Transformation

Chapter One

All that has been, is all that will ever be.

Katie wearily leaned her hips against the old porcelain sink and dunked another plate into the tepid, slightly greasy dishwater. This action of washing the dishes had become so automatic lately that she would occasionally walk into the kitchen to get something and then start in mild surprise at the sight of clean dishes sitting, drying in the strainer. When had she done those? And what else had she done without even thinking about it? So many of her household chores were getting to be like that lately, as mechanical and unnoticed a part of her existence as breathing.

She sighed, pushed the hair away from her eyes with the back of her hand and turned to look around the kitchen. It usually seemed bright to her but today, despite the blazing sun outside, everything looked dingy and yellowed. Everything - from the dusty, dried flower arrangement with the oddly canted, broken cattail that took pride of place on the kitchen table in between the mismatched salt and pepper shakers, to the haphazard collection of brightly colored refrigerator magnets holding up an assortment of fading recipes, postcards and notes - it all seemed to have lost whatever meaning it had ever had for her. It was just junk, at the same time both embarrassingly intimate and utterly impersonal. Like the discarded remnants of someone elses life. Someone who'd moved out and left behind whatever wasn't even worth the trouble of putting into a box they'd probably never bother to unpack anyway.

She wondered what her old friends would think if they could see her right now. Would they be surprised at what her life had become or would they nod and smile knowingly?

Did one of her old school mates ever turn to another while standing in some noisy, downtown bar on a Saturday night, and ask if they had any idea 'what Katie was up to these days? Whatever happened to her anyway? We really ought to give her a call'.

Did any old boyfriends fantasize about her anymore? Did they lay awake and watch their wives sleeping and wonder how things would have been different if they'd married her instead?

Vague and hazy images of steamed up car windows and groping, nervous hands pinching and chafing tender flesh crossed her mind. She remembered her fumbling, jerky, a-rhythmic attempts at giving hand-jobs and the frustrated, angry looks on the faces of her boyfriends as they pushed her sweaty hand away and took over in order to finish themselves off.

No, probably not she thought morosely, she couldn't think of a reason for anyone outside of her immediate family to think about her anymore, and she wasn't entirely sure that even they did.

People come and go from your life of course, and what they think of you should be relatively unimportant in the larger scheme of things. That's what we're told anyway. Who you are...who YOU believe yourself to be...that's what sticks with you. That is, for all intents and purposes, "you".

Just the fact that she was now a "farmers wife", whether anyone else saw her that way or not, had gone a long way towards eroding Katie's self image. The very label created a box that was cramped and restrictive, and she felt an incipient claustrophobia as she thought about herself slowly, imperceptibly sinking into it's narrow confines and growing comfortable there. What would another five years bring? Or ten? Or twenty? Would she still be the same woman who once believed that she could do anything?

What was that old saying? "What you can believe, you can achieve"

Maybe so, but first you have to be able to believe it, and sometimes it was hard to even remember what that sort of "belief" felt like. The exhilarating sense of freedom and power that came with the feeling that the future was wide open, that the past and present were just steps leading towards an open door and not, as she had begun to feel lately in some of her darker moments, the all too solid walls that comprised the totality of her existence.

- All that has been is all that will ever be. -

No! No! That couldn't be true. There must be something more than this. More than Katie the farmers wife who cooked and cleaned and "stood by her man" whatever that was supposed to mean.

More certainly than the hurried, wordless wrestling matches that passed for sex these days.

Katie had gotten used to losing these bouts, she couldn't remember when she'd ever won, but lately even Jack was starting to lose points and they'd end up being tied. 0 to 0. After getting off to an impatient start his erection would slowly wilt. He'd go faster and faster, in a desperate race against the inevitable but eventually he'd have to give up, frustrated and practically in tears. The fact that he could satisfy himself by doing something other than fucking her never seemed to even cross his mind any more than the notion that she might have hoped for something out of the exchange as well.

Katie had learned not to speak to him at times like this, and to in fact never refer to it at all, because it would only turn into an ugly argument that would spill over into every aspect of their relationship and at this point even the illusion of intimacy and connection that was created by the predictability of their habits as a couple, was precious to her.

So instead of talking about it or trying to make things better, they'd both roll over without a word and after a bit of restless tossing and turning, he'd finally drift off leaving Katie in a dark, silent world of inexpressible loneliness.

Somehow it was ok if only he got off, as long as someone got off. Then there was at least a sort of sacrificial quality to her frustration. Not the overwhelming sense of failure that had become more and more frequent and which inexorably chipped away bits of her self esteem and confidence.

A wild chorus of barking broke out, interrupting her reverie, and she could hear the dogs race from the barn out back towards the front of the house as the distant sound of car tires crunching through gravel reached her ears. Katie shook her head slightly and blinked, a frown creased her brow and her face settled into an expression that had become all too common lately. She pushed the faded cotton curtain over the sink aside, and peered out through the dusty glass towards the long unpaved drive that led from the old blacktop road up to their house.

A dented red F-150 bumped up the drive followed by a cloud of brownish yellow dust that blasted furiously from beneath the tires only to slow, lose interest in the whole business and end up drifting aimlessly off into the cloudless summer sky.

Before the truck had even stopped, the passenger door was flung open and her neighbor Mark jumped out and ran towards the house, tension written in every deep line of his weathered face.

An instant thrill of fear ran through Katie. "Oh god...oh god..." she thought, and she ran to the door and flung it open.

Mark was breathless, his voice urgent and Katie found herself grabbing her purse and following him back to the truck before she'd even fully grasped what he was saying.

"...Jack...accident...the rotator arm swung around and caught him in the chest...doctors on the way...looks bad..."

The words swirled around her head like stinging flies and she had to consciously fight the urge to try to bat them away with her hand.

She got in and the truck roared back down the drive as Earl finally ran out of words. Katie was supposed to ask questions, she knew that, but she found herself unable to speak, shrinking in her seat between the two silent, distant men, Earl with his age darkened overalls and his young smooth faced boy Ted or Tad or something like that. The truck raced over the bumpy country roads and she found herself incongruously staring at a faded plastic token shaped like a cowboy hat that dangled from the keychain, dancing and swinging with each bump. Katie focused on that little hat, unable to even think about why she was here and what would happen next.

It all seemed so unreal.

Just moments before the circumstances of her life had lain on her so heavily that she felt smothered and suffocated beneath their weight. Now all that seemed like a warm, beautiful, impossible dream that was slipping away as she woke up to a bitter, cold morning.