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“So you love peanut butter and jelly,” he finished for her.
“Exactly,” she laughed. “But also dal and curry and all his favorite dishes. My dad used to act like he wasn’t allowed in the kitchen—like women were the only ones allowed, even though my mom wasn’t like that at all—so it always felt like a sneaky indulgence when he and I cooked together.” She remembered what it had been like to revere her father and sighed. After a moment she continued.
“You know, I kind of respect them for staying together despite not living together. I think she loves him. He loves her. I don’t think he knows who he is without her. He just doesn’t have the skills to help her pain, and she’s stuck in it.” Melinda stared past the meadow at the silent giants, the trees weighed down with days of snowfall. “And the problem is that she’s just...wonderful.”
“Wonderful?” This was clearly not the adjective Grant was expecting. It wasn’t what she expected to say either, but it was the truth.
“She is,” Melinda admitted. “She’s so full of life. Or she was, once. Pure, straightforward life. Sharp as a knife. Loving and honest. It was wonderful to know her. It must have been wonderful to be married to her. He proposed on their second date. Can you believe that? He would always say that he ‘just knew,’ whenever it came up. He just knew she was the one for him.”
Melinda allowed herself to marinate in the fantasy she’d been raised on. Then the bitterness flooded back and she set her jaw.
“But really, he was the complacent type and ‘just knew’ she’d tolerate it. She had enough spitfire for both of them, he didn’t need to have a spine. And now she’s like a washer that’s stuck off-balance and he can’t fix her. Now she’s perpetually...coping.” She tossed in a word from her over-analyzed youth. “Or at least she was, the last time I spoke with her. Maybe if we’d never known who she was before, then it wouldn’t have hurt so bad when she turned on us.” She tasted her own anger and wondered if Grant could taste it, too.
“But you’re right,” she said quietly, more to the trees than to him. “I’m doing what they did: to myself, to them, and to Max. Do you know, when we first got here, I wanted to use your phone, but I had no one to call.” The pained laugh caught in her throat. “I’m just as lost as she was. As she is. All of my relationships are hollow, kept at a distance, and that’s how I want them. I don’t even want a cat because it’s too much commitment.” This time the laugh escaped and the sound was as raw as she felt.
“I’ve never let a boyfriend get close to me.” Her voice was louder now. Louder and unhinged, but she kept going. “I never leave them; they always leave me. Because I never let myself get vulnerable, not even once. I’m out of the relationship before it even starts.”
Melinda stared at the bleached forest until reason whispered in her ear. Figure it out, Sen. No one needs your melodrama. Give the people what they want.
She spun to face Grant who raised both hands to catch or contain her, she couldn’t tell which.
“Dammit, Mountain Man, you did it to me again! When is it your turn for twenty questions?”
“Whenever you like,” he said, hazel eyes glittering in the cold light. “Don’t expect the same revelations, though. You’ll have me beat on that.”
~
Grant wasn’t kidding. He was impressed with Melinda’s candor. Still, he braced himself for her inquisition.
“Where are you from?”
“Here. Colorado. Born at home, actually.” He laughed. “Hippie parents.”
“Are you dating anyone?” she asked, point-blank.
Grant started, but then this is what attracted him to her so deeply. Her directness, her acceptance of—no, her pursuit of the truth, bitter as it may be.
“Uh, no, not really.”
“Such a male answer,” she scoffed. “How many women are you sleeping with, then?”
“No, no. None. No one,” he hurried to explain. “I said that because it’s never serious with me. With them.” Grant sighed. Smooth as always, Samson. She had gotten real with him. The least he could do was try to do the same with her.
“I date here and there, but mostly it’s a quick, uh, interaction that sometimes leads to a relationship that’s just as quick. They like me because I’m big and”—he rubbed the back of his neck—“uh, mountain-mannish as you say, but they don’t think of me as a long-term option. I don’t know why.”
Grant squirmed in his boots at the lie. But what could he say? He’d never allowed himself to get close to any of the women that paraded through his life, and who would want to invest their time in someone whose main goal was to resist their invasion? No wonder they cheated or sabotaged things or flat-out disappeared. Issue number one could be that I view them as an invasion. It was too much to convey on an Ipe deck, he reasoned, regardless of how open she had been.
“Is it about your mom?” Melinda asked as she brushed snowflakes from her cheeks.
“My mom?”
“Yeah, you know, leaving you, in a sense.” She looked sideways at the railing. “Maybe that’s the wrong thing to say.”
“It’s okay,” Grant said. “You can ask whatever you want. It was a long time ago, and I already psychoanalyzed you, so it’s only fair.” He cleared his throat. “I think you’re right. I haven’t worked on my feelings around my mom since it happened, and they’ve probably changed from what I dealt with at the time.” He stared at the flurries descending on the meadow.
“I think you’re right,” he repeated. “Death renders you powerless. We think that with enough safety measures, wearing our seatbelts, saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ et cetera, that we can postpone death to a time when it’s convenient for us, but that’s not how it works.” He leaned toward her. “I pick women who will leave me so I don’t have to face the fact that they’re not right. Because if the right one came along and she left, I would die. I can’t go through the pain of losing someone.”
Grant searched Melinda’s eyes. How would she deal with that analytical yellow brick road? Send me packing to meet the King of the Lollipop Guild, probably.
