Which means I need to finish part #49...

I'm hoping to get this series finished before the season premiere
(Sept. 20).
Will I be able to do it?  ::shrug::  I dunno.  I've got 'til at the
least
the end of November sweeps before I know if I'll still be watching
"ER", so...

Chuny runs (literally) into somebody.  A bar.  Luka chats with an old
friend.  Alexandra worries.  Luka meets a couple he'd rather not deal
with.  A spider.  A reference to a George Clooney movie.  Let the
games begin.

TITLE: Listening to Fear
AUTHOR: Miesque
RATING: PG-13 (mild language)
DISCLAIMER: Luka Kovac is the property of Amblin Entertainment, NBC &
Warner Bros., and is only being borrowed by the author for
entertainment purposes only.
SETTING: Season Seven (aka "Season of the Pod People") into Season
Eight.  Luka has long since broken up with Droopy McHangdog (a.k.a.,
Abby Lockhart) and is Alone Again (naturally...)
CATEGORY: Luka Kovac/cast.  Romantic/comedy/drama, vague spoof of
'Bridget Jones's Diary'...may be rather humorous, may be angsty, may
end with a nuclear bomb wiping out all of Chicago...who knows?
ARCHIVE: If you must, but please inform author. :)
SPOILERS: For Season Seven and Wishful Thinking for Season Eight
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Starter Pistols and Sex Diaries; Fishin' for
the Runnin'; Heat Stroke; Grocery Store Cowboy; Cheesecake and Whine;
Times Of Your Life; I Want A Cave Man, I Want A Brave Man!; A Bigger
Mousetrap; Bless Me, Father; For I Am About to Sin; Out On A Ledge;
Have An Egg Instead; Charity; The Devil Cuts Loose; Toads and
Falsehoods; Ready to Go; Saying Goodbye; Crazy From the Heart; Danger;
Forty Black Balloons; Partied Out; Young Men Coming Aus; Price Check;
Going Once...; Check, Please; Eighteen Patients and a Dozen Roses;
Life Is Good; A Handful of Pebbles; The Horror...the Horror; Gumballs
and Gurneys; It's Not the Flu; Thud; Hvratska and Cymru Celebrate
Christmas; Snow Business; New Year's Dissolutions; Into Sisters;
Sometimes You're the Windshield; Kovac Pride; Nuptuality; The Trouble
With Harold; The Mummy-in-Law Returns; What's In A Name?; Show Me The
Way; Where Is Aruba?; Winning the Cup; ...Lest Ye Be Judged; It's Okay
to Hurt
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Ellen Hursh & Hollie for editing and several
2AM
brain-storming sessions.

=========================

Chuny Marquez didn't feel like going to work.  In fact, she didn't
feel like doing much of anything.  So she called at seven in the
morning and told Haleh that she just couldn't come in...it was
impossible.  Fortunately, Haleh had been understanding.

Watching TV didn't help.  Listening to music didn't help.  Eating an
entire carton of Haagen-Dazs didn't help.  So at nine o'clock, Chuny
got dressed and headed outside.  She passed the apartment doors of her
neighbors, hearing sounds of couples talking, laughing, arguing.
Outside, children, bundled up like Eskimos, were waiting for the
schoolbus.  She practically ignored them, even when a few that she
knew called out to her.

After a while, her aimless walking became more purposeful-she began to
take an actual direction.  Despite the cold, the exercise kept her
warm, and she started to be aware of where she was, which turned out
to be the little park near her apartment complex.  She looked around,
suddenly breathless.

She had cried a lot last night.  Mark had been a good friend.  A few
years ago, he had even been a lover...not really a 'boyfriend', but he
had treated her well and after their affair ended they had gone back
to being friends again.  His death had been painful, but what had been
most painful was that she was the first one to find him.  He had been
dead for a few minutes at least...nothing could have been done.

My God, she thought.  He was already getting stiff...how long was he
in there?  Didn't anybody...no, of course not.  If anyone else had
seen him, surely they would have said something.

