towels. They’re the purple ones with the gold trim, do
you remember?” she asks but doesn’t give Myra a chance to answer.
“Anyway, I then considered yelling at Jeff to get his sorry no good
ass up to get me some toilet paper because this was his fault to
begin with, but I knew if I did that, he’d never go back to sleep,
and then he’d want to have sex and no way was I having sex with
that moron after he put me in that position in the first place so I
just said screw it all.

“So I decided to just sit there and drip
dry. I rested my head against my hands and dozed off, and my head
bobbed, and I jerked so hard that I swear to god, I almost fell off
the damn toilet. It would’ve scared the peediddle out of me but I’d
already peediddled. So I just gave up and took the toilet paper
roll off and used that to wipe with. It hurt my lady parts
something fierce, let me tell you.”

Myra laughs so hard she can barely
breathe.

“It’s not
that
funny,” Susie growls
as she starts crunching chips loudly again.

“Wait,” Myra says as she tries to get her
giggling under control. “Why didn’t you just use your underwear to
wipe with?”

“My underwear…?” Susie asks in a confused
voice. She’s quiet for a minute. “Oh my god... I was half asleep,
Myra. Half of my brain wasn’t working because it was off counting
sheep. I’m so
stupid.
I didn’t even think about using my
underwear. I’m a complete idiot.”

Myra wipes tears from her eyes. “That was
hilarious. I
really
needed to laugh. Thank you.”

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself. My whole day
has just been one fiasco after the next. So, how’s giant dickhead
douche brain doing? He’s been demoted from sweet dick after
everything you told me he did last night and this morning. Any
change? Is he still not talking to you?”

“No. I made him and his dad lunch a few
hours ago, but he wouldn’t even look at me. I’m at a loss as to
what to do.”

“I know what you should do. You should go
book a plane ticket to come visit me and put some distance between
the two of you. Distance worked for him last time. Maybe it’ll
knock some sense into him again.”

“No, I’m not going to run away. I have to
stay here and face this. It’s only been a few days, and he needs
time to—”

“That’s bullshit. You let that man get away
with murder. He treats you like crap on his boot, and you just take
it and constantly defend him. If I were you—”

“But you’re not me! Don’t try to tell me
what
you
would do because we are two totally different
people. I understand that you love me and you’re worried about me,
but I have to figure this thing out on my own. And believe it or
not, I understand Dylan. I know he’s said awful things to me and
treated me like shit. I’m not stupid. But that’s only because he’s
hurting. I
have
to try to help him figure things out. I
have
to. I love him, Susie.”

Susie sighs. “I know, honey, I know. You’re
right. God, I’m so sorry. I have such a stupid, insensitive mouth
sometimes. How about I just shove it full of chips and shut the
hell up?”

“I just have to give him some more time. I
have a lot of patience and I’ll wait for him as long as I need
to.”

“You’re a daggone saint, Myra. You make me
look like Satan’s sidekick. If I was in your position, I would have
cooked Dylan’s ass by now.”

“I know.”

“You’re exactly what that man needs. He’s so
lucky to have you even if he doesn’t realize it right now. Well, I
gotta go, hon. I only have fifteen minutes left to shovel in as
many nachos as I can. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

* * *

“I’m gonna go smoke,” Dylan tells his
dad.

“All right, I’m about due for a coffee
break,” Dennis says.

Dylan heads downstairs and steps out onto
Myra’s front porch and lights up. He pulls out his phone to call
Chad, figuring he might as well get it over with. Just as he starts
to dial him, his phone rings. He frowns as he looks down at the
caller ID.

Boise Behavioral Health Associates.

Shrugging, he decides to answer it. He needs
to cancel that appointment anyway.

“Hello?”

“May I speak to Dylan Lawson?”

“Speaking…”

“Oh, hi, this is Paige from
Boise
Behavioral Health Associates
just calling to confirm your
appointment tomorrow with Dr. Mitchum at—”

“Hold on, I need to cancel that
appointment.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, Dr. Mitchum is in right now
so how about I put you through to her so that you can
reschedule?”

“No. You don’t need to do that—”

“Hang on and I’ll put you through.”

He mouths the word
fuck
and almost
hangs up. He walks towards his truck and climbs in.

“Dylan? This is Dr. Mitchum… Paige told me
that you have to cancel?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay, let’s see when we can reschedule
you…”

“I’m not coming back, at least not for a
while.”

“Oh. May I ask why? I would really like to
encourage you to give it a chance. I know I can help you, Dylan,
and I hate to see you give up on it so soon.”

