For those of you looking for a quick stroke story, this is not it. It started out that way, but took on a life of its own. I hope it resonates.
CHAPTER I
We called it the dancing tree. We could see it every Sunday as we walked down the old dirt road that passed in front of our farm as it wound its way through the orchards to our little town's church. It was a solitary tree, dead for some years now, but not giving up its place at the top of our little hill.
I was raised in foster homes, never knowing a mother or father. My wife, on the other hand was third generation born in the valley and bred on the farm. We met when I was passing through and I never left.
Bethany, our daughter, or B, as she liked to be called, used to sing nursery rhymes and mimic the position of the trunk and its two large limbs which were raised in surrender to the sky. I think her love of farming and all things that grow began on our Sunday afternoon sojourns.
Sometimes, after church, we'd walk up the little hill and sit near the tree for an hour or two, enjoying the picnic lunch we'd packed. During the summer, we'd not stay long as the tree offered no shelter from the mid-day sun. But most of the spring and autumn, the heat was bearable. Winters were too brutal to do much more than look at it against the slate-gray sky as we passed going to and from church.
As B grew, she had more and more questions about life, all life, and death and why there were cycles and simple philosophical issues that oft times turned too complex for her mother and me. But we tried.
We tried to answer as best we could and I'm glad we made attempts because, if we couldn't provide an adequate answer during our lunch time, we'd search for the best answer later when we returned to the house and B did her weekend homework. This search for answers would later shape our lives in ways we never conceived of while B was young.
Her questions followed no patterns. Why do trees stay in one place? What's the best medicine for a bee sting? How does water turn to ice? She was filled with a lust to know everything and oft times; we'd be the beneficiary of her curiosity as we learned things that helped us understand and ultimately manage the farm much better.
As she grew, her questions focused more and more on the nature of sex and its relationship to the health of the animals and even the crops on which she was now helping us tend.
Eventually, she asked me if I ever felt alone, or if she and her mother were enough family for me. I always told her the same answer; "when the universe wants me to have more than the two of you, then the universe will give it to me. Besides, I have the crops and animals too."
She was amazing with the birthing of the livestock. To her, it was as important as the sex act that had occurred months previous.
In high school, she began to work on Saturdays for the town's vet and it seemed a given she would eventually go to school to become a vet herself. "It isn't a choice I've made," she'd say. "The universe wants me to care for everything. That's true," she'd emphasize, "so I need to learn all I can, so I don't make any mistakes. Too much life depends on me."
We believed every word.
When B was in her senior year of high-school she met Del, a boy two years older than her. Del became the light of her life. We were glad, as the young man was everything the parent of a child hopes for when they think about life mates for their children.
He was strong, serious, but with the most engaging and ready smile, a smile that really exploded whenever he saw B in town or at church.
Though their attraction to each other was instant, their courtship was slow to develop and definitely what old timers might call proper. There was never a time in the first six months of their becoming a couple when they were alone; not even at B's prom. But of course, if you are raised on a farm and work around animal husbandry, you learn at a young age what's what, and when your own body parts start itchin' you're gonna' scratch. And scratch they did.
It was my wife who told me about the conversations she'd had with our daughter and of B's intentions. We were lying in bed one night, having turned in early (B'd gone out with Del), just you know, messin' around, when she sprung the news.
"B's gonna give up her maidenhead tonight."
"What?"
"She and Del are going to have intercourse tonight."
"How do you know?"
"We talked about it."
"You talked about it?"
"Yup."
"Are you sure?"
"Sure as sure can be," my wife answered.
"Wow. That's a big step."
"Not really."
"What do you mean, 'not really'?"
My wife pulled my arm around her and snuggled up closer.
"They've been working up to it," she said.
"What do you mean working up to it?"
"You know, kissin' and stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Yeah. You know. Stuff. The kind of stuff that leads to the inevitable."
"Stuff," I repeated, trying to sort it all out. "And you know about this stuff how?"
"I taught her."
"You taught her?"
"Yup. She was not shy in the least bit about askin' for help either."
"I bet that's true," I said. I thought how B would search every little crevice to find all the answers that could ever be found about a particular subject, then she'd go over the information twice and sometimes three or four times until she owned it.
"Well, you know how she is and I truly think she's ready to be a woman now."
"It's a big step."
"I think they're gonna get married soon."
"Really? What about college?"
"Oh she'll go and I expect she'll go all the way through vet school too."
"Why didn't she give me a hint or ask my opinion on any of this?"
"Because, as much as she loves us, she's a bit shy around you."
"No she's not."
"Oh, you have no idea how shy she is, do you?"
"I don't think I've ever seen it. She always asks me anything and everything."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, I thought I was. Come to think of it, I just always assumed she knew, you know...What's what."
"She knew what stuff was called, but other than seeing the animals do it, she really was a bit clueless."
"Until you taught her."
"That's right," my wife giggled. "Until I taught her."
"Is she really shy around me?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Why?"
"You're the apple of her eye."
