Gone were the old days when a baby was born in its parents’ home. Erica, Constance’s new daughter, was born in a hospital while her father and the rest of the family lingered anxiously in a waiting room.
Joanna sat with Pauline, playing cards. Chad stayed home with the children. They had just purchased a nice home by the lake, close to Chad’s parents, and he was busy setting up the house for them.
Jobeth sat with Alan, lounging and idly talking.
George sat quietly alone, biting his nails, worrying about Constance and the baby. Little Patrick played with toy cars solemnly by his father’s feet.
No one noticed the storm moving toward them.
No one saw the dark-haired inferno charging forward, followed by her young companion.
“Well, well,” Mara-Joy announced, standing with hands on her hips. She was dressed in a blood-red dress that accentuated her curvy figure. A black mink coat was draped casually over her shoulders. She inhaled from the cigarette in her hand.
“Is this a private party or can any family member join?” she queried rather smugly.
Alan-Michael slouched beside her. When she began to speak, he straightened his shoulders proudly. She was such a woman of substance. Every time he was near her, he felt empowered.
“Mara-Joy.” Jobeth stood up, smiled and went to her daughter. She hugged her, kissing Mara-Joy’s cool cheek. “I am so glad you are here. You too, Mikey.”
Joanna and Pauline put down her cards as they both looked to Mara-Joy and Alan-Michael.
Joanna hadn’t seen Mara-Joy since that eventful day seven years before.
She hadn’t changed much. She was still beautiful, if not a little older looking, and very distinguished. By the looks of her attire, Mara-Joy was doing extremely well for herself.
Unconsciously, Joanna looked down at her simple dress. She couldn’t help but feel dowdy in front of the glamorous Mara-Joy. Ashamed at herself for feeling that way, she sat up straight.
This envy she had for Mara-Joy had to stop. It was the reason the two had torn their family apart for the last seven years and more. She wasn’t going to have it anymore. Especially when they were all here for Constance and her new baby.
Joanna could feel Mara-Joy’s eyes glaring at her and looked her straight in the eyes. She had forgotten how blue Mara-Joy’s eyes were and shivered involuntarily.
“Well, look who is here, Alan-Michael,” Mara-Joy said, eyes blazing with hate. “If it isn’t our traitor sister come back from the dead.”
Alan-Michael began to laugh like a weasel. Mara-Joy cracked him up--the things she would come up with.
Joanna stood up, her hands clutched tightly to her side.
“Mara-Joy,” she said, “it’s good to see you.”
“Hmph!” Mara-Joy said, turning away. “Where is my husband?” She swung venomously back around to Joanna. “I mean ‘ex-husband’ since you stole him from me.”
Joanna pulled back as though she had been physically struck. It was plain to see by Mara-Joy’s reaction that she was still very angry. Seven years hadn’t dampened her resentment.
“That will be enough, Mara-Joy!” Alan stood up and went to his eldest daughter. He stood defensively between Joanna and Mara-Joy, feeling the heat of bitterness between them.
“We are here for Constance and the child she is having right now. You two will have to settle your differences another time. It won’t be here while I am waiting for my grandchild to be born.” Alan was red with fury. “I won’t have this wonderful day ruined by the two of you and this continually senseless bickering.”
“Mama?” Mara-Joy wheeled to Jobeth for help, her black mink nearly falling from her shoulders.
Jobeth stood firmly beside Alan.
“I agree with your father. This is a day for Constance. The two of you will have to deal with each other another time. It will not be today,” she said dryly.
“This family has gone nuts!” Mara-Joy said, throwing her arms into the air.
“Come and sit with me while we wait,” Jobeth said, taking Mara-Joy’s mink clad arm. “The doctor said that it shouldn’t be much longer.”
Mara-Joy followed Jobeth to the waiting seats and plunked herself down beside her mother.
“I am here on behalf of my sister’s child,” Mara-Joy replied, taking out a decorated box from a bag she carried. It was beautifully wrapped with an elaborate gold bow on the top.
She looked over toward Joanna who was sitting back down with Pauline. They were eyeing Mara-Joy and Jobeth with caution.
“I have always been here for Constance’s children. I am their auntie. Since I have been robbed of any children of my own, I have always tried to be the doting aunt.” Mara-Joy dabbed the corner of her eye with a silk hanky from her black beaded purse.
Jobeth patted Mara-Joy’s knee comfortingly.
“You have always been a wonderful aunt to Patrick.”
