Free Fade to Black - Proof by Jeffrey Wilson Page A

sticking by me.”
    Pam chuckled a
light “don’t be silly” chuckle.
    “Yeah, well, I
guess I love you a bit,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “You can pick
your friends, but you’re stuck with your family.” She rose from the couch to
head for the kitchen, and Jack grabbed her hand. She turned to face him and he
looked her in the eyes deeply.
    “Seriously,
Pam. Thank you. I love you so much.”
    Pam closed her
eyes gently, embarrassed by the attention, then looked back at her husband.
    “I love you
too, Jack.” She squeezed his hand and headed for the kitchen.
    Jack held his
daughter up in front of him, her legs kicking joyfully in the air.
    “Belly!” he
announced and pressed his lips to his little girl’s soft tummy, blowing a
ripping belly fart.
    “Beddy!
Beddy!” Claire answered, squealing with delight. Jack hugged her tight and his
gaze fell on the little bag on the coffee table. He closed his eyes tightly,
his face changing to a grimace.
    “Love you, Bear,”
he said. He held his little girl and tried desperately to ignore the subtle
smell of Iraqi dust and the far off sound of gunfire.
     
    *   *   *
     
    Maybe the Effexor
helped. It sure as hell wasn’t the Ambien, which Jack had taken from the pillow
where Pam had left it for him, and flushed it down the crapper—feeling a twang
of guilt—when he went for his pre-bed piss and brush. Whatever it was, he had
slept the dreamless sleep of the righteous, that was for sure. In fact, he
awoke in the exact same position he had drifted off to sleep in, his back
aching and his throat dry, like waking up after a second bottle of wine before
bed.
    Jack had slept
well, but he realized he hadn’t slept long. Before slipping into a deep sleep,
he lay in bed staring in the dark at the shadowy shape of the spinning ceiling
fan for several hours, begging the night not to let it morph into the powerful
blades of a UH-60 Blackhawk. He lay still in the dark, not wanting to disturb
his sleeping wife, who had watched him quietly for a while before falling off
to sleep, her arm across his chest, her leg across his waist. He had nearly
woken her up after the first hour, thinking the distraction and subsequent
relaxation of wild sex might help take his mind away from his dread of sleep
and what the night might hold in store for him. In the end he had concentrated
instead on the rhythmic musical snore that only sexy women can pull off, and
thoughts of his pretty little girl, sleeping the deep sleep of the innocent
down the hall. And then somewhere in the night he had drifted off to sleep.
    He woke ten
minutes before his alarm, glancing at the clock and silencing it before it
could shake the quiet with its jarring whine. Pam had rolled on her other side
sometime in their slumber, and he rolled stiffly onto his own side and wrapped
his arms around her, feeling the soft curve of her hip against him in all the
right ways. He pressed gently against her, feeling a comfortable stirring, and
she squeezed his arm.
    “Mmmmm,” she
sighed. “I guess I know how you are feeling.” She rocked her hips backwards
against him, and he pressed into her again, his hand pulling her into him as he
caressed her belly gently. Pam rolled over to face him, raising her head to
look at the time. Satisfied with what she saw, she pulled his hand down between
her soft thighs, which she opened slightly, and closed her eyes. “How’d you
sleep, baby?” she asked, her own hand now drifting slowly down his hip, then
turning inward.
    “Great,
actually,” he answered honestly, then closed his eyes and moaned as her hand
found her way to him. He rolled over onto his back at her gentle urging, and
she straddled him, pulling her nightgown up over her head.
    *
* *
    While Pam went
to start the coffee, her face glowing and happy, dressed in one of his T-shirts
and a pair of postsex “granny panties” (as she called them), Jack went to get
Claire. She had started cooing for them and talking