Hello again. I hope your great weekend is still going great. Tell you a secret. If this is Saturday, then I am at my very first Pride event. I wonder how I'll like it. It's supposed to rain. I hope it doesn't, but maybe it will be a more interesting memory if it does. We'll see!
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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: Stolen Love The third and final installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips
26
Paul's Story, The Early Years
I made four dozen quiches with no more than four of them of any one kind. Paul made it fun by staying engaged and suggesting ingredient combinations I wouldn't have thought of. Paul's favorite turned out to be a mushroom and cheese quiche with diced tomatoes. "I'm not partial to mushrooms, young man, but this is wonderful." Paul raved about the breakfast treat he savored. "The tomatoes and...what kind of cheese is that?"
"Ricotta."
"Genius." He gushed and popped the last bite in his mouth. "It's quite an...an explosion of flavor." He said as he chewed.
"That one is Shawn's favorite too." I informed him. "When we were on Earth, we went to that farmer's market in Lambertville and stumbled into the livestock auction. Shawn didn't take it well and refused to eat any animal products for the rest of the time we were on Earth. We discovered a bunch of different ways mushrooms can stand in for meat during those few days and when we got back here, I started to learn about how to incorporate them into my cooking. I enjoy them much more now than I ever did before."
Paul finished chewing and mopped a napkin over the lower half of his face. He took a sip from his second cup of green tea and set the cup down on the island countertop. He used his right hand to turn the cup against the glass top. It vibrated as it turned and made a silvery whining noise as the glass cup scraped against the glass counter. "Church," Paul said to get my attention even though he already had it, "where does your kindness come from?"
"My kindness?" I asked. I didn't know what he was getting at.
Paul continued to rotate his teacup on the countertop, and it continued to make its little vibrating silvery whining sound as he did it. He watched the cup turn counter-clockwise like tracking its motion was the most important thing he was going to do all day. "Yes, where does your kindness come from?" Paul repeated the question that still made no sense to me. He elaborated without my having to ask him.
"You told me much of your story, when you visited me that day many years ago. You've told me more of it as we've kept in touch over those years. Life was rather unkind to you until the moment of your fortieth year. Yet, on that bitter November night, when life had treated you rather harshly yet again, you found it in yourself to offer a helping hand to another victim of circumstance. That single moment seems indicative of the life you lead...the life you have led since then. Why?"
I bent down and pulled the cabinet doors open under the island. That's where I kept the food storage containers. I gathered the bases and lids to the big cupcake containers and set them up on the island to start putting away the leftover quiches. I picked a bacon and cheddar quiche out of the pile and bit half of it away.
"You're like the rest of them." I waved what was left of the quiche at Paul and talked around a mouthful of food. "Everyone points to that night and says how great I was to do what I did. I've spent eighteen years trying to explain that I was royally shitfaced when I pointed that cap gun at those meatheads. If all I would've had was a banana, I might have pointed that at them.
"I saw a kid in trouble, and I bluffed him out of it, then I turned my car and my fate over to him because I was too full of whiskey to know what I was doing. The fact that it worked out was the single best accident of my life, but that's all it was. I could have just as easily woken up in a bathtub full of ice without my kidneys. Who I was then, the way I felt and how I lived, it wouldn't have mattered to me either way."
I started to nestle the quiches into the containers. I grouped them by type and kept them close to each other so they wouldn't dry out in the fridge. I had about a dozen stored when the silvery whine of Paul's teacup stopped with a screech. I looked up from my container to see Paul's hand gripped tightly around the teacup...so tightly I worried it would shatter from the tension.
"I don't believe you." Paul whispered.
I stuck the other half of the bacon cheddar quiche in my mouth and waited for Paul to say something else. The accusation he'd leveled at me, indirectly calling me a liar like that, I knew there was more coming that he hadn't said.
"Why minimize it?" Paul asked. He picked the teacup up and held it between both his hands. He lessened the iron grip of the one when he added the other. "Why not own the act? What about that moment bothers you so much that you feel the need to make it sound like less?"
