Storiesonline.net ------- Billy Sings The Blues by Openbook Copyright© 2005 by Openbook ------- Description: The Sixteenth story in the Caddymaster Saga. Billy gets Jackie involved in straightening out his mess. Theresa decides she has a way to slow Billy down in a hurry. Codes: MF cons cheat oral preg ------- Chapter 1 Billy and I had just finished having our final business meeting and discussion with my father. It hadn't gone well for any of us. It ended up with him paying us a dollar for the Mustang and telling us to stick the rest of his share of the business up our asses. We had all known that it wasn't going to turn out that well when he had shown up drunk, for an eleven o'clock morning meeting with us. In a nutshell, he had taken to treating all of his friends and acquaintances to drinks and lunches and charging it to the business. Billy and I had finally had all of that we could take and had deducted $1,404.45 from his third of the profits for the past month, and presented him with a bill for the remaining $644.03 in disallowed expenses. We told him that we wouldn't pay anymore for his boozing it up with his buddies. Mostly, it was the money, but part of it was our fear that he was going to kill himself or someone else with his drinking and driving in a company car. My mother had been after me for months telling me that the drinking would kill him if he kept it up. "Jesus, Jackie, that was rough. I hope your dad understands we didn't want it to end like that." "Billy it wouldn't matter how we did it, it was always going to end up like this sooner or later. If we'd continued letting him stick all his boozing costs on us, he'd just have kept increasing it until there wasn't any money left for anybody. That's just how he works. He won't stay inside reasonable limits and restrictions. Those are for 'normal' people, not for someone like him. Nobody can tell him what to do or how to do it. I don't know how he managed to get his 20 years in in the Navy, but he did. His buddies always protected him is all I can figure, because he was like this in the Navy too." "If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have made the kind of dough where he could drink up that kind of money every month. I hate to just kiss off the money he was making for all of us. Maybe we should let him sober up and cool off and try to work something out with him." "You can do that if you want to Billy, but I want no more part of him running around in a company car drunk on his ass. He gets in an accident, we lose everything. I'm talking this farm, my house, both our businesses, any money we might have saved. Every time he gets in a car in the shape he's in now, that's a real possibility. Maybe you're willing to risk having to start over from scratch, but I'm not." "You going to just walk completely away from the business? There's still good money to be made there." "No, I'm not saying that we walk away from anything. He already had every wood maker in a hundred miles knowing about us and what we could do. We can see to it that they are kept up on what we charge for the wood that they need. Most of our business is just repeat business anyway. I bet he hasn't talked to anybody new in three months, and hasn't seen any of his customers, unless they ran into him in a bar by accident, in just as long. As long as they keep calling in their orders, we keep the business going. Dad gets his third just like usual, but we'll give the money to my mother, not to him. She won't let him piss it all away on his friends, and she won't let him get so out of control with his own drinking. She's used to keeping him on a short leash where drinking money's concerned." "That's good, Jackie. This way he gets some money plus we keep getting ours too. Without his expense account money to worry about, we'll be doing better than ever. That's why I like keeping you around. You can always find a way around the problems." So that's exactly what we did, and Billy was right, we were doing better than ever before without all the expenses of going out and getting new business. Business fell off some as people had businesses go under or they found other suppliers, but it was good for a long time. We even got new customers from time to time, when our regular customers gave good recommendations to new businesses that needed wood. We had a quarter page ad in the yellow pages that brought in some business too. My father was yakked at Billy and I for a couple months until he saw that we were bringing his share over and giving it to my mother. He never acknowledged that we were doing it, but we all knew that he knew about it. He didn't have the business to use as an excuse to be out 'ramming the roads' as my mother referred to it, and so he spent more time at home and settled back to a slower, but still steady, drinking style. At home, my mother mixed his drinks, and she would water them down quite a lot when she felt he had indulged enough. Her system must have been pretty good, as he lived to be eighty one. If she hadn't died eight years before him, he might have made it to one hundred. It was about three months after that meeting where dad quit the business that Ellen got a phone call from a crying and distraught Theresa. She claimed that Billy was seeing another woman and she asked Ellen to speak with me, and to try to