Chapter 40

While Brie was in her office, Malachai, David, and Amanda sat in the kitchen and talked.  “Ok, so, seeing as I pay the fucking bills here, I need to know what’s going on with you two”, David said from out of nowhere.

“What?” Amanda said.

“Ok, so I guess I have to spell it out.  First, you two insist on sitting together yesterday during breakfast.  Then, he begs me to borrow my motorcycle to take you home.  At dinner last night, he was ready to go all Lone Ranger and shit to rescue you from your Aunt and Uncle, and THEN wanted to go kill them.  The anger I saw in my son’s face was like nothing I’ve ever seen from him.  I’ve seen defiance, I’ve seen him go cold and distant to kill, I’ve seen overwhelming joy at the births of his younger brothers and sister, but that level of pissed off; I’ve never seen him that pissed.  Then, as my wife was on the phone calling the sheriff’s department, I checked on you two only to see him holding you while you sobbed.  You weren’t crying, you were sobbing, Amanda.  There is a difference.  I learned that with my wife.  Then, he goes to the hospital with you.  Next, he comes running to my room in the middle of the night to wake me from a dead sleep for a pain reliever so that YOU can sleep.  You two come down the stairs holding hands after his mother comes up to see if you’re coming down for breakfast.  Finally, when Brie is talking to you about your massage prescription, HE shows her that it’s open ended.  So, here’s what I’m getting at: having seen all of these changes in my son, I know that he wouldn’t do any of this for just any girl.  He didn’t even do any of this shit for the last girl he was with, though I know he cared for her.  So, what the fuck is going on between the two of you?  I don’t care either way.  I just need to know so that I can explain it to my younger children.”

She and Malachai exchanged a look.  “What IS going on between us?” he asked.  “I’d really like to know.”

Amanda scratched at the back of her neck.  “What do you want this between us to be, Malachai?  I know we started as study partners, but I think this is a little closer that study partners and friends.”

“So are you saying that you two, over maybe the past month, have become more than friends?” David chimed in.

Malachai looked at Mandy, a smile slowly spreading across his face.  “I think so, Dad.”

He shrugged.  “So, when I called her your girlfriend last night?”

“You were right to call me that, Mr. Draiman”, Amanda said.

“Amanda, call me David, please.”

She blushed.  “Ok, David.”  She shivered.  “That sounds weird.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

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About an hour later, Brie came back down from her office fuming.  “I’m going to kill that man”, she said.

“What's the matter now, baby?” David asked as he poured himself another cup of coffee.

“Mongan is going to die the most horrific death I can imagine.  He seems to think I’m a miracle worker.”  She got the teapot from under the cook top, filled it up with water, and put it on to boil.

“What is he wanting you to do?”

She smacked her hand on the granite counter top.  “Damn it!  I can’t tell you!  Confidentiality and shit!”

“I can tell him, Mrs. Draiman”, Amanda said.

“Ok, by now, I’m sure he’s told you to call him ‘David’, so Amanda, call me Brie.”

“Fine, Brie, I can tell him what the doctor wants you to do.”

“ Mandy, honey, I’m bound by confidentiality, but you’re not.  If you’re ok with him knowing then, tell him.”

“Dr. J said that I have extensive scar tissue throughout my body from the years of abuse.  He wants her to do some scar tissue reduction stuff.  He said that if I don’t get the work done,  especially in the abdomen, I might not be able to have children.”

David’s eyes doubled in size.  “Are you serious?”

“I’m afraid so, David.”

David sucked a breath in through his teeth and looked at Brie.  “I know you did something like that for Mikey on the arm he has all those tattoos on, but it took you months to break up just a little bit.”

“That was also when I was first studying that modality of massage.  I’ve done it for you around your nose and it took me two sessions to deal with it considering all the times you’ve had that nose broken, and the septoplasty some years back”, she retorted as the teapot began to squeal.  She took it off the burner and poured some of the hot water over a tea strainer of green tea.

“So, THAT’S why I’ve been breathing better for the past several months.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, honey, I know this is going to piss you off, but you kind of ARE a miracle worker.”

“Well, some of the techniques for scar tissues reduction can’t be done over the abdomen.  I’m going to have to develop a new technique just for the abdomen.  I didn’t want to be famous for a massage modality.  I just want to be a simple massage therapist who’s really good at what she does.”  She squirted a little bit of honey into her green tea and stirred it in.

“Sorry, baby, but fate, it seems wants you to be more than that.  I know it’s not what you want.  I didn’t want to be the Voice of the Resistance, but I was.  I didn’t want to have to be the one to end the Utopian Occupation, but I did.”