Joanna watched Mara-Joy’s performance and cringed.
She hadn’t changed. Not at all. A shiver ran up her spine as she recalled the last words Mara-Joy had said to her all those years ago.
Revenge. She promised to make Joanna pay.
Joanna suddenly felt afraid and she couldn’t understand why.
“Larry!” Mara-Joy howled from her bedroom later that night.
Constance had given birth to her daughter, Erica. Mara-Joy had seen mother and child and deposited her gift. She left, taking Alan-Michael with her. As usual, he clung to her like a leech. She disposed of him at his home after sobbing on his youthful shoulder about how unfair it was that Joanna had turned the family against her. The nerve Joanna had, showing up at the birth of Constance’s child. Was it not enough that she had stolen her husband and bore the children that should have been hers? She had to go and flaunt herself in front of Mara-Joy too?
Alan-Michael had been sympathetic as always. How could he not? He was so obsessed with her he couldn’t breathe without her permission.
Mara-Joy had shaken uncontrollably in Alan-Michael’s arms, clutching him tightly around his muscular waist, her face buried in his lean chest. For a boy of sixteen, he was built quite nicely. Mara-Joy felt very secure in his strong young arms. Too secure for a sister to be in her juvenile brother’s presence. She seemed unable to control herself around him.
It was so easy to get him going. To stir his teenage arousals. All she had to do was lean on him a certain way or brush up against him and he would tremble under her touch. Sometimes all it took was a breath on him as she fed him words of hatred about Joanna.
It was too easy. And yet she didn’t stop herself from doing it even though she knew she should. Alan-Michael was her brother, but the thought of the young girls who eyed him whenever they were out together made Mara-Joy more feverish in her seduction of him, brother or not. She loved the fact that he adored her, his sister, over any other green, adolescent girl.
When she left him earlier, breathless and hot, she had felt a little over-heated herself. She wouldn’t do anything morally wrong, in her opinion, with Alan-Michael. She only teased him with her movements and words, enticing him.
It worked. She felt her effect on him as she pressed up against his body to hug Alan-Michael good-bye that evening.
“Good night, dear brother,” she had said breathlessly into his ear as she pressed her full weight against him. “Thank you for being the only one I can trust in this family . . . this world.” She pulled back from his embrace.
Alan-Michael was flushed with emotion. Mara-Joy wasn’t aware just how much she affected him. Each time he was near her, he had to restrain himself from tearing her clothes off and forcefully plunging himself into her. It was starting to scare him. He didn’t know how much longer he could control himself. Alan-Michael had taken to bedding girls who looked like Mara-Joy. Girls who easily came to him. He had that attraction with women. He was handsome and looked older than he was. The problem was once they were with Alan-Michael, they wanted to run away.
He was a brut
e and used them roughly and savagely. When he was done, he would lie in their arms crying like a baby, begging for forgiveness.
The women he bedded didn’t know the demons Alan-Michael struggled with. The shame that dug at his heart. How could he tell them that when he lay with them he thought of Mara-Joy? What would they think if they knew?
They would be appalled and disgusted. What kind of man, even a boy about to be a man, could lust for his own sister?
“I will always be there for you, Mara-Joy,” Alan-Michael said huskily into her black curly hair.
Mara-Joy looked straight through Alan-Michael with her piercing blue eyes.
“You will, won’t you?” she whispered, a little shaken by just how devoted Alan-Michael was to her. It surprised even her on occasion.
“Always and forever.”
“Good night, Alan-Michael,” Mara-Joy brushed a kiss onto his hot cheek. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He nodded and walked toward the house. Mara-Joy felt aroused with power and pressed on the gas, hurrying to get home.
“Larry!” Mara-Joy yelled once again from the bedroom.
Larry, Mara-Joy’s older and slightly rounded, definitely balding husband, bustled quickly into the bedroom.
He gasped. Mara-Joy lay sprawled across their marital bed, naked.
“Yes, my love?” his voice quivered. He was a powerful businessman who was jelly in his wife’s beautiful hands. She looked fantastic, arranged on the bed, exotic and enticing.
“Are Ann and Bobby-Jo out?” she purred, touching her breast slightly.
Larry swallowed hard, his mouth watering in anticipation.
“No . . . I mean, yes.” This was the reason he left his wife of eighteen years. This creature stretched out like a lioness on the bed, waiting for him. He wasn’t crazy. Larry knew a ravishing creature such as Mara-Joy didn’t marry a man like him for his looks. It was for his money. He knew it and he didn’t care. He looked upon Mara-Joy with unconstrained desire. How else could a man like him have the pleasure of a woman like her without a very deep wallet? He was just glad he had a substantial purse, because it had left him a winner. The prize was the naked goddess waiting for him on the bed.
