Post by Mimi on Aug 18, 2006 10:30:08 GMT -5
After several stops to refuel, the Basic Black jet reached its final destination, rural Alaska.
“Where are we?” Marlena said looking out the window at the vast wilderness that surrounded them. Everything was covered in white as far as she could see. She saw snow-covered trees and jagged mountains in the distance. “He hates me…he’s trying to punish me,” Marlena said upon realizing that most likely John had sent her to exile in the middle of nowhere with Roman Brady.
“No, he knows that no one in their right mind visits the arctic in winter…this is the last place anyone would look for you,” Roman said as he opened the closet in the bedroom and got out snowsuits, boots and goggles for both of them. Half way through the flight when Marlena was sleeping, Roman called John for an update on their destination and a briefing of the security issues and living conditions.
“I want to go back where its warm Roman…I don’t like snow and ice,” Marlena whined.
“You grew up in Colorado Doc…how much different is this?” Roman threw the snowsuit at her and proceeded to put his on over his jeans. After more than 24 hours on the plane with Marlena, Roman couldn’t wait to breathe in the fresh air, even if it was minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
“From the looks of it, probably 60 degrees or so colder…I don’t do cold Roman…you know that.” Marlena sat down and looked out the window at the vast wilderness. There was absolutely no civilization in sight. Two snowmobiles sat next to the plane, engines idling. Marlena watched as a heavily bundled man dressed in traditional skins approached the plane. A strong gust of wind struck from the south and rocked the plane back and forth. She could feel the plane moving. There was no way that she was going to leave the warm comfort of the plane. Was it too late to call John and ask to go be flown to Hawaii?
“So what? You’re going to live on the plane?” Roman said in annoyance.
“Maybe,” she replied in a childlike voice as she set the snowsuit down on the couch next to her. Let Roman play arctic explorer. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Well have fun, because I’m not staying here.” He put on his gloves, goggle and hat and walked to the front of the plane where he met the pilot. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marlena pick up the snowsuit and put it on.
~~~~~
Over the next two months Roman and Marlena slowly got used to life in Alaska and the harshness of winter. When temperatures rose above minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit, they’d take walks on the frozen tundra, imagining how beautiful everything would look in the spring. The man that met the plane when they arrived was named Alexie. He and his wife Matrona were caretakers of John’s lodge. During evening dinners, Roman and Marlena enjoyed listening to Alexie’s stories about the Basic Black stockholders that visited the lodge during the summers to go salmon fishing. To their surprise, Brady and Victor were frequent guests at the lodge as was John.
Roman enjoyed Alexie’s company immensely and was quickly becoming a good hunter under his tutelage. Roman had managed to shoot a caribou, moose and a couple ptarmigans during his short stay. He enjoyed being outside and learning about native Alaskan customs. Matrona and Marlena’s relationship was a different story. Matrona made it known from the beginning that she didn’t care for Mrs. Black. The fact that Marlena was pregnant and her husband was no where around didn’t help matters. Matrona assumed that the baby belonged to Roman although she was polite enough not to ask. The more Matrona pushed Marlena to talk about her unborn baby and Mr. Black, the more Marlena retreated. As the winter dragged on Marlena’s depression grew. She was trying hard to retrieve new memories of John, but kept having the same ones. It was as if the few memories she had were stuck in a loop, replaying in the same order over and over. Roman was beyond frustrated at Marlena. He tried to engage her in conversations but was lucky if she gave him a three or four word reply. He learned from Matrona that she spent most of the time in her room, laying in bed, looking out the window. Roman tried during the first month at the lodge to get Marlena to talk about what she was feeling, but quickly grew tired of her negative attitude. When she felt like talking he made sure that he was available, but other than that Roman didn’t go out of his way to engage her.
“Mr. Brady…I’ve had it with that woman,” Matrona said to Roman as he took off his boots in the mudroom of the lodge. Alexie had taken him up into the hills to see the bears.
