Chapter Fourteen
For the past few days, the memory of Rodrigo’s kiss floated up to the top of my thoughts at least once an hour. It had been sweet, but promised more.
My problem was that I had no idea what it promised.
When I was younger and Michael kissed me, I knew what I wanted, and I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted. We wanted each other in that desperate, no-one-has-ever-felt-this-way-before sexual craving. The Lord had known what He was doing when it came to procreation. He gave us all an unbearable itch that needed scratching during our reproductive years.
But what was the possible reason for the desire I felt now?
It was probably why I’d accepted Michael’s growing lack of interest over the years. It was only natural, I told myself. I certainly wasn’t having any more children. I was disappointed, but I shrugged my shoulders and soldiered on like I did with everything else in my life.
My sisters and I barely talked, and never about sex. And it wasn’t a topic I was going to bring up during church coffee hour!
I could imagine how that would go …
“So Sally, are you and your husband still having relations?”
“Oh, yes. My sister and her husband stop by every Thursday night for a couple of rounds of gin rummy.”
“No. I mean relations .” I’d give a wink.
She’d look blank.
“Are you still going at it?” I’d ask.
“At what?”
“Are you having sex?” My voice would raise like I was talking to someone hard of hearing, and everyone would look at me.
“Oh, yes, my dear.” Sally would lean close. “Just not with my husband. But don’t worry, I go to confession every Saturday. And I swear every week the priest tells me to ‘go forth and sin some more’.”
That Sally always had been sex obsessed. And now I would know she was quite deaf as well.
I chuckled to myself as I let go of my imaginary conversation.
“Someone’s happy this morning,” Liz said. She looked at the car schedule. “What’s up on Thursday?”
“I got roped into helping with the white elephant sale at church,” I said. “Thursday we’re going through the stuff we’ve got, cleaning and sorting.”
“Better you than me,” she said, pouring coffee and popping toast into the toaster.
“You off to your studio?”
“Yep. I think I’m close to finishing the one I’ve been working on since we left North Carolina.”
“Taken you long enough,” I said as I contemplated my own breakfast options. “Are we going to get to see this one?”
“Once I finish it, I promise I’ll show it to you. It’s been difficult. I tried to resurrect the style I had as a young woman, but that didn’t match who I am now. So I’ve spent all this time trying to reconcile the two.”
“What does your agent think?”
“I haven’t shown her anything either. She wasn’t thrilled with the change of direction when I talked with her in New York. I’m reluctant to show her anything before it’s completely set.”
“Makes sense,” I said, nodding. Maybe I’d make myself some scrambled eggs. We had sausage in the freezer.
“I’m going to fire that accounting client.” Diane emerged from the shower room where she’d finished showering and gotten dressed. She was staring at her phone. “She’s left me five messages already this morning, demanding to know why I haven’t answered her back.”
“Isn’t she in California?” Liz asked, sitting down at the table with her toast.
“Yes.” Diane got her coffee.
“Why is she up so early?”
“Because she’s a worry-wart. She woke up at three in the morning, concerned about how her taxes were going to work out for her this year. And if she’s awake, she figures everyone else should be awake, too.”
“I hate people like that,” I said.
“Yes. As soon as we get back to Montana, she’s getting fired. They’re all getting fired. I’m retiring for good.”
Liz and I applauded. It had been clear to us for a while that our sister no longer found joy in her accounting business. Diane had become focused on developing her photography skills. If she wasn’t out taking pictures, she was working on her computer learning how to touch them up to produce the best quality image she could .
“After I finish breakfast, I’m going out to take pictures. I may be out all day,” Diane said.
“What about your client?” I asked.
“I’ve told her I’ll talk to her at our usual time. Then I’m putting my phone on airplane mode.”
“That’s smart,” Liz said. “In spite of these handy little devices, we don’t need to be at every person’s beck and call.”
“Freedom from technology!” Diane said, thrusting her fist in the air.
I looked at her. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” Diane was addicted to her computer as far as I could see.
Diane laughed. “I’m learning to be better. Really. Joe told me if I don’t cut my umbilical cord with the internet, he’s going to have second thoughts.”
“Smart man,” Liz said. With a glance toward me, she asked, “So what are you up to today?”
“Genna and I are getting together to do some weaving and spinning and having lunch,” I said. I glanced at my phone. It was already nine. Maybe toast for breakfast would be a better idea.
“She’s becoming quite the social butterfly,” Liz said to Diane.
“I know,” Diane replied. “She’s got church activities, friends, and now she’s dating.”
“He’s just a friend,” I stated loudly.
“She better not get too comfortable,” Liz said. “We need her to drive us home.”
