Learning To Fly

Marshall The Handyman.

“Jaime I can’t see a fucking thing” I’m about to launch my phone across the fucking room, I can’t get the hang of this video calling.
“Marshall, calm down and stop swearing. I swear to God if Archer starts saying fuck, I’ll murder you till you’re dead” she’s very cross with me today and it makes me chuckle, I find it really funny, which irritates her even further.
I’ve been home two weeks now, the first of Jaime’s and Archers belongings arrived the day before yesterday and I’ve spent the day lugging boxes upstairs and wondering if I should unpack their belongings or not. I figured I could do it, anything personal I would leave to one side for Jaime to deal with and anything else she could move it around as she pleased once she’d got here and settled in.

Video calling has become our way of contacting one another, two weeks and I still haven’t mastered that fucking technology while I wait impatiently for them to arrive, I’ve taken her on a virtual house tour via my phone and she picked out the room she wanted to use for Archers bedroom and I’d started decorating it, I wanted to do it myself and it looked cute as fuck, I had better ideas for it for when he was older but they’d scare the shit out of him now if I did it.

Suddenly a loud high-pitched squeal from Jaime’s end interrupts my thoughts, causing me to drop my IPad “Angel what the fuck?” she closes her eyes and counts to ten slowly under her breath before telling me “Archer and the terrible two’s, he’s been screaming like that for days, he doesn’t want to wear clothes, he says no to everything and he’s learnt how to take his nappy off. I spent ages cleaning shit out of the carpet this morning” she grumbles in a most un Jaime like way, but I can’t blame her, he sounds like he’s being a nightmare right now.
“I can’t wait to get to yours and you can see how our beautiful boy has turned into the spawn of Satan” she sounds harassed, no wonder she sounded cross with me pissing about, must be like taking care of two kids from her point of view.

“Jaime put the camera in front of him!” I demand, confident I can sort the problem out from my end if I have too, her eyebrow quirks up and she smirks “okay” she smiles as she does as I’ve asked.

My sons face appears in the screen and he tries to grab at me through the screen before screaming “Dad” at the top of his voice, my fucking ears are ringing. “Hey Buddy, what do you say we stop giving Mommy a hard time and turn the screaming down a notch” I go for a firm but fair voice and I think it works until I realise he’s just staring at me before eventually balling up a chubby fist and punching the IPad screen, then getting up and running off screaming at the top of his lungs, holy shit, he is the devil. He’s literally me!

“Thanks for trying to help baby” Jaime’s beautiful face appears back in front of me, a dinosaur toy launches across the screen, nearly hitting her in the face, I can hear Archie laughing demonically in the background.
Jaime takes a deep breath “Sorry Marshall I need to go and sort him out, speak to you later baby”
“Jaime” I yell quickly before she leaves me hanging, her face appears again, “Angel, take a bath and be in bed relaxing when you call me later, I’ll help you off to sleep”
Her face burns crimson as she realises what I’m implying “I will, love you” and she hangs up.
I vaguely remember the girls when they hit their terrible two’s, it was a fucking unholy nightmare and I guessed I was happy enough to be away from home in those days and to leave Kim and her Mom to deal with the little terrors, didn’t look like I was going to escape this one though and honestly I didn’t want to.

I hate it after we’ve been talking and then I’m left all alone again, I stand pouting in my lounge with my bottom lip stuck right out but at least it won’t be for much longer, that thought makes me smirk and I head back to the little spare room off my family room I’m currently transforming into a study/office for Jaime, it had mostly been storing the girls bits and pieces that they hadn’t wanted to take to their own houses but they were only too pleased to come and sort through their stuff when I explained what I was doing with the room, they’d ended up donating the lot to a local charity in the end and I’d helped them load up their cars with their donations.

