The alarm blared precisely at 6:00 a.m. and Harvey’s hands flew to his head instinctively, as if he was a preacher that could stop the throbbing just by the laying on of his own hands. It didn’t work. In fact, there was a dull throbbing in his hand, too, which turned to screaming pain as Harvey smacked the goddamned alarm clock across the room to shut it up. All this pain and Harvey hadn’t even opened his eyes yet. He was contemplating pulling the blanket up over his head to hide from the light, when he heard the faint sound of the front door creaking open, followed by the rattle of keys as they dropped into the glass dish by the front door.

What the devil? he thought.

“Harvey?” he heard a soft voice call out.

Shit. Sheila.

He heard the click of her pumps on the hardwood floors. Heading his way. He sat up quickly, and almost blacked out from the pain in his head. He used his unbandaged hand to try to flatten his hair back into place. He couldn’t even imagine what he must look like after last night’s binge and subsequent sleep marathon. It was too late to do anything about it now though, because suddenly Sheila was standing in the doorway. She looked like an angel to Harvey. Blond hair in curls, and an obviously new red polka dot dress with red heels. The look on her face when she saw Harvey was one of shock mixed with pity.

“Oh my goodness,” she said softly. “You poor thing. Did I do this to you?”  Her voice was sugary and sweet, full of concern.

Harvey used his good hand to wave the question away. “No...no, of course not...it was...just a night out with the boys that got out of hand.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed, grateful to see that he was at least wearing clothes.

“I’d say so!” she gasped, spying the bandage on his hand. “What the hell happened?”  

Harvey looked embarrassed. He’d never imagined her homecoming would look like this. “An accident at work.I was cleaning the slicer and....well, it did what it was made to do.”

 Sheila’s hand flew to cover her mouth and she looked a little green for a moment. “Couldn’t you....couldn’t you get it reattached?”

“No.” Harvey said. “We....uh....we couldn’t find it,” he lied. “ I mean, by the time we found it, it was too late. So I just...I just wrapped it up.”

A few moments of silence ensued. And then Harvey asked softly, “Where have you been, Sheila?” He heard the whine in his voice, and hated himself for it.

Sheila turned on her heels, her momentary concern replaced by her trademark self-righteousness, not looking Harvey in the eye.

“I just needed some time, I think. I went to stay with Ivan. You remember Ivan, don’t you Harvey?” she asked sweetly.

Harvey did, in fact, remember Ivan. Ivan Sheener, also known as one of the richest and sleaziest men in the next town. He’d had a thing for Sheila for a long time, and Sheila had had a thing for his money for just as long. She liked to throw him in Harvey’s face whenever he wasn’t doing whatever it was she wanted him to do. It was manipulation and Harvey knew it, but somehow it always managed to work. Just the thought of Sheila with Ivan was enough to make Harvey’s chest burn with anger. But now was not the time.  

“Are you home to stay, or are you packing your things to go live with Ivan?” he asked, a bitter edge to his voice.

She gave a little laugh. “Please.” she said. “As if anything in this house is worthy of Ivan’s mansion. He even made me park your piece of shit car around the back of the garage, so no one would think his poor relatives had come to visit. You know how vain he can be.” she laughingly waved a manicured hand in the air.  “No, no, I thought I would come home.” she said airily. “And it looks like my timing is good, too. You’re a mess, and so is this place.” She looked at Harvey with a critical eye. He stared back, still in a bit of shock. “Let me hang up this dress, and make you some eggs. You look like you haven’t eaten in a month of Sundays.”  

     She fluttered out of the room, and he heard her rummage through the hall closet, presumably looking for a change of clothes and then he heard the bathroom door close. He sat for a moment, stunned at this turn of events, and then pushed himself up off the bed. He dug into his dresser drawer with the hand that wasn’t throbbing, and found a clean pair of jeans, a pair of underwear and one of his nicer sweaters. He wasn’t sure how he would manage a shower and a shave, but he’d give it a try.

After a somewhat difficult shower, and an even more difficult shave, Harvey stepped out of the steamy bathroom into the cool of the house. His stomach rumbled rudely when he smelled coffee, and eggs, and bacon. He followed the smells to the kitchen, and stopped in the doorway to admire Sheila’s barefoot figure in a pair of faded jeans and a form-fitting baby-blue sweater. He’d always told her she looked more beautiful when she was dressed down, than in the fancy clothes and tons of makeup she seemed to crave. She’d laughed at him, and said that he only thought that because he had no class, and wasn’t likely to get any. This morning she’d cooked breakfast for him, which was something he hadn’t had since she’d left, unless you counted four or five cups of coffee, most of which he made Irish, as breakfast.

He grabbed a plate, intending to fix his own, when she turned and said, “Sit down, Harvey, with your hand like that, you’ll drop shit everywhere. I’ll get it for you.”

Harvey sat, and watched her move efficiently around the tiny kitchen, fixing a plate for him for the first time in their relationship. While he watched her, he sipped his coffee, and he could feel the caffeine waking up his still foggy brain. His hand throbbed with pain, and he looked down at it, thinking he needed to change the bandage, and definitely go to the doctor to get something for the pain. As it was, he choked down three painkillers from the bottle he kept out on the kitchen table, for mornings such as these.

Sheila gave Harvey his plate, and joined him at the table with one of her own. The two sat eating without talking, except for Harvey’s compliments on the food which she waved away with a little smile.

When she was finished she returned her dish to the sink, and then turned and leaned against it facing Harvey. “You think you could skedaddle outta here for a while, so I can clean this place up?”

Harvey nodded, thinking he would drive over to Dr. Citruses office and have him look at his hand. Sheila headed off through the house, intending to get started right away.

“First things first.” she muttered. “I will NOT sleep in that nasty bedroom.”

He contemplated what that statement meant. She was planning to sleep here which meant he had at least one night with her in his future. He began to make plans for an evening with her, while also thinking how nice and how strange, it was to have her in the house again.

He heard her in the bedroom, pulling the sheets from the bed. Suddenly he heard a wordless cry, and then, “OH. MY.GOD.” It was in that instant that Harvey remembered, his finger was still under the pillow.

Harvey rushed to the bedroom, trying to think of some explanation that wouldn’t make him look like a psychopath who slept with body parts.

“Sheila,” he said, stepping into the room, “I....”  he trailed off.

But Sheila wasn’t standing there holding a human finger like he’d expected. Instead, she was holding her hands cupped together and they were overflowing with coins.

“What the hell is this?” She asked. “Where did all this money come from? Did you rob a vending machine or something?”

Harvey said nothing. Sheila yanked back the covers on the bed. There were coins on the mattress and small mounds of coins under his pillow. He watched numbly as Sheila got down on her knees and began to scoop coins from under the bed as well, reaching handful after handful up to join the rest of the coins on the bed. She stood, her hands still full of coins, and held them towards him as if making some kind of offering.

“Well?” Sheila said, and then stood waiting for an answer. She wasn’t angry, but she was certainly perplexed.

Harvey stood for a moment, trying to figure out what was going on, but his foggy brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening. He watched wordlessly as Sheila dumped the coins from her hands to the bed.

“There must be a thousand coins here, Harvey.” She began to gather more of the change together in a pile with a sweeping motion of her arm. Panic suddenly snapped Harvey from his stance, and he stepped quickly to her side. He didn’t know where all that money had come from, but his biggest concern was Sheila finding that finger. But as they scooped the coins together into one big pile there was nothing. Only a faint blood stain where the finger had been. Sheila stopped what she was doing and looked suspiciously at Harvey.

“How drunk were you last night?”

Next Chapter: 5.