She sighed.  “Have I ever told you that I hate it when you’re right, David Michael?”

“Yes, Hannah Brielle, you have on several occasions, and I know it must be like eating nails for you to admit that I, in fact, am right on this.”  She couldn’t contain the urge that came over her to stick out her tongue at him, so that’s what she did.  He laughed and shook his head.  “That, my love, is childish.”  She just smiled brightly back and flipped him off as she took a sip of her tea.

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“Amanda, I’m going to make you something that will help those bruises heal a little quicker than they would if you let them heal naturally”, Brie told Mandy after the men had started cleaning the house.  She lead her up to her office where she kept all of her essential oils for aromatherapy and other things like that.   She started grabbing oils off of the shelves and mixed them with a little lotion.  She then put the lotion in a small pump bottle and handed it to Mandy.  “Apply a little of this to you face where it’s bruised a couple times a day and it will help clear up all that nasty bruising on your face and where ever else you may be bruised.”

“What all is in here?” Mandy asked.

“Grape Seed, Calendula, Cypress, and Fennel essential oils.  It’s an effusion mixed in a simple unscented lotion.  I’m a licensed aromatherapist.  It’s one of the many reasons that Dr. J always refers to me.  I know my shit and I know it well.”

“Wow.  Thank you for all of your kindness, Brie.  I really appreciate everything your family has done for me, but I do have a question for you.”

“What might that be, dear?”

“Why won’t you call me Mandy?”

“I like Amanda.  It’s a pretty name.  Honestly, if David and I hadn’t named all of our children with M’s and J’s I was going to name one of our girls Amanda.”

“Would you have called her Mandy?”

“It’s too confusing with a ‘Maddie’ in the house.  Plus, personally, I’ll let that be Malachai’s thing.”

“I also noticed earlier that your husband called you ‘Hannah Brielle’.”

“That’s really my name, but I can’t stand ‘Hannah’, so I’ve had everyone call me ‘Brie’.”

“Oh.  And you called him ‘David Michael’.”

“We do that when we’re picking on each other.  I’ll call him by his first and middle name, he’ll call me by mine.  It’s our little thing we do.”

“So, if Malachai gets into trouble with me, what’s his middle name?”

“Weren’t you paying attention last night?”

“I was, but I didn’t pick it up.”

“When David told Malachai to freeze, what did he call him?”

“Aaron.”

“His name is Malachai Aaron Draiman.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

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Later, Malachai and Amanda went to fill her prescription for her pain relievers and an anti- inflammatory.  She wasn’t looking forward to having to take medication, but she knew it was necessary.  If she wanted to get well, she had to take this first step before she could move on.  Malachai was right to have told her “no” the night before.  And there were so many things she wanted to know about him and the she wanted him to know about her.  She wanted him to love her for her mind and heart, not for what  her body had to offer.  Eventually, she wanted him to love her body.  She wanted him to make love to her all night long, but that would have to wait at least until her face was healed from when her Aunt and Uncle knocked her around.  So, there she sat curled up against his side like she had the night before when they headed home from the hospital, and they said nothing.  They were just happy to be close to each other.  She wanted that day to last forever.  But, they took her scripts into the pharmacy and got them filled.  His mother had showed her a way to cover her face with her hair to cover the bruises left by her Aunt and Uncle.  Before all that , she applied a little bit of the lotion that his mother had made for him.  Before they left, Malachai’s mother had suggested that they pick up a lot more orange juice and some Vitamin C tablets for Mandy to take to help her heal.  And that’s what they did while they waited for her prescriptions.

On the way home, Mandy asked if she could drive.  “Do you even know how  to get to my house from here?” Malachai asked

“Yeah.  I used to have to drive past your house to get home from school or any other spot in town.”

He put the keys in her hand, and walked to the drivers’ side door to open the door for her.  “Alrighty then.   Just be careful with my baby.  My Dad will kill me if there’s a scratch on it.”

“You’ll be fine, Malachai and so will your car.”  She got into the car and pulled on her seat belt as he closed the door and walked around to the passenger side and got into the vehicle himself.

After he pulled his seat belt around him, he looked at her.  “Honey, it’s NOT you.  If there is any set of people on this planet that I’m scared shitless of; it would be my parents.  I respect them and I fear them.  I love them, don’t get me wrong, but when David Draiman says, ‘Don’t scratch that car’, then you don’t scratch it.”

“I’m a good driver, Malachai Aaron.”

“We’ll see, gorgeous.  Let head on home so that you can start taking your meds.  I’m sure that Mom and Dad will have something good for lunch when we get back.”

“That sounds like a really good idea.  I’m really hungry, anyway.”