The thrust of Paul's question scared me. It was a question that not even Shawn had ever thought to raise. Shawn had come close when he had once accused me of saving him that dark November night and then saving the world as a way to keep saving him. What Paul seemed to suggest was deeper than that, more specific. It illustrated a level of perception in the man that I didn't think existed in anyone. I wondered if it was the benefit of age, or occupation, or if Paul was always as penetrating as he'd lately revealed himself to be.
I'd thought about who I was in that moment, that life-changing moment in the bitter November cold. I'd been drunk to the point of recklessness when I pointed that cap gun at who I thought were four bad men. I'd thought about that moment many, many times. By extension, I thought about the moment that followed it, me and Shawn in the Vic, parked on that industrial side street, when he asked me to let him drive my car to Baltimore, to the friends he had `beyond the tunnel.' To my backward-looking surprise, I'd agreed without much thought.
I'd recognized those moments both as a singular low point in my life and as the start of everything good that came after. I'd recognized it as the beginning of my happiness and, by extension, the happiness of almost everyone around me. In spite of the good things that sprouted from the roots of that moment, I always shied away from claiming responsibility.
Maybe it was because, if I claimed responsibility for my actions, that made me responsible. Maybe I feared the weight of all the events that came after that moment. If I shrugged it off as a drunken lark, I didn't have to own the survival of the planet Solum and all the life that existed on it. I didn't have to feel like the happiness of my extended family had anything to do with me.
Furthermore, I didn't have to accept that my brother's survival had more to do with me than it had to do with Shawn's medical intervention or the scheming and pleading of Father Miller, and Mary, Bem, and Andy, or even Ars. Even the fashion empire my nephew built rested on the foundation of the choice I'd made that November night, and I could see it that way, if I let myself. If I owned up to the act, I could see myself as the wellspring from which all those other events flowed.
Everyone was happier because of the choice I'd made that night. I wondered why I refused to put my name on the act. I'd made great progress with my pathological fear of responsibility, but I guessed I wasn't all the way there yet. I reasoned that accepting credit for the good that came from that moment would also mean that any bad that may be lurking in the future would also be mine to claim.
I reasoned that, at the very heart of my reluctance, was the lingering doubt that all the good I was experiencing was fleeting and eventually, I'd wind up back where I was, alone and miserable. If I accepted the responsibility for the happiness, when the misery returned, and I dragged everyone into despair with me, their unhappiness would be as much mine as their happiness. It was that private dread that weighed on my soul and kept me from embracing the action I'd taken.
I wasn't sure I could tell Paul any of that. I wasn't sure I even knew how. I met Paul's eyes with mine and quickly saw that I didn't have to say a word. He'd turned his power on when I was thinking. He'd read me. He knew the answer directly from my mind, probably better than I could articulate it. "Still so sad, my friend?" He asked, though he already knew the answer. "Such a shame. I know how you feel. I know very well how you feel."
I seized on Paul's words and asked about them. "How?" I asked. "How do you know how I feel?"
Paul leaned back in his seat and wiped a broad hand over his face. "How?" He parroted. "We are having quite the morning, aren't we? I've already told you about my wife, now you want to know all my secrets." He frowned deeply with the effort of thought, his expressive face drew down from his forehead to his sagging jowls. "I don't know." He hesitated. "I don't know if I want to share that."
I tried to shrug away Paul's potential refusal to tell me his story. I didn't have any secrets from him, but that didn't automatically mean that he would have no secrets from me. We'd never given each other the secret handshake or anything. I was a little hurt by Paul's hesitance, but I tried not to show it.
I went back to putting the quiches away without a word one way or the other. I assumed if Paul wanted to know how I felt about him either telling or withholding his story, he'd read me like he'd done already. I finished clearing the contents of the serving plates into the containers and loaded them in the refrigerator. I got a wet cloth and set about wiping down the island while Paul watched me work.
