“Yes.”
“Next time I’ll ask my mom who’s been invited. Then we can go over my family tree.”
“I would like that,” I said with a sigh. I would like that a lot. “My cousins used to joke about needing to consult the family tree before starting to date someone because we were related to just about everyone in town.”
“Not a problem with us, babe. We won’t be making babies.”
“And yet you keep trying.” Disgusting. What a disgusting thing to say. Why did I say that?
“Where’s Mel?” Mark asked. “She out in the orchard?”
“No. She went with your parents.”
“What? Mel? Really?” Mark was beyond surprised. “Mom hooked her up with a guy when she was eleven. Real high society stuff. After I broke it off with Hannah, she broke it off with her guy. I took the heat for that one, too. Apparently I was a ‘bad influence’ on my sister.”
Mark’s reaction stuck out and made me give him a second look. Here was another comment about Melanie acting strange. First from her mother, then Kelly had said something. And now Mark.
“Babe, could you talk to Mel before we leave?” I asked. I always used the word ‘babe’ when I wanted to get my way. I hated the word with a mad passion, but Mark liked to hear it from me.
“About what?”
“About what happened with Greg.”
“She’s over it,” Mark said confidently. “I asked her on Friday how she felt, when you sent us for a walk. She said she was fine and just needed to get away from him. It’s not the first time she’s had a bad hookup. Hell, I’ve had it enough times, too. That’s what you get from randos—everyone has their kinks.”
What the fuck! “Listen, babe. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the ‘rape’ word. Maybe she consented. Maybe... who knows. But I know she didn’t visit you and expect that to happen. She wanted a night of fun—not that.”
“How do you know what she wanted? Did you ask for her sexual preferences? Knowing you, you probably would.”
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I just mean that you’re thorough. No stone unturned—that sort of thing.”
“You’re right. I am focused. And right now I’m worried about Melanie—”
“Stop worrying about everyone! She’s an adult. How the fuck do you want me to bring it up—hey sis, my boyfriend thinks you were raped.”
“Just ask her how she’s feeling about what happened Thursday night. Please?”
“Eck.” He waved both hands at me in a move that was eerily similar to what my father did any time I irritated him. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. If she wants to talk to me, she can talk to me. I don’t see the point in bringing it up again. It’s in the past. She’ll learn from it. We all make mistakes.”
“Babe.” I rubbed his shoulders with both hands. “You just said it was weird for your sister to go to church. And I heard your mom say something about Mel not being her normal self. And I heard Kelly say something at breakfast... Please? Before she leaves?”
“Fine! But I won’t like doing it. You’ve got to let some things go.”
“I feel guilty. She was there with us. I knew that Greg was... well, I knew he wasn’t a nice guy. I should have never let it happen.”
“Aw fuck, dude. Do you think the whole world revolves around you? Greg being an asshole is not your fault. Melanie hooking up with Greg is not your fault. How could you have possibly known he would treat her like that?”
I turned away from Mark and bit my lip, weighing my words carefully. “You remember that night you got high?”
“No. Thank God.”
“Greg was there. He handed me my drink, the drink that you finished for me. I think he spiked it.” My demeanor was meek and deferential as I laid out my circumstantial evidence. I had zero proof, other than Greg’s confession when I confronted him after what he did to Mel. But that was all hearsay.
Mark stiffened. “You think Greg spiked your drink?”
“I ran through that night so many times after you went loopy on me. I tried to look for when you took your drugs. It never crossed my mind that my drink might have been spiked. But then when we saw Greg at the club... and the way he looked at you... and looked at me. I knew he was no good.”
“You did have a very negative reaction to him,” Mark recalled. “You never hate anyone. I thought you were protective of me and it was cute.”
“Well. Then I remembered that Greg was there that night—he was your friend I talked to at the bar. I left my unfinished drink and I’m pretty sure Greg handed it to me. He may have slipped something in it. He had the time to do it.”
“Greg spiked your drink,” Mark repeated darkly. His voice flattened and all his goofy playfulness was gone. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”
I laughed nervously. Part of me believed him and part of me was scared by Mark’s suddenly very serious expression. “You’re the one that drank it, not me. And, anyway, it might not have happened that way.”
“But you wouldn’t have told me if you didn’t think it was likely.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. Plus, Greg confessed. “But you can’t kill him, because I need my partner to spoon with me at night. And you wouldn’t survive in jail. And what am I going to do in Italy without my boyfriend? I already paid for the tickets.”
Mark kissed me on the lips. “You’re going to love Milan. If you don’t, I’ll fly you to Rome, or Venice, or wherever you want to go.”
“I’ve been practicing my Italian,” I said.
“Well, I took Latin in high school, so I’m already pretty good at Italian.”
“Fuck off,” I said. “My high school was super poor. I was lucky to have Spanish and a decent science department.”
Mark took me out to the orchard and we picked a couple late apples. Mark’s quick change in behavior made me frown the entire time. How could he be so easy going when it came to Melanie—his sister, a woman who had been hurt by one of his sycophant ‘friends’. Mark played Mel’s trauma off like he wasn’t concerned, or like it hadn’t really happened as I remembered.
