Page 11 of Jeremiah

“Christ, I think I’d like to dig them up and—they got off too easily if you ask me. Poor Beth. It’s amazing that she was able to function at all if you ask me.” Jeremiah said that he felt like that as well.

Jeremiah answered their questions as best and as easily as he could. There were other things that Beth had had to endure not only while locked up but also at home. To him, it was a small wonder that she’d ever had any other children. There were other things that he’d thought of, too. From the information that Hudson, a very old vampire and dear friend of the family, was, with his magic, able to get more information than anyone would ever have. He’d told him that while living at home, her father had abused his daughter as well, and when he’d been tortured when he’d had the accident that his cock and balls had been cut off and shoved into his mouth. He wasn’t going to tell them that, but it made him proud of her on some level.

When Lexy joined him, they headed home. The Prichard family was going to be staying at a hotel for a little while until they, as a family, decided what they wanted to do. None of them wanted to ever step foot in the house again. Not that he blamed them, but he was going to gather up some of the things that Beth had and make sure that pictures were given to them as well.

Mark wanted the house torn down. He told him that he’d never live there again, and no one blamed him. Even the youngest children seemed to understand that the house was tainted and didn’t want to stay there either. Not even to go in and get some clothing to wear.

“They’re going to need help.” Jeremiah nodded, telling Lexy that they would need to see someone, too. “I thought of that myself. While Mary Beth has a handle on things, it’s going to hit her sooner rather than later that her mother killed herself. And that she didn’t need to die. I will forever blame that on her parents. Poor Beth.”

“Poor everyone. Also, the teacher, no one asked, but the man was arrested about ten years ago for child porn. He was killed on his way to the prison where he’d been sentenced. Hudson told me that the man was known to keep little girls after school and what he was doing. But since he was doing such a good job at teaching children—I kid you not, they kept him on but kept a closer eye on him. Those mother fuckers need to die too.” Lexy laughed at him, and he was glad. While he’d been serious, he knew that what he wanted to lighten her mood. His took a good turn too, he was happy to say to himself.

It was late when they got home. After checking the several messages that had been left for the two of them, Jeremiah headed to his office. He was only going to be in there for a few minutes, getting things set up for tomorrow, a school day. He ended up ignoring everything to go up to bed.

Jeremiah needed to hold onto Lexy. Not just for sex but to know that she was the real thing for him. Comfort as well as loved. Once he was in bed, she turned to him and wrapped her warm body around him. Tomorrow, he told himself he was going to ask to see her other half. Then he wanted to talk to her about other things. Like, did she want some children or not.

Closing his eyes, he felt his body relax. He was mentally exhausted but still had a bit of energy that was making his legs shake a bit. Lexy ran her feet up and down his legs, and it had the desired effect. He was asleep in no time.

Chapter 6

Ten years after the death of Elizabeth Mary Pritchard

It didn’t take her long to get into the groove of teaching. Lexy had been a teacher before, of course, but with the things that she had at this school, all the up-to-date things that made her job easier, she thought for sure that she could go on forever. Lexy smiled to herself. She didn’t want to be a teacher forever. Having money made her think that there was more in life than working. She wanted to play, and hang out with Jeremiah. Get to know his family too.

“Mrs. Lexy Tate?” She smiled and turned to Josh. He was the only student that she couldn’t get to stop calling her Mrs. Lexy Tate. She sometimes wondered if he referred to her that way to his parents, too. “Mrs. Lexy Tate, I don’t remember how to spell my last name. It’s a big one.”

“You do have a long last name, Josh. Here, let me write it out for you so that you can copy it. And you can just call me Mrs. Tate.” He nodded as he did every time she asked him about her name. “There you go. Windermere. Can you copy that now?”

“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Lexy Tate.” He made his way back to his table and sat down. The little guy would make her smile every time he sat down to work. The way he stuck his tongue out to concentrate would make her smile no matter the mood she was in. He was the highlight of the day to her.

When it was nearly break time, the kids got an extra thirty minutes outside today. She bundled them up and made sure that everyone had gloves. Just last week, she’d gone to the dollar store and had picked up two cases of little gloves. She and her dad had been sharing them when the students seemed to lose them every couple of days.