I finished my clean-up effort, rinsed the cloth out, and hung it to dry. I checked my phone for the time. It was almost ten. It was almost time to meet with Bem to see what Leah had found out. I wondered if she'd called him yet or if she'd wait for ten. I wondered if they'd heard from Primis. I hoped he was OK. I hoped Altus wouldn't have to go to his rescue. That would expose our entire operation and potentially make things more dangerous for Shawn.
"We've got a few minutes," I announced as I put my phone away, "ten minutes, before we have to go up to the main dining room to see Bem."
I thought about my husband as I asked the culinarian for more coffee. I got another cup of tea and a glass of water for Paul and passed them across the island as I sipped my drink. I hope you're OK, love.' I thought to my better half even though I knew he couldn't hear me. I hope you're safe and not in pain. I hope they're feeding you well and that you have a place to exercise. I know how grumpy you get when you don't get to exercise. Not that you're ever grumpy, but you get...less like yourself.'
`I'm so lonely without you. I feel like I'm always waiting for you to get home anymore. The time we're together...it always seems so short, and the time we're apart, just lasts and lasts. I don't want to wait for you anymore. I don't want to do without. I've been lonely for so long, most of my life really. Now that I have you...my God I hope I still have you.'
A wave of anxiety hit me as I wondered if I still had all the love of my husband, as I wondered if we'd grown apart. I want to have you.' I thought to Shawn. I want you. To hell with the world and its problems. Darling, be home soon.' I thought and felt another intense stab of desperately lonely melancholy slice through me. I tried to swallow the choking lump that appeared in my throat, but it wouldn't swallow. I sniffed and blinked, but I couldn't quite keep the tears from flowing. A few traced down my face and landed on my shirt.
I brushed them away like they were cracker crumbs, but they wouldn't brush away. "Fuck." I swore at the little damp circles on my chest. I stopped brushing and pulled my phone to check the time again. Two minutes had elapsed since I'd checked before...two lousy minutes. Fucking goddamned time.' I griped in my mind. Wish I could fast-forward and just be at this meeting. For that matter, I wish I could fast-forward and just have Shawn back.'
Shawn,' I thought, I'm warning you now and I'll tell you again when you can actually hear me, your old man is done. I don't know what I'm going to do to him yet, but it's gonna be serious. We are so fucking far from a slap on the wrist or a quick death. He's gonna have to suffer for this one.'
With that threat pointlessly made to the inside of my brain, I pulled my phone again to check the time. One minute had elapsed. The digital number actually changed while I was pulling the phone from my pocket. One fucking minute.
I set my coffee down and rubbed my face with both hands. I rubbed it savagely, like I wanted to hurt myself. The raw skin stung and told me that I'd succeeded. Maybe that's what I wanted, maybe I wanted to feel pain. Physical pain was better than emotional pain any day of the week. I dropped my hands from my face and waited for my eyes to refocus on my friend, Paul, who remained seated at the island, leaned back in his chair.
"I'm an orphan." He blurted at me. "That's how I know what it's like to be sad."
I didn't say a word. I had no idea what to say to something like that. I assumed another story was getting ready to start, so I walked around the island, pulled the chair out, and sat facing Paul. I waited patiently for him to have his say. He didn't keep me waiting for long.
Paul didn't turn his seat to face me. He remained facing the far side of the island and let his eyes drift around to me as he spoke. "I'm from Columbus, New Jersey. Do you know it?"
"Yeah, it's the town near the army / air force base; Fort Dix is the army half and McQuire is the air force base. I did some work there once, in the powerhouse...more than once."
Paul nodded a short, shallow nod and started his story. "Amanda Jenkins was sixteen when her older sister brought her to a dance at the American Legion Hall. It was late in the year of 1966. There were always men from the base at the American Legion dances. That's why Amanda's sister went to them. At this dance, Amanda met a twenty-five-year-old gunnery sergeant. His name was Paul Miller."
`Holy shit!' I thought. I said nothing, but I leaned into the story.