get me to have a talk with Billy and straighten him out. Billy and Theresa had three kids at that time and the youngest was still in her diapers. Ellen spoke with me, but I told her that I knew nothing about Billy seeing anyone else and told her that I didn't see how he could have either the time or the energy with everything he had going on. Of course, Ellen figured I was just covering up for Billy and began suspecting I might have something going on the side myself. I asked her how Theresa knew about this other woman if there was one. Ellen said that Theresa had a strong feeling and that women knew about things like that. Sounded like bullshit to me, but I told her I'd check into it anyway. We were out in the front at the farm, Billy was loading up my truck for a firewood delivery over to Stonington. I asked Billy if he was up to something, like seeing another woman or something. He just looked at me and then told me no. I dropped it without another word and we talked about a new job he'd bid on and felt like he'd probably get it. "Why'd you ask me something like that anyway, Cuz? Have you got a guilty conscience yourself or something?" "Billy you just looked sneakier than usual, that's all. I figured you were up to something and I was hoping it wasn't anything that could really get your ass in a sling. Because, if you were fooling around, well Theresa would know it, and probably right away too. I'd hate to see you fuck up everything just for some strange piece of ass." "You hear anything like that Cuz? Rumors or something?" "Maybe I heard Ellen on the phone yesterday talking about somebody screwing around on their wife, but I didn't get a name. It couldn't be you though, because you already said it wasn't." Billy walked around to the back of my truck where he couldn't be seen from his house. I followed him back there. He had his bandanna out and was wiping the sweat from his face and neck. "Jackie, please don't play with me. Tell me what you heard, please?" Not all that sweat was from working, I guessed. He looked worried. "Billy, Theresa called Ellen. She's suspicious I think. She has a feeling or something. I don't know what you might really be up to, but I'd quit it if I was you." "I can't quit it, she's having my baby. It's driving me crazy, Jackie, I don't know what the fuck to do. You're good at figuring shit out, what can I do?" "Goddamn it! Don't you have enough shit on your plate already? Why in the name of Christ would you do anything so stupid? Did you think Theresa wasn't going to notice you pushing some other woman's baby stroller? Who the hell is this other woman anyway?" "You don't know her. I met her down at the hall of records when I was pulling some permits to do the Pearson farm last year. She works there and was helpful to me. After I had everything filed and the permit in my hands, I asked her out to lunch, to let her know that I appreciated her help and all. We didn't do anything right away, just talked and went to lunch a few times that's all." "If she's having your baby, then I guess you must have fed her your salami at one of those lunches. You don't get pregnant from eating lunches, fat maybe, but not pregnant." "Yeah, after awhile we had our lunches in her apartment. She didn't want people to get the wrong idea about us having so many lunches in public together. I told her I was married and everything. We were having one of those lunches when afterwards we started kissing and fooling around. It kind of got a little out of hand that's all. Now she's pregnant and I don't know what to do." "Are you saying this only happened the one time and she got pregnant from that time?" "No, we've been seeing each other a couple times a week for the past seven or eight months now. She's three months pregnant now." "Billy, tell me her name and give me her address. What would you like to have happen here?" "I really like her a lot Jackie, but I love Theresa and the kids. I wish she wasn't pregnant, but I like her and I was happy going off to see her once in awhile. I don't want to lose Theresa. I don't want her to ever know for sure. It's killing me now that you told me she suspects something." Billy gave me all the information he felt I needed. He was so worked up that I had to tell him to calm down and try to act natural. I told him I'd try to think of some way out of it for him, but I made him promise to stick close to home until I came up with something. I drove over to Stonington and made my delivery and then drove home. I was trying to think of something I could do to help Billy and also Theresa. She didn't need this from him and I knew she'd take it bad if she found out. Finally I decided that I had to get Ellen in on it too. I figured Ellen could do some investigating and find out more about Billy's girlfriend, like she had done with Joan in their assault on B.D. Poynton. Her mind was more devious than mine, and she could be colder and more calculating than I could. I thought about bringing in my mother too, but that would have been overkill. "Your telling me that Billy admits to getting some poor girl pregnant and cheating on his wife, and you think I should try to help him out? Why would I want to do that?" "I think it would be more like helping both Billy and Theresa and their kids. If all I wanted to do was help Billy, I'd be able to do that