I ignored them. Everything was temporary. That’s how it was in the RV world. There were brief friendships, parishes …
Loves.
~ ~ ~
An hour later, Genna and I were comfortably seated under her awning. She was working her odd little spinning wheel, and I was weaving. Mostly we were quiet, but every once in a while we would talk.
The time was peaceful, the gentle whir of her wheel, and the occasional thud of my ridge heddle reed providing a counterpoint to the background chirping of small birds. It was a scene as old as humans. Archeologists had found flax fibers created thirty-four thousand years ago in the Republic of Georgia; woven textiles had been discovered at a Neolithic settlement in central Turkey. People had discovered they needed clothing early on.
I could imagine gatherings like this from ancient times. People sitting together, doing what needed to be done, but enjoying each other’s company while they did so. It was a pleasure that the industrial age had stripped from human work. Then the information age divided us even further, leaving us communicating through hard metal and plastic instead of talking casually within the circle of others.
“This is a wonderful way to spend time,” Genna said. “It’s the hardest thing about traveling for me. There are people who knit and such, but I just get to know them and they move on … or we do.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It’s hard to make connections.”
“It must be quite an adventure for you and your sisters to go on this road trip.”
“It is. We’ve seen so many places, and there are more on the schedule. I’m anxious to see the Grand Canyon.”
“We’ve been. It’s pretty phenomenal. Will you be going to the big Utah parks?”
“We saw a few of them on the way east. I think the latest plan is to make our way to California, see some of the coast and Yosemite and then head back to Montana.” My voice dropped off as I talked.
“Don’t you want to go home?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” I debated how much I wanted to tell her. Sometimes talking to a relative stranger was easier than talking to my sisters.
Genna didn’t respond but continued to spin.
I felt free to talk more or be quiet. It was a liberating feeling: someone letting me talk or not talk at my own pace.
“My husband died a year and a half ago. Cancer,” I said.
“I’m sorry.”
“He’d been ill for a while. I think he was relieved to go.”
“Sometimes it’s like that.”
I let the shuttle glide from one side to the other, moved the reed, and slotted it in a new spot.
“We were having problems before that. I wasn’t sure if I loved him anymore, but there wasn’t much I was going to do about it. I married for life. I knew that going in.”
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Twenty,” I said.
“That’s young.”
“It seems so now, but at the time I thought I knew everything there was to know. ”
“I get that,” Genna said with a wry smile.
“When did you get married?”
“I married my first husband when I was twenty-nine. We’d been dating for a few years, and my biological clock was kicking up a storm. I thought he was the best I was going to do.”
“I’m so sorry. You’re a wonderful person. I’m sure you could have had any man you wanted.”
She shrugged. “You know how it was back then. We were torn between the traditions of our parents and the promise of freedom in the future. My mother had been putting pressure on me to ‘find a good man’ for years by that time. I thought it was my last chance.” Her laugh had a tinge of bitterness. “The thing was, I wasn’t even sure I wanted children, or a husband. I enjoyed work too much. It was the beginning of the computer age. I found the concepts fascinating, and it turned out I had an aptitude for it.”
“But you got married anyway.”
“Yep.”
“Did you have kids?”
“Three. Two of them turned out okay, but one has his issues.”
“I had two. Other than the usual hijinks, they’ve stayed on the straight and narrow. I’m grateful for that.”
“You’re lucky. My son’s an addict. It’s quite a roller coaster. I’d hoped he would straighten out someday—he’s in his thirties—but that doesn’t look possible. He’s too much like his dad.”
“I’m sorry. That’s got to be tough. So are you still married?”
“No. I tried for a long time. My ex was an alcoholic. To be truthful, he tried to quit, going to rehab and such. But it would never stick. Finally, I left for my own sanity and to save my kids.”
“Tough decision.” If Michael had been an alcoholic, would I have been able to leave? The church was known to give dispensation in cases like that. Annulments were possible, if somewhat odd given kids had been conceived.
But Michael’s addiction had been easier to hide, so I’d never considered leaving.
“The problem with addiction,” Genna said, “is that it affects everyone around the addict. And for a long time afterward, even if you break it off. One of my therapists told me I had a form of PTSD. It took me a long time to get my thinking straight.” She smiled. “And once I did that, I was able to find the right man, the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
She glanced over at me. “It can happen to you too, if you let it. ”
I forced a shrug.
“Just remember,” she said, her grin broadening. “Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.”
“Very funny,” I said.
“But true. It’s your life now, Kathleen. That means you get to make the decisions you want to make, not what anyone else thinks you should do.”
I nodded and concentrated on the next row of weaving.
In her wisdom, Genna let the conversation go, but she’d planted some seeds that had the potential to keep me up at night.