“Good,” Mara-Joy cooed as she crawled across the bed. She reached out and pulled the plump man to the edge. “Will they be back soon?” she asked, undoing his pants slowly and with skill, her long red nails slightly raking against his groin.
“No,” Larry choked, touching the top of Mara-Joy’s curly head. His heart began to race as her fingers curled inside his zipper. He closed his eyes and rolled his round head back on his shoulders. He would do anything for her, risk anything for this exquisite animal. For that was what she had to be, an animal.
She’d been able to make him do things he would never have thought he could have done for anyone.
The men who worked for Larry feared him. His enemies cowered from his sight. He was no wimp, but the mere bat of her blue eyes unglued Larry to the very core of his being.
“Make love to me, Larry,” Mara-Joy mumbled, lying back on the bed, legs spread vulgarly out.
Larry pounced on her like a cat on a mouse, quickly discarding his clothing in his wake.
“Mara-Joy! Mara-Joy!” he cried out as he grunted on top of her naked form.
Mara-Joy wrapped her legs around his broad waist and bit into Larry’s neck savagely.
“Harder, you fool!” she shrieked out pushing herself onto him. The events of the evening had been too much for Mara-Joy. The power she held over Alan-Michael’s body saturated her, filling her with sexual desire that needed to be unleashed. It didn’t matter with whom. That had never been an issue with Mara-Joy. All that mattered was that she was desired over anyone and that those who yearned for her would do anything to have her.
This had always been Mara-Joy’s aphrodisiac and there had always been plenty of men to comply. Such men like Larry who lay withering underneath her thrashing body.
Most of the time he repulsed Mara-Joy. He was fat and not very attractive. But she knew he would do anything to touch her; and that, cradled with the fact that he was one of the richest men in town, was enough for her to scream out in pure delight when she coupled with him.
They fought furiously, pounding on each other like wild beasts, until they were both spent with satisfaction and lay breathless and sweaty next to one another, gasping deeply.
Larry pinched Mara-Joy’s nipple between his fingers, wondering if he could muster another round with her.
Mara-Joy, agitated, pushed his hand away from her body. She raised herself onto her elbow and glared down at Larry. His naked stomach protruded out like an extended balloon. She squinted at the sight.
“Why can’t I get pregnant? I want a baby! It is just unfair. I should be able to have a child of my own too,” she cried out, suddenly without warning.
Larry placed a hand on her bare arm and rubbed gently to calm Mara-Joy. He knew the anguish she felt. It was the one thing Mara-Joy couldn’t hide about herself: the desire to have a child of her own. Larry had offered adoption as a solution. He would do anything to keep Mara-Joy happy in her marriage to him. But she had refused. She wanted a child that grew in her. A child she could birth, not another woman’s child.
Larry had been surprised at Mara-Joy’s reaction to adoption, since she had been forthright with the fact that she had been adopted. Her only response to the situation was that her parents were extraordinary people and would accept any child thrust upon them. She, on the other hand, was not that type of person.
Larry had to concur. Mara-Joy never warmed to his own daughters, Ann and Bobby-Jo. Fortunately, the teenage girls lived with their mother, and weren’t regularly exposed to Mara-Joy and how they annoyed her. On the other hand, they were teenagers, maybe what Mara-Joy needed was a baby who hadn’t already been exposed to other parents.
“We could adopt,” Larry braved, trying to console his young wife. He couldn’t careless if he had another child. Ann and Bobby-Jo were plenty for him. They were nice girls--he loved them but let their mother raise them. Even when their mother and he had been married, that had been her sole job. He believed that the part of parenting rested with the women of the family. The men did the providing and the women the nurturing. So if Mara-Joy wanted a baby, he would provide for the child as he did with his other children. He had the money--that was not a problem. He would do it if it made Mara-Joy happy.
It was not that he did this begrudgingly. He really didn’t know any different way to do things. This had been the way he had been raised and the way every person he knew had been raised. It was a fact of life to Larry that was quite comfortable for him.
“I don’t want to adopt,” Mara-Joy said, sitting up and pulling on her silk nightgown. Her tousled hair stood up on end and she flattened it down with the palms of her hand.