by myself." "How?" "I'd go have a talk with the girl and pay her some money to leave Billy alone. I'd have her sign a legal paper that was enforceable in court and sue her ass if she didn't live up to her end." "So why didn't you just do that then?" "Because Billy would just go out and do the same kind of thing with another girl. He wants to keep this one if she isn't pregnant any more." "What do you think I could do to help Theresa and not encourage Billy to keep doing it with someone else?" "First, we need some more information about this girl. I thought you'd be great at making friends with her and finding out more about what she's like. If she's a nice girl, it might be hard to work something out. She knows Billy's married and went ahead and let him get her pregnant anyway. I'm guessing she isn't exactly as pure as the driven snow. See if you can learn something in the next week or so." I could tell that Ellen was excited about having a chance to do some role playing, so I just left her alone with all the information I'd gotten from Billy. Our plan might have borne early fruit if Billy hadn't gone inside his house ten minutes after I left him and confessed everything to Theresa. Billy wound up living back on Bill Avenue with his mother, and Theresa was on the phone with Ellen almost every waking moment for the next week. Billy could go to the farm to do his work and that was it. Theresa wouldn't talk to him and wouldn't let him in to see his children. She told him that she'd divorce him right away if he tried to speak with her again before she figured out for sure what she was going to do. She wouldn't even let Billy inside the house to take orders for wood or to schedule deliveries. We ended up having to get a phone installed outside on the porch. We had to get a special loud ringer put in so that Billy could hear the phone from wherever he was on the property. I told Billy the costs were all coming out of his end. Ellen went ahead and spent some time finding out about Amanda Lawrence and even managed to have herself introduced to her by one of her co-workers. She had been born and raised in New London and had been working for the county since graduating high school in 1962. Ellen said she was cute, in a brassy kind of way and had a nicer figure than Theresa, even pregnant, which Ellen said she wasn't showing yet. The people she talked with didn't know about Billy and her, let alone other men in her life. Ellen didn't think she'd get anything else useful because Amanda wasn't very sociable. I decided I had better get my brother Ray involved. Ray was practically engaged to Sandy by then, but he was always willing to help a family member out if there was a pretty girl connected somehow with his helping. Ray figured it would be better if Sandy wasn't aware of just what it was that he was doing to help the family and made Ellen and I promise not to tell her. Two days later, a little before six in the afternoon, he was back with his report. "Jackie, that girl's not pregnant. At least she's not pregnant right now." "How do you know that, Ray, did you just come out and ask her?" "Well, last night she was wearing a Kotex, and it had fresh blood on it. I saw it and I could smell it too. I can guarantee you that she isn't pregnant right now." "What did you do, go through her trash can?" "No, of course not. She was wearing it when I checked." "This is important Ray, are you sure? Don't make shit up to try and look like some great cocksman. This is too important for any bullshit." "Jackie, I'm telling you. I was on her sofa last night at 9:30 and had my hand right on her panties and I felt the Kotex and the belt. I took a peek later and made sure she needed it, and she did. She thinks I'm coming over again tonight, but I'm not. I hope you're going to reimburse me for my out of pocket here because I blew almost twenty bucks on dinner and drinks and some gas for my car." I got a pretty good blow job out of it so I won't charge you for my time." I gave him the twenty and thanked him for his quick attention to the matter, his detailed report, and the dedication he showed to the family. "Always glad to give you guys a hand, you know that." After he left, I told Ellen about everything Ray had told me. She seemed more concerned that Ray would step out and cheat on Sandy than she was about the news that this Amanda was running some kind of scam on Billy. I tried explaining to her that Ray had only been doing what we sent him over there to do. I think it was the blow job that bothered her the most. I started being afraid that Ellen might say something to Sandy about Ray's behavior, but she didn't, or at least I never heard anymore about it. It took Ellen less than five minutes to get on the phone with Theresa and tell her that Billy wasn't fathering a child with Amanda. You'd think she'd be happy finding that out, seeing as how it made the whole situation less complex and all. Not Theresa though.; If anything, she got even more pissed off that Billy would be so easily duped by another woman. By the time she and Ellen got off the phone, Ellen was worried enough about what she'd been told that she told me to find Billy and make sure he stayed away from the farm for awhile. She didn't tell me why, but I could see she was worried and upset. I called Billy over at Aunt Margaret's and