Meagan's Marine (Halos & Horns) (12 page)

chapter
16

The New Normal

Niki
met them at the door, trying to console a still sniffling Buck. “We’ve had an
incident
.”

Meagan’s stiffened posture at her friend’s
comment had Mitch wondering if she’d used some kind of code for something
serious.

She lifted her son carefully from
Niki’s
arms. “Hey buddy. What happened?”

“My plane is
bwoken
,
Mom.” Buck wiped his tear-streaked cheeks, before burying his face in his
mother’s neck.

Mitch smiled, at once sad for the boy
but happy that he thought so much of his gift. “Aw Buckaroo, don’t cry. I’ll
get you another plane. Toys break when kids play with them. It’s no big deal.”

Meagan shot him an appreciative glance before
heading inside with her son. “You see? Don’t cry, little man,” she crooned
softly as she rubbed his back in slow comforting circles.

Buck’s head popped up unexpectedly. “I
didn’t
bwake
it, Mitch. I put it in the
hangah
just like you said. But when I woke up, it was all
messed up.”

Mitch patted the boy’s head
comfortingly. “How about if I take a look at it for you, okay? I bet I can fix
it.” With the kid’s hopeful gaze fixed on him, he was determined not to fail
him. Several seconds later, he realized that no amount of glue or tape…not even
man’s most versatile friend, duct tape, could repair the damage to the toy
plane.

“Can you fix it?”

Mitch smiled at the small face lined
with worry, more determined than ever not to disappoint him.

“Sure I can. I’ll have to take it home,
but I can fix it right up for you.”

Buck scooted down Meagan’s torso to run
over and throw his arms around Mitchell’s legs. “Thanks Mitch! You’re my best
fwend
!”

Mitch cradled the boy’s head in one hand
and met Meagan’s wide-eyed gaze just as a blast of cold air hit him in the
face. “Glad to do it, Buck. That’s what buddies do. Now you go on with
Niki
while your mom and I have a talk.” He practically
pushed Buck out the door so he could close it behind him.

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

Meagan nodded and answered, her words
accompanying a puff of icy vaporized air. “Yes.”

Mitch walked to the center of the room
to face off with the spirit of Meagan’s dead fiancé. “Let’s talk man to man,
Chris…or if you prefer, Marine to Marine.”

“Mitch, no—”

His hand shot out to stop Meagan’s
protest. “It’s okay, Megs. I can see where he’s coming from. He’s lost
everything in the world that’s important to him and if he wasn’t dead already,
that in itself would be enough to kill a good man. Chris was a very good man,
but let’s face reality, Megs. Even good men get angry, especially when they
feel helpless…right, Marine?”

Mitchell threw his arm protectively
around Meagan as she gasped at the resounding crack of PFC Christopher Martin’s
portrait smashing into the opposite wall.

“Meagan, you need to leave the room. PFC
Martin and I need to exchange some info.” He opened the door and pushed her
gently out, closing it on her hesitant protests. Turning his attention to the
center of the room, he squared his shoulders and faced off with the frustrated
spirit of Chris Martin.

“I know you’re angry. I know you’re
frustrated. I know you’re sad at what you missed out on. But please, Buck’s a
great kid and Meagan’s doing a fantastic job raising him. Please don’t take it
out on him or his mother. He’s
your
kid, and nothing will ever change
that. Meagan loved you—still—loves you to this day. But she can’t move on,
Chris. Neither of them will ever be able to move on as long as you’re here,
angry and frustrated.”

He paced the room trying to choose his
words wisely. “You’ve seen Meagan in her best moments, her happiest days with
you. Is that what you see in her now? Or do you see the tension, the fear
you’ve single-handedly caused in her life?”

Mitch passed his hand through his thick
hair and released a long, drawn out sigh, before turning his attention back to
the icy center of the room. “It’s time to Marine up, Private First Class
Martin. It’s time to prove you’re more than just a man. You’re a Marine. A
Marine would never put the two people he loves through this kind of hell. It’s
time to let them, go, Chris. Just let them go.”

He turned as the door flew open,
accompanied by Meagan’s anguished cry.

“
Noooo
!” She
ran to Mitch and slapped him hard on the face. “You have no right to make that
decision! You need to leave—now.”

Mitch caught her hands as she tried to
slap him again. He stared her down as he began to put all the pieces together. “It’s
you, Meagan. You’re the one who won’t let go. It’s your conflicted emotions
throwing off the balance here. The balance between life and death…peace and
dissension…good feelings and bad!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking
about.” She turned her back on him. “And you have no right to be here, in the
middle of this. You have no part in this!”

“Don’t I?”

She spun around to face him. “No, you
don’t
.”

“If that were true, neither you nor
Christopher’s ghost or spirit or whatever the hell you want to call it, would
be feeling so conflicted right now. It’s not him that needs to Marine up…it’s
you, Meagan.
And
you need to do it before you cause permanent
psychological damage to your son.”

Her arm shot up, finger pointed to the
open door. “Get out. Now.”

Mitch took a step back, then another,
before heading out the door, but then turned to face her once more.

“You need to let him go, Meagan, so you
and Buck can have a normal life together. This…” He lifted his arms to
encompass the room. “This isn’t normal…under any circumstances, and you damn
well know it.”

Tight-jawed and filled with his own
frustrated anger, he paused just long enough to address
Niki
.
“Tell Buck I’ll keep the plane at my place from now on, but I’ll bring it by
for him to play with it.” She gave him a brief nod before he stormed angrily
out the front door.

****

Meagan shut her eyes tightly against the
sound of Mitchell’s truck starting and peeling out of her driveway.

