Desperation Comes & Goes

Walter grilled trout he’d caught that morning, and removed the heads, bones, and skin.

Watching him at the grill, Evie asked if next time he could leave the head on her fish. “So while I’m chewing him, I can look him right in the eye.”

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Walter laughed. “You’re like my daughter Olivia.”

“People say I look like my mom.”

“No one looks like your mother,” Walter said. “She’s like no one else.”

“Well, me either,” Evie said. “I’m like no one else.”

“That’s right. You and DeeDee, your mother, me—everyone’s different from everyone else.”

After Amanda read the girls a bedtime story, she joined Walter downstairs where he had built a fire in the stone fireplace.

Open on his lap was a history of some Chinese dynasty, but the fire was mesmerizing.

“Was it hard when your wife took Olivia away?” Why had she asked him such a stupid question?

Amanda sweltered in the blazing firelight. Perhaps the room had warmed past what was pleasant. Walter pulled off a sweatshirt and smoothed a gray t-shirt over his body, white hair glistening against his lightly tanned arms. Amanda slipped free of her a cotton cardigan, only to shiver inside her purple top, although her skin was stinging hot. 

Walter raised his body up, preparing drape a strong arm around her. But something warned him away. He inched away from her. She pulled the hair off her damp neck, letting heavy strands fall along the back edge of the couch.

“Don’t think I’m oblivious to how you feel.” Walter whispered this. “It’s just that I’ve spent my life defining how to love you.”

“Why stick to the same definition?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as petulant to him as it did to her. “I’m not a child anymore.”

He took her hand and at first that distracted her so much she didn’t hear him. Then she did:  “I’ve loved you since you were three years old, Amanda. And if it stays paternal, I’ll never lose it. Or you. But the rest?” He winced. “Desperation comes and goes.”

“Do I seem that desperate?”

“Maybe desperation’s the wrong word,” Walter said. “But if you want something, or someone, long enough, more than your own life—and it’s impossible—eventually, the desire lets up. For a while. It can rebound at any time. It can be terrible. And then it abates again. Things get better.”

Again, he moved as if to embrace her but stopped. “Maybe I shouldn’t touch you at all.”

She couldn’t catch her breath and didn’t trust her voice. Finally, she said, “No. I want you to touch me.”

He almost looked at her. “Olivia kisses me on the mouth. She likes to think she’s wild but with her it’s not dangerous.”

“And I am dangerous.” Suddenly angry, Amanda shoved him hard and kissed him hard, and hurried upstairs. 

Lying in bed at the other end of the hall from him, she couldn’t sleep. 

In the morning she was weary and chagrined. He had made pancakes. Fixing Amanda a plate, he said that if the girls woke early enough tomorrow, he’d take them fishing.

After cleaning up, he taught the girls to play checkers. Amanda watched for a while, but soon she was sitting on the porch wearing an apple green bikini, a sunhat, and sunglasses.

Then the girls walked out, wearing their bathing suits and Walter took the chair beside Amanda, his finger in the Chinese history book.

“I warned them the water was cold.”

Amanda nodded and smiled at him, her fifth silent apology.

The girls tiptoed along the swimming dock. A bobbing raft floated twenty-five feet out.

“No way you’ll do it,” Walter called.

Evie turned around, stuck out her tongue, and then dove straight in. They saw her crawling easily toward the raft. DeeDee, who couldn’t dive yet, jumped and swam fast enough to catch up.

“Walter, what was I like as a child?”

“You were serious and sensitive. Kind of, don’t get me wrong, kind of ethereal. That searching, spiritual quality? You always had it.”

“Walter, if I do some errands—I’ll take a bike—will you watch the girls this afternoon?”

Now Walter jumped up. His book thudded beside his chair. “You trust me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought you knew.”

“What?”

“How I felt. That year before we went to Disneyland.”

“Oh.” Amanda sank back in the chair and he crouched in front of her.

“I loved you, Amanda and still do. But my problem was because of the circumstances. My wife was gone. I had no job. I had no one but you. And except for me, you were alone.”

“I tormented you, though. I know that.”

“You know it now, but you didn’t then.”

Walter pulled her out of the chair. He didn’t kiss her, but lifted her up and laughed. “Go. Do your errands.”

Amanda ran inside, changed into shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Before she left she heard Walter telling the girls, no more swimming. Without saying good-bye, she dashed out the front door and rode a bicycle until exhausted. To her left were the woods. Off the path, under a tree, she hid, curled up, and broke into violent tears.

(To be continued)