Desperately, she shook the thoughts out of her head.  Good thing I
don't smoke.  But damn, I could use a drink right now.  Some good
tequila...the liquor store was another block away, so she started
across the park, heading toward her destination.  She folded her arms
across her chest and kept her eyes on the path, not really watching
where she was going.  That was a mistake, because she suddenly bumped
into someone.

"Oomphf!" 

Chuny's eyes widened as she realized she'd knocked somebody right on
their ass.  "Oh my God, I'm so sorry..!" she gasped.  Looking into the
man's face, she realized he looked familiar.

"I'm all right," he said, wincing.  "The concrete broke my fall."

The way he said that made her laugh, and he looked up at her,
greenish-blue eyes startled.  "Do I know you?"

"Yes...well, no.  We met a few days ago.  Here, let me help you up."
She extended her hand, and he took it.  Chuny felt that little tremor
again, but attributed it to her rattled nerves and not the fact that
he had long, masculine fingers, a nice chin and a strong, compact
build.  She also refused to notice that his eyes were actually
aquamarine.  Aquamarine!  How many people have aquamarine eyes?  Not
even Dr. Kovac's eyes were *that* beautiful!

"Maks," he said as soon as he was on his feet again.  He seemed
surprised at her strength-she had hauled him up easily.  "My name is
Maks.  Persljevic."

"Yes.  You were...uh...Dr. Kovac's brother-in-law?"

"Yes."

"Oh."  Chuny figured he didn't want to talk about that.  "You live
around here?"

"No.  I live in Blue Island.  I work at a...a...factory near here."

"Oh."

"The night shift.  I just got off."

"Oh."

"Is something wrong?" he asked, peering at her for a moment before
looking away.

"We had a bad night at work last night," she said, gesturing vaguely
with her hands.

"Oh.  I'm sorry."  He looked down. 

"It must be nice, having family here in Chicago," Chuny said. 

"I suppose it is.  But you must know Luka...he is not
exactly...ah...talkative?"

She laughed mirthlessly.  "That's true.  He's a nice guy, but he
doesn't say much."

"No.  Luka never was a talker.  He's a doer."

Chuny laughed.  She liked the way he said that...'doer'.  What a sexy
accent, she thought.  She immediately felt ashamed of herself for
thinking that way.  Mark had dropped dead yesterday and she was
already sneaking looks at this guy...noticing his wide shoulders and
his grey-streaked black hair and those heart-stopping eyes.

"Talk is cheap," she said softly.  "And time's expensive."

"Yes.  It is.  And it gets away from you so fast."

"Just like money!" she smiled slightly.  "Do...uh...you like Chicago?"

"I'm getting used to it."

"Did you bring family with you...your wife and kids?"

"My daughter.  I don't have a wife."

"Oh."  Chuny stared at her feet for a moment.  He's not married.
That's... well, damned wonderful, she thought.

Maks scratched the back of his head for a moment, clearly uneasy.  She
stepped back a little, and he smiled slightly, but the smile didn't
touch his eyes at all.  He looked tired.  "Well, I have to get
home..."

"Yeah..."

"It was...uh...nice to see you...again."

It was? she wondered.  "Oh.  Thanks.  Uh...hey, I live about two
blocks from here.  If you ever need a cup of coffee or something..."

Maks' eyes widened slightly, and Chuny could have sworn she saw panic
there.  Then he seemed to pull himself back together again.  "Uh..."

She had embarrassed him.  Chuny immediately felt horrible.  'Or
something' can certainly sound like a come-on, and she figured that
Maks was pretty gunshy.  She looked up at him, hoping that he'd see by
her expression that she hadn't meant anything more than *coffee*.
Unless, of course, he wanted more than coffee...