“What did she say to you this time,” Roman asked, not knowing or caring what they’d fought about today. Everyday it was the same thing. Marlena said something insensitive to Matrona or vice versa. He was honestly sick of both of them.
“That woman is crazy Mr. Brady…you need to control her.” If only it was that easy, Roman thought.
“Matrona, what did she say to you this time,” Roman asked as he took off his heavy down jacket and hung it up.
“Nothing. She won’t come out of her room…she hasn’t been out of her room all day. I tried to get in to bring her some lunch, but she’s locked the door…she keeps crying about some crazy white folks named Kate and Hope.” Matrona threw her arms up in the air. “She’s crazy Mr. Brady.”
A million thoughts were running through Romans head… Was she having another breakdown? Was she remembering something related to Hope and Kate? Was she suicidal? He needed some time to think before responding, but knew that he didn’t have time on his side. “Matrona, when was the last time she ate?” His concern for the baby she was carrying took precedent. He couldn’t control what she was feeling or how she was acting, but he could make sure that the child she was carrying received the nourishment it desperately needed for survival.
“I don’t know Mr. Brady…she didn’t come down for breakfast today.”
“Or dinner or lunch yesterday,” Roman interrupted. “This is bullshit, bullshit…Is she going to starve herself?” Roman asked rhetorically as he left Matrona in the mudroom and went into the lodge, ascending the grand staircase in search of Marlena.
“Marlena,” Roman said as he knocked on the large pine door.
“Leave me alone,” she responded faintly from the other side.
“No, open the door now,” Roman demanded as he pounded on it again.
“No, leave me alone.” “Open the fucking door before I call John,” Roman threatened. Seconds later her heard the door latch opening.
“What do you want,” she asked as she opened the door a crack. Her face was red and eyes swollen from crying.
“Why didn’t you eat?” Roman asked her as he pushed the door open wider.
“I ate,” Marlena said as she looked down.
“Liar, Matrona already told me that you didn’t Marlena.” Roman further opened the door, forcing Marlena to move back and let him into the room. “This is bullshit…I’m calling John.”
“Why?” she asked as she desperately clung to his arm to prevent him from leaving. “Why?”
“Look at you…what the hell am I doing letting you stay here in your condition? Who knows how the hell far along you are or if the baby is even healthy. We are in the arctic, hundreds of miles from a town or a hospital or medical care for that matter, what if something goes wrong? I’m not a doctor and you sure as hell can’t deliver your own baby…What are we doing up here? I should have told John months ago that you were pregnant.”
“You can’t.. you can’t…you promised me you wouldn’t,” Marlena pleaded as she hung onto Roman’s arm.
“Against my better judgement…I told you that I wouldn’t tell him unless I felt that you were in danger…well guess what? I’d say that you are.”
“I’m not…I’m fine,” she let go of his arm and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to untangle the mess.
“Then why the hell aren’t you eating and lying to me about it? You are a fucking mess, physically and mentally Doc…You need professional help and a medical doctor, not me. Face it, you’re depressed…its time to get help.” He’d seen the signs and had been able to ignore them by compartmentalizing them, but no more.
“No, I’m staying here…you can’t make me leave.” She walked over to the window and looked out on the tundra, trying to show some semblance of normalcy. If she could pull herself together, maybe he’d think that everything was okay and leave her alone.
“If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you onto the plane I will.” Roman said as he walked over to the window where she stood and lightly touched her on the shoulder.
“I’m not ready to leave…I just need a little more time to remember.” She was trembling under his touch.
“You don’t have more time….this baby is not going to wait until your memory returns Marlena. You need to figure out what you’re going to do. Not eating isn’t an option,” Roman said sternly.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she yelled, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t know why she was crying but couldn’t stop.
“Someone needs to…You’ve been making one bad choice after another.”
“You’re not my father,” she screamed as she reached up to slap him. He caught her hand before it made contact with his cheek and then brought her arm roughly behind her back where he held it there. “Don’t try that again,” he warned her.
