Jaq With a Q

  I carried the heavy boxes to the other side, poured a cup of coffee, and got started. The first one was the bitch. You would think they would give you step by step instructions, but no. All I got was a picture with a bunch of numbers pointing to holes. Once I got that one together, I tore the plastic off the cousin and sat in it with a fresh cup of coffee, looking out to the lake, and recollecting on my night with Jaq. A few smiles, a little leeriness, and a lot of sadness for her filled my emotions.

  That’s when I made the decision to take her off her meds. I had a very good hunch that Jaq wasn’t sick at all and she didn’t need to be on anything but love. Jaq was raised with a sick mother who became sick from what she herself had gone through. She had even told me during her time tripping that she had learned it. She even told me that she made up things in the hospital so she could go to the mental home and live. Things that her mother had done or said, she made her own. And…It worked. I honestly felt like she gave herself the panic attacks because that’s what her mom did. That’s what she knew.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  Silas sounded off, like he’d just been stung by a bee or something. “I—.”

  “Silas?”

  “Yeah, I’m here, sorry. Some chick just bumped right into me. It was the weirdest thing ever.”

  “Weird? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, never mind. So, yeah. I’m in New York. The movers are coming this afternoon. Did you want them to pack up all your books and send them, too?”

  My mind went to my collection of books, mostly text books, but some biographies of great men. Scientists and philosophers my dad had taught me to look up to. “I don’t want them. There’s a taped up box in the spare bedroom closet. That’s the only one I want. I’ll arrange to have someone pick up the rest of them.”

  “You will? You love your books.”

  I watched Jaq walk toward me with a smile. Sleepy, puffy eyes and her naked body wrapped in a white sheet. She didn’t look at me, say a word, or crack a smile. She moved my crossed foot and sat on my lap. I kissed her head when she pulled her legs up and rested her cheek on my shoulder.

  “I don’t love them. I’ll take care of it. How long you going to be there?”

  “I don’t know. A couple months at least. I think I’m going to try to get the community involved. This company is a big deal here. Over thirteen hundred people will be out of a job, it’s just, fuck. It’s going to be a challenge. If I can get some investors on board, it won’t take long. The money is there, it’s just in shambles. But it can be fixed,” he added.

  I ran my hand up and down Jaq’s arm, feeling blessed. “Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. What happened? Why is it falling apart?”

  “The guy that owned the company had a heart attack and died at the age of forty-three. His twenty-one-year-old son took over. Need I say more?”

  “Where’s the kid. Did you get rid of him?”

  “No, of course not. He’s just trying to figure it out like the rest of us. I’ve got him in school right now. He knows he fucked up, but he also knows what it used to be and can be again. I’ve got to go. I’m about to walk into the bank. I’ll give you a ring when your stuff is shipped.”

  “Okay, talk to you later.”

  “See ya, bro.”

  I looked down to Jaq’s closed eyes and rested my lips on her forehead, two little dogs asleep at my feet, four kittens playing on the steps, two baby lambs busy eating brush, two white swans at the far end of the lake, and Mama Quinn out hunting nearby. Never in a million years did I think life would take me here. My mind marinated on that while I sat there staring out at the lake, the sun high and the sky blue. Maybe Jaq was right. Maybe none of this was by accident. It just took all these obstacles to get us here. Hers and mine. Impediments that happened in steps throughout our lives, all for the soul purpose of bringing us together.

  “What’cha thinking about?”

  My eyes glanced to Jaq’s, still closed. I didn’t mean for it to come out like the beginning of a lecture, but it sort of did. “Perception, being aware through your senses.”

  “Eat a Gummy Bear. You’ll have a whole new meaning of perception and your senses.”

  “Do you remember everything?”

  “Yes, all of it. I’m glad I did it. I’m never going to forget it. Any of it. It wouldn’t have been like that without it, Ollie. It wouldn’t have.”

  “I know, but for the record, let’s not tell anyone about the Gummy Bears, okay?”