told him I'd be over there to pick him up in half an hour. After I picked Billy up, we went down to the bowling alley and bowled some candlepins. I lost ten bucks to Billy, but I managed to get him to repay me for the twenty I gave to Ray. Billy was pissed when I gave him Ray's report. He didn't like Ray getting a blow job from his girlfriend. I asked him if he was stupid or just couldn't see the trouble he was in. "Jackie, would you like it if he got your girlfriend to suck his dick?" "That's not the point here Billy, I'm married, I don't have a girlfriend to suck his dick. I wouldn't want one who'd suck his dick either, but that's besides the point. The point you should be worrying about is that Amanda's not pregnant. a secondary point is that she went out on one date with Ray and wound up sucking his dick and letting him play with her bloody pussy. That isn't painting too nice a picture about the way she views the relationship you and she have. If it was me, I'd start having second thoughts about whether to continue your little affair with her. Another thing, Ellen already called Theresa and told her about Ray and Amanda and Theresa said something that has Ellen scared, but I don't know what it was. Ellen told me to make sure you stay away from the farm for a few days at least." "I'm glad she isn't pregnant Jackie, but I'm still not happy about Ray's finding out the way he did. As for staying away, that's my fucking farm, not Theresa's. I had that farm before she and I got back together. It's in my name, and she's only there because I'm letting her stay there." I knew right then that there was nothing more I could do other than step out of his way and let happen whatever was going to happen. Billy was as stubborn and intractable as my father and I were. None of us were known for being reasonable or controllable even under the best of circumstances. Add emotion to the equation and 'powder-keg' would be a more apt description for any of the three of us. I drove him back to my aunt's house and went home. After I told Ellen that I was done with the whole thing, and told her some of what Billy had said, she just nodded to me and said nothing. The next morning at about six o'clock, Theresa emptied a six shot revolver into Billy as he stood on their front porch steps. She wasn't much of an aim though, managing only two hits in six attempts from less than ten feet away, but she did convince him to stay away from her and the children for awhile. Billy drove himself to the hospital and called my father before letting them operate to take out the bullet in his thigh. The other bullet had passed right through his other thigh. My father told Billy to just keep his mouth shut about how it had happened, and then he got Mr. Bennett on the telephone and arranged to meet him at the hospital. My mother called me about seven thirty that morning to tell me the news. Ellen and I drove over to the farm to see what we could do for Theresa. By the time we got there, Big Tony and Maria were there taking care of the kids and trying to get Theresa to stop crying. At about ten that morning my father and Mr. Bennett drove up with a guy from the state police and picked up the revolver that Billy had 'accidentally' set off when he dropped it that morning. I'm not sure how they came up with an explanation of how Billy managed to shoot himself twice with a single drop of a revolver, but they must have come up with something, because it was ruled an accidental shooting and Billy even got his gun back after a couple months. I finally left Ellen with Theresa and the mob that had come over to see what was up, and went over to the hospital to see Billy. They had him on some kind of medication for the pain and from the surgery, but he was awake and wanted to know how Theresa was. "She was aiming for my crotch you know, trying to put me out of commission as far as the ladies go. The first shot she got me in the leg where they operated, and then I was trying to move and duck away from her and jump off the damn porch. She was pretty damn mad too, when she saw me limping over to my truck. I didn't even know about the other wound until I looked down on the drive to the hospital and saw the blood on the other leg and the hole in my pants. My truck is all full of blood Jackie. Could you take it somewhere and get it cleaned before the stains get all dried up and I can't ever get them out?" "Billy did you learn anything from this morning? She could have killed you and then she'd go to prison and who would raise your kids then? Tony and Maria? Is that what you want? You can clean your own damn truck too, when they let you out of here. I told you last night to stay away for a few days and let her cool off, but you had to do it your way. I'll stop by and see you tomorrow, just to see if you need something. You know the business will get all fucked up with nobody to answer the phones now." I got his keys and went out and took his truck back to the farm and washed it out as good as I could. There was still a stain, but not too bad, and the smell was pretty much gone too. I told Theresa that the first thing Billy wanted to know was whether she was okay. Then I told her that the doctor had sewed his dick back together but didn't think he'd ever be able to use it again. I was smiling as I said it to make sure she knew