“Don’t touch me,” she screamed. “Don’t touch me…please….let me go….let me go.” She pleaded, her voice growing weaker and weaker. Roman immediately let go of her arm, horrified to find that he was holding her against her will.
“I’m sorry Doc…I’m sorry…please don’t cry,” he said as he wiped the tears from her eyes. She moved away from him, breaking the contact.
“Please just leave me alone,” she said as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, locking it.
“God dammit,” Roman yelled as he slammed the bedroom door behind him.
John was working quietly at his desk, trying to concentrate on reviewing a contract between Basic Black and one of its suppliers. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get Marlena out of his mind. Something was wrong, he just couldn’t figure out what it was. For the last two days he’d been having this feeling of uneasiness that kept him awake at night and made concentrating almost impossible. Roman assured him that nothing was wrong and that he’d be the first to alert John if something was.
The ringing of his cell phone broke him of his reverie. “Hello,” John said into the phone.
“John, this is Roman.” John was relieved that Roman had called, maybe he would be able to reassure him that nothing was wrong.
“What’s up Roman?”
“John, I need you to get a doctor up here now,” Roman blurted into the phone before he lost his confidence.
“A doctor? What’s wrong?” John was starting to panic, his mind envisioning the millions of things that could go wrong up in the arctic wilderness, everything from frostbite to bear attacks.
“It’s Marlena…she needs a doctor,” Roman admitted. He picked absentmindedly at a lose thread on the duvet cover.
“What’s happened Roman…tell me what has happened to my wife?” John was starting to panic. John took out his blackberry and sent a text message to his pilot in Anchorage to have the plane warmed up and ready to take off in twenty minutes.
Roman was silent for a minute, unsure of what to tell John. “Roman, tell me,” John demanded, terrified of the truth.
“John, there’s no easy way to say this.” Roman pulled on the thread and watched it start to unravel.
“You’re scaring me pal…you’re scaring me…please tell me what’s wrong with my wife…was she in an accident?” Pictures of Marlena injured flashed through his mind.
“No, she’s not hurt John.”
“I don’t understand…why does she need a doctor? Tell me what’s going on now,” John demanded as he got up from his desk and looked out the window at Mount McKinley in the distance. The sun was setting, casting any eerie glow about the mountain.
“I need for you to find a female OB/GYN and send her up here now.” Roman let out the breath he’d been holding as he waited for John’s response.
“A what? I don’t think I heard you correctly, did you just ask for an OB/GYN?” John asked as he looked at his phone making sure it was working properly.
“Marlena’s pregnant.”
John sat down in his chair, stunned by the news. “Pregnant?” he whispered. All kinds of thoughts came into his mind, visions of Marlena losing her last baby, Roman and Marlena making love in the castle, Roman and Marlena making love once again.
“How did this happen?” John asked quietly, not really wanting to know the details but needing to.
“The usual way John.”
“Don’t be fucking smart with me pal. You don’t drop a fucking bombshell on me like this and then try to be smart…who is the father?” John closed his eyes hoping that it would be anyone but Roman.
“Whoa, not me if that’s what you are asking?” Roman shuddered at the thought that John could think such a thing.
“Alexie? Please don’t tell me that she and Alexie….oh god….I’ll fucking kill him with my bare hands if he has so much laid a hand on her.” John was physically nauseous at the thought that his friend Alexie would have been intimate with his wife.
“Calm down John…Marlena looks to be 7 or 8 months along, maybe 9, I don’t know, hard to tell.”
“She’s 7 to 8 months pregnant?” John yelled into the phone, livid that this was the first time he had been told this vital piece of news. “Why the hell wasn’t I told?”
“Calm down…she didn’t want you to know….”
“Didn’t fucking want me to know? It’s my child…I have a right to know…I want to talk to her now,” John demanded.