“Don’t you want a child that is yours and mine, Larry? Not Ann and Bobby-Jo, they are not mine. But a child that is ours. A son perhaps, one who could one day follow in your footsteps?” Mara-Joy leaned over the mound of flesh and looked into Larry’s brown eyes. Her blue orbs seemed to look deep into Larry’s soul.
“Wouldn’t that be nice, Larry? A little Lawrence Junior.”
“That would be nice,” Larry said breathlessly. Suddenly he was wondering why he had never thought of having a son of his own before. Was he crazy?
It would be wonderful to have a son with Mara-Joy to follow in his old man’s footsteps and one day take over the business. Ann and Bobby-Jo were girls. He had always assumed their future husbands would join his side in business. But a son! That would be different. It would be a child of his flesh and blood. His seed. His creation with Mara-Joy.
“That would be very nice, my dear,” he said, suddenly wanting it more than ever.
“Well, you have connections. We have money.” Mara-Joy smiled as her finger circled the hair on his flabby chest. “You could make it happen, baby. You could do this for me,” she said de
murely as though it were all Larry’s idea.
“I could make some calls, my dear,” Larry said, basking in Mara-Joy’s attention. “In the morning I’ll be right on it.”
“Larry, you are so wonderful.” Mara-Joy jumped on top of the startled Larry, who grasped her firmly in his arms.
She kissed him passionately on the lips stirring Larry up again.“
You will do this for me, Larry? You promise to do this for me?” she asked, removing her slinky nightie, exposing her perky, full breasts.
Larry grabbed one hungrily.
“I promise. I will do it. Anything.”
Joanna stood up from the vanity table and put down her brush. Chad sat in bed, reading, and looked up when his wife sat down beside him, pulling up the blankets.
“Busy day?” Chad asked, closing the book he held. He placed it on the nightstand and turned his attention to Joanna.
She looked preoccupied with something.
“Umph,” she mumbled, not really paying attention to him.
“At least we’re all moved in now,” Chad said, trying to rouse his wife’s attention.
“What’s that?” Joanna asked, absently turning to Chad’s handsome face.
“Where are you?” Chad asked sitting up. “You seem a mile away.”
“I suppose I am,” Joanna said, sitting up straight too. “Do you ever feel like we were wrong for what we did to Mara-Joy? Selfish?”
Chad wrinkled his forehead.
“What is this all about Joanna? Did something happen today at the hospital?”
“Yes. I saw her. Mara-Joy.” She lowered her head, letting her hair fall into her face. She didn’t know it, but this was a habit she inherited from her mother, when she felt like hiding from the world.
“Oh brother, what did she say?” Chad asked, rolling his eyes. He could just imagine what his darling ex-wife had to say. He hadn’t seen Mara-Joy in years, but could visualize what had taken place between her and Joanna.
“She is definitely still bitter about everything that has happened,” Joanna said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “She blames me for her inability to have children.”
“That is ridiculous,” Chad steamed. “How could she blame you? She can’t have children because of what the miscarriage did to her.”
“What did it do to her, Chad?” Joanna turned to her husband, “I have never been clear on that. How is it that she has a miscarriage and can never have children?”
“Joanna, why does it matter?” Chad asked, “It just brings up the past. A past I would like to forget.”
“Why, because it hurts?” she asked, grimacing.
“Yes, it hurts.” Chad looked at Joanna face turning crimson. “Why are you doing this?”
“I need to know Chad. We have never really discussed this before. We have never discussed your marriage to Mara-Joy,” Joanna said, quietly. It had been a subject she had avoided because it hurt her too much to talk about it.
“Why do you need to know?” he demanded, tight-lipped.
“I need to feel like I am not to blame for Mara-Joy’s marriage ending. I need to know that there was no marriage before I entered the picture,” Joanna begged, “Do you understand what I am saying, Chad? I need to know that I didn’t steal you away from my sister.”
“That is something you will never have to worry about, Joanna,” Chad sighed, resigned that he would have to discuss this painful part of his life. He lay back in bed searching the ceiling for answers.
“Mara-Joy and I were married in name only,” he said, blocking out the images of he and Mara-Joy entangled in a naked frenzy of lovemaking. “We married because she was pregnant. End of story.”
Chad turned away, not wanting Joanna to see more in his eyes. He loved Joanna and didn’t need to hurt her with all the facts of his life with Mara-Joy. She didn’t need to know how Mara-Joy had controlled him with her sexual powers of persuasion. She didn’t need to know how he caved under Mara-Joy time and time again, just because she let him touch her. Chad couldn’t handle Joanna knowing what kind of a coward he had been living with Mara-Joy. How he bent to her every whim. It would kill her.
