by L. B. Dunbar
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Flash back of Zoe, I guess.”
Britton stepped back from me, but I reached for her bare legs and wrapped my hands around her upper thighs. I tugged her gently toward me until my head could press against her stomach.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m crazy mad at you one minute and crazy over you in another,” I said with my eyes closed, resting my forehead on her. She slid her fingers through my hair and I began to feel the tension melt from me again.
“Gee sleeps with me so I can assure him I’m okay.”
“I need to sleep with you,” I sighed against her.
Britton used her palm to lift my chin and she leaned to gently kiss me. It was tentative and soft as her lips met mine. She caressed me with kisses on my lips, my cheeks, and my jaw. She ran her nose over mine and along the sides of my mouth before kissing me again, softly. She pulled my bottom lip gently and sucked it a moment before she pressed harder against my mouth. I let her lead and followed where she wanted to go, but when she slid her tongue softly against my lips, I pressed forward hard. I needed her; I needed her lips, her tongue, her teeth. I needed this connection with her and I began to devour her mouth.
I slid my hands up the back of her legs and under the hem of her short pajamas. She moaned into my mouth.
“Gavin? Gee’s right here in the room.”
“I need to touch you,” I moaned quietly against her lips.
“It can’t be here. Not now,” she kissed me again.
“I have the old truck outside,” I smiled, and she laughed softly. We were seventeen and nineteen again.
“No, Gavin.”
“If I touched you, would you be ready for me?”
“Gavin,” she groaned.
“That’s all I need to know. That it would be for me.”
“For you. Always you, Gavin,” she whispered as she kissed me one more time before pulling back. Our breathing was both ragged and desperate. I wanted her. I was so stiff it was hurting in my jeans. I picked her up by her thighs and carried her to the bathroom, locking both doors as the room had an entrance off either bedroom hall.
“Gavin, this is crazy,” she kissed me harder, her hands in my hair.
“I need you, Britton. Please,” I sighed against her mouth as I slipped my fingers up her loose pajama shorts. I sensed her wetness before I reached her center and we both gasped when I touched her. I pulled her shorts down, including her underwear, in one move and she kicked them off her ankles. I trailed my fingers over her and she bit my shoulder to hold the moan.
She ran her hands down my chest and pushed up my t-shirt to kiss me there. She slid her hands down my rippled muscles and unbuttoned my jeans. She pushed them down partially with her feet as she sat on the counter. I looked at her as I held myself outside of her entrance. I was going to enter her bare again.
“Aren’t you worried?” I said softly.
“I can’t have more children, remember?” she said as she kissed my neck. “I believe Gee will be my only child.”
I swiftly pushed into her.
“He’s mine, too,” I said as I thrust deeply and she balanced on the counter top. Her legs wrapped around me and her hands held my shoulders for support.
“You are mine, too,” I said as I pulled back and then forced myself into her again. “Mine,” I repeated.
“Yours,” she said softly.
“Say it again,” I demanded as I pushed forward on another thrust.
“Yours,” she whimpered. This was raw and rapid. I felt her clenching around me, surrounding me with her warmth. I pulled her backside toward me, holding myself still inside her. I wanted it to happen for both of us together and I needed another minute.
“I don’t want anyone else to have you or Gee,” I said as I kissed her neck.
“No one else,” she moaned into my ear as she tried to force me to move.
I held her, letting my hands slip around her back. It took a moment to realize that we were hugging each other despite the intimate connection. We weren’t moving; just holding on, with her arms around my neck and my hands around her back.
I pulled back slightly to move myself within her, and she sighed.
“Again.”
I repeated the motion, and she whispered, “Yours,” which drove me harder.
“Yours,” she sighed along my neck and I pressed into her again.
“Yours,” she groaned one last time and her forehead fell onto my shoulder. I felt her falling apart around me. I pulled back and made her look at me. The look that passed between us was almost more intimate than the physical connection.
“Mine,” I growled as I thrust forward, feeling my own release spiral inside her.
Take 40
Under the Moonlight
I didn’t spend the night. It was too awkward knowing I’d taken Britton in the bathroom and then would sleep with her and Gee in the same bed. Britton offered to move Gee, but I refused. The reality of what I’d done slowly crept in as I drove back to my father’s farm in the early morning hours. I’d been with her for my own satisfaction and then left her. Again.
I was surprised to see my father sitting at the kitchen table when I returned to my parent’s home. He held a mug of cold coffee in front of him.
“Where’ve you been?”
“At Britton’s,” I replied as I poured myself a cup and sat across from him.
“That girl’s a lot of trouble,” he said to the table.
“That girl has a name, and it’s Britton,” I responded.
Dad looked up at me and nodded once.
“Whatcha going to do now?” His question was broad. “Marry her? Take her to California with you?”
“I haven’t figured it out yet,” I sipped my coffee.
“A lot of time has passed,” Dad said, stating a fact, but it sounded like a question.
“We’ve spent a lot of time together lately,” I replied, focusing on the table.