“Mom?”

She spun around to find her son standing
in the doorway,
Niki’s
hands resting lightly on his
shoulders.

She wiped at the corner of her eyes with
her fingertips. “Yeah, buddy?”

“
Whewe’s
Mitch? Did he go home to fix my plane?”

She knelt in front of her son, ruffled
her fingers through his dark hair. “Uh, yep. I’m pretty sure that’s where he
went.”

“Is he coming back?”

Meagan shifted her gaze from her son to
Niki
, then back to Buck. “Mm, I think so, sweetie.”

“‘
Cuz
it
sounded like you didn’t want him to. But I like Mitch, Mom, and I want him to
come back.” He pulled away from her and stared at the spot on his dresser where
the toy plane had been sitting in its box. “Why didn’t he want me to have it?”

“Who? Mitch? He does want you to have
the plane, that’s why he’s going to fix it for you.”

Buck gave his dark head a shake. “No. The
sad man didn’t want me to have it, but I don’t know why.” He turned to face his
mother again. “I don’t think the sad man likes Mitch
vewy
much. And that makes
me
kinda
sad.” He headed
out of his room, pausing just long enough to grab his pterodactyl kite.

“My grandmother had a saying: From a
child’s mouth, wisdom rings as clearly as a bell on a still winter’s day.”
Niki
cracked a huge grin at Meagan, obviously hoping to
lighten the mood. “She did that…put her personal stamp on several bible
readings. Guess she figured if she was going to plagiarize, she may as well
plagiarize the best.”

Meagan dropped exhaustedly onto Buck’s
bed and hid her face in her hands. “
Niki
, what have I
done?” She felt her friend sit beside her and shifted over to make room for her.

“Well, from what I see you haven’t done
much of anything except to try to keep the love of your life alive in some
fashion. But you’re a big girl, Meg. You’re smart enough to realize there is no
possible future with a dead man.”
Niki’s
eyes glanced
to the center of the room. “Sorry bro, I hate to be the one to point this out
to you, but you’re not much good to her dead. If you’re sticking around to send
some kind of important message, maybe you should just do it and be on your
way—”

“
Niki
!”

“—before they put us all away for
conversing with ghosts!” She gave a nervous laugh as she faced Meagan again.
“It’s true Meg. Just look at us trying to communicate with a dead man, like
this is something people do every day. We’ve become so desensitized by
everything that’s been happening that we don’t see how weird it is!”

“
Nik
, calm
down.”

“No,
Meggie
.
We’re too calm about this already. What’s next, setting a place at the table
for your dead fiancé? Won’t the kids at pre-k have a field day with
that
when Buck starts up next year? Nothing says
outsider
quite like having
your own resident ghost-dad. We may as well start giving him
wedgies
, and stuffing him in lockers right now, for
chrissakes
!”

The two women stood there staring each
other down, in a veritable female face-off. They jumped, breaking eye contact
at the sound of Chris’s frame sliding flat on its back.

Meagan picked it up, examined it
carefully. “I think the easel part has had it. I guess it’s time for another
frame.”

Niki
approached cautiously to stand beside her. “We may need to go online to find
something super heavy duty—” 

“—with some kind of safety glass—”

“—or Plexiglas—”

“—or
no
glass at all.” Meagan
caught
Niki’s
gaze on her, couldn’t keep from
cracking a grin at her friend. The grin proved to be contagious and soon they’d
both burst into hysterical laughter.

Niki
dabbed impatiently at her tears as she struggled to catch her breath. “Oh God,”
she gasped.  “We’re 100% certifiable, Meg!” Two deep breaths and one long
sigh later, she looked over at her friend. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Meagan lifted her hand. “Everything you
said was the absolute truth,
Nik
. You were right to
yell at me.”

“I was, wasn’t I?”

Meagan caught the hint of laughter in
her friend’s reply. “You’re such a bitch.”

“Hey, it takes one to know one,
bitchette
.”

Meagan collapsed alongside
Niki
on top of Buck’s bed, both overtaken by another fit of
giggles.

Meagan’s hand flew to her chest as she
coughed, struggling to catch her breath. “Oh God, it feels good to laugh again.”

“We used to laugh all the time. Buckaroo
was always making us laugh at some thing or another. His adorable belly laughs
used to crack me up.”

“And that funny little butt-scoot thing
he did before he could walk,” Meagan added.

“His first steps, his first words—”

“—how he mispronounced breakfast…”
Meagan glanced over at
Niki
before they both blurted
out the same word.

“
Bleck
-fuck!”

They fell back on the bed, chortling
gleefully again.

Buck entered the room carrying his kite.
“Hey, what’s
goin
’ on in
hewe
?
Y’all aw
messin
’ up my bed!”

Meagan jumped up, followed by
Niki
. “Yes sir, you are correct, but we’ll fix it, won’t we
Nik
?”

“You
betcha
,
Captain Buck,” she said, helping Meagan to smooth the covers neatly back into
place.

Buck placed his kite back in its
designated spot on the toy shelf and left the room, casting a last warning look
at the two women.

“Wow, is he bossy, or what?”

“Neat freak, just like his daddy,”
Meagan stated wistfully before catching her friend’s gaze on her again. “
Nik
, can you call
Elvinia
back
over here for me? The sooner the better.”

Niki
pulled her phone from the pocket of her jeans and punched in the contact name.
Putting the phone on speaker, they waited through three rings before the woman
answered.
Niki
placed a comforting hand on her
friend’s arm as Meagan spoke to the psychic.

“
Elvinia
, this
is Meagan Hutton. Would it be possible for you to come over?”