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"Well, it's all because of Aunt Daisy. Everything. Her life was so romantic, the story of Joseph and all. I was really swept up in it, as if somehow I could live her life for her again. I know this sounds really stupid."
"Stupid maybe, but I can see why you're saying it," Tony agreed with her.
"Joseph was killed in the war. Their honeymoon was the only time they made love, and the last time he spanked her. I was balling when I read about it; but then I read the other letters."
"And . . . ?" Tony asked.
She was having difficulty speaking, in tears again, her lip was quivering so, he almost felt sorry for her.
"They were love letters to my uncle. Eighteen months after Joseph was killed, she met my Uncle John. She fell in love again with another man. It wasn't like she had forgotten Joseph, but she was ready to move on with her life, move o
n to something else. It wasn't easy for her, but she put aside it all to be happy again.
"The story is lovely, but what does this have to do with you?" Tony asked.
"I can't live in the past, any more than Aunt Daisy could. I'm mean this house is a wonderful place, but it's all the past. I've been looking for it to satisfy me. I've been living in Aunt Daisy's world, not my own. Reading her own words about putting the past aside, well . . . this started to feel really silly."
Tony chuckled. Never in a million years had he thought he'd hear her say these things. "So where were you all day?"
"I drove out to the grave. I put flowers on it, and said goodbye. I guess that's the incurable romantic in me, but I needed to really bury her, and the past."
"You drove all the way to Springfield?" Tony looked at her astonished, knowing now why she had been so late coming home. Three hundred miles round trip, and all this grand self revelation, her day had been full.
"And when I did that, said goodbye . . ." Melanie's eyes were dancing brightly, "something happened. On the drive home, I realized that we need to sell this house, and put this aside. I've invested too much time in the wrong things, in this romantic past we can never really have. Aunt Daisy knew she couldn't stay stuck in that romantic world. Neither can I. In fact, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I've been wasting my time mooning over it all this these past months."
Tony was speechless.
"We need to make our life together, not one that has Daisy Markham blazoned across it," Melanie added.
Tony stared at his wife for some time. Like a fresh breeze of spring, Melanie appeared more tranquil than he'd seen her in months, maybe ever. There was a rosy soft glow on her cheeks, her brunette hair, while now a loose pile of curls descending from the top of her head, was sensuous and seductive. She was breathtaking in a way. And her clarity of mind. That impressed him most. The constant agitation that had plagued him for so long was disappearing. He was feeling more himself than he had in a while.
Maybe he too had been swept up in creating this piece of Melanie's history. Was it possible that the exhausting effort was now over?
"You've buried Aunt Daisy?" Tony said, repeating his wife's words.
"I have," she confirmed.
"Then we'll sell the house," he agreed.
Months of tension vanished so quickly, Tony and Melanie thought they were floating on air. It was astounding to them both that they could so easily have a change of heart. Now was the time to follow Melanie's prescription for happiness, follow their own path, not some antiquated rehash of the past.
Chapter Thirteen
Melanie moved about the bright shiny kitchen with its large gas stove and the extra large refrigerator, thinking she'd died and gone to heaven. It was perfect, simple, functional, and free of all the sticky pangs of anguish that used to prevail on her every time she walked through her Aunt's rambling old house. This apartment was modern, with expansive windows looking out on the city, and furniture that she and Tony picked out because it was warm and inviting, while it was still modern in style. She loved the airy rooms with views to the city below, the feeling of expanding her mind, not cramping it down in tight corners.
She kept few things from the old house. Just Aunt Daisy's old chair that had been in the attic. That she'd completely re-upholstered so it would go with her new apartment; it sat in one corner of the large living room, her reading corner, she called it. That was all the remembrance of Aunt Daisy she really wanted to keep. There were a few other things, but most were packed away in boxes in their store room. A young couple with three small children were now living in the old house, and she wished them well. She didn't even care that she couldn't make love in the creaky gazebo, when she had the balcony just outside her door, and an exciting city beyond.
She considered her new life perfect.
Rummaging around the kitchen, she opened the pantry and was shocked to see the unexpected sight of Aunt Daisy's spanking paddle hanging on the door. She hadn't seen it since they'd moved, two months before.
"What is this?" she asked Tony, who was reading in the living room just over the counter from her.
"You can't tell?" Tony replied.
"I thought we left all that in the past," she said.
He looked up at her, over the top of his reading glasses. "I'm serving notice," he said.