“Time? You’re probably just shagging her and she’ll get pregnant again.”
I stood from my seat. “That’s enough.”
“Think you love her?”
“I don’t know,” I yelled.
“Damn shame you don’t know, because she’s going to be part of this family, with or without you. If you don’t love her and show up with another floozy, like that Zoe, all hell’s going to break loose.”
“That won’t happen,” I sighed.
“What won’t happen? Loving her or the floozy?”
I glared at my father for a long moment.
“You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”
“I think you have a second chance at being a father and you’re going to piss it away, because if you don’t come around this time, that girl isn’t going to wait. Gee needs a father, even if it isn’t you.”
“Britton,” I growled as my father finished. I was tired of hearing him refer to her as that girl. “What do you want me to do?” My voice was rising.
“I can’t tell you what to do, never could. You need to decide; do you want to be a father or not?”
“I want to be a father,” I snarled.
“Well, it’s about time,” Dad mumbled.
“No, it’s about love,” I blurted, and we both froze at my admission.
I collapsed onto my bed again and slept most of the day. I hadn’t heard from Britton and I hadn’t contacted her either. Every time I took a step towards a future with her, I was also taking two steps away. The argument with my father scared me. I did want to be Gee’s father, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to make it work.
So I shouldn’t have been surprised when I arrived at Britton’s to see Gee, and she kept me outside.
“You can’t come and go as you please, Gavin. That isn’t how fatherhood works. And it isn’t how it works with me.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You didn’t stay last night.”
“
I told you why I couldn’t. It was too weird.”
“Well, it’s weird for me today. I can’t be with you, Gavin. It’s messing with my head, and you have too much going on. You…you need to leave.” She blinked, as if shocked she’d said the words, but I could see her resolve. She was serious. She wanted me to go.
“Britton,” I pleaded. I reached for her cheek, but she pulled back.
“I can’t do it anymore, Gavin. I’m not that girl from seven years ago, and I can’t keep pretending I’m okay with a summer fling at twenty-five. I need more, and so does Gee. We both deserve better than this.” Her voice matched her sad eyes.
“You have the worst timing, Britton. My mum just died. I need to go home.”
“That’s just it, Gavin. You’re using me to fill the void, the craziness of death. I get it. When Leo died, I needed to hold onto someone, anything.” My breath hitched as I realized she might have found comfort in the arms of another man when she needed support.
“You don’t need me, Gavin. You…I don’t know what you need. Go home, Gavin, like you said.”
“I am going home, next Sunday.”
“I know, Gavin. I was here when you made the call.” She paused for a moment. “And I was here when you returned, and when your movie was successful, and when you needed a date for the wedding, and when your mum died. When will you be there for me, Gavin?”
She looked me in the eyes.
“I’m tired of waiting. When will you be there for me?” She emphasized each word.
I remained silent.
“I’ll see you at the funeral, Gavin,” she said softly and then reentered her home. I never saw Gee.
Take 41
Under the Moonlight
Funerals and rain seem to complement each other, but Sara Scott’s funeral took place on a perfectly sunny day. The heat was in the eighties, but the temperature didn’t feel that warm for mid-August. The season was getting ready to change, and I felt the weight of my time at home for the last three weeks. My flight was scheduled for the following morning. I had convinced myself there was no reason to stay in my opinion. Britton had told me to leave and I would just have to schedule time to see Gee somehow.
Britton was at the wake for a while with Gee, and I let her handle explanations of death and caskets. She sat behind the family during the funeral, not in the rows with us, and I felt their absence. My father cried openly, something that I had never seen, and it broke my stone-filled heart to realize how much my father loved my mother. Despite his harshness toward his sons, Jack Scott undoubtedly loved his wife.
As people filed away from the gravesite, I noticed Mary Carter off to the side, looking at another head stone. I didn’t want to disturb her, but I felt myself drawn to her. In the coming weeks she would be a source of strength for my father, as she had lost her husband years ago. I placed my arm around her as she blew her nose and leaned into me for a moment.
“My John,” she pointed to the head stone, “and our Michael.” I had forgotten all about the lost Carter child. Born three years after Tom, the baby had died before his first birthday. Mary and John thought Tom would be their only child until Jess came along three years after Michael’s death. It wasn’t something people talked about some thirty years later as many had probably forgotten, but I assumed a mother never forgets.
“It isn’t right. Death is so hard to explain.” She wiped her eyes, which were now red.
“A child should never go before his parents,” she continued.
I was silent, suddenly thinking of Gee.
“It’s the hardest loss. I loved my John, but to lose a child? It’s the hardest loss,” she repeated. She patted my hand on her shoulder before turning to follow the remaining procession of people to their cars.
I stood a few minutes longer, trying not to imagine what would happen if I lost Gee now that I knew him. What would I do if something happened to him?
A funeral luncheon was held on the farm as there was so much food and the farm had space on such a beautiful day. I felt the sunshine was sent from my mother and I knew she would want us all to be happy. But I wasn’t feeling happy, and it really had nothing to do with her death.
