I nodded.
“By the way, how’s it going working with Dad?”
“Like things with another Daniels I know,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “Surprisingly well.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Why’s that?”
“The third surprise.”
“There’s a third surprise? But I haven’t even gotten the second one yet.”
“You may not think the third one’s a good surprise. Mom and Dad are coming up tonight.”
“What? Why?”
“To visit. Get away for a while. Mom need a change of scenery. Trust me, the second surprise is so good it’ll make up for the third one. It’s why I told you about the third one first.”
“You could always just give me the first surprise again,” I said.
“Oh, I will. And again. And again. And again.”
She sounded like the insatiable wife every husband wanted, which, when we were married before, she hadn’t been. Had she changed? Was it that we were older now? Were we still in the inevitable infatuation-induced ecstatic period of a new relationship? Or was she just trying to do and say all the right things?
“Who’s this playing?” I asked, nodding toward the sound system.
“You like them?”
“I do. They’ve got a good sound, but their lyrics . . .”
“I know. I knew you’d appreciate what they have to say.”
“What’s their name?”
As we turned onto 75 North and drove through downtown, I realized for the first time in a long time just how much I missed the city. The mammoth Turner Stadium dominated the landscape on our right, and I longed to see the Braves play in person again. Seeing the old familiar sights of Georgia Tech, the Varsity, MARTA, and the large illuminated sign on the Big Bethel AME church on Auburn Avenue that read: JESUS SAVES made me feel like I was home. Maybe moving back up wouldn’t be so bad after all.
I realized what I was feeling was nostalgia, and I also knew how deceptive visiting a place could be. At the moment, I wasn’t thinking about the realities of life here, the bad memories, the places that were haunted for me. Nor was I seriously considering how I would make a living or deal with the congestion that felt so claustrophobic to me.
“Why won’t you tell me the band’s name?”
“I’m doing some PR work for them.”
“You are?” I asked, my voice rising in surprise. “That’s so cool. I didn’t know you did—”
“I keep telling you, I’m a whole new person since you knew me. Anyway, I’m trying to get them to change their name. You know how these indie bands are with their names. They pick one their friends think is clever or will stand out, but they don’t really think it through.”
“Damn. It must be pretty bad if you can’t bring yourself to tell me.”
“It’s . . . Anal Seepage. And we’re going to hear them at Chastain tonight.”
“Anal Seepage?”
“As in, there music’s so good, even if you take as directed it may cause . . .”
Ten minutes later, we were entering Chastain Park, picnic basket in hand, to see the group I liked to think of as Susan’s as yet unsigned band perform beneath the stars.
“I think it’s so cool you’re doing this,” I said.
“I told you I wasn’t just a suit.”
“I love you,” I said, and pulled her into me with my free hand and kissed her on the neck, getting lost momentarily in her hair.
We found our seats and observed the time-honored Chastain ritual of spreading out gourmet take-out and candles on TV trays in front of us.
Just a mile from all the bustling and boozing of Buckhead, the Chastain Park Amphitheatre is an intimate outdoor stage at the bottom of a gently sloping hill, beneath the trees of Chastain Park.
Susan and I were sitting in the center terrace section on metal seats. Behind us, young people sat on blankets spread out on the grass of the hillside. Before us, near the stage, small groups of middle-aged patrons sat around tables, drinking wine, eating gourmet takeout, and laughing.
Unlike the general admission blanket sitters on the Lawn, the gray-haired, living-the-good-life season ticket holders sitting around Plaza tables weren’t here for the music.
Most of the acts who performed at Chastain were older, even iconic. Susan had booked her band in here at the last minute when Moody Blues had to cancel, thinking it was a great opportunity for good exposure, but I wasn’t so sure. Too many of the ticket holders in attendance were not the target audience for a band like this one—even when they were no longer known as Anal Seepage.
As it grew dark, bringing out the stars in the sky and the future stars on stage, I looked up at the vast expanse and gave thanks for such experiences, which I knew to be a foretaste of what was to come when the one who created the stars, the moon, the music, and the love I felt made all things one again.
The music was good. The band gave a great performance, their lack of pretension and cynicism making up for any deficits in musicianship.
It was a perfect night—good music and food, me with my new wife bathed in magic and moonlight.
Perfect . . . right up until the thunderstorm started.
“I don’t want us to leave,” Susan said. “They’ll come back out when it passes. I don’t want to miss it.”
“I don’t want us to miss the rest of our lives. These are metal seats and they’re inside a giant target on the side of a hill.”
“We can go to the car, but we’re not leaving.”
By the time we reached the car, it had stopped raining, but rather than being pulled back to the concert, we were pulled by a much greater force into the back seat.
Soon our wet clothes were on the floorboard, and we were making love to a soundtrack of dripping raindrops, frogs and other post-rain, nocturnal noises, and the live music an energetic, enthusiastic band.
Our lovemaking was tender, but intense and passionate, and as sacred as the rain or the music or the magical night. Through the open window, the moon bathed our bodies in a soft light as the wind-swept raindrops baptized us into a renewed matrimony that was truly holy.