"Thank you."  He paused, chewing on his lower lip.   "Goodbye."  With
that, he walked away quickly, and Chuny watched him go, appreciating,
once again, his backside.  He was a good-looking man, and awfully shy.
 Not exactly her type, really, but maybe it was time for Chuny Marquez
to start looking at other 'types'.  Especially since the type she went
after usually proved unworthy of her efforts.

=========================

"Marlboro Reds," Luka said, jerking his head toward the wall of
cigarettes behind the cashier.  The froglike little man got a pack
down and slid them toward Luka, who snatched the pack up.  He threw
the cash on the counter and didn't wait for change.  He went outside,
struggled to get the cellophane off the package-had it really been
that long?-and with trembling fingers extracted a cigarette from
within the container.  He held it to his lips and watched people walk
by, waiting for another smoker to come into view.  Finally, a woman
started past him and he called out.

"Ma'am?  Can I bum a light?"

She shrugged, blowing out smoke, and pulled out a silver lighter.  She
watched as he lit up, apparently intrigued.  He handed the lighter
back and looked away.  The woman shrugged and walked away, leaving him
leaning against the wall, taking long, soothing drags.

What's gotten into you lately? he asked himself.  It can't just have
been Maks.  It can't just be Mark's death.  Is this how it goes?  Was
I feeling down *before* I saw Maks again?  Luka searched his memory
carefully, trying to find something to pinpoint the exact moment the
nightmares had returned.  He couldn't recall having one prior to Maks'
arrival, but perhaps he'd had one and just couldn't remember it.  But
that couldn't be right.  He remembered his nightmares.  All too well.
Danijela and the children reaching for him, tears streaking his wife's
face...

But the last nightmare-the one he'd had the night before last-had been
particularly scary.  At first, it had been Vukovar.  The smell of
burning rubber and flesh, the sound of bombs screaming in the air,
explosions, faces ugly with terror.  But then Danijela's face had
melted into Alexandra's.  Jasna and Marko were replaced by two little
boys, and they were being dragged away from him by faceless soldiers.
Again, he had been helpless to do anything to stop it.  Again, Luka
could only stand there, unable to move.  Again, he had failed them.

Terror had gripped Luka and he'd woke up with a shout.  It had taken
him a few moments to remember where he was, and that Alexandra was
safe beside him.  He had gathered her into his arms and hadn't let go
until dawn.  She had suffered that tolerably well, but he could see
the worry in her eyes.

It was, he supposed, nice to have someone worrying about him.  The
last time he'd gone into a mental and emotional tailspin, the woman
he'd been involved with had shown not the least amount of concern.
Jing-Mei had told him, in a tone that expressed utter outrage, that
Abby had said, "I'm sure he's fine" and had never mentioned his mental
state to anyone.  No calls up to psych.  No reporting to Kerry.
Nothing.  Yet she'd done that for Carter.  It still irked Luka a
little-Abby had been sleeping with *him* at the time, yet had done
absolutely nothing to help him, even when he'd been silently pleading
for someone to do *something*.  She had only been 'friends' with
Carter and had been willing to go the extra mile for him.  Luka
supposed it was a good thing Abby hadn't been dating Carter at the
time he'd started stealing painkillers, or the kid'd be dead by now.
He snickered to himself.  "Drugs?  What drugs?  I'm sure he's fine!"

He didn't realize he had been speaking out loud until he looked up and
saw two people he really didn't want to see right now.

Carter and Abby froze for a moment, startled at having been caught
together.  She was, after all, a med student.  After the horrible
events of the previous night, they had gone home together and...well,
neither of them were going to bring *that* up.

"Hi," Carter said, eyeing Luka nervously.  He had heard the older
doctor's bitter words, and instinctively knew they had been aimed at
Abby.  He glanced at her, wondering if she'd heard them, too.  She
only looked uneasy.

"Hello."

"Uh...what are you doing out here?" Carter asked, growing concerned.
The older man looked haggard.

"Just sitting."

"Oh.  Are you okay?"

Luka glanced at Abby, who looked away. 

"I'm sure I'll be fine."