I eventually strolled into the orchard for a moment of reprieve from the condolences. I was simply standing in the lane between the trees, staring at nothing in particular when I heard a voice.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to see my sister looking at me, concern in her eyes.
“No, I don’t think I am.”
“We still have a lot of company.”
“I know.”
“We need to give Dad the weekend and then go through her things on Monday. The sooner the better for him, I think.”
“She just died, Karyn. Let him take all the time he needs.”
Karyn pursed her lips.
“I won’t be here Monday anyway.”
“Why not? I thought you were staying until Jack’s first birthday party.”
“I can’t. I’ve already missed an important meeting in California. I can’t miss it again.”
“What about the party in two weeks?”
“I guess I’ll have to miss it.” My voice slowed on the last two words. Miss it. I had already missed so many things. She was admonishing me with a glare.
“It can’t be helped,” I sighed.
“Who can’t help it, Gavin?”
“I need to go.”
“Of course you do,” she said with bitterness.
“I need to make this meeting.”
“Dad needs you here.”
“I can’t stay here,” I said, looking off into the distance. All I could see were cherry trees, and I was starting to choke with the pressure of staring at my inheritance.
“Why not?”
“This isn’t my home.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not Karyn. There’s nothing here for me,” I growled, turning to face my sister, but noticing Britton standing behind her. Her face was drained of all color.
“I didn’t mean…” I began, but she cut me off.
“I just came to see if…I just came to say good-bye,” she said quickly, and spun to walk briskly to the front porch. I brushed past my sister, following Britton.
“You’re right, Gavin,” my sister said to my back. “There’s nothing here for you, now.”
I didn’t catch up to Britton. I saw her standing on the front porch with my father. Dad, who constantly referred to her as ‘that girl,’ had his hands on each of her upper arms. He jostled her slightly to make her look up at him, and I noticed her wipe her cheek as if hastily brushing away a tear. She nodded at Dad as if agreeing with him about something, and smiled a half smile before biting her lip. Gee came out of the house then and Dad, who wasn’t an affectionate man, bent to hug the child. When he stood again, he kissed Britton on the forehead before she walked off the wooden steps.
I remained frozen in the side yard, watching the scene, unable to approach the front porch. Britton had already walked off and Tricia Carter now stood on the porch instead, a wine glass in her hand. She raised it as if to toast me, then nodded in the direction of Britton.
“Well, at least you know who the love of your life was,” she emphasized. “You don’t have to keep waiting to find her.”
I turned to look at Britton. She was so beautiful; sexy and unaware. Her blonde hair blew in the slight breeze and although I hated to see her in black, the contrast was enticing. As I looked at her, a hundred snapshots flashed through my mind, like the flipbook drawings I used to make in the margin of my high school textbooks. She had transformed from the fifteen-year old I had known as a teenager. I didn’t know then that I would still want her all these years later. Need her. At twenty-seven, I was running out of time. I now knew I wanted to love her forever.
“You should have called me,” I blurted to her as I followed her to her car and she opened the back door for Gee.
“Gavin,” Gee squealed, running into
my open arms. I hiked him up into the air and held him as I looked at Britton.
“You should have called me. I would have come home.”
Britton blinked at me and shielded her eyes from the sunshine like she had when I’d seen her on the beach a few weeks ago.
“It’s impossible to know what you would have done, Gavin. I’ve played the scenario in my head over and over again, like a movie, and it’s never the same. We have no way of knowing what would have happened then, because we can only live in the now.”
“Don’t go,” I whispered to her. These were words I could never say to her as a teenager. When it was time to go, it was time to go for her. She couldn’t stay.
“I can’t,” she said softly, shaking her head gently. Gee wiggled to be set down and I kissed his cheek before placing him on the drive.
“Bye, Gavin,” he said cheerfully, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He skipped to the back of Britton’s car. She sat in the driver’s seat, and as she turned the car to drive the long distance down the gravel lane, I watched the taillights dragging her away from me. And I let her go. Again.
Take 42
Under the Moonlight
I couldn’t sleep that night. I wandered through the house, listening to its silence and its strange noises. The creak of the third stair even when no one was on it, the whistle of the wind through a window in the living room, and the emptiness of my parents’ room without the air conditioner humming to keep Mum cool.
I found my father in the kitchen with the lights off, his head in his hands as his elbows balanced on the old Formica table. I noticed his cup of coffee, but I knew he needed something stronger at the moment. I turned toward the fridge to see the picture Gee had drawn in a place of honor. The kitchen refrigerator held photographs and awards, A+ graded tests and special magnets, and amongst it all was the marker drawn picture of the rainbow over a house on a lake.
“He said she was over the rainbow. Isn’t that from a movie or something?” Dad said to the quiet table.
I laughed softly as I muttered, “The Wizard of Oz.”
“He has quite the imagination. Told me one day, people might be able to go over the rainbow and see those who are up there. The ones we love,” Dad said, half smiling to himself.