But I remembered seeing Melanie the morning after, elbows on the table and staring down. I remembered her being emotionless and frayed. Did Mark see what I saw? Did he see it differently? Was he pushing that memory aside? Was he trying to whitewash what had happened?
Or was Mark’s concern buried under his macho exterior?
But that didn’t make sense either, because the minute Mark got a sniff of someone treating me poorly—he snapped. Like when I laid out my circumstantial evidence about Greg spiking my drink—and Mark almost flew off the handle in my face. Or like when I was worried about making a good impression on his grandparents—and Mark said that if they didn’t like me that he would never visit them again.
When it came to defending me, he went overboard. Why didn’t he act that way for his sister? Was there something that different about me? Did he love me that much more than anyone else?
I couldn’t figure him out. Mark was normally easy to read, but on this topic, he was a mystery.
Orchids
Mark and I worked at the kitchen table in that giant, open house. We only snacked for lunch, seeing as we had recently eaten breakfast.
Mark didn’t once complain about how we were spending our day. He could have enticed me down to the boats or into sitting on the pier (or even swimming in the cold water). He might even have convinced me to drive up the shoreline and look for the rumored nudist colony. But he didn’t. He stayed at my side and we worked on my book together.
And, to tell you the truth, he did a good job with his comments. He made me change one chapter in the middle—it was a section where I had previously overridden his earlier suggestion. He not-so-patiently explained why I was wrong and he was right, which just so happened to line up with the argument my editor had made as well. I had rejected my editor’s advice about that section, but (begrudgingly) accepted Mark’s and i
t became a stronger story because of it.
I’m gushing. My poor readers are probably rolling their eyes at me. Oh, Mr. Perfect Mark. Oh, Mark. Mark, Mark, Mark. Well... yeah! He’s great! So what. This whole memoir is basically just me gushing about my husband. He’s not perfect—he has a very ‘live and let live’ attitude when it comes to a lot of things... Melanie’s encounter with Greg, for instance. Why didn’t he rush to protect her like he rushed to protect and defend me? The answer, of course, was that I was his property. His territory. No one was allowed to move in on me. No one was allowed to threaten me.
Derrick from our poker nights, once said something about my... personality. I don’t want to go into detail here about what he said that got Mark so upset because it will ruin the emotional impact of our Big Fight. Mark said some words to me during that Fight that were unforgivable—some of which were echoes of what Derrick had said to him... the words that very nearly led to a fight while I was in the bathroom.
Mark could be fickle like that. He protected and defended his territory like a dog guards a bone, but anything out of his jurisdiction... well, that was not his concern. His motto echoed that of my father’s: I can’t worry about that right now. Except the ‘right now’ never ended. I worried about seemingly everything all the time. Everyone’s territory was mine to worry about. If something unjust happened somewhere... I didn’t care if I had no business being there—I would stand up and say something (and Mark would be behind me trying to reel me back).
Mark gave me the confidence to look even further than I had in the past and be vocal when something upset me. I didn’t care if I spoke about uncomfortable things... I knew Mark would back me up. If one of his friends needed an attitude adjustment, I would do it on the spot. Mark would be there behind me. If one of his friends looked like they were depressed—I was all over that. I hated depression and tried to stamp it out every chance I got. Depression is tricky—you need to hold up the dark things and drag them into the light. I’ve certainly dealt with it, ever since my sister died. I used to shy away from commenting on others’ depression symptoms...
But I was not afraid to be that person for any of Mark’s friends. I would drag their troubles out into the light if that’s what they needed. And Mark would be right there with me (and then he would yell at me when we got home, but I didn’t care because I knew I had done a good deed).
I have always regretted not reaching out to my friend who committed suicide. I try to live my life so that I will never have a regret like that again. Mark knows why I act the way I do when it comes to fighting depression. He (theoretically) supports that goal. But the actual hard work can be daunting, embarrassing, and emotionally painful.
Mark has only made me more confident the longer we have been together, but during that first month we were not yet a complementary pair. I didn’t know how to express myself so that Mark would just do something for Melanie or how to suggest what my real motivations were for interfering in her personal life. Mark wanted to leave her alone. I saw someone who was struggling. I wanted to ease the pain—but her pain wasn’t in Mark’s jurisdiction so he didn’t want to cause trouble.
THE CHURCH CREW RETURNED. Mark’s sister Kelly and her family were the first in the door, followed quickly by his grandma and grandpa. “How was Mass?” I asked.
“You should have come. At least you could have come to the celebration after. It was very nice,” Kelly said. “What have you boys been up to, or maybe I shouldn’t ask.”
“He has me chained to the table doing slave labor,” Mark complained. I kicked him under the table.
“He’s helping me with my final draft. I want to send it to my beta readers before we go on our vacation.”
“Oh... where to, Marky?” she asked playfully.
“Don’t call me that. Nobody’s called me that since I was a kid.”
“Eddie calls you that,” I said. “And Dima. And Marty. And—”
“Okay. But my family doesn’t call me that—”
“Sheesh, for a guy who gives me a million nicknames, you sure can’t take ‘em.”
