Baba Fête

By T. C. Tereschak

Ben Freitag is frazzled; he’s barely slept in weeks. After delivering beautiful, healthy twin boys, his wife, Chloe returned home diagnosed with a severe case of postpartum depression. Listless and lethargic, she seems to want nothing to do with them or Ben, who is running low on everything: love, energy, patience and time off from work. So when Chloe’s estranged great-grandmother, the almost mythical, Baba Fête, offers her assistance Ben welcomes her. The seemingly ageless and vivacious Baba whooshes in, effortlessly managing the household and convinces Ben to go back to work; she will take care of the house and his family. Now Ben can get some sleep and return to some sense of normality. Overwhelmed by Baba and lured back into the warm rhythm of work, Ben doesn’t notice what’s happening; something had invaded Ben’s home and is eating his family away—literally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Mar 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509206384

Book preview

Inc.

"In the blood lies the life

In the life lies the blood

Follow the blood for all your life

For all your life follow the blood."

Baba Fête

by

T. C. Tereschak

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Baba Fête

COPYRIGHT © 2016 by T. C. Tereschak

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Kristian Norris

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Black Rose Edition, 2016

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0638-4

Published in the United States of America

Chapter One

Benjamin Freitag stepped out of the shower, barely dried himself off and wrapped a towel around his waist. He wiped the steam from the mirror with his hand and grabbed the can of shaving cream off the counter to lather up. As of late, he tried not to take notice of his reflection and only look at the area he needed to shave, he hated the way he looked; drawn. Dark circles encompassed his eyes, and he’d lost ten pounds, giving him a gaunt appearance.

But catch his reflection he did and saw what he’d been trying to avoid; an old-young man. He sighed, barely recognizing the face in the mirror and stared through his reflection.

Ben’s presence of mind vacated and went to a place the very tired and worried sometimes go. With his brain stuck in neutral, Ben’s face bore the thousand yard stare which men who suffer from battle fatigue so often wear.

After delivering beautiful, healthy, twin boys, his wife Chloe had come home from the hospital with some problems. True, it had been a difficult delivery, so he didn’t hold it against her when she showed signs of postpartum depression.

Four weeks had gone by and she displayed absolutely no desire to even be in the same room with the twins; Samuel and David. Lying in bed like a lump, she barely ate, slept or spoke. The doctors said all this would pass, with time. It’s all hormonal, just give her body time to find its balance again, they said, reassuringly.

Ben was glad to have a job which allowed fathers maternity leave, three months to be exact; truly generous.

When he spoke to his supervisor, Jeff Thorogood, at Wittford-Helms, the advertising firm he worked at, Jeff said, No problem. But Ben worried about how much time could pass before it became a problem.

Somewhere, far away, something was banging, a sharp ping of distressed metal. Ben blinked rapidly, finally released from his trance. Furnace!

Ben raced from the second floor bathroom and headed to the cellar. He slipped on the bare wood stairs in his wet feet, latched onto the banister and wrenched his shoulder. The pain helped shake out some of the cobwebs.

He made it just in time and flipped the release valve. It was early December; a Chicago December, and the furnace was now working hard. Ben knew he should have drained it first thing, right after his coffee, but he was so damned tired his mind was foggy.

They should have replaced that old, decrepit boiler before any other renovations had begun and he’d told Chloe exactly the same thing. Let’s put the money into a new one, hon. Otherwise, it’ll be a huge pain in the ass. Neither of us is going to want to drain that thing every other day during the winter.

Chloe’s two cents: Oh, no one can see that old thing down there. I want to remodel up here and entertain.

So to save a fight, he agreed and they put the money into remodeling the kitchen of their three-bedroom Victorian-era home, instead of replacing the furnace. Now, every time the pressure got too high he had to bolt down to the cellar and drain water out, otherwise the cellar flooded. Luckily it was a task that needed to be performed only every other day.

He headed back upstairs to the bathroom, picked up the can of shaving cream, sprayed the foam in his hand and lathered up.

As he raked the razor across his face, Ben breathed a small sigh of relief. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. Baba Fête, Chloe’s great-grandmother, had called from out of the blue and asked how things were going. Ben told her their woes and she volunteered to help out; for the price of a plane ticket. In less than three hours he’d be driving to O’Hare airport to pick her up.

Baba, sighed Ben, and a faint smile crept across his face as he thought of how excited Chloe had been when she heard Baba would be attending their wedding.

Chloe’s mother, Nadine,