Paul went on. "Amanda's older sister, Margaret, met someone and left Amanda on her own. The gunnery sergeant, an instructor at the rifle range on base...well, he must have seemed quite a man to the bashful, small-town girl that Amanda would have been at the time. They danced. He bought her drinks, cold glasses of Iron City Beer. When her better judgement was overcome by a combination of cold beer, teenage hormones, and the attention of a virile, older man, he took advantage of her."
Paul eyed me sideways. "I know how old fashioned that sounds to you. It sounds that way to me as well. I am certain that what Paul Miller wanted that night was precisely what Amanda Jenkins wanted. Women lust just as much as men do, but we're not supposed to know that.
"Anyway, the way it was told to me, Paul had no idea he was deflowering an underage virgin and he was quite distressed when he found it out. They, Paul and Amanda, promised each other not to speak of what they had done and to see each other again, under more innocent circumstances. Unfortunately for both of them, the seed that was me had already been planted in Amanda's fertile teenage womb."
Paul wiped a hand over his face and then through his iron-grey hair. He took a breath and sighed it out. "When Amanda's family found out...it didn't go well. They demanded Paul marry her under threat of rape proceedings. Paul agreed. He and Amanda married, she quit school and moved with her new husband into base housing, where they waited to have me. They were setting themselves up to be, if not the perfect couple, better off than many. Paul had a steady job with a good income. The pair had a place to live, access to the bounty of the base PX, and free healthcare from the base physician."
Paul shook his head at the countertop. "Sadly, it wasn't to be. One day, Sergeant Miller was teaching a green recruit how to field strip a firearm while his little wife was at home, seventeen years old now and seven months pregnant. The green recruit had neglected the first step of the process, clearing the live round from the chamber.
"The obvious thing happened, and Sergeant Paul Miller was buried in Arlington Cemetery with full military honors. Not killed in action precisely but killed in the performance of his duties. Amanda, now Amanda Miller, found herself turned out of the base housing and forced to make her way in the world with nothing but her wits and her widow's pension. You see, her family, who had distanced themselves from the shame that was me, didn't see how Sergeant Miller's death made my existence any less shameful. They refused to have anything to do with my mother.
"She got a small furnished apartment, the second-floor of a duplex just off the base. The lower floor was occupied by the landlord. A grasping, miserly old woman, who didn't give a hang about Amanda, or her shame, the shame who Amanda had decided to name for her deceased husband. As long as the rent was paid and the place kept up, my mother was free to populate the world with bastard children.
"In due course, I was born and lived with my mother in that second-floor apartment. I don't remember much about those early times. I wish I did. I think they were some of the best times. Amanda tried; I can say that for her. She did what she could to raise her shame, her child, the child that was me, in the puritan times in which she lived.
"It was hard for her. It must have been. When I was old enough, six and ready to enter first grade, she signed away a portion of her pension and sent me to grow up in Philadelphia, at a place called Girard College. It was, and still is, a boarding school founded by Stephen Girard for the benefit of fatherless boys. Amanda sent me away to be raised in what she thought would be a better environment. I credit her for good intentions if nothing else."
A grimace crumpled the old man's expressive face at the mention of Girard. I assumed there was much more to that part of the story than he told me, but I held my tongue. It wasn't the time to ask questions.
The grimace smoothed from Paul's face, and he went on with his sad story. "The arrangement worked, sort-of, for a while. I lived at the school and went home for the holidays. When I was eight, I went home to spend Christmas with my mother. I remember much of that visit. She was happier than I ever remember her being, and I thought maybe things would be alright in the end. In a way, they were, but not how I thought they would be.
"On my second day back to school, I received a telegram. Could you imagine?" Paul asked with a thick undercurrent of bitterness in his voice. "Sending a telegram to an eight-year-old to tell him his mother was dead. A leaking gas valve, they said. I don't believe it. I didn't then, and I don't now. She killed herself. She thought I was doing well at that school and probably thought I would be well rid of her. You see, without her, there would be no shame. I wish I could have told her how wrong she was. I wish I could have expressed how badly I needed her.
