Derrick and I were married not long after college not so many years ago. He'd been pre-med and I was completing a law degree when we'd met and only a few months later we were married. Our honeymoon as abbreviated by his school obligation to volunteer (is it really 'volunteering' if it's mandatory?) at a clinic in Bolivia for the summer. While he was there, he contracted a foul disease from the filthy, third-worlders and he came back to me sterile.
My dream of being a mother was over.
His brother Danny, older by only a few minutes, is married to Olivia and the two of them (dutiful Catholics) always seem to have another baby on the way. Olivia would no sooner get done with breast feeding one baby before her belly would swell up with another. I have to admit being quite jealous of the two of them, especially Olivia. She had four children and I would never have any. She had a powerfully fertile husband and I didn't.
Marta is Derrick and Danny's mother and she figures into all of this by sponsoring a huge family gathering at the family estate up in the Cascades outside of Seattle every summer. So last summer, July 2003, we all gathered for the traditional two weeks and had our usual wonderful time. Olivia shared her wonderful tales of motherhood with me and I'd laugh with her as she told them and then cry about them later each night. Derrick was wonderful, of course, but he'd just never understand what I truly wanted from him. One early evening, after dinner, Olivia and I were up on the "Widow's Walk" (if you don't know what it is, go look it up!) and I was freely swigging a nice port from the family cellar while pregnant (again!) Olivia looked on. I don't recall the whole conversation, but I do recall that I spilled my guts about my envy of her big belly and the lovely children running all over the house.
It was two days later when Danny and Olivia and the whole family went off to Issaquah to do some shopping when Derrick came up to me on the veranda with a big, silly smile on his face. I'd expected him to go shopping with the family so it was a nice treat to see his smiling face.
"Hey, sweetie, let's you and I go get the canoe out on the lake. Whatsay?"
Canoeing wasn't Derrick's big thing, but he knew I loved it and I couldn't resist the offer. We were soon paddling our way across the lake and enjoying the nice breezes, free of the mosquitoes around the shore.
"Hey, sweetie," he said, "howzabout we head over to the springs?"
This was a real surprise! 'The springs' are a series of hot springs off of the lake where the water is always like bathwater and the sulphur smell is just enough to make you feel alive when you settle into the warmth. Derrick usually dismissed the springs as being for pussies so his offer to go there was his way of trying to please me and I readily accepted. We pulled the canoe up on the shore and trod the half-mile through the trees until we made it to the small clearing where the warm water bubbled up into crystal clear pools. There was one pool where the water was about five feet deep and you could just wallow in the warmth while your toes played about on the sandy bottom. Derrick and I chattted a little bit as we walked up to the pools and I was kind of surprised when he fell silent as I stripped down naked to get in the water.