  “Who would I tell? I only talk to you, and you don’t have to say that. I don’t want it to be between anyone else. Besides, there’s no way you could describe that to someone. You couldn’t get them to feel one percent of how it really was. You felt it, too, didn’t you?”

  “Every single second,” I assured her.

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  “I’m going to change your medicine in the next few days, okay? I want to get you off one of those antidepressants. You don’t need them like that,” I explained, just in case she’d forgotten.

  Jaq sat up and held my face with her hands, our foreheads touched and she smiled. She didn’t want to talk about prescription meds. That wasn’t what was on her mind. “Do you want to do it again?”

  My lips met hers and I scooped her up, “Fuck yeah.”

  We did do it again, that time a lot slower, but with the same results. Of course, Jaq wasn’t the same overzealous girl she was the night before, but I didn’t mind at all. I loved being easy with her, learning what made her feel good, and what she liked. There was zero need for Gummy Bears on drugs for this. This was magical without adding the psychedelics. She didn’t need them. I didn’t need them.

  I think we spent three whole days in bed. The third one being the day I got the pills. According to my calculations, I could start her on the regimen within the next couple days.

  She knew what it was, but she asked anyway. “What’s this?”

  “Birth control. We talked about this.”

  Jaq held the tiny blue pill between two fingers, looked at it cautiously, and then popped it in her mouth. “Oh.”

  The next month of summer was spent exploring each other, and making our little piece of earth what we wanted it to be. Jaq spent a lot of time in her garden, staring out to the lake surrounded by butterflies. We added seven new additions to our family. Seven out of twelve eggs hatched. Of course they all had a name, but I didn’t remember them. Classy, Chick, and Sassy. Those were the only three I could remember. They followed her around like she was their second mother. She even scooped one up once, and neither of the parents bothered her. I held my breath waiting for one of them to come after her like they had me. They almost ate me alive once when I tried to shoo one back to the flock. I actually had to run. Not Jaq. She held the little thing close to her mouth, speaking to it in baby talk before kissing its fuzzy head and sending it on its way, Namaste, spoken from her lips as its little feet hit the ground, waddling back to his waiting parents.

  Jaq was a bear all day that day. Hateful and grouchy with me. With everything I said to her. I tried to get her to help cut up onions for supper, but she refused. They made her cry.

  “Let’s have mushroom ravioli again.”

  “No, I’m sick of that. We just had that.”

  “Whatever. I’m going to go talk to the swans.”

  I stopped her by placing three fingers around her wrist. “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, why would I be mad? Should I be mad?”

  “No, you just act a little, I don’t know. Cool.”

  “Well, I have cramps, soooo.”

  I smiled and let her go, leaving her with a kiss to her lips. Although I didn’t go with her, I watched her from the porch, sitting in our comfortable new rockers. A feeling of wellbeing came over me and I counted my blessings, watching her scold one of the kittens for chasing a baby swan. She picked up Finn and kissed his head, and although I couldn’t hear her, I was sure she’d just apolo
gized for yelling at him.

  I had planned on luring Jaq to the lake when I got out of the shower, but when I went looking for her, things changed.

  I slid the door open with my hand, wondering why she was in that room. Mine and Silas’s room, but I didn’t need to ask.

  Jaq looked up from the notebook I had been keeping since the day I had met her, and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. She sat on the edge of the bed wearing a confused expression, hurt in her eyes. “What is this, Oliver?”

  “Nothing, Jaq. Just something I do. I’m a scientist. I find answers to things. That’s how I tick. I write down problems and find the answers.”

  “You think I’m a problem?”

  “No, of course not. Don’t do this, Jaq. It’s nothing. I hardly ever even write in it anymore.”

  Her eyebrows raised as she flipped the full notebook, filled to almost the last page, all information about her. “I’m not a problem, just a subject, right?”

  “Jaq, come here. It’s not like that at all. Things have changed between us since the beginning. You know that.”

