Good Man

Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow?
Have you had another, baby, standing in the shadow?
I'm glad I opened your eyes
- The Rolling Stones



Ramona was never more nervous than she was when she rented a car and had to navigate the streets of the greater Buffalo area on her own. New York City had always been a piece of cake, because she never had to worry about driving in a metropolis that thrived on all sorts of public transportation. The Bay area was easy, because she knew Oakland and San Francisco from living there with her dad. Los Angeles was a breeze because she'd spent close to a year living there and getting to know all its nooks and crannies.

But, Buffalo? In February? It was a foreign winter wonderland.

She might as well be in Siberia.

Thankfully, however, the car she'd rented had a built in GPS system and it gave her a more simple, straight route, rather than having her jump onto a thruway and manage the icy roads at 65 miles an hour. As soon as she left the airport, she turned right onto Genesee Street and then came to an intersection, where she turned left onto Union Road. And all she had to do was continue to take that road for about 15 miles, give or take. She wasn't really paying attention to what the GPS voice was saying. She was too busy white-knuckling it as she moved with the flow of traffic.

She went through only three towns during her trip down Union Road: Cheektowaga, where the airport was; West Seneca, where Caroline and Giselle had mentioned growing up, and finally; Orchard Park, where Caroline was currently holed up with her kids. Well, that's what her father called it. Holed up.

As soon as she passed the 'Welcome to Orchard Park' or whatever sign, Ramona came to a crazy, five-point intersection and for a moment, she panicked. But the GPS voice told her to continue going straight and she thanked her stars for it. As the car cut across the intersection, she passed a grocery store on her left and then a spa. The scenery became more village-esque and she began to remember some of the places from previous years of coming to Orchard Park with her father to visit Caroline and Uncle Mike, when he was still alive.

Traffic became less chaotic and more slow-paced, in the sense of being laid back, not that everyone was at some sort of rush hour standstill. She took the time to look around at her surroundings and admire the quaintness of the village of Orchard Park. It reminded her of the repeats of the old WB network show, Gilmore Girls. It was almost idyllic and it was no wonder why Caroline loved it here. Why Ramona never noticed the loveliness of the town before, was beyond her.

She came to another intersection in the heart of the village a mere minute or two later, and the GPS voice told her to go left. So she did. And then came the words she was waiting for: "You have arrived at your location."

Pulling over to the right side of the road, Ramona let the car idle as she stared up at the white home, one house away, with its snowy front yard and the small snowman beckoning to her. Memories of building her own snowman with Estelle around Christmastime a few years earlier played in her mind causing to her smile at the fond images of her father standing on a ladder to string up lights while Uncle Mike broke branches off the neighbor's tree to offer the snowman arms, and then to only break some of the twigs off so that it looked like one of the 'hands' of the snowman was giving the finger.

Putting the car in drive, Ramona drove a few feet until she reached the end of Caroline's driveway and slowly inched the car in. Once she did, she turned off the ignition, grabbed her purse and stepped out of the car. She was immediately hit with a cold burst of wind that shook her to her bones. She hadn't packed the proper coat and now she was paying for it. She wasn't used to Eastern winters anymore.

Trudging through a couple inches of snow in the driveway, she managed to stay upright as she made her way to the side entrance of the house. She rang the doorbell once and waited.

She saw there was a car in the driveway.

Caroline had to be home.

Ringing the doorbell again, Ramona stood, trying to wrap her arms around her body to keep herself warm. But she was growing impatient. So, she began to knock hard on the door.

Still nothing.

Letting out a tired sigh, Ramona walked around to the front of the house and trudged through the snow-covered front yard to peer into the front windows. She covered her hands around her eyes and pressed her nose to the glass and squinted.

Everything was dark. No sign of life. Not even a flicker from the television or muffled sounds of voices from within.

Did Caroline have a second car? Was she out doing errands with the kids or something?

After a few moments of pondering, Ramona gave up and decided she would leave and go find her motel room and come back later. And as she began to walk away down the driveway to her rental car, Ramona slipped and fell on her ass.



Not two hours after Ramona had left, Timmy's car pulled into the driveway behind Caroline's car and she hopped out with her keys dangling from her fingers as she made her way to open up the back door on her side. She leaned inside and helped Chloe out of her car seat and as the little girl climbed down and bounded out of the car, Timmy grabbed some bags that were on the ground. Meanwhile, Caroline slowly expelled her swollen body from the passenger's side, using the frame of the door to pull herself up.

Waddling like an obese penguin, she stopped as Mikey had unhooked his own seatbelt and opened his door on his own, and was even a good boy by helping his mother grab some bags that had been at his feet.

"Thanks, honey," Caroline muttered, patting her son on his head, which was covered by a black, white and gray camouflage skull cap.

"Welcome, mommy."

"I call that a successful shopping trip," came Timmy's delighted voice as she peered over the top of her car at her big sister, who just stared back at her as if she were on drugs.

"You kidding me? Trying to maneuver around narrow clothing racks with this huge ass belly and listening to screaming kids the entire time? I will never go back to Babies-R-Us as long as I live."

"You say that as if you aren't used to screaming kids."

Both sisters made it to the side door, where the little Pritchard children were waiting to be let inside. As Caroline fumbled with her keys, she unlocked the door and let them go in first. "I'm used to my screaming kids. All others are evil."

