Crazy Love

by Amelia Coulon

 

[Editor’s Note: This piece is part of the “Topical” series, with each piece solely submitted to and chosen by the Final Reader Pietra Dunmore.]

 

“Hank? I think I might have broken it.”

The distressed call from the bedroom into the living room, where Hank tried to work his job from home, did not fill him with a sense of joy. Rather, he leaned his head back and exhaled heavily as if asking the heavens, “why him?.” Saving the report he had begun, Hank rose from his ergonomic chair and pushed away from his desk. He rounded the corner into the hallway, past the bathroom and their daughter’s room, opening the door to his bedroom.

There sat his blonde-haired, green-eyed beloved in her fuzzy pajama set, on their bed, computer in her lap.

“What did you break?” he asked his wife of twenty years, patient and aggravated at the same time.

“The screen thingy won’t switch and when I try to use control, alt, delete, it just laughs at me.”

“It doesn’t laugh at you,” Hank debated her, taking the laptop computer from Jenna and looking at the monitor. “What ‘screen thingy’ are you talking about? Use your words.”

“The screen switcher,” she insisted, indicating the internet tabs. “I click on them, but they don’t go anywhere. It’s just stuck.”

“What did you do?” he asked, frustration starting to show through. “Did you download a virus?”

“I didn’t download anything,” she protested with emphasis. “I’ve been writing and researching and I submitted a few things I had in the works. That’s it.”

“Maybe it came from one of the pages you were using to do your research,” he growled. He tried control, alt, delete. Nothing happened.

“I told you, I already tried that,” Jenna asserted, angrily. “Why don’t you even listen to me?”

“Because you talk about thingies and the computer laughing at you,” Hank countered logically. “If you’d make actual sense, maybe I’d understand what you’re talking about. So, I figure I should probably try my own methods if I’m going to get anything fixed.”

“You knew what I meant,” she accused him, with a bit less aggression.

“I didn’t,” he assured her. He pressed the off button. The computer remained open.

“I tried that too,” she objected offhandedly with less heat.

“Did you try taking out the battery?” he asked, proceeding to do just that. “Shutting the whole thing down corrects ninety-nine percent of the problems people call IT for. That’s the first thing they’ll ask. If you rebooted your system.”

“I know. You tell me this every time,” Jenna complained, rolling her eyes.

“If I tell you all the time,” he noted, replacing the battery, “then you should have known to try it. So, why didn’t you fix the problem yourself instead of calling me away from my work to fix it for you?”

“Niener, niener, niener,” she shot back childishly, sticking her tongue out at him.

He pressed the power button and after a moment, the laptop hummed back to life, sans problems.

“I help my wife and she sticks her tongue out at me,” he commented aloud, shaking his head. “That’s just wrong.”

“Come kiss me,” she invited, leaning to the side from her perch on their king-sized bed.

“No. I don’t want to kiss you,” Hank told her, feigning dislike. “You’re mean.”

“Thank you for fixing it,” she praised him, with sincerity in her tone. She looked at him with her green eyes dreamy and inviting.

“Okay,” he mock-grudgingly acceded. Hank walked the two steps and leaned over to give her a kiss. She put her hand on his chest to keep him there for more.

“I have to work,” he mumbled against her lips.

“I know,” Jenna replied. “Me, too.” She let go of him and he straightened up. “I sent two more samples out this morning.”

“On the new book?” he asked. She nodded. “That’s good. How do you feel like that’s going?”

“Horrible,” she answered, fatalistically. “They ask for pages and then they say, ‘no’ anyway. Everybody hates me.”

“Okay,” he agreed, knowing better than to get caught up in that line of bull thinking. “Good luck with that.”

“I love you like a watermelon,” she yelled as he left the room.

“I love you like a pineapple,” Hank called back. He returned to his chair and his work.

It didn’t bother him too much to have his wife writing from home, though the change had happened quite recently. She used to go elsewhere for the day, but with the state of everything, that opportunity fell through. Before that, she worked full-time for a law office as a paralegal. He had grown accustomed to having the house to himself. He could have the television on in the background or shred stinky Parmesan cheese over spaghetti for lunch. But not with Jenna at home.

Then there was her blending health shakes whenever she got around to eating breakfast, the noise grating on his nerves. Or when she came and hovered over him so she could ask a question for one of her stories. That always disconcerted. But, at least they still liked each other and found one another humorous.

Twenty-four years ago, they met, dated and had a baby. Through some insane magic, they’d stayed together ever since. Their son would soon turn twenty-three. Still in honesty, Hank couldn’t wait for the boy to move out of the house, so Hank could make his basement bedroom into an office. He would have so much more room down there.

“Hank?” Jenna called from the other room. “What’s a good eco-friendly car?”

Not to mention, how much quieter it would be.

 

In July of 2018, Amelia left her job as a pharmacy technician to write full-time. Within a year, she had completed and revised three full-length romantic suspense novels in a trilogy. Seeking representation for her work, she turned her attention to short stories, concentrating on numerous genres. As of present, she has written over one hundred different short stories which are under consideration for publication. Amelia’s goal is to achieve traditional publishing for her finished novels and continue working on book four and other books in that series.

 

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