"I presume some well-intentioned official wrote the death up as an accident to spare me the implied shame of being the son of a suicide. They were also likely conscious of the idea that an accident would mean there would be some insurance money to pay for the funeral, while with a suicide, there would be none.
"They didn't need the insurance though. The death benefit of the widow's pension paid for my mother to be interred with Sergeant Miller at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. The insurance money, what was left after the final rent payments were made to the shrew who owned the duplex, was put in trust for me by the school, where it stayed until I graduated. It was some of that money that paid my way to Mexico City.
"Between the ages of eight and eighteen, I grew up alone. I was officially a ward of the state, but it wasn't necessary to put me into the foster care system, because I was already enrolled at Girard. I lived there, in the dormitories with the other boys, and on holidays, I went to the homes of the house masters. Later on, I went to the homes of the friends I managed to make amongst the other lonely orphans like me.
"When I was eighteen, I was officially emancipated from the state, and in June, I graduated from Girard. I was handed my diploma, a trust fund with a few thousand dollars in it, and turned out into the world to make my way.
"I spent that first summer not doing much of anything. I stayed with friends or lived in furnished rooms by the week. I had no anchor. Once...just once, I took the bus to Columbus. I looked up my mother's sister and found her house.
"I went there, to her address and walked back and forth, up and down the block in front of it, in front of the house my mother's sister lived in with her husband and family. I'd found out my grandparents were dead. I don't remember how I found that out. My mother's sister, I won't call her my aunt because that would imply that we had some kind of family relationship, she had married and taken her husband's name. She was Margaret Arnholt.
"I walked up and down in front of the Arnholt house until my mother's sister came out with one of her children, or who I assumed was one of her children. The girl, who I guessed was twelve or thirteen, looked just like my mother's sister. She looked happy and well cared for and glad to be going out with her mother. Seeing them together, I didn't want to...I don't know; I didn't want to impose myself on them.
"It was obvious to me they didn't need me in their lives, so I left and never went back. In September of that year, when I would have been going back to school, I decided I needed to do something with my life. The idea of getting a job, of going back into a regimented life, the work-a-day grind after all those years living at school...I loathed the thought of it.
"I picked up the paper one morning and there was the story that would launch my great adventure, the story of the earthquake in Mexico City. I packed a bag, took my small savings from the bank, and bought a bus ticket to Texas. After that...well, you know what happened after that."
Paul turned in his chair and draped his right hand and arm over the back of it as he faced me. "And that, my friend, is why I know very well what it means to be lonely and sad. You grew up in a family that didn't understand you and wouldn't have wanted you if they had. I grew up without any family at all.
"That life, that lack of upbringing that I had, it's left me with my own doubts and bad feelings. It left me with a head full of demons, monsters of self-loathing and disapproval. Joining the clergy helped me. It gave me a place to belong and a purpose, but...I would be lying if I said I felt complete.
"I spent my life looking for...something; love I suppose, acceptance maybe, the missing piece of myself. I never found it, not even in my lovely wife. I've thought about that for years, in my private moments, during the quiet death at the end of each day. When the horrors in my head come out to play in the deep shadows and lonely silence of the day's end, I have always doubted I could have been complete in that village.
"I think it would have been a good life, in many ways a fulfilling life, but never a complete life. My curse, young man, and I suspect yours as well, was and is a penetrating intelligence, the torment of introspection.
"I've suspected the path to true contentment lies with someone who is my intellectual equal. I crave the stimulation of an intelligent mind. I haven't always been able to find that amongst my brother priests and pastors. Just like the laity are a diverse crowd, so is the clergy. We, to take all of us inclusively, have people who wonder, and some that don't. Some of my brethren are what I would term `complete believers.' Those who accept all as it's written without a second thought in their heads. How I envy them."
Paul raised sad eyes to mine so he could clarify a point. "Don't misunderstand me, young man. I am not trying to say that my faith in God or in the story of The Bible is in any way diminished. The point I am trying to make is that story was written to an audience of simple people, superstitious people. It was written to appeal to all. It's a story full of metaphor and symbolism. I want to know all about it, to truly understand what is behind the story.