Abby returned her gaze to him, then began chewing guiltily on her
lower lip.  Luka only studied her for a moment, trying to remember
what had attracted him to her in the first place...or had he ever been
attracted to her at all?  Had it been anything at all?  He couldn't
remember ever having felt the slightest degree of passion toward her.
He had been so damned *passive* in their relationship.  Allowing her
to set the rules for everything...

"Uh...yeah."  Carter looked away for a moment, then looked Luka right
in the eye.  Good for you, kid, Luka thought.  "Dr. Kovac, I...I know
I've acted like a jerk toward you in the past.  I never really
apologized for my behavior..."

"Forget it," Luka shrugged.  "I'm hardly a joy to be around
sometimes."

"There was no excuse for my behavior."

"Carter.  Save the hair shirt for something more important, all
right?"  Luka straightened his spine a little, trying to relax tense
muscles.  "It's all over and done.  I'll see you two around.   Bye."

Carter and Abby watched Luka walk away, then Abby turned to him.  "He
looks awful," Carter said.  "Do you think something's wrong?"

Abby tossed her hair back.  "I'm sure he's fine."

=========================

10 March 2002

2:45PM  Am far less angry now.  In fact, I'm surprised at how calm I
am.  I know he'll come home.  Where else can he go?

God, don't even want to even *think* about that!

Bloody hell. 

3:15PM  Place so quiet.  Nothing to do.  Bored and frustrated and
fatigued.  Really becoming worried.  Know he will come back.  Who
should apologise first, I wonder?  He was being quite difficult and
nasty, but then I wasn't exactly Miss Cheery and Supportive, now was
I?

4:28PM  Mr. Greeley called w/ information about three more houses we
should look at.  Am dead set on the Victorian with the outhouse.  Will
need a few renovations here and there, but it's the one I like, and so
far Luka has voiced no preferences about any house.  Of course, all
this depends on whether or not he returns home.

God, where is he?!  Am becoming frantic.  Talking to babies about
their father, but all they do is kick and hiccup.

5:15PM  Dave dropped by and gave me more peanuts and we sat for a
while, talking.  Decided not to bring up the whole 3-way thing, as I'm
not in the mood to talk about something so...icky.  Instead, we talked
about window dressings.

Yes, window dressings.  I know.  Sounds as weird as it felt.

5:45PM  Called Dr. DeRaad and asked if he'd set aside some reading
material for me regarding PTSD and clinical depression.  "Is this
about your husband?"

"Yes.  He's...there's something wrong.  He's been having
nightmares...when he actually sleeps.  He's not doing very well."

"Oh.  Yes.  Well, I'll have some material ready for you tomorrow."

Not like I look forward to reading about that sort of thing.  I've
never suffered from serious depression.  Oh, hell, I get down
sometimes, but I've never contemplated suicide or felt so horrible
that it took a Herculean effort to get out of bed in the morning.  And
I know Luka has gone through both.

But I recall my psychology professor telling us about how much a
simple gesture of compassion can help a depressed person.  Standing
around saying, "Oh, cheer up!" will NEVER help and only makes the
person who says that sound like the dolt that they are ("Oh.  Okay.
Can I come to your mother's funeral and scream, "Oh, cheer up!" at you
during the service?").  "Urge them to seek help.  Tell them they can
call you at three in the morning if need be.  If the person knows that
there's just one person out there who gives a damn and is willing to
do something useful, it will help.  A little compassion-a little
understanding-goes a long way."

Again, that makes me think about Abby.  Why didn't she do anything?
She just enabled Luka.  Never helped him, though I'm sure she thought
that Healing Through Sex was *helpful*.  Never showed any *real*
caring.  Oh, I know what a lot of people would say.  "She went to him,
didn't she?  She made him feel loved and cared for!"  Yeah.  Right.
Sex is so easy to do.  Urging him to seek help...*insisting* he seek
help before she even considered sleeping with him...would have shown
how much she truly cared.  But it's obvious that she didn't give a
shit about him.  He was just a trophy to her.  "Oh, look at me,
everybody!  I have Gorgeous Croatian!  I'm sure he's just hunky-dory!"
 Instead, she showed that she cared about Carter by insisting *he*
seek the help he needed.  Still boggles the mind as to why she never
did the same for Luka.  I heard all about what she did a year ago,
when Carter was addicted to painkillers.  But did she do anything of
the sort for Luka?  Nope.