Her dad was out with the little ones, and today, she went out too. She was supposed to take a break in the offices, but Jeremiah wasn’t in today, having a meeting across town he had to go to, so she didn’t have anyone to eat with. Dad was forever happy to see her.

“I have three absent today. How about you?” She told him just the one. “I thought for sure, with the colds going around, that we’d have a lot more out. I guess they’re used to the cold weather. I’m certainly not.” Lexy laughed. He said the same thing every year, like it was some kind of contest with him. She loved him for it.

She and her dad were closer than most daughter-to-dad families. She supposed it was because they were all they had while she was growing up, but she dearly loved him. Thinking about the holidays that were coming up, knowing that they would be spending Christmas with the Tates, she asked him if he had asked Joyce.

Dad had been the man about town when they arrived. She’d not realized that there was a major difference in the man to women ratio in this town. For every man, there were a dozen single women who were ready to pounce. And that is what it looked like, too, when he was caught unawares as he’d been that first week.

He had had a difficult time even going out to dinner by himself until he made it clear that he wasn’t going to be dating all that much. Joyce Martin had made an impression on her father that had outlasted the others. They’d been seeing each other now for about five years.

“Darling daughter, you look ready to pop that little girl out there. When did the doctor tell you that you’d have her?” She told him, like Josh, she told him every day, that his first grandchild would be born in late January. “I think it will be sooner. Like the end of the year. Mark my words, she’s going to be a handful, too.”

Jeremiah said that too. That their daughter was going to be a handful. She didn’t understand that. She’d been an all right child, and according to Jeremiah’s family, he’d been a quiet and good boy, too. Lexy thought that they wanted her to have a naughty child so that they could say that she was a handful.

“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Are you still going with me?” He nodded and ran ahead of her to see what the fuss was about by the swings. Watching her dad take care of the boo-boo and the tears, Lexy smiled with her husband. She loved the sound of that even after all this time reached out to her.

“You’ll be thrilled to know that I’m not going to have to stay tonight. They’ve decided to wrap things up so that I won’t have to travel in the bad weather. They said it was supposed to snow tonight. I wonder if they ever look outside? It’s been snowing for four days now.” She asked him, again, if there was ever a time when Ohioans didn’t ask about the weather. “Nope. It’s a topic highly thought of. What are you doing right now?”

“Watching my dad bandage up a knee. One of the Adler twins knocked the other one off the swing when she was taking too long. Do you think they fight at home as much as they do in the classroom?” He said that he hoped not. Their parents are saints if they did. “No kidding. I have noticed that they don’t like it when other kids pick fights with the other one, either. They’ll kill each other over a swing but fight to the death together when someone picks on the other twin. Are you really coming home tonight?”

“I’m actually on my way now. I’m nervous if you want to know the truth. The snow really is blowing hard, and there are slick places all along the roads. Don’t you drive anywhere you don’t have to, love. I’d worry about you more.” She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. Telling him that she was just going to go home and stay there, he told her she was right. “You didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you. They’re going to use your model for the teaching program for new kindergarten teachers. They were so happy with the curriculum that they have decided to have copies made and hand out to all the teachers so that they can see what is being taught at the lower levels and what they can expect from the kids. I think it’s a great idea, and I’m so very proud of you and your dad.”

“Dad and I thought it was about time that someone let the other teachers know so that they didn’t reteach things that the kids had already gone over. A lot of them do very well on the state tests, and I think this is going to look good for us in the new testing.” Jeremiah agreed with her and told her that all of the board members had agreed as well. “Thank you for that. I just can’t wait for this child to be born so that I can stop feeling like the side of a barn. If I had known how…I would have done it anyway. I cannot wait, can you?”

“No. But you have to hang on for a bit longer. I have to get the bed put together and the clothing that we got for her put upstairs.” She didn’t tell him that she’d gotten both done while he’d been gone. But, of course, he guessed. “You did it, didn’t you?”

“I was bored. Dad helped. And he said that with all the things you have going on, it might be better if someone else took over some of the items that you have in the works. Dad also got the rocking chair fixed, as well as the changing table put together. I don’t know if I’ll use it, but it’s in the bedroom now.” While standing in line with the kids who were due to go back to class, she felt the first twinge of something that she knew was going to be the baby. “Do you have any idea when you’ll be home? I might have to have you pick up some food so we don’t have to eat at any particular time.”