"God often asserts that `my thoughts are not your thoughts.' Of course, they aren't. God is an almighty being, an intellect with no beginning and no end. How could we ever hope to understand His thinking. I still wish to try. I wish to understand the secrets of the universe, as much as it might be possible for a mortal man to do that. I am curious, but many of my brethren are not curious."
Paul shook his head, seemingly at himself. "That's not true. I know that's not true. I malign them, my fellow priests, I malign them unjustly. Every mortal is curious about his origins and what will happen to him at the end of this existence. In that respect the clergy and the laity are no different. The clergy have a calling to the service of God, to serve as the purveyors of His message. That doesn't mean we don't still wonder. Even though I know that wonderment is universal, I have always felt alone in my curiosity.
"It's because of a fear within me, a fear that if I were to ask the others, other men who have committed themselves to the life I committed myself to, that they would label me a doubter. That fear belongs to me. It is not the fault of my fellow priests and pastors. It's shameful for me to blame them for the fear that I feel. To wonder is not to doubt, it's not the same, but I've always been afraid to expose my curiosity.
"There was one man, one who I was never afraid with, one who I could share my questions without fear of judgement. The closest I ever came to a companion with a complimentary curiosity was Father Scott.
"He was the man who invented the lyrics I sang to you the other night, but..." Paul's face scrunched again into a grimace of bitter sadness or something very similar. He wiped the expression off his face with his hand, the motion seemed to smooth his thoughts as it smoothed the grimace away. "But that is a story for another time." Paul shrugged and let his shoulders hang. His whole body seemed to sag under the weight of his emotions.
I knew well the heavy burden of thought. I knew well the `torment of introspection,' as he put it. My heart went out to the man. My situation, when I was an industrial welder, was similar. I was never more than passing curious about the mysteries of the universe, but I did want to know about the work that I did. I was always curious to know what made the factories I worked in tick. I always wanted to understand the machinery and why it did what it did.
Not my co-workers, though. They would poke fun at my questions, calling me professor' because I wanted to know things. It was these same people, the ones that insisted I just do the fucking job and shut up,' that would regularly make me feel like an outsider when they'd subject me to the crushing boredom of football talk. I never belonged with them. I never belonged anywhere until I met Shawn.
Shawn gave me a place to belong, a person to belong with. He was my intellectual equal, perhaps my better. He made me think. He wondered about things. He had a penetrating intelligence. Thinking of those traits of his made me miss him with fresh intensity.
Paul heaved a breath and went on with what he'd been saying, the story of his life and his isolation. "I loved my wife. I loved the village and the people that lived there. They were simple people, ignorant people but with none of the negative connotation of the word. I would have been happy there, but not complete. And now I'm an old man and my chances of ever finding that thing I've been missing...I suppose I won't find it, not in this life, not while I walk the Earth."
I almost interrupted him to remind him that his time was likely not as short as he thought it was and that he wasn't on Earth, but I held my tongue while he poured out his heart.
"I'm jealous of you, young man, of your relationship. I wish I would have met someone like Shawn. Maybe my life would have been different. It has been good...my life. I do not feel like my time has been wasted. There are many, many worse ways to spend one's time, but if I had it to do all over again, I would search for a Shawn of my own.
"Such a lovely man, your husband. Such a caring, thoughtful, sweet soul. I know how much you love him, and it is obvious he loves you just as much. I know you have been dealing with some...issues of late, but when he entered the dining room dressed the way he was on Monday night, I had a feeling your troubles would soon be over.
"We must get him back, and soon, so you and he can settle your differences and get back to enjoying each other. Your nephew and his young man, they set a good example." Ruddy color rose in Paul's cheeks at the mention of Andy and Comet. He grinned sheepishly as he flushed.
"I admit to feeling quite embarrassed when young Comitis was...performing that act...upon Andy's person while we were trying to have conversation. After some reflection, I can see how wonderful it must be to have such hunger for another person that you would do...that...under those circumstances. It must be lovely to feel that way."