I was only kidding with her, but she looked nervous when I'd said it. Maybe Billy wasn't quite as bad in bed as she'd led me to believe so many years before. Ellen and I took Billy's truck back to the hospital and then got in my car and drove home. "How was Billy taking things, is he pissed off?" "I don't think so. He sounded kind of proud actually. Billy always did appreciate brute force and violence. I think that's why he admires my dad so much. He's happy he got off as easy as he did, because he knew she was trying to shoot him each time she pulled that trigger. He was more worried about the bloodstains on his truck seat than about his leg wounds or his close call." "You know, almost all the men in your family are a little crazy. You don't think about things the same as most people. Anybody else gets shot, they lay down and bleed to death. I'm surprised Billy didn't run into the house while Theresa was reloading the gun and get himself a towel to protect his truck seat from the stains. I'm glad he's going to be okay this time, but don't be too surprised if Theresa finishes the job when he gets out of the hospital. She's still very angry with him." "Okay, I won't be surprised. Don't you be surprised if she visits him in the hospital every day and them takes him back and nurses him until he's all better. We may be crazy in my family, but we always seem to marry women who stick with us no matter what." "Don't kid yourself that I'm that kind of woman, Jackie. And I'm pretty sure I'm a better shot than Theresa." "You'd almost have to be a better shot than her. It happens though that I never would do anything to give you cause to shoot me. That Amanda is more Ray's, Billy's and my father's type. I prefer tall, skinny girls with dirty minds and active imaginations." "You really think I'm skinny?" "I wasn't talking about you." "Can I get a gun Jackie, please?" "Over my dead body." "Perfect." ------- Chapter 2 Ellen and I drove over to New London a few days later and brought Billy back home with us. I'd been over at the farm trying to take care of as much business for Billy as I could, but hadn't really been able to keep up with everything that needed doing. I didn't know anything about the logging portion of his business, and had to rely on the men who'd been working for Billy the longest. Theresa seemed to have gotten herself mad at me as well, doing whatever she could to keep me from working effectively at the farm. It looked like she was probably thinking that she needed to punish me too since it appeared like I was on Billy's side about everything. "Teri, Billy's my cousin and he's also my business partner. While you may be perfectly willing to see everything we've worked for come crashing down around our ears, I'm not. I didn't talk or encourage Billy into deceiving you, and I'm just over here trying to keep our work shit together so that both our families can keep putting food on the table. You can be mad at Billy and shoot his ass all you want to, but quit trying to make it difficult for me to try and keep everything somewhat together." "Billy told me that you told him to not tell me about his girlfriend. You knew about it and should have stopped him." "How was I supposed to stop him, I only found out about it ten minutes before he told you about it himself? I told him to knock it off, as soon as I found out, and I was trying to get it stopped at the other end when you decided to unload your pistol into his pants. I don't understand how you could do something like that? You could have killed him, and then where'd you be? In the women's prison that's where! How about your kids then? You want your mom and Big Tony raising those kids of yours while you sit in a cell for the rest of your life? You can't just act on your emotions, Teri, there's too much at stake for everybody." "You keep him away from here and I won't shoot him again." "Teri, this is Billy's farm. He had it before you two got married. If you push him too hard, he'll get the marshal's to come out here and evict you. I know you're pissed at him, but don't make it worse than it has to be. Let him come out here to work at least. If you don't we're going to lose the business for sure. The crews aren't working as hard as the do when Billy's around to see them, I don't know anything about his systems for storing the wood or which wood is next to go out. When people call in orders, I'm not sure I'm getting things right." "Jackie I don't care about your precious businesses. It looks to me like Billy does all the work and you make most of the money, why is that?" "I don't know if that's accurate Theresa. Billy makes the same thing I do with the furniture wood, and I buy the firewood off him for $3.00 a cord more than he charges some stranger who drives over with a pick up for one lousy cord. I buy about 18,000 cords a year, wouldn't you think I'd get a discount on the price?" "Billy works a lot harder than you do, he isn't sitting at home making money from other people's work. He should make more than he does." "You think eighty thousand a year is too little?" As soon as I said it, I knew I'd fucked up. Billy kept his financial affairs pretty quiet, not wanting to attract either competition or envy. He also knew that a lot of our cousins would be after him for loans if they knew he was making that kind of money. It