LOVING THE CHALLENGE! @MARIANNEWEST--WEEKEND FREEWRITE

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO A STEEMIT FREEWRITE PROMPT, WHICH IS FOUND HERE. Be sure and join in the fun!

There she was, Amy Gerstein, over by the pool, kissing my father...

which was surprising because not only was she married to the Senator, and should have been more discrete in her love affairs, but she was half my father’s age, while the Senator was a young, vibrant, charismatic, and muscular ball of energy and drive. My father was quiet, retired, and rather simple in his 60’s. He was charming, and still rather good-looking for 64. But 64 nonetheless.

In his younger years he might have danced his way into the ladies’ hearts the way a salesman might--with gusto and purpose, and a measure of deceit. Now, he was just himself, and no pretense about it. Maybe he had mellowed out from all the pot he smoked in his college years, or maybe it was the tragedy of losing his oldest in a snow storm 10 years ago. But he was mellow nonetheless.

His dreams were simple, as were his home and his wallet.

What could he offer Amy that the Senator did not? A more private life maybe? Genuine conversation? Attention? It certainly wasn’t money, power, prestige. If ever there were Jones’s to keep up with, my Dad had his way of deliberately NOT doing so, just to make a point. He was a soft spoken fellow who didn’t go out much. He liked to stay home with his dogs and his books and maybe some Pavarotti or Bach. What did she see in him? Was it the Bach?

I think maybe I was asking the wrong question. I don’t think it was what SHE saw in HIM, but what HE saw in HER. Because quite frankly, he SAW her, when the Senator didn’t.

And so, there they were, kissing by the pool. And I stood inside, looking out at them, wondering why he never looked this way with my mother when they were still married.

On the following Friday, We packed our bags and planned our escape.

I had taken my niece Jenna under my wing when her parents died in the snow storm 10 years earlier. My husband Joe and I married 5 years later. We did not have kids. And He and Jenna never got along. She never liked him, and they both kept to themselves. So there was no fanfare at our departure. It was less of a dramatic escape and more like the feeling you get when you send a “thank you” note in the mail to someone for giving you a gift you never really wanted and would never use.

I wrote a similar note to Joe:

“Well, I guess we did have some good times. I wish you the best. I’m moving to Nebraska to be near Dad. Keep in touch if you want,” I said.

The divorce was hardly a thing.

But for me, it was an escape--an escape from myself. An escape from my backward thinking, and sideways fears. An escape from my drab, uneventful, unfulfilling life, into a new world of possibility.

My dad and Amy didn’t know it, but they were the ones who ignited my decision. I saw something in their eyes--promise, possibility, dreams...something other than what I had. I wanted it for a long time, but hadn't realized it until it was thrust in my face in the form of a younger woman kissing my own father.

The stain on the wall

was the first thing I thought of whenever I thought back on my life with Joe. My mind did not go to the hammock we swung in after dinner on Summer nights, or the patch of irises we had planted three years before and had seen bloom every Spring. It wasn’t the remodeled master bathroom we had put so much time and love into, and how we had rolled around naked in the fresh, muddy grout and smeared it all over one another’s bare bodies. It wasn’t even the sushi nights we had every Thursday, which were generally a highlight of the week. Those were good memories. But there were not many of them. So they were painful to think about--because there were so few.

Rather, what I thought about with Joe, every time, was the water stain on the wall above our headboard. Whenever we made love, it was there. Whenever I slipped on my slacks in the dark morning as I got ready for work, it was there. Whenever I vacuumed the house, it was there. It was always there, a blemish no one took notice of, until after the fact.

And now, it was the only thing I would think of when I thought of him. Maybe it was just easier than thinking about the actual blemish of a person I had been with, who was someone I would never be able to scrub out of my memory.

But that was OK, because the rest of the tapestry was beautiful, and the stain made it more so, I suppose.