This is the second chapter (of eight) in the fourth and final book of the
Charlie and Mindy
tetralogy. The books detail a story of forbidden love between a brother and a sister.
You can read this book on its own, but it refers to events that took place in Books 1, 2, and 3. If you want a better understanding of what is going on, read Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3 before reading this book.
I value your comments and your feedback, and I will respond to non-anonymous commentsâusually within a week.
--CarlusMagnus
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
In spite of our grief, my little sister Mindy and I found this period a happy interlude in many ways. We had a house to ourselves, and we had little in the way of responsibility. We could, and did, spend a great deal of time alone together, exploring our love for each other in ways we hadn't been able to do ever since we'd first realized, the previous summer in the Wind River Mountains, that we'd fallen in love with each other.
Much as we might've liked to, we couldn't spend all of our waking hours making love: I just wasn't physically capable of that. We could, and did, snuggle a lotâand we found great comfort in each other that way. But we generally managed both wakeup love-making and bedtime love-making. And we slipped in a lazy Sunday afternoon session of love, too.
That Friday, we awoke in the morning and realized that we'd fallen asleep in each other's arms after our bedtime exercisesâand we hadn't needed any pills to do so. And we found that we continued, throughout this period, to be able to sleep unaided by modern medicine. So, in at least one sense, we were recovering.
We remembered that, after Dad and Mom had gotten married, Quent had been close to the four of us. We used to see him several times a week. So we called him almost every day. Amanda kept in touch with him, and reported that the Colombian authorities were proving to be much easier to work with than they'd been reputed to be. He took us out for dinner again after work on Fridayâthis time to a steakhouse he knew and liked. And, again, he saw to it that we could each have a glass or two of wine with dinner.
We did find things to keep us busy. That Thursday, we took Dad's car and went down to Stapleton Airport, in Denver. We spent the better part of an hour locating Mom's car in the parking structure that adjoined the terminal. We'd brought one of the spare keys with us, and when we found what we were looking for, Mindy gave me a lengthy kiss and hopped from Dad's car to Mom's. I waited until I saw her start it and begin to back out before I headed for the exit. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that she wasn't far behind me.
We had just two difficulties then: Paying the outrageous parking fee Mom's car had accumulated, and the exorbitant parking fee they charged me for Dad's car. The latter pissed me off, because we hadn't even parked, but driven around the structure looking for Mom's car. But those were just pains in the ass, and not things of real consequence.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we worked our way through a week or so of calculus and almost as much French. There were some mysteries we couldn't quite penetrate, but we wrote down the relevant questions that we needed to ask Munson and Pepin. And we were pleased to find that about half of those mysteries solved themselves once we figured out precisely what we needed to ask.
It proved more difficult for us to occupy ourselves during the rest of that period. Somehow, we made up some things to do, and we did manage to keep ourselves pretty busy. And snuggling with each other was always available, always comforting.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
On Monday morning, Quent called us from his office. Amanda would be returning the next day, around mid-afternoon, he told Mindyâwho had answered the phone. And he wanted to take us to dinner again that evening. The latter was fine with us. We weren't as interested in the dinnerâthough we wouldn't turn one downâas we were in having something to occupy our attention.
Quent also wanted, he said, to talk a number of things over with both of us, and he didn't want to do it on the phone.
He picked us up at about six-thirty and asked if we had anyplace we wanted to go. Mindy suggested the Italian place he'd first taken us to. We knew he was a regular there, and we'd enjoyed it, too. Twenty minutes later, we were ordering again.
Quent said he wanted to avoid business until after we'd eatenâand, in fact would rather take us home after dinner and talk to us there, where we'd have plenty of privacy. So that was what we did.
We reached home around nine o'clock, and we all sat down in the living room. I remember giving Mindy a questioning look, wondering what he wanted to talk to us about, and I remember, too, that she returned the lookâequally mystified.
"Charlie, Mindy," he began when we were all seated. "First, I want you to know how deeply sorry I am for the two of you."