Timmy just smiled and laughed as they entered into the kitchen, where they set the bags down on the table. Timmy then excused herself so she could go get the remaining shopping bags from her trunk, while Caroline pulled off her coat, hung it on the back of her chair and then had to wrangle up Mikey and Chloe to take their coats and boots off. However, she was unable to bend over do really do so.

Gesturing to her son, "Mikey, help your sister get her boots off, okay?"

The four and a half year old sighed heavily. "Fine."

"Don't 'fine' me. She's your sister and I can't do it because of my belly. And it's your sisters birthday so be nice."

With that, Chloe turned and beamed up at her mom. "I'm this many!" she exclaimed, holding up three fingers.

"Yes, you are! And you're getting to be a big girl, too! Growing up so fast!"

Leaving the kitchen for a moment, Caroline went around and turned some lights on for the evening.

Just as she did so in the living room, she happened to look out the front windows and notice a car slowing down in front of the house. She couldn't see whoever it was in the driver's seat as she narrowed her eyes and curiosity.

She didn't think much on it though when she heard Timmy's voice wafting in from the kitchen, saying something about having all the bags and suggesting they ordered pizza for dinner.

"Uh, sure. Sounds good!" Caroline called back, letting her eyes linger back toward the windows, but by that time, the car was already gone.



It was another couple of hours later before Ramona returned to Caroline's for a third time. The second time being when she slowed down outside the house and saw Caroline's sister Timmy lugging a bunch of shopping bags away from her car.

So Caroline had been doing errands. Only, she had apparently been in a second vehicle that was not hers.

And Ramona wasn't sure why she did it, but when she parked her car, she parked it in front of the neighbor's house and walked as quietly as possible toward Caroline's; thankful that the snow on the ground was soft and muffled any possible sound of her footsteps as she came up the driveway.

She saw lights on in the house downstairs and one light on upstairs where she knew Mikey's bedroom to be.

Slowly and silently, Ramona approached the back of the house and had to stand on tiptoe when she reached a window that looked into the dining room. Light from the kitchen was bathing the entrance to the dining room and there was a candle lit on the dining room table, which seemed to be cluttered with paper and a huge box of pampers on one end.

The latter confused Ramona as she looked beyond the vase of white flowers in the center of the table and noticed movement from the living room.

It was Timmy, again, who was moving toward the kitchen. Ramona ducked away, out of view as she walked by and mentally kicked herself for acting like a stalker. Why didn't she just ring the doorbell? She knew Caroline was home now.

Instead, she remained where she was, and her ears perked at the sound of muffled voices. Raising her head just enough so that her eyes could peer inside the window, Ramona saw Timmy was back in the dining room again.

"I need to head back home by next week at the latest," Ramona had made out Timmy saying; partially from the garbled quality a closed window caused and partially from reading lips. Timmy's head was turned toward the living room, hands on her hips. "I wanna tell my husband, in person, that I'm pregnant."

Ramona stared at Timmy. She only heard the words 'I'm pregnant' and figured that's what the box of Pampers was for. For Timmy. But it didn't look like the 27-year-old biological sister of Caroline needed diapers anytime soon. Her stomach was flat as a board.

But, just then, Ramona spotted more movement from the direction of the living room.

It was Caroline.

And, omigod!

Ramona's eyes went wide and her jaw dropped.

She's huge! she thought. Caroline's pregnant? Who the fuck is the dad? Uncle Mike's been dead a year and a half!

"You're pregnant?" Came Caroline's squeal of happiness that was as clear as day. She came waddling as quickly as she could toward her little sister and threw her arms around the younger woman in a hug. "How? When? I mean, how far along are you? When did you find this out?"

"Well, when I didn't get my period two weeks ago, that signaled the red flag," Timmy replied. "I figure it was around Christmas when Seth and I were here together."

Mockingly disgusted, Caroline gave Timmy a small, playful shove with her right hand. "You had sex with me in the other room? Ew."

Timmy just gave her big sis a smirk, then began to grin. "I'm thinking I'll be due around the end of September, probably just before Mikey's fifth birthday."

Caroline bit her lip to contain her elated smile for her sister. She was obviously happy for the other woman. "We'll have kids close to the same age. About six months apart."

Ramona was straining to hear at this point but she was able to hear everything. In her head, she did the math. If Timmy was due at the end of September, and there will be about six months between their respective kids, then...Caroline was due next month, which means she had to have gotten pregnant in...June of last year.

The last person she knew Caroline to be with was Gerard Way. But she was certain they had broken up when Ramona and Joey graduated; when Giselle had died.

Was it him, though?

Or, had she been with someone else after arriving to Buffalo?

Stepping back from the window, Ramona turned and stumbled into one of the garbage cans. Standing still for a moment, she panicked at the noise she made and made a run for it.

She took off down the driveway, just as Timmy peered out the dining room window, but saw nothing.

Caroline moved toward the front of the house, just in time to see a blonde woman running out of the driveway...but when she turned left, Caroline recognized the profile at once.

"It was Ramona! Ramona was here!"

"Tre's daughter?"

"Yes...oh shit. What was she doing here?"

"Are you sure it was her? It's pretty dark outside."

There was a thump from upstairs and Caroline frowned further than she already was. "Can you go upstairs and make sure Mikey is ready for bed?"

Timmy hesitated, then gave a nod. "Sure." With that, she left the dining room and made her way upstairs, while leaving Caroline to ponder what to do now.

She really didn't want anyone from her life, outside her immediate family to know about her pregnancy, at least until she had already given birth.

Fuck.