Week 5 Story: Adelaide

(Red Wine)

It was a Friday night, so of course Joe and his friends planned to go out on the town. Joe's family was very wealthy- owning many oil wells across the country. So Joe always picked up the tab for everyone. They walked into their usual spot on Friday nights - the Cosmopolitan - and grabbed some seats at the bar. The bartender, Frank, was already making Joe's whiskey on the rocks when he walked in. Joe was a regular there so all the staff knew him. 

"How's it going, buddy?" the bartender asked as he set down his drink in front of him. Joe took a sip of his whiskey and smiled. 

"Pretty good, man, just glad Friday's finally here." He was looking out the windows at the Oklahoma skyline when someone caught his eye.  

A beautiful woman, alone at the end of the bar sipping the last drop out of a huge glass of red wine. He asked the bartender what she was drinking and bought her another. Frank set the wine down in front of the woman. 

"Oh, I didn't order another. I was just going to ask for my tab!" 

He smiled. "The gentleman down there bought you another"- he nodded to Joe. 

Joe smiled at her and got up from his seat to talk to her. "Hi, I'm Joe. I couldn't help but buy a beautiful girl like you a drink! What's your name?" 

She smiled shyly. "Well, you're very kind to do so! I was actually about to head home soon, but I guess now I must stay at least to finish this wine. My name is Adelaide." She took a sip of her wine, glancing up at him with her giant emerald eyes. 

They talked and drank the whole night and he ordered an Uber for the both of them. They ended up spending the night in his loft. I'm sure you can guess how that went. The next morning she was still there sleeping next to him. This was a regular occurrence for Joe but never had he ever felt this way towards a woman. He even decided to make her breakfast.

A few weeks passed. They were still consistently spending time with one another. One evening she sat down at his table for dinner. Adelaide had been acting a bit odd. He poured her her favorite glass of red wine and she just stared at it the entire dinner. 

Finally Joe asked, "Not feeling the wine tonight?" 

She looked up from her plate, which was still full of food, and said, "I'm pregnant." 

Joe set down his utensils and tried to hide the shock from his face. "Oh. Okay, that's okay... Uhh well we can make a doctor's appointment tomorrow and we-" 

"It's okay, we don't have to keep it. I know it's not the time right now," she said. 

"No, Adelaide, I want this baby. I want you. We can have this family. I know that it's so soon, but I'm sure if you are." 

She  gave him a weak smile. "It just so scary. I feel like we just met... because well, we did." Joe reassured her that everything would work out and that he loved her no matter how little time they had spent together. 

***

Two months after that Adelaide and Joe got married and nine months from then their son was born. He was so strong and handsome. They named him Maddox and he was perfect in every way. After a couple days they were able to bring Maddox home and get him settled. Joe was puzzled when none of Adelaide's family had showed up to witness the birth of Maddox and when he inquired about it Adelaide just brushed it under the rug and said she just hadn't talked to her family in years. Joe didn't think much of this but for some reason he had felt uneasy about not knowing that part of her life. So he began to do some research. He found no one under her name. Which he found extremely strange. So he hired someone to look into her life further. Turns out Adelaide was not even her name. Her name was Heather. She was born in Germany and had spent time in jail there. In fact she was serving a death sentence when she escaped. They never found her, since she fled to the US incognito. But why? Why was she serving a death sentence? The investigator pulled out her record and showed him. She was charged for the death of seven infants. Joe's mouth dropped and he began to hyperventilate. He told Adelaide he had a work meeting and would be home late this evening meaning she was still home alone with Maddox. Before the investigator could utter another word Joe was out the door and on his way home. He didn't know how he would handle the situation but he knew he had to get Maddox away from her. 

He walked in the garage door and Adelaide greeted him with a kiss. He faked a smile. "Where's my boy?" 

"Asleep in his crib!" Joe rushed to his room with Adelaide following behind him. 

"Honey, what's wrong? Don't wake him. I just got him to sleep!" 

He grabbed Maddox and held him against his chest, his eyes wet with tears. 

"Would you like to tell me who you really are, Heather?" 

Adelaide's face fell, as she began to back away from Joe. She shook her head and ran. She took nothing with her and never returned again. That was the last Joe or anyone saw of her. 

Author's note:

I thought the story about Santanu (Joe) and Ganga (Adelaide/Heather) who drowned all seven of her children and kept the eighth was extremely disturbing but also intriguing. I thought it would be interesting to write a murder mystery kind of story modeled after the Mahabharata. I'm sure you can tell by reading some of my other stories that I really like to try to modernize these stories. I feel like it makes it easier to understand them and remember the details of the story if I can make it more relatable to my life today. I would really like to have been able to elaborate more on this story but I'm trying to do better at staying within the word count requirements! I think maybe I may end up writing another part to this. It ends kind of abruptly but that makes it more of a cliffhanger that way. I think keeping stories short and sweet definitely makes them better but I also feel like I had to speed through this story. This isn't my typical style of story so it allowed me to test my horizons a bit. I'm eager to start revising this story. I hope you all enjoyed the story! 

Bibliography: Narayan's Mahabharata