Paul's rather unique perspective on things gave me pause. I'd never heard anyone refer to eating ass as `lovely,' but I saw the point he was trying to make. It was a compelling one. Andy and Comet were a good example. After my conversation with Comet that morning, the similarity between their relationship and mine with Shawn...we had a lot more in common than I thought. Comet and I were opposites in many respects, except in our thoughts. We both thought of our partners as perfect and of ourselves as less.
I shifted my thoughts to what Paul had been saying, the story of his life and his sadness. I wanted to say something to give him some hope, but I didn't know if I should. For me, and Mary, and Joe, leaving Earth was significant, but not overly so. For Paul, the decision to stay on Solum was a weightier proposition.
He wouldn't just be abandoning his old life; he'd be breaking the vows he made to God. I could see how that would be a much bigger deal for a devout believer. I believed that if he decided to stay on Solum, he could find his intellectual equal, his Shawn, but I didn't know if he'd be willing.
I reasoned that it was still too early in the man's visit to be thinking along those lines. I thought I'd say something vaguely supportive and leave the rest for another time. Paul didn't give me that option. He'd read me again.
"I've thought about it." He admitted quietly, like the fact that he'd even considered it worried him. "I've even rationalized it. I've given my useful life to the Church, the entirety of my useful life on Earth, and therefore what I do with the time I have left, should be up to me. But the vows I took, I took to God, not to the Church. The Church may not exist on this world, but surely God does.
"What would He think of my rationalization? This isn't a childish question like `it's not cheating if you're in another zip code.' God is not a teenage infatuation. I have thought about it, almost continuously since we arrived. I must admit, Shawn's mother, Lenis; she stirs things inside me that I thought were far too old and neglected to stir. She makes me feel very much a man.
"Would that be strange for you, young man?" He asked me, his head cocked to one side, like he was considering the implications of the question as he asked it. "If I was to pursue a relationship with your mother-in-law? I mean, obviously this is very premature. I don't even know if she would be interested in anything beyond the physical, or even if she is actually interested in that. A fantasy is by no means a proposition. There are many questions...but her forward manner...she seems very much a woman who knows what she wants and who would not hesitate to pursue it.
"My conversation with her, when we sat together for that first dinner, she is quick and sharp. Lenis has a penetrating intelligence and is not ashamed of it. She does not hide behind her sex, far from it; she seems to celebrate it. A fascinating woman, strikingly handsome. Have you ever noticed her eyes? Her eyes are the most striking frozen blue that I have ever seen. She has eyes that seem to look into your soul."
I felt myself smile as Paul described Lenis, especially as he talked about her eyes. Paul noticed my grin. "What are you smiling about?" He asked, for some reason, choosing that moment to display some restraint with his magic.
"I know all about her eyes." I said through my grin. "They're the same as Shawn's, and you're right, they look right into your soul. I lust after his legs, but I love my husband's eyes. To answer your question, no, I wouldn't mind if you got together with Lenis. I don't think Shawn would mind either. In fact, I think he would be thrilled.
"He's wanted his mother to move on from her ex-husband, but she never has. She throws herself into the business of making money. That seems to be the only outlet for her energy. I'm sure she would like to have someone to share her life with.
"The choice is yours, and hers." I reminded Paul. "The apartment is yours. The car is yours. You have an identification and a citizenship and records and money at your disposal. You don't owe me a thing for any of it. If you decide to stay, you can use those things as the foundation to build your new life on, if you don't, they will remain yours for as long as you live. No pressure, just an open invitation."
Paul glanced around the room, like he needed to remind himself where he was. "Like the Lord's invitation to join him in worship." He muttered.
I didn't know what Paul meant by that, so I didn't comment on it. I was waiting for him to say something else when the door from the rumpus room opened and Bem strode in. "I thought I'd find you here." He complained. "I've been waiting. Leah called and so has Hannah. Things are starting to happen!"