Chapter 4: Changes and Solutions
When Katie and Anthony went down to the kitchen to fix breakfast for themselves Monday morning they found Gloria sitting at the kitchen table, typing away at her laptop with cell phone at hand, already apparently working.
"Good morning, Mother," said Anthony blearily. He was barely awake. "You're up early."
"I've been up since five," she answered, "There's coffee."
"A fresh pot," said Katie brightly.
"I finished the first one," said Gloria, "What time did I fall asleep last night?"
"Around six-ish," said Katie as she poured herself and her man each a cup.
"I slept for nearly eleven hours?" asked rhetorically, not quite believing it, "I've never slept that long in my life."
"You had kind of a stressful day," said Katie as she sat down at the kitchen table, "Speaking of which, I let my anger get the better of me yesterday and..."
"Don't," Gloria interrupted, "Just don't. I am owed no apology. Your anger was completely justified."
As Anthony sat down at the table he and Katie looked at the older woman as if to say, "Who are you really, and what have you done with Gloria?"
The look was not lost on her.
"I had a lot of time to think this morning," Gloria said, "Yesterday you, both, gave me the most amazing gift despite the how I've treated you."
"What are you talking about, Mother?" Anthony asked.
She turned to Anthony and said, "You never met your grandfather. He died before you were born. But, I loved him more than I can tell you. I still do.
A few months after I turned twenty he was killed in an auto accident. If I was being completely honest with myself, which, I haven't been for a long time, I never got over it."
Katie began to say something, but Gloria cut her off.
"Before you ask the answer is 'Yes, we did have a sexual relationship' and 'No, it didn't happen until I was eighteen'. I know that I sounded younger. That was just part of the game that Daddy and I played."
"His death must have hurt you deeply," Katie said, laying a hand on Gloria's arm.
Gloria put her hand over Katie's and said, "It was the abruptness of it. Suddenly, he just wasn't there anymore.
Had he died of some sort of illness it would have been hard, but I would have had a chance to say goodbye, to tell him that I loved him one more time."
Gloria began to cry. Katie scooted her chair closer to the grieving woman and put her arm around her shoulder. After a few moments Anthony did the same from the opposite side.
Gloria's entire body convulsed with her sorrow. Neither Anthony nor Katie said a word. They just held her until she cried it out.
As she slowly began to regain her composure Gloria mumbled gratitude. Katie and Anthony carefully withdrew.
She took a deep breath to pull herself together and said, "I don't know exactly what it was that happened to me yesterday. I may never know. I can make an educated guess as to what triggered it, but what it actually was I couldn't tell you. All I know for certain is that for just under an hour I had the chance to make love to my father one last time, and to tell him that I loved him.
Write it off as fantasy, temporary insanity, or anything else that suits you. But, to me, in that moment, it was as real as this table." She knocked on the table for emphasis.
"We didn't do that, though," said Anthony, "We didn't make it happen."
"You didn't try to stop or interrupt it either. That's the point.
Most people would have either walked away or tried to snap me back to reality, such as it is. You chose the third option. You let whatever it was that was happening to me play itself out. You let it flow. By doing so you let me experience something that I would never have imagined to be possible, a last night with Daddy.
I could never thank either of you enough for that."
They all sat silently for several minutes, each absorbed in their own thoughts.
When Anthony thought to glance up at the kitchen clock he jumped from his chair and said, "Oh, crap! I have to get my butt in gear or I'll be late for school."
"No need to hurry," said Gloria casually, "You're sick today.
"I am?" Anthony asked, "What doesn't somebody tell me these things?"