She leans back and makes an effort to look toward the room we came from before continuing. “Back then, a man and a woman were to marry before they engaged in…” Her lips crinkle the way mine do when I’m embarrassed or mad. “Um…”
“Sex,” I blurt out. “You had pre-marital sex.”
“And it was so good,” she blushes. “I was not yet ready to marry, but we were moving forward anyway. He had ghosts, Ally… Christopher had his demons. But after years and years of working with those women while they thought they couldn’t go on another day, I guess I was able to take the same approach with him.”
“You became his therapist?” I squeak out. “Seriously?”
“Well…” She shrugs. Then she nods. “Sure, in an unofficial capacity, I guess. I was not yet qualified, but I’d worked hard over the years. And he only needed someone to talk to about it all. So we spent time together, we talked, and as the year went from cold, to hot, back around to cold again, he and I had built the foundations of what would be the life we now live.”
“And you were having sex.”
She snorts and places the lid back on the tub of ice cream. “You certainly know how to take out the passion and romance, and leave us with the physical act.”
“But the physical act felt goooood.”
She laughs. “Yes, it felt very good. So his proposal that we would marry the year before went without agreement, but as the year progressed, and I was introduced to and got to know this post-war version of him, I found myself very much in love. He was devilish and dirty, he was dangerous and wild, but he was the best thing I ever said yes to in my whole life, and I say a prayer every single night, a thank-you for allowing us to grow old together.”
She meets my eyes and lets her smile drop. “Not everyone gets that, and that might be the biggest injustice in this unjust world.”
“I’m in love with your husband,” I sigh. “He got me with the slippers, and then he winked.”
She allows her smile to grow again, to take over her whole face. “The wink gets me too. He knows he looks so silly when he does it. Which, I guess, is much of the charm.” She glances to her right and squeaks, “Oh!” when a long-legged spider trots out from beneath the kitchen cabinet as though he’s merely out for a stroll. “Scared the effing life out of me.” Then she turns to the doorway that leads to the dining room. “Chris—”
“Here. I’ve got it.” I go to the doors beneath the sink and search for a can of bug spray, but instead of spraying him white and leaving him to die, I uncap the can and scoop him up into the lid.
There’s a line when it comes to these pests that I stick to with firm belief. The horrible killing kind are to be ruthlessly murdered and tossed into the trash. But the harmless kind who eat other bugs and leave us alone, I can afford a little mercy as I scoop them up and place them in the garden.
Coming back inside and closing the door that leads out back, I go to the sink and wash my hands. “I have shivers all down my spine now.”
“Girl!” Sonia remains paralyzed by the counter. “I can’t even… You just…. You picked the damn thing up! What the hell is wrong with you?”
Snickering, I dry my hands and pass the framed wedding photo as it lays discarded on the counter. “You look just like my mom, by the way.”
Spiders forgotten, Sonia’s eyes snap to mine. “Huh?”
“Or, I guess I should say she looks like you. That wedding picture…” I smile and grab two plates of pie and ice cream. “Mom has one just like it. With the handsome man, the devilish eyes, the big hands.” I meet Sonia’s eyes and let myself fall just a little deeper into this family I never knew. “You and Mom look almost like twins, and the irony is, you married similar men. Not the same, but similar.”
We walk into the dining room where Christopher remains exactly where we left him, and with that smirk he does, he watches us serve him. I set his plate down by his hand, smile when he looks up into my eyes, then I shake my head and walk away, because there’s at least a tiny part of me who is crushing on my great-grandfather. And another part of me, a much bigger piece, sees another person in my mind. Another dangerous man, another misunderstood soul who only needs someone to listen to him.
“You should call your mom when you go home,” Christopher says around a mouthful of pie. “Get her here and let a man see you all in one room.”
“It’s a bit like a time lapse video, right?” Sonia eats her ice cream and studies me with smiling eyes. “Three women who look eerily similar, all at different stages in life.”
“It’s too bad you never had a daughter,” I say. “You had a son, which broke the chain of women.”
“I told them at the hospital I ordered a girl.” Sonia shrugs and tries to speak without laughing. “I got that boy, and he was sweet and all, but I was so sure I ticked girl on the order form.”
“You win some, you lose some.” Christopher sits back and eats while studying us with a distinct air of ‘I’m the king of this castle.’
It makes me think about our brains, versus our bodies. One ages, but does the other? Is my great-grandfather still that twenty-year-old, pre-marital-sex fiend who demanded a bride, but now he lives inside an eighty-year-old’s body?
And if so, that seems such cruel punishment from the universe, after surviving so much beforehand. A war, and separation, demons and death, marriage, children, then a son who didn’t want to be part of the family anymore. Birthdays and Christmases, anniversaries, and so much more. A person can work through it all, survive it all, only to then be rewarded with a body that will eventually fail.
It all seems so cruel.
“The chain was broken,” Christopher murmurs seriously and studies me from under thick, dark lashes. “But then we got a phone call, a request for you to sit in on your Gigi’s sessions, to learn from her, and we knew…” He smiles and sets his spoon down. “We knew the chain would be repaired.”
Luke
Back in therapy
“Good morning, Luke.” Sonia sits on her fancy chair, with her fancy suit, and her fancy heels, with her fancy hair tied back, and a fancy new manicure tapping the outside of her fancy teacup.
And right beside her, my fancy friend who is yet to acknowledge she wants to fuck me until we pull a hamstring.
“Morning.” I close the door with a soft snick and make my way inside the room. “You ladies feeling frisky today?”
Allyson closes her eyes and moves her head in an almost imperceptible shake of disapproval.
“I feel wonderful,” Sonia answers, then she looks to Allyson and says, “And word on the street is Ally is good too.”
At that, Allyson’s cheeks warm, and her eyes pop open. “Um…” She lets her gaze flick between me and her boss. “Sorry. Yes, I’m good. Thank you for asking.”
“You tired?” I sit on the couch opposite the fancy women and lean forward. “Late night?”
“Uh…” Sonia looks between me and Ally with a narrowed gaze. When neither of us break or spout off about spending a night together recently, she clears her throat and goes into her practiced spiel. “Firstly, I must ask again, like I must ask each time we’re here. Luke, Allyson would like to sit in on my sessions, to learn and observe. It is your decision completely, without pressure, if she can stay. It will not—”