He closed his eyes, ashamed. After all these years he still felt disgusted over his behavior.
“Did you leave her because I was pregnant with Jena and you knew Mara-Joy could never give you children?” Joanna had always wondered this but had been afraid to ask. She and Chad had been so happy over the years she didn’t wanted to think about the possibility that she could have been the cause of Mara-Joy and Chad’s divorce.
“What? No!” Chad reached out from the bed and grabbed Joanna by the arms, pulling her and clutching her to his chest. “You crazy fool,” he said, kissing her forehead. It felt cool and smooth.
“Don’t you know how much I love you, you little nut? Mara-Joy and I were headed for divorce no matter what would have happened between you and me. I didn’t love her,” Chad said truthfully. He may have lusted after her, but he knew he had never loved Mara-Joy. He never really liked her. He snuggled Joanna tightly to him, loving the feel of her in his arms.
“I fell in love with you, Joanna. I needed to be with you. Jena and Charles were just extra bonuses thrown into the bargain. If you never had children, I still would have loved you and been with you.”
“What if I never had shown up on your doorstep that one night? What then? Would you still be married to Mara-Joy?” Joanna asked bravely, cradled in Chad’s arm.
“Joanna, I can’t say what would have happened, but I know one thing. I was unhappily married to her and that was before you came and changed my life, making it worth living again.”
“I can’t help but feel that I deserve some of Mara-Joy’s fury against me. I did take what was technically hers.”
Chad lifted Joanna’s face to his and looked into her eyes, the same eyes as his daughter’s.
“You listen to me. I was never hers to take, do you understand? I was never hers.” He touched Joanna lightly on the chest above her heart. “I was yours the moment I saw you at the wedding and you told me off. Remember that?
You were just a kid and you had me already figured out,” he chuckled.
Joanna smiled in spite of herself as she rested her head on his chest, listening to his rich laughter rumbling from deep inside.
“What is this all about anyway, Joanna?”
“It’s just what she said to me today. She feels so strongly that I am to blame for your failed marriage and the lack of children you had together. Honestly, I did try to destroy her at one time Chad. The plan was to steal you from her,” Joanna confided.
“Joanna,” Chad tried to stop her from saying anymore, “it’s water under the bridge now. You can’t torture yourself with this nonsense anymore.”
“I suppose you are right. She has gone on with her life.”
“That’s right,” Chad said. “She has re-married. A fat cat, so I hear, and we have never been happier. All’s well that ends well, etc., etc.”
“You never did answer me,” Joanna said, lying down in bed and fluffing her pillow.
“Answer you what?” Chad asked, arranging his own pillows.
“How is it that Mara-Joy can’t have any more children?”
Chad thought for a moment before answering.
“I’m not sure about all the medical lingo,” he said, remembering back to that dark time. “I just know that the baby was growing in the fallopian tube, the end of it or something.”
“And?” Joanna asked, encouraging Chad to continue.
“It, the baby, caused the fallopian tube to burst, killing the baby and nearly killing her. She got some kind of infection.” He paused, remembering how he and Mara-Joy had made love only days after the miscarriage had taken place. Could that have caused the infection? They had been told to abstain from any intercourse for at least six weeks.
He brushed the thought from his mind, refusing to accept responsibility.
“The infection caused some sort
of blockage in the remaining fallopian tube. The doctor said it was pretty much entirely closed.”
“Causing her never to be able to conceive a child,” Joanna finished.
“That’s right,” Chad said, resting his head on the pillow. “He did say it was possible with the small opening, but he wasn’t very optimistic. Besides the chance of the baby implanting in the remaining tube was too great of a risk.”
He closed his eyes, wanting to erase the memories of how devastated Mara-Joy had truly been. “Is that it? Do you want anymore morbid information?”
“No,” Joanna said softly, feeling pity for Mara-Joy. What had happened to her could easily have happened to Joanna or any woman. Joanna cherished her two children so dearly and couldn’t picture life without them.
“Good. Besides, maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Think about it, Joanna. What kind of mother would Mara-Joy be?” Chad shivered, beside himself. He couldn’t picture the woman he used to be married to being the mother of any child.
“Well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?” Joanna said, turning off the reading lamp on her bedside table. She lay still, eyes wide open, thinking about Mara-Joy and the child she would never have.
Chapter 42 —