Bitch.

Bitter and angry and throwing pillows around bedroom.  Why do I put
myself through this-thinking about his ex-girlfriend?  I know *why*.
Because she very nearly let him die.  The 'sin of omission', so to
speak.  So what can I do now?  My husband is still a relatively
stable, mature adult.  He knows what he *should* do, but actually
doing it is another issue all together.  That's the problem with every
human being on this bloody planet.  Am I gonna do the right thing or
am I gonna sit on my duff and let other people do it?

All right.  When he comes home, I am going to *insist*, in no
uncertain terms, that he seek help.  I cannot fix him, no matter how
much I love him.  Gah, phone!

6:14PM  Was Mum.  We talked for a long time about husbands having
mental breakdowns and dead first wives (Mum made me laugh by terming
it 'wife in law') and news from home.  Mum gave good advise, though.
"He's your husband.  You are responsible for him, just as he's
responsible for you.  You have to talk to him, and make him talk to
you.  Tell him, in no uncertain terms, that you love him and want him
to be healthy and happy.  You'd be a bloody awful wife if you just
*sat* there, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for him to talk, right?
Action must be taken!"

=========================

Luka drained the glass of whiskey and stared at his image in the bar
mirror.  Now what the hell was he doing here?  Drinking himself into
oblivion?  Hardly proper behavior for a man his age.  He was forty
years old, married and about to be a father again.

He wasn't a good drinker.  In fact, he was a total lightweight.  More
than two beers and he was dizzy and incoherent.

"What are you doing here?"

"Havin' a beer."

"Why?  What are you running away from?  Is it so bad, seeing your
brother-in-law?  And as for Mark...you've seen death  before.  It
visits that hospital every day.  You should be used to it by now."

"How the hell do you get used to death?"

"You accept it."

"That's ridiculous.  I'm a doctor.  I'm supposed to...to fight again
death."

"No.  You keep it at bay for a while, but you'll never defeat it.  All
those years of medical training, Luka.  All that ambition and drive
you had once... what happened to it?  Now, you're 'just a doctor'.
You wanted to be a the best doctor around.  You wanted to be chief of
emergency medicine at some big hospital, be famous.  What happened?"

"Life happened.  *Death* happened," Luka snapped.  "The war happened."

"And then the war ended.  The future happened.  Next thing you knew,
it was the past and now here you are, sitting in a bar, drinking, too
afraid and ashamed to go back home to your wife...who *loves* you, by
the way, and wants to help you...and acting like a coward.  I never
thought I'd see the day that Luka Kovac behaved like a coward."

"I am not a coward!"

"Then what are you?  Is this how you're supposed to behave?"

"I don't know," Luka answered, rubbing his forehead.

"You always do that."

"Do what?"

"Pretend you don't know the answer when it's sitting right in front of
you.  You know what you need to do.  You need to get help.  You need
to listen to your wife, and then talk to her.  You wasted nine years
of your life, not seeking any kind of assistance.  Then...and this is
the really rough part, because I saw the whole thing...you let
yourself get caught up in an affair with a cruel, deceitful,
unfaithful woman who *used* you.  Every time I saw you with her, I
wanted to shake you and ask you what the devil you were doing with
her.  Of course, it's not like she was completely to blame for that...
distaster.  But...my God, Luka, it was like I was watching a stranger.
 I didn't know you any more."

"This again, huh?"

"Yes, this again!  Why did you waste so much *time*?"

"Like I said before, I don't know.  I don't know...I can't figure out.
 I was lost."