“No, it’s not like that,” he says, shutting
his eyes tight. He’s not really sure where to begin. “Remember that
woman I told you I was seeing?”

“Yes.”

“Well, someone tried to break into her
house, and they vandalized her car. We don’t know who did it, but I
just can’t leave her right now.” He runs his hand through his hair.
“Things are really complicated, and I have to protect her. So it’s
not that I
want
to cancel on you; it’s just because I
literally
have
to.”

“Oh my goodness, that’s terrible, Dylan, and
I understand your situation completely. Are the police
involved?”

“Yeah, but they don’t have any evidence so
they have nothing to go on right now.”

“That has to be very frightening for you.
You care for this woman, correct?”

“Yeah, I do. A lot…” Dylan nervously clears
his throat. “Would you, I mean, could we do this over the phone
instead of me coming into the office? Ah, never mind, that’s just
fucking stupid.”

“Hmm… well, it
is
highly unusual
since I typically only see my clients in the office—”

“Yeah… just forget it.”

“Dylan, I wasn’t done talking. Please let me
finish.”

Dylan’s brows pull together.

“I was going to say that normally I only see
my clients in the office, but I think your particular circumstance
changes things a bit. Since you’re paying me cash for your visits
since your insurance doesn’t cover mental health, we don’t have
those issues to deal with. So I would be more than happy to
schedule our meetings via telephone conference on a temporary basis
until things settle down for you. I really think that I can help
you, Dylan, and I’m willing to go the extra mile to prove to you
that I can.”

He just sits there stunned.

“Are you still there?” she asks.

“Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

“Do you want to keep our appointment as is
for tomorrow or would another time work better for you?”

Dylan looks up at Myra’s door. “Well, do you
have any time right now?”

“Actually I do. My next patient isn’t due
for another hour or so.”

Dylan rubs his hand over the back of his
neck. “So much shit has happened that I don’t even know where to
begin. My life is kind of falling apart right now.”

“Why do you think it’s falling apart? Is it
because of this person that’s after your friend?”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. But it mainly
started when… when she told me she was pregnant…

* * *

Myra’s phone rings. It’s Natalie.

“Hi,” she answers.

“Hey, Myra, how are you feeling?”

“About the same… still pretty nauseous...
How are
you
feeling?”

“Not too bad. Jilly’s been kicking me hard
in the ribs today.”

Myra smiles.

“Chad should be there anytime to pick Dennis
up,” Natalie says. “How are you and Dylan doing? Have you two been
able to talk any? All three of us have been trying to call him, but
he’s ignoring our calls again.”

“No, we’re not really talking. I’ve been
trying
to talk to him, but he won’t give me a chance. So I’m
just going to give him some space for now.”

“I wish that man wasn’t so stubborn. How
long are you going to stay with Jackie?”

“Probably a few more nights…”

“That’s good. Were you able to schedule an
OB appointment?”

“Yeah, it’s next week in Boise.”

“Good. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Maybe you
could talk Dylan into going to see that therapist while you’re at
your appointment,” Natalie says. Myra frowns. “Oh. Oh, Myra. I
didn’t mean it like that…”

Myra’s eyes tear up and her heart sinks. Of
course Dylan wouldn’t want to go with her to her first doctor’s
appointment because he doesn’t want anything to do with this
baby.

“I’m so sorry,” Natalie says, her voice
choking up. “Please forgive me.”

A tear streaks down Myra’s face.

She can hear Natalie sniffling. “Myra, I’m
so
sorry. I feel just awful for saying that. I didn’t mean
it like that at all. I just… If I wasn’t stuck on this couch, I’d
be going to that appointment with you. You are
not
going to
that appointment by yourself. Sherri will go with you. I know she’d
be thrilled to go.”

Myra sniffs and quickly wipes her eyes.
“That’s okay. I can go by myself.” She doesn’t want people doing
things for her out of guilt.

“You’re
not
going by yourself, Myra,”
Natalie says in a firm voice. “I’ll have Sherri call you later to
talk about this some more, okay? I’m so sorry that I hurt your
feelings. I honestly can’t imagine what you’re going through right
now.”

“It’s okay, Natalie. I know you didn’t mean
anything by it.”

Natalie sighs. “All right, I’ll call you
tomorrow, okay?”

They say their goodbyes and Myra hangs up.
She lies down on her bed, curling up in a ball and lets the truth
and the pain of Natalie’s innocent words sink in.