didn't occur to me until it was too late, that he and Theresa didn't talk about his earnings either. "I don't know how much of that he has left after taxes and expenses, but it still has to be a lot." I could tell that Teri wasn't buying my attempt at covering up my earlier blunder. I found out from Ellen later that she went straight from me to Billy's little room he used for an office and dug through everything and found his bank pass books and his tax returns. Billy always had Theresa sign the blank return before he took it down to his tax guy. She thought he was just trying to save her from a trip and a boring wait while the accountant figured out their taxes. She had never seen the completed tax forms and schedules before and was amazed at how well Billy was doing. She was even more pissed after she found out and remembered all the economy's Billy had forced on her and the kids over the years, when he could have easily afforded anything she and they might have wanted. It was tense over at our house when I told Billy about my little slip up. All of the money in the banks was in Billy's name alone, so he didn't have to worry about Theresa taking it. He knew that her knowing about it would complicate his life a lot though. Ellen was furious at Billy, yelling at him about how shameful it was to have that kind of money and then for him to be a miser when his wife and children went without. That set Billy off and he began yelling that his wife and kids had everything they needed and that she should just keep her nose out of his private fucking business. I drove Billy over to Aunt Margaret's soon after that little exchange, at his request and Ellen's insistence. Things were really going good. "Jackie, Ellen's wrong you know. I don't treat myself any better than I treat Theresa and the kids. I work damn hard to get a little bit ahead. I don't want to wind up living in the projects or over at the poor house for the old folks. I give them good clothes, not fancy, but warm and comfortable. I keep the house warm in the winter, and I make sure the kids see a doctor and a dentist when they need to. If they need medicine, they get it, doesn't matter how much it costs. You see little Billy's bike? That's a forty dollar English racer. Peggy has so many dolls and doll clothes she needs a trunk to keep them all in. The baby has everything she could want or need. I'm not a fucking miser, I only wish I had it as good when we were growing up." "I know Billy. You love all of them and you do a lot for them. It's just that Theresa never knew about the money. She thinks you saved it up in secret to keep her from getting at it, not that you were trying to make sure about the future for all of you. It might not be a good idea to keep stuff like that from her. Theresa grew up the same way we did, she's not going to start throwing money around. It isn't in her nature." I dropped him off and carried his stuff into his mom's house, and then went over to see my folks for awhile. When I got back home, I listened to Ellen bitching about Billy until I couldn't take it anymore. "Ellen, you don't know what the hell you're talking about here. You grew up where you take everything for granted. You never went to bed cold or hungry or afraid that a rat was going to climb up in your bed at night and start chewing on your ear. Billy's the way he is because of what he's gone through. If you came from where he did, maybe you'd appreciate having some money put away too. Billy takes good care of Theresa and the kids, in spite of what you hear or may believe. That doesn't mean he has to spend every damn nickel he makes just so they can have luxuries. When you've been hungry, or had to sleep with your brother to keep from freezing, luxuries don't seem as important to you." My mom and Aunt Margaret had a long talk with Billy about his money, explaining about how his attitude that he owned everything was something that Theresa naturally resented. When they asked him if it was okay that Theresa owned his three children and that he'd have no say so over custody in the event of a divorce, Billy started to get it a little. At that time, it was almost impossible for a father to get custody of the children. Visitation rights were getting a lot better, but, unless the mother was really unfit, she got the custody. Billy knew that he was heading for a divorce if something didn't get turned around pretty quickly. Billy went over to see my father a couple days later and the two of them went to see Mr. Bennett together. Mr. Bennett sent them over to a lawyer who specialized in trusts and estate planning. Billy set up a trust that put the farm and all his savings together as trust assets and made Theresa the trustee and his children the beneficiaries of all trust assets. He got the documents and recorded the deed and the pass books over into the trust's ownership. This was an irrevocable trust, meaning he couldn't take the assets back once he did it. He sent everything over to the farm with my father so that Theresa could look it over and sign her acceptance to be the trustee. He sent along a note telling Theresa that he never really thought of any of the money as his anyway, and asked her if he could get back to working at the farm so he could make a living for himself now that he was broke. Billy went back to work and