Roman leaned back in his chair and smiled for the first time in awhile…holy fucking god for small miracles, the baby was John’s.
“Where are we?” Marlena said looking out the window at the vast wilderness that surrounded them. Everything was covered in white as far as she could see. She saw snow-covered trees and jagged mountains in the distance. “He hates me…he’s trying to punish me,” Marlena said upon realizing that most likely John had sent her to exile in the middle of nowhere with Roman Brady.
“No, he knows that no one in their right mind visits the arctic in winter…this is the last place anyone would look for you,” Roman said as he opened the closet in the bedroom and got out snowsuits, boots and goggles for both of them. Half way through the flight when Marlena was sleeping, Roman called John for an update on their destination and a briefing of the security issues and living conditions.
“I want to go back where its warm Roman…I don’t like snow and ice,” Marlena whined.
“You grew up in Colorado Doc…how much different is this?” Roman threw the snowsuit at her and proceeded to put his on over his jeans. After more than 24 hours on the plane with Marlena, Roman couldn’t wait to breathe in the fresh air, even if it was minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
“From the looks of it, probably 60 degrees or so colder…I don’t do cold Roman…you know that.” Marlena sat down and looked out the window at the vast wilderness. There was absolutely no civilization in sight. Two snowmobiles sat next to the plane, engines idling. Marlena watched as a heavily bundled man dressed in traditional skins approached the plane. A strong gust of wind struck from the south and rocked the plane back and forth. She could feel the plane moving. There was no way that she was going to leave the warm comfort of the plane. Was it too late to call John and ask to go be flown to Hawaii?
“So what? You’re going to live on the plane?” Roman said in annoyance.
“Maybe,” she replied in a childlike voice as she set the snowsuit down on the couch next to her. Let Roman play arctic explorer. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Well have fun, because I’m not staying here.” He put on his gloves, goggle and hat and walked to the front of the plane where he met the pilot. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marlena pick up the snowsuit and put it on.
~~~~~
Over the next two months Roman and Marlena slowly got used to life in Alaska and the harshness of winter. When temperatures rose above minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit, they’d take walks on the frozen tundra, imagining how beautiful everything would look in the spring. The man that met the plane when they arrived was named Alexie. He and his wife Matrona were caretakers of John’s lodge. During evening dinners, Roman and Marlena enjoyed listening to Alexie’s stories about the Basic Black stockholders that visited the lodge during the summers to go salmon fishing. To their surprise, Brady and Victor were frequent guests at the lodge as was John.
Roman enjoyed Alexie’s company immensely and was quickly becoming a good hunter under his tutelage. Roman had managed to shoot a caribou, moose and a couple ptarmigans during his short stay. He enjoyed being outside and learning about native Alaskan customs. Matrona and Marlena’s relationship was a different story. Matrona made it known from the beginning that she didn’t care for Mrs. Black. The fact that Marlena was pregnant and her husband was no where around didn’t help matters. Matrona assumed that the baby belonged to Roman although she was polite enough not to ask. The more Matrona pushed Marlena to talk about her unborn baby and Mr. Black, the more Marlena retreated. As the winter dragged on Marlena’s depression grew. She was trying hard to retrieve new memories of John, but kept having the same ones. It was as if the few memories she had were stuck in a loop, replaying in the same order over and over. Roman was beyond frustrated at Marlena. He tried to engage her in conversations but was lucky if she gave him a three or four word reply. He learned from Matrona that she spent most of the time in her room, laying in bed, looking out the window. Roman tried during the first month at the lodge to get Marlena to talk about what she was feeling, but quickly grew tired of her negative attitude. When she felt like talking he made sure that he was available, but other than that Roman didn’t go out of his way to engage her.
“Mr. Brady…I’ve had it with that woman,” Matrona said to Roman as he took off his boots in the mudroom of the lodge. Alexie had taken him up into the hills to see the bears.