I was turning into quite the fucking handyman even if I do say so myself. I'd sent Jaime what I thought was a sexy photo of me with my tool belt on but in fact turned out to be the funniest thing she'd apparently ever seen.
Building the fucking desk in there had been a test of strength, stamina and determination, Even with Nathan helping it still took hours but it felt like a real achievement, hell I felt like I’d won the basketball league all on my own and I’d done it for her, so that she had her own space and she could start planning her business immediately. I didn’t want Jaime to have any cause for thinking that being here with me had been a bad decision for her, she didn’t need to work anymore, I’d gladly take care of her every need but I knew how stubborn she was on that, her independence was important to her and I understood and respected that even if I did want to push and test her resolve on it occasionally.

A week and a bit later I was ready to go get them there and then, two days to go and those two days would drag like a mother fucker I laughed to myself as I called Jaime, ready to tell her, her nightly bedtime story, I made it sound all cutesy but in reality, it was mostly me telling her the dirty and depraved things I was going to do to her the next time I saw her, Jaime mostly laughed herself to sleep before I was done telling her things though. She thought I was joking with everything I said but I was not and she was in for a huge surprise.
She didn’t pick up when I called which wasn’t unusual, sometimes she’d be with Archer, but she’d usually phone me back straight away the minute she could, this time hours later I was still calling her and getting no reply. My paranoia had kicked in what if she had changed her mind? What if something had happened to her?

Just as I was about to wake Paul’s fat ass up in New York to get me a jet she called, relief swam throughout my body “Angel, where the fuck have you been?” the worried tension coming out through my voice as I realise I was being quite loud, but I hear nothing apart from her steady breathing. “Jaime?” the sobbing starts and panic rises in my throat once more, I don’t like this one little bit but I wait until she, regains her composure enough to speak to me “I’m at the hospital” she cries, I stand up pacing the wooden floor of my kitchen back and forth “Why? What’s wrong? Is it Archer?” oh god my knees feel weak this would be just like fucking god or some shit to do this to me, give me everything I ever wanted and snatch it away just as I’m about to have it all.

“No, no it’s Sarah, they lost their baby and life’s so fucking cruel Marshall” she sobs again and what I would give to be able to give her a hug right now.
“Angel, I’m so sorry, its awful” it is horrible and I hate that I feel so relieved that Jaime and Archie are okay, while Sarah and Jack are suffering.

“Marshall can you come any sooner? Please, just a day earlier or an hour, anything please!” she sounds so sad and of course I can get there earlier “Yeah of course, anything you need, I’ll get Paul on to it Angel” she thanks me over and over.

“Hey stop that, you need me, I’m there.” Family always come first.

“What if something happens to us when we think everything’s perfect, what if”

“Jaime, stop! It’s really sad and heart-breaking about their baby, but this is us and we’re perfectly imperfect already so nothing will happen” I don’t really know what I’m talking about right now but she sounds panicked and I can’t stand that. I don’t know that nothing bad will happen in the future but surely we’ve had enough of that to last us both a lifetime, so I took a small punt and guessed that everything would turn out fine.

“Angel if you want to put off coming to Michigan for a week or so I’ll understand” I regret the words the minute they leave my mouth but she refuses thankfully “we’ll see how it goes baby but I don’t want to get in their way you know” I agree with her and keep my mind open to the horrible thought of leaving her there another week.
Maybe this tragedy will bring them all back together, if there was to be some kind of silver lining in this, I hoped it would be that. A terrible thing to happen but they were obviously talking otherwise she wouldn’t be at the hospital with them.

“I don’t know what to say or do Marshall, I’m just hanging around hoping I’m helping in some small way” she sounds lost and my heart aches, I need to get there as soon as I can.
“There’s nothing you can say or do Jaime just be there in case they need you! Is Archer with you?” suddenly concerned with my own son’s whereabouts, if Jaime, Jack and Sarah are there surely he must be too.
“He’s here with me, sleeping and being quiet for once” she laughs lightly “Okay baby, I’m gonna go and let you get some rest, let me know if you can come earlier, but please don’t worry if you can’t, love you” and with that she hangs up on me, I’m not in the slightest bit annoyed she sounds shattered.

Instead of calling and waking Paul up I decided to try and book my own jet, it can’t be that hard for fucks sake, these people work for me so I can totally call them and deal with this and it might be nearly two am but I just want to get to Jaime, so they’re just going to have to deal.