stayed living with his mother. Billy called Amanda on the telephone and gave her some grief over her trying to trick him about being pregnant. She denied trying to trick him at all, claiming that she had just missed two periods for no explainable reason. She said she was going to tell him about her period coming the next time she saw him. When Billy asked her about Ray and the blow job, she just hung up on him. Billy and Ray had a set to about that blow job too, but Billy let it pass after Ray explained the circumstances to him. I never was sure that he got one, but then again, how did he know about her being on her period otherwise? When Christmas came and Theresa still hadn't let Billy set foot in the house or see his kids, Ellen went over and talked to Theresa and came home with Billy's three kids. She got them all settled in the guest room and the baby room that used to be my den, and then she called Billy and invited him over to see his kids. He arrived within half and hour and spent the whole evening with us until all his kids were bathed and asleep in their beds. The girls were in the converted den and Billy and little Billy were on the guest room bed, after Ellen convinced Billy it would be silly to leave and then come back in the morning. Theresa had given permission for Billy to have the kids until the New Years. After another day and evening spent with his kids, Billy surprised all of us when he packed them up in Ellen's car and drove them back home himself. All he would say was that it wasn't good for kids to be away from their mother when they were so young. Ray and Sandy eloped that week, getting married in Reno, Nevada on Ray's twenty first birthday. Of course both sets of parents were upset to be cheated out of a wedding, but things like that don't matter when you are young and in love. Especially when your fiancee tells you that you'll have to wait until after the wedding to get a little. Ray was never noted for his patience, or his abstinence either. I had given him the $500.00 that he used for the trip as an early wedding present. I didn't find out until later that he borrowed $200.00 off of Billy and $300.00 from mom under separate pretexts. He was always ready to travel in style as long as it wasn't his money. After he started making fairly big money, he became pretty tight fisted just like the rest of us. In February I was out at Billy's farm talking some business with him around noon. It was a cold day and we were out behind a shed trying to keep out of the wind that was blowing pretty good. Theresa startled both of us when she came walking around the corner of the shed with two plates with big Italian grinders on them. She had one of Billy's coffee thermos's under her arm too. She handed each of us a plate and gave Billy the thermos, then she turned around without a word and walked back to her house. After she was back in the house Billy and I dug into those sandwiches with a fervor that only cold and hungry people seem to have. "Damn Billy Theresa's lost a lot of weight, she been sick or something?" "I don't know. This is the first time I've seen her since she shot me. She hides in the house whenever I'm around. She's looking better than I ever remembered her looking though. She looks pretty healthy to me." "You don't suppose she's seeing somebody do you? When a woman goes to all the trouble of losing a lot of weight it usually means she's in love or in lust at least." Billy didn't answer me and I ate the other half of his sandwich since he had lost his appetite. When I got home I told Ellen about what had happened and she just smiled that little smile she gets, so I knew right away something was up. It was a few days later that Ellen brought Billy's kids back over to stay for a couple nights. She called Billy and told him that his kids were at our place if he wanted to come over and see them. I spent the evening trying to watch television as Billy kept after Ellen trying to get her to tell him whether she was watching his kids because Theresa was going out or because Ellen had asked to have them. Ellen finally told him it was a little bit of both. Billy left that night, explaining that he had a lot of work at the farm the next morning. "Why are you doing that to Billy? You know you're driving him crazy. I don't know why you women can't just play fair once in awhile. I guarantee you that Theresa is either sitting in her chair out at the farm, or she's over at her parent's house visiting. And here you've got Billy all worried that she's stepping out on him." "You think you're pretty smart Jackie, but you don't know everything. I'd be willing to bet you a lot of money that right now Theresa isn't at home and isn't at her parents house." When I got back to my living room I could see that Ellen was right, as I saw Theresa coming out of our bedroom. She had been in our house all afternoon and evening. She'd listened as well when Billy spent almost his whole time here asking questions about Theresa. "Ha Jackie, you see? It was you who put the idea in Billy's head in the first place. Theresa and I are just assisting in letting your idea germinate in Billy's head." "Well, I wish you hadn't had Theresa here, because I'm not going to lie to Billy. If he asks me I'll tell him exactly where Theresa was all afternoon and evening." "I hope you like sleeping