“What did she say to you this time,” Roman asked, not knowing or caring what they’d fought about today. Everyday it was the same thing. Marlena said something insensitive to Matrona or vice versa. He was honestly sick of both of them.
“That woman is crazy Mr. Brady…you need to control her.” If only it was that easy, Roman thought.
“Matrona, what did she say to you this time,” Roman asked as he took off his heavy down jacket and hung it up.
“Nothing. She won’t come out of her room…she hasn’t been out of her room all day. I tried to get in to bring her some lunch, but she’s locked the door…she keeps crying about some crazy white folks named Kate and Hope.” Matrona threw her arms up in the air. “She’s crazy Mr. Brady.”
A million thoughts were running through Romans head… Was she having another breakdown? Was she remembering something related to Hope and Kate? Was she suicidal? He needed some time to think before responding, but knew that he didn’t have time on his side. “Matrona, when was the last time she ate?” His concern for the baby she was carrying took precedent. He couldn’t control what she was feeling or how she was acting, but he could make sure that the child she was carrying received the nourishment it desperately needed for survival.
“I don’t know Mr. Brady…she didn’t come down for breakfast today.”
“Or dinner or lunch yesterday,” Roman interrupted. “This is bullshit, bullshit…Is she going to starve herself?” Roman asked rhetorically as he left Matrona in the mudroom and went into the lodge, ascending the grand staircase in search of Marlena.
“Marlena,” Roman said as he knocked on the large pine door.
“Leave me alone,” she responded faintly from the other side.
“No, open the door now,” Roman demanded as he pounded on it again.
“No, leave me alone.” “Open the fucking door before I call John,” Roman threatened. Seconds later her heard the door latch opening.
“What do you want,” she asked as she opened the door a crack. Her face was red and eyes swollen from crying.
“Why didn’t you eat?” Roman asked her as he pushed the door open wider.
“I ate,” Marlena said as she looked down.
“Liar, Matrona already told me that you didn’t Marlena.” Roman further opened the door, forcing Marlena to move back and let him into the room. “This is bullshit…I’m calling John.”
“Why?” she asked as she desperately clung to his arm to prevent him from leaving. “Why?”
“Look at you…what the hell am I doing letting you stay here in your condition? Who knows how the hell far along you are or if the baby is even healthy. We are in the arctic, hundreds of miles from a town or a hospital or medical care for that matter, what if something goes wrong? I’m not a doctor and you sure as hell can’t deliver your own baby…What are we doing up here? I should have told John months ago that you were pregnant.”
“You can’t.. you can’t…you promised me you wouldn’t,” Marlena pleaded as she hung onto Roman’s arm.
“Against my better judgement…I told you that I wouldn’t tell him unless I felt that you were in danger…well guess what? I’d say that you are.”
“I’m not…I’m fine,” she let go of his arm and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to untangle the mess.
“Then why the hell aren’t you eating and lying to me about it? You are a fucking mess, physically and mentally Doc…You need professional help and a medical doctor, not me. Face it, you’re depressed…its time to get help.” He’d seen the signs and had been able to ignore them by compartmentalizing them, but no more.
“No, I’m staying here…you can’t make me leave.” She walked over to the window and looked out on the tundra, trying to show some semblance of normalcy. If she could pull herself together, maybe he’d think that everything was okay and leave her alone.
“If I have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you onto the plane I will.” Roman said as he walked over to the window where she stood and lightly touched her on the shoulder.
“I’m not ready to leave…I just need a little more time to remember.” She was trembling under his touch.
“You don’t have more time….this baby is not going to wait until your memory returns Marlena. You need to figure out what you’re going to do. Not eating isn’t an option,” Roman said sternly.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she yelled, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t know why she was crying but couldn’t stop.
“Someone needs to…You’ve been making one bad choice after another.”
“You’re not my father,” she screamed as she reached up to slap him. He caught her hand before it made contact with his cheek and then brought her arm roughly behind her back where he held it there. “Don’t try that again,” he warned her.
