The Monroe Legacy - G1. Chapter 4 - A Bump in the Road

As Marlie sat in the doctors office that afternoon she had many things to worry about. Most pressing was the Doctor's bill, she'd be eating rice for a week to cover it but her boss had made it pretty clear that she'd better have a darn good excuse for being so unreliable.

To make matters worse the magazines on the waiting room table were plastered with pictures of Marilyn, promising sordid truths and secret lovers. She skimmed through one which claimed that the death had been faked as an insurance fraud and that Marilyn was living in Aruba with her secret lover.

How ridiculous!

Suffice to say that when Marlie lay on the examination table she wasn't really thinking about what the doctor was asking. He asked a few questions and then popped out to return with a female colleague. The lady doctor ran a few more intimate tests, before grinning at Marlie and telling her there was nothing to worry about...

'Congratulations' said the OBGYN, 'you're pregnant!'

Marlie fainted.

She woke up in her own bed with no idea how she'd got there. The note by her pillow told her that the receptionist had driven her home and that she should rest and maybe hurry up with her remodel.

What the hell was she going to do? She didn't have a house, the cheapest crib was outside of her budget and she was alone in the world. As she crawled back in to bed with tears streaming down her face she saw the fallen leaves blowing along the grass and realised that the summer was over, soon it would be too cold for her to sleep outside, let alone a baby - she couldn't imagine what would become of her when the snow fell.

The next few weeks were a hazy mess. Marlie hid her growing bump under baggy clothes, muttering she'd just gained some weight if people looked at her belly. She'd also faked a doctors note diagnosing her with stomach flu. She knew it couldn't last so she saved every penny she could, scrounging food samples in the shop, devouring colleagues birthday cakes and sometimes eating out of the bins behind the local diner, but it wasn't enough.

One day she went across town to a big Halloween festival. She'd heard they were running a pie eating contest and she was almost dizzy with the idea of the prize money and the full stomach. She arrived early, napping in the haybales surrounding the maze as it was getting too cold to be exposed at night and she'd been sneaking in to a luxury local health club to sleep and raid the fridges.

As she picked hay out of her hair and trudged towards the pie-eating arena she saw the two people she'd been most afraid to see. Her boss was only feet away and there was no way to hide her swollen belly. Worse yet, he was with Ben.

Marlie felt sick, she tried to duck behind a nearby booth but Ben had seen her.

'Marlie' he yelled, the twinkle in his eye suggesting he thought he had a shot at another chance with her. There was nothing for it, she slowly stepped out from behind the booth's protection and saw Ben's face go slack with horror and her boss turn pink with rage.

'My office, Monday, 9am' he spat before storming off.

Ben was still frozen and Marlie knew she had no option now but to beg him for help. She explained that she couldn't afford to keep the baby and that it was too late to terminate  even if she could have gone through with it. She begged for his help, promising she'd pay him back and that he wouldn't have to help out.

To her absolute astonishment, Ben agreed. He didn't look happy but he said he'd come round to discuss their options. When he arrived he was shocked, he'd been pretty buzzed on his last visit and hadn't really appreciated how desperate the situation was, he quickly realised that this whole thing could work to his advantage...

Little did Marlie know he was on trial for failing to pay an ex-lovers child support and Ben knew that this would be a great opportunity to prove that he'd changed. He couldn't help but pity Marlie and decided that he'd help out until his name was cleared.

 Forcing a smile, he whipped out his phone and called a friend, Marlie didn't know what was going on until an hour later a trailer was towed up.

'Tadah!!' said Ben, 'Now you have somewhere to live, and look - somebody delivered this box for you. If you like I'll even move in to take care of you - you don't mind watching my dog right?' 

The trailer was crappy and Ben was suspiciously cheerful but Marlie was just too exhausted to care. The mystery box contained a brand new TV - Marlie couldn't figure out where the hell it was from so she just moved it inside. 

She told Ben he could do whatever he liked and set about moving her bed in to the trailer. She turned to ask Ben to help but he'd vanished already so she just crawled under the sheets and fell in to a fitful sleep. 

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Next time in the Monroe Legacy - Will Marlie keep her job? Will Ben hold up his end of the deal? Who delivered the mystery TV and why and why is Ben's dog so huge?

Find out now in Chapter 5 of the Monroe Legacy - It's A Dog-Eat-Dog World