over at your parent's house then, if you do that. You better start hoping he doesn't ask you." I was just about to tell Ellen where she could stick this ultimatum when Theresa spoke up. "Jackie, we had to do something to get Billy upset enough to make a move to get me to forgive him. I'm not ready to wait three or four years like the last time. Do you know how hard I've been working to try and look attractive for him again? I went and looked at that women you know, trying to see what he thought was worth him doing this thing to all of us. She's pretty in a cheap way, but she isn't that much better looking than I am. She'll never come close to loving him like I do. I will do whatever it takes to get him to understand that I'm the best choice for him. He has to do some things too, to show me that he values me and won't keep doing those kinds of selfish, hurtful things he did. I've got feelings and I've got some pride too. Did you think he was the only one who suffered? Let him think that I'm out catting around just like he was. Maybe if he gets a taste of what it feels like, he'll stay at home in the future. If you say anything, he'll be mad and just stay stubborn. Do you think that's better?" "Teri, I'm going to bed. I won't say anything to Billy, but you better not take this little game too far either. It could all blow up in your face you know. Billy might just decide he doesn't want you back if he thinks you're out acting up and leaving your kids with people. He loves you, but as both a wife and as the mother of his children. He's not that complicated you know, you can just tell him what you'll do if he does it again. Trying to trick him might prove less helpful than you would think. He set up that whole trust thing so you'd know who he was saving his money for. He screwed around on you and then you shot him for it. He didn't get angry or vengeful, he called my father to get some help to keep you out of jail for shooting him. None of that tells me that he doesn't value you. I won't tell you what's fair, because I don't know what is. I know he's sorry for what he did, and I think he's learned some good lessons too. As far as your pride goes, I can remember a time when you'd do almost anything just to get Billy to be your boyfriend. Do you remember how much pride you had back then? What he did with that girl was wrong, but making him think you're out doing the same thing is just as wrong. Especially when you claim to love him so much." Theresa went back home that night, taking her children with her. Billy was parked in front of the house when she got there. He helped her put the kids into their beds and then she told him what she had planned to do in order to make him jealous. She then told him to go home to his mother's. She started treating him better after that, letting him come into the house to play with his children for a little while each day. When he tried to talk her into letting him come back home, she told him he'd have to earn it by winning back her love and trust. She made him start all over again, making sure that she got a proper courtship this time around. Over the next three months she let her guard down a couple times and Billy wound up getting into her bed. She would just send him back to his mom's afterwards though, treating it like it hadn't happened. I wonder how long she was planning on having Billy date her if she hadn't wound up pregnant again. When she told Billy that she was expecting, and that he could move back home again, I think it was the happiest day of his life. He got back his wife, his children and his farm all at the same time. All that work Theresa put in to lose that weight was to pay her dividends in her pregnancy, and she had an easier time of it than she'd had with the other three. She got the extra weight off again after she had little Anthony too. It's almost forty years later now, and Theresa still is the trustee of their family trust. There is a hell of a lot more in it, as Billy has become quite the real estate mogul in his own right. He has bought and sold many farms and wooded properties in the last thirty years. He still lives on that same little farm and still sells firewood from the front of his property, charging the same price he did in 1962 for a cord of wood. He is a grandfather many times over, something I envy him for, at least a little bit. All four of his children are settled in and living in their own houses that the trust provided them as wedding gifts, free and clear. Some mornings I wake up real early, my bones sore and stiff from the accumulated years and the arthritis. I like to drive over to Billy's farm and try to catch him sleeping in. It never seems to work though, and he's usually off somewhere on the farm, either cutting wood or moving it around in all the smaller piles he still maintains. Somehow my aches and pains seem to slip away as I stand out there, watching him work, and listening to him complain about how soft everybody but him has it, and how people just don't appreciate anymore working for an honest day's pay. I hope I go before Billy does, because the only thing that keeps the pain at bay is listening to Billy sing the blues. ------- The End ------- Posted: 2005-09-25 Last Modified: 2005-11-17 / 11:54:23 am Version: 1.10 ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------