Afterwards, we had dessert at a twenty-four hour bakery on Peachtree Street with the sweet taste of each other still in our mouths, and then we went home and made love again, careful not to wake Tom and Sarah Daniels who we hoped were fast asleep down the hall.
21
“I need to talk to you,” Susan said.
We were lying in bed, having just made love, the soft light of morning spilling onto our still entwined bodies, the smell of sleep and sex lingering in the air of her plush bedroom.
“Now would be a good time,” I said with a satisfied smile. “Whatever you ask I will give you to the half of my kingdom.”
“Half?” she asked in mock outrage. “Half? Hell, I was gonna get half if I divorced your sorry ass. If I’m stayin’, I want it all. Besides my kingdom is like five times as big as yours.”
“Still, now’s the best time to ask.”
“Even to move back up here?”
“Probably should’ve asked me that during,” I said.
She smiled.
Susan, the naked stranger and not so ex-wife in bed beside me, seemed to be experiencing a sexual-spiritual awakening, and I was reaping the rewards. Not only had she met me at the door naked Friday night, except for the concert, she had been mostly naked ever since. It was a very nice naked, too. Susan’s body was even better than I remembered—if she were going to be compulsive about something, there were worse things than diet and exercise.
She had always liked, even needed sex, but unlike the Susan from a lifetime ago, this Susan wasn’t nearly as needy. She was nurturing, withholding nothing. She was generous with her body and her soul. She was passionate and abandoned. This time it seemed more about love and pleasure than manipulation and control, but it was far too early to tell for sure.
“Seriously,” she said. “Is this it? Are we officially married a
gain? I mean I know we were never officially unmarried, but in our hearts we were. What about now? Are our hearts one again?”
I thought about all we had shared, all the loneliness I so often felt, how much I had missed making love and sharing a life with someone, and my apprehension and ambivalence seemed worlds away.
I tried not to think of Anna. But, of course, that was impossible, so I told myself that I had been critical of Susan even as I had idealized Anna. Both had to stop now. It wasn’t fair to any of us, but especially Susan. She deserved better. She deserved all of me.
It felt so good with her now, so right.
“They are,” I said.
“They are, aren’t they?” she said, looking up at me with smiling eyes from where her head rested on my chest. “How can we stay as one with you in Florida and me up here?”
“The Internet?”
She slid her fingers up along the inside of my thigh and took me in her hand. “I can’t do this on the Internet.”
“Good point.”
“I don’t just want to have cyber sex with you, or phone sex, and it’s not just about sex—”
“Sure,” I said.
“It’s not,” she continued, her dark brown eyes deep and intense, “though it’s a lot about sex—don’t forget how well I know you. But it’s also about sharing a life together. I want to share your life, and I want you to share mine.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you want to share mine. I think you want me in your life.”
Rather than getting defensive, she just shrugged. “I guess you’re right. I do love you, but not necessarily how or where or the way you live.”
“But that’s who I am. And it’s not you. Look at this place.”
We both looked around at the fruits her labor as a corporate tax accountant and burgeoning PR maven had produced. Her second-story bedroom was enormous. The bed we were lying on was a massive antique oak with four large spiral posts and a plush tapestry comforter above silk sheets. The dresser and chest of drawers were antique oak topped with marble. Large tassels hung from several of the drawer pulls of the dresser and Victorian picture frames holding old photos of us sat beside a china trinket box and various crystal perfume bottles, two stately oak and iron framed mirrors suspended from the wall behind them.
Walls of mirrors enclosed a dressing area with two walk-in closets and a sitting area, beyond which was a lavish bathroom about the size of Pottersville. Thick, expensive carpet that didn’t show traffic ran across the floor and under rich tapestries draped over large windows that looked out onto the other enormous homes and the perfectly manicured lawns that surrounded them.
“Don’t try to make me feel bad for how I live,” she said, removing her hand from me as she pushed up on her elbow.
“I’m not. Not at all. I’m just pointing out how different we are. It’s not that it’s wrong. It’s just wrong for me.”
My family had always had money. We had never been wealthy, but we had always been upper-middle-class comfortable, which in poverty-stricken Pottersville was seen as wealthy. But I hated the current culture of greed, took very seriously Jesus’ message about justice and compassion and sharing what we have, taking care of the poor.
I didn’t live in a trailer and pastor in prison because I couldn’t live better or have a higher paying job, and in this I wasn’t sure Susan and I were compatible.
“Is this about money?” she asked, her forehead wrinkling as she squinted in incomprehension.
“Not money, but class and prestige and pretension. No matter how much money I have, which will never be much, I could never live like this.”
“They’re just things,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Besides, every time I buy something I’m helping someone make a living.”
She looked so vulnerable with her hair falling down around her face, her bare breasts hanging loosely, their nipples grazing my arm and side. My heart ached for her.
“It’s not the things.”
She sniffled, and I could see that she was tearing up. “So I’ve got to move to Pottersville and live in a house trailer to be in your life?”