“Don’t touch me,” she screamed. “Don’t touch me…please….let me go….let me go.” She pleaded, her voice growing weaker and weaker. Roman immediately let go of her arm, horrified to find that he was holding her against her will.
“I’m sorry Doc…I’m sorry…please don’t cry,” he said as he wiped the tears from her eyes. She moved away from him, breaking the contact.
“Please just leave me alone,” she said as she walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, locking it.
“God dammit,” Roman yelled as he slammed the bedroom door behind him.
John was working quietly at his desk, trying to concentrate on reviewing a contract between Basic Black and one of its suppliers. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get Marlena out of his mind. Something was wrong, he just couldn’t figure out what it was. For the last two days he’d been having this feeling of uneasiness that kept him awake at night and made concentrating almost impossible. Roman assured him that nothing was wrong and that he’d be the first to alert John if something was.
The ringing of his cell phone broke him of his reverie. “Hello,” John said into the phone.
“John, this is Roman.” John was relieved that Roman had called, maybe he would be able to reassure him that nothing was wrong.
“What’s up Roman?”
“John, I need you to get a doctor up here now,” Roman blurted into the phone before he lost his confidence.
“A doctor? What’s wrong?” John was starting to panic, his mind envisioning the millions of things that could go wrong up in the arctic wilderness, everything from frostbite to bear attacks.
“It’s Marlena…she needs a doctor,” Roman admitted. He picked absentmindedly at a lose thread on the duvet cover.
“What’s happened Roman…tell me what has happened to my wife?” John was starting to panic. John took out his blackberry and sent a text message to his pilot in Anchorage to have the plane warmed up and ready to take off in twenty minutes.
Roman was silent for a minute, unsure of what to tell John. “Roman, tell me,” John demanded, terrified of the truth.
“John, there’s no easy way to say this.” Roman pulled on the thread and watched it start to unravel.
“You’re scaring me pal…you’re scaring me…please tell me what’s wrong with my wife…was she in an accident?” Pictures of Marlena injured flashed through his mind.
“No, she’s not hurt John.”
“I don’t understand…why does she need a doctor? Tell me what’s going on now,” John demanded as he got up from his desk and looked out the window at Mount McKinley in the distance. The sun was setting, casting any eerie glow about the mountain.
“I need for you to find a female OB/GYN and send her up here now.” Roman let out the breath he’d been holding as he waited for John’s response.
“A what? I don’t think I heard you correctly, did you just ask for an OB/GYN?” John asked as he looked at his phone making sure it was working properly.
“Marlena’s pregnant.”
John sat down in his chair, stunned by the news. “Pregnant?” he whispered. All kinds of thoughts came into his mind, visions of Marlena losing her last baby, Roman and Marlena making love in the castle, Roman and Marlena making love once again.
“How did this happen?” John asked quietly, not really wanting to know the details but needing to.
“The usual way John.”
“Don’t be fucking smart with me pal. You don’t drop a fucking bombshell on me like this and then try to be smart…who is the father?” John closed his eyes hoping that it would be anyone but Roman.
“Whoa, not me if that’s what you are asking?” Roman shuddered at the thought that John could think such a thing.
“Alexie? Please don’t tell me that she and Alexie….oh god….I’ll fucking kill him with my bare hands if he has so much laid a hand on her.” John was physically nauseous at the thought that his friend Alexie would have been intimate with his wife.
“Calm down John…Marlena looks to be 7 or 8 months along, maybe 9, I don’t know, hard to tell.”
“She’s 7 to 8 months pregnant?” John yelled into the phone, livid that this was the first time he had been told this vital piece of news. “Why the hell wasn’t I told?”
“Calm down…she didn’t want you to know….”
“Didn’t fucking want me to know? It’s my child…I have a right to know…I want to talk to her now,” John demanded.
Roman leaned back in his chair and smiled for the first time in awhile…holy fucking god for small miracles, the baby was John’s.