“This is not the same thing. I only have one nickname I like...” He leaned in so his mouth was in my ear and his hands were about to tickle me. “Cuddle Bear.” He tickled me and I laughed.
“You two are too much.” Kelly was relaxed and unfazed by our affection. “Where’s the trip?”
“Milan,” Mark said.
“Of course,” she replied. “Do you have a cover for your book yet?” she asked me.
“Nothing finalized.”
“Why don’t I make you a couple options. Tell me what you want... or better yet, email me a list with comp titles.”
I blushed.
“Give me your e-mail,” Mark commanded of his sister. “He won’t take you up on your offer if we don’t force him to.” I didn’t deny Mark’s assessment, though I also didn’t protest their assistance.
Most of the rest Mark’s family arrived, including Keegan and his family along with Melanie whom they had brought from the party—his parents were staying later. Kat’s husband wasn’t with them because he drove straight from the church back home, seeing as Kat was home alone. Mark’s Uncle Rick stuck around and chatted with us as we waited for Mark’s parents to arrive.
Melanie didn’t want to wait and said she was ready to leave to prepare for a rough week of school coming up. I gave her a hug as she breezed through the room. Then I gave Mark a look that said: you better not renege on our deal.
He didn’t. Mark followed his sister out to her car. I desperately wanted to be a fly on the car door, but I bided my time and watched the nephews and nieces play on the patio. Grandma Wolff engaged me in conversation—the first I had had without Mark present. I felt his absence keenly. “I hear that you like flowers,” she commented.
“I collect orchids,” I confirmed. “I’ve had one of my flowers successfully bloom for the last seven years.”
“Sounds like you know more than me.”
“It’s mostly about air circulation on the roots and trimming away the dead stuff so it doesn’t rot. And you really should change the mulch every year, but I let it go for two.”
“Very knowledgeable.” She nodded pleasantly. “I can tell you are a fine young man. I’ve been watching you.”
I blushed deep red. How does that have anything to do with flowers?
“Have you seen my orchard?” she asked, to which I nodded. “I would love to have proper flower beds around the house, but the deer eat everything, I’m afraid. Did Mark show you my balcony?” I shook my head. Mark strolled in through the driveway door and Grandma Wolff yelled at him. “Marky, you didn’t take him up to my balcony?”
“I was saving that for the end. He was overwhelmed enough as it was.”
“I was not overwhelmed,” I scoffed. I had totally been overwhelmed.
“Let’s go up. Up to the balcony!” Grandma Wolff declared.
“Is it near your tower?” I asked. “I love that architecture. My dad built a house with a tower once... there’s something so unique about it.”
“I always envisioned housing my library in an octagon room like that,” she replied.
We took the stairs slowly. She took them one at a time, like she had a pain-filled knee. “I used to be able to do so much around this house, but now it’s all getting away from me. We don’t live up here anymore... you could have taken him to my balcony without me.” She touched Mark’s arm and he helped her reach the last step.
We walked into the master wing of the Lakehouse—her former private residence. The antechamber led to the master suite and also to a balcony off the side of the house with a partial view of the Lake. The entire house had been maximized so that shore could be seen from most windows.
Grandma Wolff’s balcony was shaded by the stately tree that I had noticed from the top of the tower the day before. Her patio was lined with rows and rows of potted plants. There were two lime bushes, herbs, blueberry bushes. And of course.
.. there were flowers. There was a flower box along the entire edge of the balcony which spilled onto the roof.
There were bright splashes of color in every direction.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “And you have a view of the Lake from the balcony. And is this teak decking? You know you can put a sealant on this to bring out the deep colors instead of this gray. And I love these limes... I wonder how much it costs to have a tree? And these flowering vines in the back... I assume the deer would mow down something so delicate if you plant it at ground level.” I turned to Mark only to see that he was laughing at me silently.
Mark bragged about me to his grandmother: “He gets chatty when you surprise him. I love that expression, that one he has right there. It’s when he realizes he’s enjoying the surprise.”
I blushed again. “I always enjoy flowers and plants. It’s a shame you can’t plant your grounds with a proper flower garden. Have you ever had a rose garden?”
Grandma Wolff said she used to have a small one (which, judging by the scale of the property, I assumed meant she used to have at least a hundred plants). She walked to a second door that led off the porch. This door stuck out from the load-bearing wall in an unnatural design from the rest of the estate, which was why the balcony was sheltered from the wind.
Grandma Wolff opened the door.
It was a greenhouse.
She had a fucking greenhouse next to her living quarters... heaven.
She led the way. There were orchids everywhere—I could see them before I even walked through the door. There were all colors and all kinds. Orchids... everywhere.
I carefully walked into that room (which was about twice the size of my bedroom in my shitty apartment). I stood in amazement at all she had packed in there. I stared, mouth agape. My hands were hanging loosely at my side. I reflexively lifted my right hand when I sensed that Mark was standing beside me. His hand found mine and I squeezed it. I didn’t look at him. I tried to take in as much of this amazing, dream-like room as I could.
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