8Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt8Pw7abK8O
Janelle woke up late Saturday morning and stopped short when she stepped out of the bedroom. Glancing at her husband in surprise and confusion as he sat in the plush living room chair she asked, “What are you doing home?”
Steven shrugged and said, “I don't work on Saturdays.”
“Aren't you going to your mother's?”
“Hadn’t planned on it.”
“Since when do you not see your mom on weekends?” she asked as she entered the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, figuring it had something to do with the baby’s absence. She'd be right to think that too because Steven was actually quite thrilled to once again live in his house without his wife's bastard screaming nonstop, its presence alone enough to remind him of her unfaithfulness and selfishness.
Steven made sure to invade as much of his wife's space and privacy as possible, including talking to her when she was in the bathroom. “Are you okay?” he called out from the other side of the closed door.
“Yes, I'm peeing,” came the annoyed reply. “Go away and wait.”
When Janelle emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, she wasted no time jumping down Steven’s throat. “What is it with you lately? First you're always asking at random if I'm okay, and now you're waking me up and interrupting me in the middle of taking a leak just to ask me yet again if I’m okay?”
Steven gave that inevitable shrug.
“What's wrong with you all of a sudden?”
Again Steven shrugged and Janelle rolled her eyes with exasperation and said, “If something's wrong, I'll tell you.”
Yet he was always there, and he made damn sure of it. He chatted non-stop about anything he could think of and the more he did so, the more he could see it was driving Janelle crazy.
“Will you take a breather for a minute and let me eat!” She cut in one day when he was talking non-stop while she was trying to eat another one of her oversized meals. “You're making my head spin with all this non-stop babbling. Are you sure something isn’t wrong with you?”
Steven shrugged and walked away.
As soon as Janelle was done eating, he resumed his chatter about the weather, how fast the grass was growing in the backyard, sports, or whatever he could think of. He followed her around the house and eventually, she stopped and said, “Hey! Take a break for a second! I have to go to the bathroom again so don't bug me.”
As soon as Janelle opened the door when she was done, he was there. The annoyance was written all over her face and being as open and as expressive as she always was, she didn't attempt to hide it either. “You've been standing here the whole time?”
“Well,” I just thought you would find it interesting that I recently heard that the price of gold is down.”
“Now why the hell would I find that interesting all of a sudden?”
Steven shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”
Janelle studied him curiously for a minute. He could see that she was now a bit concerned and seemed to be going back and forth in her mind wondering if something was wrong or if he was trying to pull something on her.
“I'm actually interested in having a little bit of space right now so I can catch up in my journal.”
“Oh,” Steven said.
“You sound disappointed,” said Janelle.
Steven shrugged yet again and said, “Well, I just thought you might want to spend some time together.”
“Kind of funny that you finally think this once the kid is gone, don't you think?”
Janelle had stopped pressuring Steven for sex once she started getting pregnant since she no longer desired him if she could conceive from someone else, and she would rather go after the young blondes she would never get anyway.
Steven saw a sudden flicker of understanding cross Janelle's features and then she said, “Oh, I get it now. You feel bad because things didn't work out with the baby and you’re showing your support. But don't you think I feel horrible about it too? Well, I do but I don't need to be smothered any more than you do.”
Damn it, thought Steven, starting to walk away before his wife could finish speaking. He should have figured she would get the wrong idea and think it was a sympathy trip.
“No, I just thought you would want to spend time with your husband.”
Janelle followed him. “I thought that before as well just to get nowhere every time you would run off to your mom's place or get tired on me and have to crash early.”
Steven shrugged and continued walking away, and then his lucky break came a few seconds later with a knock on the door.
He opened the door to find a detective and a uniformed police officer. They asked for Janelle.
“What do you want now?” Janelle said sternly stepping out from behind Steven.
“Janelle Stone?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
“Did you surrender a four-month-old baby boy at Meredith Medical Center two days ago?”
Janelle looked shocked and then she sighed with annoyance. Finally, after having to be questioned a second time she said, “I thought these things were allowed to be anonymous.”
“Did you, or didn't you?”
“Just…” Janelle began hesitantly before she sighed. “How did you find me?”
Janelle received no answer. Instead, she was arrested for child abuse.
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