  “You had Wallace put cameras in my apartment.”

  “To protect you.”

  Instead of asking questions, she spit out statements from her new realizations. “You didn’t know me. It all makes so much sense now. You knew to call me during a panic attack because you were watching me. Wallace was in on it, too.”

  “Does it matter? None of that matters, baby. None of it. You can go burn it if you want. When I first went into this, I went into it hoping to invent some miracle drug that would help you, but I never found my dad’s formula, you know all of this. I don’t understand why this is a big deal to you.”

  “I’m not a subject. You wanted to use me for some Nobel prize. I’m not stupid, Ollie. I can read.”

  I couldn’t help but worry about what she had read. There were some pretty messed up assumptions in there. “Jaq, will you listen to me? Yes, that’s exactly how it started, but that sure as hell isn’t how it is now. I love you. You’ve turned my entire world inside out. I have never been this raw in my life. You slowed my life down, I take in more information, I notice things that I’ve never noticed before, and I see things; colorful, pretty, living things that I paid no attention to before. You gave me a choice and I chose it, Jaq. I started choosing more things that made me feel good and stopped analyzing things that didn’t matter. The contrast led me to more of the things I truly wanted but didn’t know I wanted. You, Jaq. That’s all I want. You.”

  Jaq dropped her eyes sadly and closed the book, her finger touching the word, subject. “But you know what, Oliver?”

  “Stop calling me that. I’m sorry, Jaq. You’re right, but it’s me. It’s what I do. I find the answers to things.” I had a lot more on the tip of my tongue, ready to tell her how much she had rocked my world in such a short time, but she stopped me.

  One hush-finger in the air as she stood, cut me off. “Yeah, Ollie. We’ve established that part. You’re a scientist. You need answers. I get it. I don’t get why you wrote it like that. It could have been our love story, something much more than that, but instead you wrote a text book. I’m nothing more than a number to you. A test subject. How’d I do, Oliver? Huh? Maybe you can get a camera crew in here and we can shoot a documentary. Oh, wait. That wouldn’t work because I wouldn’t talk to them. I’d hide behind you for protection, but now I wonder who’s going to protect me from you. Good job, boyfriend. You should publish it. I bet it becomes a textbook bestseller.”

  I swallowed the dry lump after she slapped her hand in the middle of my chest and stepped around me. It kind of hurt. She didn’t need to do it that hard. I got the message loud and clear. I was a dick. The biggest dick in the world. Not only was I stupid and let her find it, I was stupid and wrote it. Knowing I would have felt the same way, I couldn’t blame her. I treated her like a specimen for my own needs, not hers.

  I tossed the notebook back under the mattress and went after her, hoping to calm her down. Only she didn’t need calming. She was the calm one. Standing in the doorway, a summer breeze blew my hair through the screen and I stopped, watching her try to get closer to a squirrel. She was knelt on the balls of her heels, the same finger she’d given me and a straight arm to Cleo and Leo kept them seated. Jaq stood, turning to them with a look to stay and took a step toward the little critter. As soon as she turned back to the squirrel, they took off after it, obeisance forgotten with the attention span.

  “Nooooo, you guys are horrible. Leave him alone. Cleo, no. Get back here.”

  It wasn’t until I called her in for supper that she finally talked to me. Tomato soup and grilled cheese, her favorite on purpose. I figured her being outside was better for her than me saying the same things I had already said.

  “I want to bring in some sand. Make a beach down by the lake, but I wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Talk to me? Why do you need to talk to me?”

  “Because we’re a team, Jaq. I don’t care about that book. I’ll burn the fucker if that makes you happy.”

  Jaq’s shoulders slumped and her eyes drifted to her bowl. “I thought it was a journal when I saw my name on it. I thought I was going to fall more in love with you. It hurt my feelings. Subject awake had anxiety attack over rash. Subject locks self in bathroom after dark. Subject has another disease. I’m nothing more than an incomplete sentence to you. I sort of hate you right now.”

