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‘…The women aged between eighteen and twenty-one have all been reunited with their families… Police were surprised today to find an unexpected treasure trove though when they uncovered an abandoned truck trailer in a nearby warehouse…”
I feel something twitch in my belly. Something I haven't felt for a long time. “Uh-oh…” Petra clips, sitting herself down, holding her arms out wide and lowering herself slowly, already taking breaths like she does at those birthing classes.
So they found the trailer… Big deal.
‘…Inside, the police discovered-’
There’s a loud pop and a thick line of blue smoke shoots up from behind the aging television. Petra shrieks, standing bolt upright as if she’s just watched the losing pitch that strikes out the super bowl.
Penelope laughs extra loud, blowing a raspberry that coincides with the tension of the moment in a way only babies can make happen and get away with it.
Her mom glares over at me, shaking her head in disbelief. It’s the only thing that’s ever come between us. It was play fighting at first, but after six months, she somehow got it into her head that I knew what was in the truck but just never told her. It got so bad that I finally managed to convince her I don't know. But worse than that, it’s bugged the hell out of both of us ever since. And right when we’re about to find out…The damned TV decides to blow up.
“I guess we’ll never find out now,” I shrug, trying to re-focus on my diaper. But It’s opened up an old wound in my wife. When she wants to or needs to know something? Look out.
“I’ll call Floyd. He would’ve been watching,” She mutters to herself, grabbing her phone and hitting speed dial. Demanding Floyd tell her he saw the news just now and practically ordering him to tell her what was in that trailer. I can’t say my interest isn’t just a little piqued. But when her face falls and she even lets the phone slip from her hand, I move over to her in a second.
“Honey, what is it?” I ask, helping her back into the seat she's just sprung up from.
Floyd’s tinny voice echoes from the carpet, “…Petra? Petra? Hullo??”
I kneel down in front of her, gripping both her hands in mine, “Petra, baby. What is it?” I gasp. Her mouth hanging open and her head shaking from side to side.
“Diapers…” She murmurs absently making me wonder if she's having a stroke. Something wrong with our second child growing inside her.
“Petra!” I command her, but she’s still the same.
“It was… full of…diapers…” She whispers, her eyes finally coming back into focus. Narrowing on mine before I feel the hot sting of her hand slapping my chest. “P.T.! She exclaims, “It was full ofdiapers!!?”
I feel myself wince, but not from her slapping me. “The disposable kind or regular?” I ask, scratching the scar on my head before she finally sees the funny side of it all. I know full well that the people I used to work for have a million different ways of hiding their tracks. Burning trailers looks suspicious, but filling them with diapers, or toilet paper? Nobody blinks. It’s always only a human interest story on the news.
But it proves what I guess I knew all along. That the rules were made to be followed. And even still, I have no idea what I was really hauling all those years. And I don't have to know. Everything I’ve ever needed is right here where it should be. Home. With my wife and kids.
“So it was diapers… Now can ya come show me how to do these ones up? Pleease!?” I ask her, leaning in to kiss her as she says the word one last time. Letting me know in her own way that if I’ve been hauling diapers all these years, she’s been turning lead into gold.
“Diapers…”
But she has turned lead into gold. She took a bad man and made him better. Made him whole again. Giving him more than anything money can buy and by the truckload.
“I love you,” I rasp in her ear.
Never getting tired of hearing her echo it back.
“I love you too, P.T.”
EXTRA EXTENDED EPILOGUE
PETRA
Three Years Later
“She said yes!” I whisper to P.T. who grunts without looking up from the annual crop reports. My hand covering the phone as I stifle a shriek.
“Chloe! I’m so happy for you!” I gush, meaning it for both of us. Even if P.T. is gonna be a grump. But I don’t think he heard me right.
“I say ‘yes’ all the time and nobody squeals about that…” he mumbles, clicking his tongue and drawing a thick line under something in red pen. He’s a full-blooded farmer now. Always looking for ways to improve things and as proud of what we’ve made here as I am.
“Chloe… I explain to him, grabbing his attention with a stern look, “…Mark's asked her, finally and she said yes!”