"And now you're *found*.  Your wife is sitting at home right now,
frantic with worry about you."

"I'm amazed that you call her my wife."

"You married her."

Luka took another sip of his beer.  "I love her."

"I know you do."

"She's great, you know?  She never...wavers.  Never loses faith in me,
even when I act like an ass."

"Then go home."

"What do I say, then?  It seems like I'm always apologizing to her for
something.  I screw up, she takes me back."

"So long as you're not hitting her, or mistreating her, she has every
right to take you back.  Love makes you do crazy things...like believe
in somebody, for instance."

"I could never hit her."

"You never hit me, either."

"I'll admit, Danijela, there were times that I was tempted...but what
is it you said about temptation?  That temptation isn't a sin, it's
the giving in to temptation that is?"

She laughed.  "I know!  And I was awful sometimes, wasn't I?  I'll be
perfectly honest...there were times I *deserved* to be slapped, and
yet you never did it.  We were both so young."

"Idiots," he nodded.  "We made so many mistakes."

"But *we* weren't a mistake.  We had two beautiful children and we
were happy together.  We didn't have a dinar between us, and we seemed
to work almost constantly, but at the end of the day we had each
other...in that lumpy little bed."

Luka smiled into his beer glass.  "I'll never forget that bed."

"We had some good times, didn't we?"

He looked up at the mirror and saw her sitting there beside him.  It
was difficult to imagine Danijela in a bar, but she was there.  Her
hair smooth and silky, just as it had been before they had moved to
Vukovar, her eyes the same startling aquamarine.  She was smiling at
him, running her finger over the edge of a glass.

"I love you, Danijela," he said softly.

"I know.  I love you.  But you're alive and I'm just a figment of your
imagination...a ghost.  Alexandra is real and alive.  And this world
is for the living, not the dead.  So pay for your drink and go home."

"You know that we're naming one of the boys Daniel?"

"Yes.  I like Alexandra.  She's kind.  She has a pure heart.  And she
adores you.  I'm so glad you found her."

Luka nodded and dug in his pocket.  He extracted a few wadded up bills
and laid them on the table, then looked up again.  Danijela was gone.
Replaced, in fact, by a large man wearing a plaid shirt and
dirt-streaked jeans.

"No, I didn't know you were namin' one of the boys Daniel," the man
said, gesturing to the bartender for a draft.  "Sounds like a good
name for a kid, though."

"Uh...yeah.  Thanks."  Luka stared at the man for a moment, then drew
in his breath.  It was time to go home.

=========================

10:45PM  It's easy to just hold him sometimes.  It's the letting go
that's so hard.

Luka came home and stumbled through an apology, then said something
about a talk he had with Danijela.  I suppose that's the alcohol, but
then again, perhaps it's good to have a talk with a ghost.

He sat beside me on the couch, reeking of beer and cigarettes.  I took
the pack of Marlboros from him and threw it away.  He didn't touch me.
 Just sat, hands on his knees, and started talking.  Best to just
listen and keep my trap shut.

"I've been having nightmares.  About Danijela and the children.  About
Vukovar.  And now with Maks and Mark...it's all been...how do you say?
 Dredged up again?  Anyway, it's like this pressure building up inside
me.  I get so frustrated, Alex.  And I'm...I don't know.  Scared, I
guess.  Scared that something terrible is going to happen.  I listen
to my fears too much and don't listen to good sense, I think.  I hate
treating you this way.  I'm being a total ass to you and there's no
excuse for it...and I'm sorry.  I'll make an appointment tomorrow,
with my therapist.  I will."

"Good."

"And we have Lamaze class Saturday night."

"I know."

"I love you."

"I know."

"Do you forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you.  Do you forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you.  What did you do?"

"I yelled and killed an innocent potted plant."

That made him start laughing.  He put his head against my belly,
listening to his sons swimming around, and in a few minutes he is
sound asleep.  A bit of maneuvering and he's soon stretched out on the
couch.  He's going to have a terrible headache tomorrow.