  I lifted her chin with one finger, forcing her to look at me. “I’m sorry, Jaq. I’m so sorry, baby.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to share with me?”

  “Like what?”

  Jaq shrugged both shoulders and turned her chin from my hand. “I don’t know. Just thought maybe you’d like to get it all out there while we were here in this space and time.”

  “I’m—I’m good.”

  “Great. I’m going to lay down, I don’t feel well.”

  A little stunned, I watched her walk away. “Can I help?”

  “I’m good, and it’s your house. You can do whatever you want here, but just so you know, you won’t be seeing me in a bikini laying on your beach. Night.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It took four whole days of trying to get Jaq back to a good place and it wasn’t pretty. I hated the silent treatment from her. Especially when she had a thousand words for Cleo and Leo, but not me. I got short, one word answers, eye rolls, and dirty looks. She pulled away from me when I tried to touch her, rolled to the far side of the bed when I joined her, spent a lot of time outside by herself. When I would ask her if she wanted company, she told me no. She wanted to be alone.

  She left me just after nine for the fourth night in a row to go to bed without me. We never went to bed that early. This was all because she was still pouting over the notebook that had nothing to do with the way I felt about her. And truth be told, I was sick of it.

  I tried to give her space and occupy mine with a beer, a book, and a magnificent view. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. The quantum theory book I used to redirect my attention was the same as any other one I had read, just a different take. With a deep breath and a long drink, I stood to go after her, only she wasn’t in bed. A quick glance in the bathroom caused my frown to grow even more and my heart to pick up a few extra beats. Wherever she was, the dogs were with her. That made me feel a little better.

  I called out to the door off from our room first, with no answer. My heart raced when I saw the crack in the front door, but relaxed when I saw her.

  She was standing on what was left of the foundation. Where my dad had taken his last breath, the desperation for her to talk to me replaced with…anger?

  “What are you doing?” I questioned, unable to hide my anxiety.

  Jaq looked up to me and raised her arms. Her shirt rose and her ripped, boy jeans slid down her hips. “I think he was standing right here.”

  For a second I thought she had left Kansas again. “Who?”

/>   “Your dad. I see you zoning out to this space all the time. I think you’re thinking about it.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Do you know why I was even in there, Ollie?”

  “In where?”

  “The other room?”

  “What other room?”

  “The other bedroom. Where I found the text book.”

  “It’s not a text book.”

  “I was looking for the pump for the air mattress. I wasn’t snooping. The corner was sticking out.”

  “Okay.”

  Jaq stepped up to the little ledge, a slab of concrete left from the destruction. “Don’t you want to know why I wanted the pump?”

  I watched her balance herself on the ledge as I slowly walked down the steps toward her. “Why?”

  “I wanted you to see something different when you looked out here.”

  I kept walking, wondering where she was going with all this, closing the distance between us. “Like what?”

  “I wanted to surprise you with it. Right here.”

  The ledge caused her to be the exact same height as me, our eyes in perfect alignment. “How?” I questioned, my arms wrapping around her body.

  Jaq placed her arms around my neck, sadness in her tone. “I wanted to put it right here and make a new memory with you below the stars. So you would think about something else, something that made you happy and not sad, but I don’t know if that’s me, Ollie.”

  “What do you mean? You make me happy. You’re the only thing that makes me happy.”

  “What if another subject comes along? What if you get bored with me, too? Like you did all your other jobs.”

  I grabbed her face and kissed her hard. “You’re not a fucking subject. I fucking love you and I’m never going to get bored with you. Why can’t you see that?”

  “I’m scared. I don’t deserve this; I don’t deserve you. I feel like it’s all going to go away. Like this isn’t my life.”

  “Why, Jaq? Because you’re learning how to live, how to love? This is your life. This is your home and I’m going to do my best to make you happy, every single day. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m the lucky one here.”