Chapter 2 – Doris
At what point had I missed something so obvious...so basic? How was it that my own daughter had been so much smarter than I had about a relationship? Hadn't I been living with this man for over 40 years? So why was I sitting in this car silently looking out the window when the man I loved more than my next breath was sitting less than three feet from me – wanting me to let him know what had happened to the woman he knew? Because I had no clue what to say to him, that's why. Simple.
Yeah, right.
I had started it...then had pouted when it turned in a direction that I didn't like. When he started having a good time, rather than talk to him, support him, let him know what I was seeing and feeling, I had withdrawn, withheld, and played games. Stupid. I had behaved like a silly teenage girl rather than a mature woman. Way mature. Is that it? Was I regressing because I was tired of being a grown up? Oh, goodie. I have stepped beyond teenage girl and to asking questions all night long...to myself...without answering a thing. That's always a good way to work things out.
I know I did the right thing when I suggested George offer himself as a consultant to a friend who called, telling him about the problems they were having with the systems in their company. George hesitated, for quite a while. He wanted to spend time with me. He had worked hard all our lives together – overtime, traveling, never taking all the allotted vacation time. I knew he was at loose ends, though, not really happy, and talked him into it by telling him he was under foot. We could have it both ways, I told him. He could take consulting jobs and we could travel together and see the country. I wanted to do some traveling, too, and this could be a way to have it all. It was a very good idea in theory. Then he started getting more jobs, started working more. He was having the time of his life. Rather than doing it all because he *had* to, as he had all his working life, he was now doing something because he *wanted* to. There was no pressure. I found myself alone in the cities we had come to explore together. It wasn't as much fun alone. He was on his own trip...without me...and enjoying himself. So instead of talking with him about it, I withdrew. I told him that rather than stay in a strange city by myself, I would rather stay at home. I thought making that statement would make him see what I was feeling and cut back on time he spent on the jobs. I was wrong...in so many ways.
As weeks passed, rather than seeing that he didn't have a clue as to how I was being affected and confronting him with it honestly, I withdrew further from him. I punished him by denying myself. I was hurt – deeply. I wanted him to want me...to spend the time with me that he had said that he wanted...to get to know one another again...to share with each other without distractions. Hell, who was I kidding? I wanted him to prove to me that he really loved and wanted me. That he'd still want this old woman who had crept in stealthily and kidnapped the young body that still lived in my mind. Instead, I had been lonely sleeping in the same bed with him for the last 8 months. Sleeping in flannel pajamas, for god's sake. I hated pajamas! Silly old woman.
Hadn't he done that, though? Stepped in and proved that he desired me still, that is. I worked up the courage one night after my 60
th
birthday and finally talked to him about my fears. It scared the hell out of me, but I had to know.
I fiddled and fretted all evening long. George sat out on the patio with his wine and paper. Okay, it was now or never. I walked out, moved a chair directly in front of him and sat determinedly in it. He lowered his paper then, with only a brief look at me, handed me his almost full glass of wine. It was with great restraint that I didn't inhale the entire contents. Finally I looked at him, took a deep breath, and decided to jump right in.
"I'm so sorry that I'm no longer what I once was physically. I wanted so much to stay ahead of the aging game. I just can't, well, not physically at least. My body has betrayed me no matter what I tried to do to prevent it. My skin has drooped along with my butt and boobs. The muscles are there but they're so hidden they don't seem to matter for anything other than supporting my bones."
All he said in response was, "Finish the wine, I think you need it more than I do." All that and "finish the wine"? Jesus! And he was smiling! I am capable of exhibiting a little intelligence every once in a while. It did register on my feeble brain that it wasn't just any smile. No. It was that special smile – not tolerant, not indulging. It was the one that was amused, but in the way that said that he was happy I reminded him, once in a while, that life was more interesting when I tipped his world a little off balance. I drank the rest of the wine. He took it from me, then began to remind me that I had made the smartest decision in my life when I accepted the proposal from this most remarkable man so many years before. I've still yet to meet his equal.
He took my face in his hands and kissed my forehead, the crow's feet around my eyes, the dimples that had somewhere in time past become "laugh lines", the jowls which used to be a strong jaw line....my mouth. He didn't just kiss my mouth. He made love to it...tasted it...savored it. His kisses continued down my neck, taking the loose skin lightly between his teeth and nibbling sensuously. I was turning into the proverbial pool of jelly. I so loved my neck to be kissed and tasted, but he had never done it like this. He didn't stop there. My clothes seemed to magically disappear as he descended further. The skin on my chest had gotten so much, ummmm, "softer" over the years. He rubbed his cheeks against it, smiling and murmuring words of endearment as he placed light kisses all over. His journey continued – my breasts, stomach, hips, thighs. He left no wrinkle unkissed. No sag untouched -- lovingly, gently -- I would even have to say, almost reverently. He made love to me slowly, completely, and without restraint right there on the patio, as though we were in the first stages of love and lust rather than in the twilight of it – okay, maybe only late afternoon instead of twilight.
That day, for the first time, I realized that the young have no idea how to truly make love. Well, to be honest, a lot of older people don't either if they've never experienced a true appreciation of their partner...in every way. George certainly showed his appreciation for me. I was completely useless for the rest of the evening...and smiled like an idiot for days.
Just how many hoops did I want him to jump through to prove himself to me? Good lord, woman, just how self-centered can one be? How in the world could I ever dismiss that evening so? Disgraceful!
I walked through the open area of our home toward our bedroom while George began the nightly ritual of preparing the house for nights' rest. I never said a word. I still didn't know what to say. Janet and Jay had reminded me so much of what I had cruelly denied over the last few months and I didn't know how to begin to heal the hurt I had caused.
Janet and Jay. There's not much worse for a parent than to see their child in the pain that Janet had endured 7 years ago. She had been deeply in love with Nick. They were as much in love as George and I were. We wanted that for our children – to find the happiness that we knew. Then the stupid, senseless accident. They hadn't even been able to say goodbye to each other, not really. He had been in a coma when she made the decision to remove life support. The children had been by her side and supported her decision. To have to let go in such a way has to be one of the most difficult things to do to someone who is so much a part of you. I had wanted so badly to help take away her pain, but knew it was her pain to bear, assimilate, then go on, not mine. Then Jay came along.