Cleaned the kitchen and came into the living room to find Jakko
sleeping on Luka's chest.  The little monster adores him.

Looking at the photo of Danijela and Jasna.  I swear, sometimes I feel
Danijela's presence in this room.

Do ghosts move from place to place, to "haunt" the person they were
most attached to?  Is Danijela around here, then?  Not saying that's a
bad thing.  It may just be a 'well, that's the way it is' thing and
something I can cope with quite well.  I'll set out a toothbrush for
her, then.  I do not feel that I'm competing with her, after all.
From what I gathered, despite Luka being a tad incoherent, Danijela is
glad I'm in his life and is happy for us.  Must say, I'd hate to be
the *wrong* woman.  I wonder if Danijela haunted Abby.  I hope she
did.  Serves her right, the selfish little b-  Gah! Phone!

11:02PM  "I don't know what to do with myself now."

Dr. Corday v. upset and I'm not sure what to say to her.  "Umm...well,
perhaps you'd like to come over for dinner some night this week?
Bring little Ella and we can have Diaper Changing Races, that sort of
thing," I chirp, trying to sound cheerful.  "In fact, we're having
something of a dinner party Friday night.  Luka's brother-in-law Maks
and Chuny will both be here.  Should make for quite a jolly
evening...all things considered."

Mark's funeral is tomorrow evening.  I know she's horribly depressed.
"Elizabeth, is there anything we can do?  You know I can't cook,
but...uh...perhaps Luka and I could keep Ella for a while?  You
know...give you a break, let you get some rest.  Sort of
a...a...regroup kind of thing."

"That's very kind of you, Alexandra.  I might take you up on that."

"Well, we're available any time.  Except, of course, when we're
working.  Really, Elizabeth, how are you feeling?  Do you need
anything?"

"I'm all right.  I'm just...up all the time.  No bloody sleep lately,
and Ella has an earache and Rachel..."

Yes.  Rachel.  The Thirteen-Year Old From Hell.  Who just lost her
father and is now living with a woman she doesn't necessarily like
(for some reason) and a baby sister that probably isn't exactly a
Source of Great Joy when her diaper is full and she's screaming "Mine!
Mine!' Mine!" at the top of her lungs.

"Then it's settled.  You'll come Friday night and we'll have dinner."

"You're not cooking are you?" Elizabeth sniffs.

"No."

"Oh, well, then I suppose I can make it."

I have learned not to get upset when people basically say they're
relieved not to be eating my cooking.  But it still annoys me.  Sigh.

V. Momentus Day.  Our first fight as a married couple.  Husband
returns slightly tipsy and confessing to depression and *fear*.  But
shouldn't we listen to our fears sometimes?  Face them?  Cope with
them like mature adults?

Ugh.  No wonder I made a C- in Philosophy 101.

11:47PM  Oh. My. God.  A SPIDER!!!  A big, ugly, creepy spider with
those weird glassy eyes and that grandfathery looking moustache and
those pincher-like claws sitting right there on the counter looking at
me, thinking, "Yum!  Din-din!"

Shoe!  I need a shoe!  Bloody hell!  So much for coping.  Going to
wake Luka up and make him kill the spider for me.

11:51PM  Well, so it was just a little harmless spider, about the size
of a dime.  At least I provided Luka with some entertainment.  After
he killed the spider, he sat in the living room, and I can see the
wheels turning in his head.  Pop in the 'O Brother Where Art Thou?'
soundtrack and can't keep from singing along to 'Didn't Leave Nobody
But The Baby'.  Beautiful song.  Emmylou Harris' voice should be
insured by Lloyd's of London.  The babies bumped along to it, and I
could see the tension easing away from Luka's body, and he's sound
asleep with his head on my lap.

(hee hee...if I wake up tomorrow morning with a *toad* I'm gonna
*FREAK*!)

Quiet before the storm, I suppose. 


To be continued...