I gently wiped away her tears with my fingertips. “It doesn’t have to be me here or you there, you living the way I do or me living the way you do.”
Perking up a bit, she sniffled and wiped away the last of her tears. “I’ll start thinking about alternatives.”
I took her by the chin and lifted her face to mine. “We’ll figure this out.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Her face lit up. “Good,” she said, “‘cause so was my test.”
22
She’d saved the biggest surprise of all for last.
When I staggered out of the shower, the smell of bacon and coffee filled the air. After throwing on some clothes, I stumbled down the stairs with wet hair to find Sarah and Susan tripping over each other to cook breakfast as Tom sat at the table reading the Atlanta Journal.
We had decided to keep our news to ourselves for now, but I knew Susan thought it would do Sarah good to know she was going to have a grandchild.
I wondered if my shock showed. Could Daniels tell something was going on? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have children. I did. I just wasn’t sure we were ready. We had just gotten to the place where we felt married again. We weren’t even sure where we were going to live, but ready or not . . .
When I walked in, Tom looked at his watch, then looked at me. It was late, and evidently they had been up a while. “Can’t really call this breakfast, can we?”
“Late night. Long drive back.”
His expression and nods said, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
“Important investigation,” I added. “Demanding Inspector General.”
“Hey, baby,” Susan said and gave me a kiss. “Hungry?”
I nodded and pulled back from her.
She didn’t often call me baby, and I wondered if she were being cute or passive-aggressive. I couldn’t help but feel blind-sided by what she had told me and the way she had done it. With as fragile as our reconciliation was, and with as much sex as we were having, we had discussed birth control early on, and she assured me she was on the pill. Not only did I have her assurance, but we had a history of unsuccessful attempts at pregnancy when we were trying to salvage our marriage the first time. I was pretty sure she had to try to get pregnant, and she did so without ever talking to me about it. In one sudden turn, I’d gone from euphoria to anxiety, from options to obligations. I now felt trapped, imprisoned by paternity. Not that I wanted out or away from Susan, but now I didn’t even have that choice. I could never have children without being an integral part of their lives.
“John,” Sarah said, “get her to go sit down with you. I’ll have everything finished in no time.”
“Why won’t you let her cook breakfast?” I asked.
Susan whispered, “I was in the middle of making us all breakfast when she came in and took over.”
Tom folded his paper down and softly said, “Let her do it. She needs to.”
“You two don’t have much time left,” Sarah said. “Go be together.”
Susan’s eyes widened in exasperation at her dad. Sarah’s need to control seemed to have intensified, but perhaps it was merely her method that had changed. Before she had been raped, her attempts at control had been passive and manipulative, now they seemed far more aggressive and domineering.
His raised eyebrows, shrugged shoulders, and cocked head conveyed his helplessness.
Susan sighed loudly. “Come on,” she said, taking my hand, and leading me out.
“Oh, and John,” Sarah called without looking up from her culinary ministrations.
“Ma’am?”
“It’s good to have you back in the family.”
“Actually,” Daniels said from behind his paper, “he was never out.”
“Every time he tries to get out,” Susan said in her best Godfather voice as she extend
ed her hands and drew them back again, “we keep pulling him back in.”
Tom laughed, but I couldn’t—at the moment, it felt too true—and Sarah, moving frantically through the kitchen, missed it altogether.
Susan led me into her game room, closed the door, pushed me against the pool table, dropped to her knees and began unzipping my jeans. She was using sex as a distraction, and it made me angry. She was doing anything she could to avoid the inevitable confrontation about Hemingway’s white elephant in the room with us.
“Is your mom okay?” I asked.
“You’re about to get a second helping of Sunday morning sex—a blow job no less, and you’re asking about my mother?”
“Seriously,” I said, anger at the edge of my voice.
She paused for a moment and said, “She hasn’t been okay since it happened.”
I nodded and thought about how Sarah was acting. “She seems to be getting worse. We need to get her some help.”
“We will,” she said, running her hand inside my jeans, “you can see all about her in just a few minutes, but right now your wife’s tryin’ to give you a goodbye present.”
“I don’t understand why you’re not more concerned.”
She let out an angry sigh. “It’s been over a year. She’s not getting better because she doesn’t want to. I know what happened to her is horrible. I’m not minimizing it, but she’s using it to manipulate us. I’m not saying it wasn’t devastating, or that she doesn’t need help. I just know how she is. I can’t let her suck me back into the old dynamic. She’ll find help when she really wants it.”
I understood what she was saying, how she felt. I’d seen the same rigid resolve in many recovering people, but I knew how dangerous it could be.
In my own feeble attempts at recovery, I had removed myself from my family and its sick dynamic as far as I could without completely severing all ties, and though I was occasionally close to them in proximity, I rarely was emotionally. At least Susan was trying to maintain her relationship with her parents—and maybe her rigidity and seeming coldness were just the costs involved. I wasn’t sure, and it still bothered me, but I also knew that I couldn’t very well judge her when I was doing so little for my own mom.
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