Chapter Four #2
Mel sat for a moment and watched her, frowning again. Then he stood and started helping her clear the table. “I am always in the mood for your sweets, Abs. Always.”
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~oOo~
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A bigail decided to ensure that all further conversation remained in the ‘friendly neighbor’ range. No more stories about childhood and family, no more discussions about the ways their beliefs diverged—or converged, for that matter.
And most especially: no more seeking out jobs she could reasonably need his help with.
Mel seemed to be at or near the same idea; their talk over lemon blueberry crumble (with a splash of apple cider to wash it down) stayed light and chatty, with no overt effort from her to keep it that way.
Though it wasn’t the best manners, she didn’t linger after their plates were empty but stood at once and reached for his dishes.
“Well, it was real nice to have your company tonight, hon.”
He caught her wrist. “Hey, I got it. I’ll dry, like usual. And I’m gonna fix this flickering light up here before I go. I got nowhere else to be.”
That was probably it, wasn’t it? Her place was somewhere to be, something to do, company to have when he didn’t have anything else to do.
Her first reaction was a fresh twitch of hurt feeling, as if she were nothing more important to him than convenience.
But her second thought reminded her that Mel was Horde.
That club was a deep and loving family; she’d seen that clear as day many times.
If Mel was lonely, or even bored, did he feel he didn’t belong there completely? Was something holding him at the edge?
She softened her determination to send him on his way tonight and pull back in general. Mel was such a smiling, friendly person, so patient and kind, she hadn’t considered that his affability might cover any kind of hurt or insecurity.
Maybe he needed her company. Maybe he needed a friend.
Maybe she needed a friend, too. That was enough.
She smiled at him. “Well, okay, then. I guess you oughta get your butt up and start helping.”
He laughed and let her wrist go.
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~oOo~
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A s Mel took the plate from her and began drying, he nodded toward the window. “Mitch looks like he’s seeing something. You want me to check?”
Abigail looked through the old glass at her home, all her things silver-kissed by the light of a waxing moon and shimmering through the wavy windowpanes.
She saw both dogs on their post-rounds perch, the stump of the enormous oak tree that used to shade the front of the goat yard.
All the animals were buttoned up snugly for the night, but Mitch was on his feet, ears perked, focused on something out in the shadows.
Bogie, however, lay comfortably, head on his paws.
Mitch was still young and learning which things to bother about and which not to mind; Bogie’s behavior was the true indicator of the situation outside.
“That’s a good thing to note, but it’s probably nothing. If it was Bogie standing up, that’d be a different thing. If Bogie’s not bothered, there ain’t nothing to be bothered about.”
With a soft chuckle, Mel returned to his drying task. “Those dogs are like people.”
“I’d say a lot of animals are more like people than most people would imagine.”
“What do you mean?”
As she handed him handful of wet silverware, she shrugged. “I think most people see the world through the blinders of their own arrogance.”
Mel went still. “Whoa.”
Casting a glance his way, she asked, “Why ‘whoa’?”
“I guess I’ve never heard you say something harsh like that. Arrogance?”
“I don’t mean it harsh, I just mean it factual.
People think humans are the top of the heap, because we talk and use tools and build things.
But we’re using our own way of being as the measure for what’s smart or good or sophisticated.
If saying the way we do things is the measure for best and measuring every other way of doing things against our way isn’t arrogance, then what is?
Animals can’t talk, so we think they’re not as smart as us, they don’t think or feel or hurt like us.
But how do we know that’s true? How can we even say animals don’t talk?
Maybe we just don’t understand their language.
How is it different from Columbus landing in the Bahamas and deciding the folks already living there, in established societies, were savages because they didn’t speak or live his way, or look like him? ”
Mel didn’t answer. When she handed him a glass and he didn’t take it, she turned and saw a peculiar smile on his face.
She felt her cheeks rising as she smiled in response; as an empath, she often reflexively echoed the expression of people she was interacting with. “What?” she asked and lifted the glass at him.
He took it and began wiping it with the towel. “I guess I never thought about it like that, and I guess I never saw you get so ... passionate”—the word broke in half, and he cleared his throat—“before.” He set the glass on a shelf in the cupboard at his shoulder.
Not for the first time on this unsettling evening, Abigail felt some hurt and wasn’t quite sure why. She was usually deeply attuned to her own spirit and understood her feelings and their roots well, but her psyche was throwing up barriers each time Mel said or did something that caught her wrong.
While they stood together at the sink, while he looked down at her with a curious frown playing between his thick, dark eyebrows, was not the time for self-exploration, so she pushed her hurt to the side and focused on the content of his statement.
“There’s lots I care about, Mel, and I feel it all deeply.”
The confusion cleared from his face, and something softer took its place. He set his hand on her shoulder. The heat from his palm seeped through her dress and into her skin, cascading warmth over her torso, around her heart. Oh, she was definitely feeling too much for him.
Of course that was the source of those little mental blocks as well—a bit of anxiety over this feeling she hadn’t had in years.
This feeling she’d thought she didn’t want.
This feeling she probably shouldn’t want.
Maybe her impulse to pull back from Mel had been correct: she didn’t know how to keep her balance as only his friend, now that she’d realized her deeper feeling.
“I know, Abs,” Mel said. “I think that’s my favorite thing about you, how much you care. I just meant you sounded a little angry, and I guess I’ve never seen you angry. Not even when they tore everything up out there.”
Turning back to her chore, Abigail took a small sidestep, pulling from Mel’s touch.
As she drew another glass from the soapy water and began to wipe it clean, she said, “I get angry, hon. I’m a human being, you know.
With the full complement of human emotions.
But I’m not angry about this. ‘Arrogant’ isn’t an insult.
It’s a simple adjective. I suppose it’s a naturally critical adjective, but telling somebody they could do better isn’t an insult .
Insults are meant to hurt. Criticism should be meant to help. ”
Taking the glass from her, he grinned. “I see your point. But most folks I know mean criticism to hurt, and most take it like an insult.”
“And I think that’s real sad. People trying to hurt and hate instead of making things better and being better themselves.”
Again, he didn’t reply. Again, Abigail looked over and up at him. Again, he regarded her with frowning curiosity.
Again, she asked, “What?”
He shook off the frown. “You’re one in a million, Abigail Freeman. They broke the mold.”
He meant it as a compliment. She knew that with perfect clarity. He was telling her she was special, unique ... adjectives she had been called as insults as well, with just the right twist of intonation to turn a positive word on its head.
Exactly what they’d been talking about.
But none of that nonsense bothered her! She knew who she was, was comfortable in her skin, loved herself— more than that, she liked herself.
Silly insults and attacks bounced off her because she understood them to be borne of ignorance and insecurity.
As a whole, people found comfort in conformity, and those who chose other ways of being implicitly, and often explicitly, criticized conformity.
She understood and therefore didn’t let the arrows slung her way pierce her.
Moreover, Mel liked her. They had forged a friendship. It was getting a little complicated on her part, but that didn’t mean he was trying to make her feel anything but good. He’d meant his words as a compliment. He was telling her he found her impressive. She knew that with crystal clarity.
So why had she heard ‘freak’?