Chapter 1: New England

I stood in the shower, the warm water cascading around me. The water felt wonderful. I had just shampooed my hair, and still had suds streaming down my face when I sensed someone else in the bathroom. I called out, “Karen?”

I heard her unmistakable giggle. I guessed what was coming, but could do nothing about it. A second later, the shower curtain got yanked back slightly, and then a large glass of ice-cold water splashed across my back and buttocks. I shrieked at the shock to my system.

Karen laughed gaily on the other side of the curtain.

I quickly washed the suds from my head and eyes in seconds, turned off the taps, and leapt from the shower, just catching a glimpse of my departing wife’s rear end. She gave off a laugh of glee as she ran from our bedroom.

I chased Karen through the apartment, a living space with a room arrangement that allowed a fleeing spouse to evade someone intent on revenge for a full two minutes before I cornered her in our dining nook. I captured her, threw her lithe body over my shoulder as she shrieked in mock offense and pounded with her fists on my back, and then carried her to our bedroom and unceremoniously dumped her on her back in the middle of the bed amid her shrieks and laughter. Her whole body bounced on the bed as it had repeatedly before when she’d pulled the same stunt.

I straddled her body before she knew what was happening. I undid her blouse, button by button, as she twisted and resisted beneath me, trying with minimal effort to fight me off. Karen wore no bra, not unexpected in the circumstances. Her breasts were excited, betraying the real purpose of her treachery. I reached behind me and yanked her exercise shorts down her legs, only to find she’d also gone commando – no underwear, maybe in anticipation of this moment. I dragged a finger through her slit to verify my assumption. Karen was wet and ready for sex.

As I stripped her, Karen warned me of all the dire things that might happen to me if I persisted. Her threats were hollow, and we both knew it. I felt myself harden and the ardor of our lovemaking became evident in my groin.

Karen resisted less and less. I backed down her body so I could kneel between the gorgeous legs I’d just pried apart, and I buried my passion inside her.

Karen’s eyes rolled up in her head, and she moaned. “Oh, God, Jim. I love you so,” she whispered to me just before we kissed with renewed passion. She pulled me to her and we started to make love.

I felt pain – deep physical pain. I hadn’t had an accident. I hadn’t been shot. No one had assaulted me in any way. I had felt pain from events like those during my life, and this felt worse – much worse. I’d just had one of those brief glimpses of a crazy moment I shared with my wife Karen – my darling wife Karen.

The pain came from the inside and brought indescribable mental anguish with it. It stemmed from what one’s mind does to the body when a situation so terrible occurs that you want to run and hide away from life in any form, but the pain draws you back to the physical and all too real world that you can’t escape from. There is no reprieve, no salvation, and no number of prayers, words, or promises you can make to stop it.

I stood in the garage and cried another river of tears and felt such deep sadness and despair. I had recollections like this several times an hour, every hour of the day and night. Several days, I’d even contemplated suicide. My clothing remained damp from absorbing the many salty tears that had poured from me. My pillow remained wet in places, yet I barely slept.

I wanted to rage, but I had no idea at whom or why I felt such anger and hatred for some unknown and malevolent force in the universe that would allow such an unjust death. My wife – my beautiful and loving Karen – the love of my life – the prettiest woman in the world – had died at only age thirty-two; a peaceful withering death after a month-long illness, the victim of an autoimmune disease that baffled a small army of Boston doctors as she slowly faded from being my vivacious wife to a box of ashes sitting on the mantle inside the house.

I wiped the tears on my shirtsleeve, and went back to cleaning the accumulated trash and junk out the garage. I had hoped that the clean up of my parents’ old house would be therapeutic. It wasn’t.

The motorcycle had been my dad’s and after his death had remained hidden for over fifteen years beneath a grimy blue tarp. The bike had fallen on its side years earlier. Decaying cardboard boxes full of junk no one now wanted had been tossed atop the tarp. I’d dug through the trash to the bike, and studied the carcass. As a boy and young man, I had lusted after the motorcycle – even begged my dad to allow me to use it. Of course, he’d refused, saying the machine was too dangerous for his only son. Now, I wouldn’t take the kind of risks I might have taken back then. The machine could be mine if I wanted it – a 1988 Harley Davidson Heritage Softail.

Once it had been a beautiful motorcycle; now, however, rust, corrosion, and rot had overtaken the machine. Both tires were flat and decomposing; where there had been chrome, a heavy layer of rust now sat; rodents had gnawed at the tires, leather seats and saddlebags; and oil had leaked from the various casings seeping over what once had been an immaculate engine.

My dad had taken meticulous care of his possessions, and I could remember the pride he had in the always-pristine look of this machine. No one had cared for the motorcycle since he died. I’d been away in college and the Army at the time, but I had always been the logical family member to take over responsibility for the large bike; however, until that instant, I’d not thought about repairing or restoring the decrepit machine.

The day before, Anna, my sister – younger by a year, had taken one look at the decrepit bike after we uncovered it, and suggested I sell it for scrap.

My parent’s home had been a pretty little New England mill house in the center of Dillon, Massachusetts – a village that had once been a mill town, and now, thanks to Interstate 93, had become a bedroom community for the thousands who commuted daily to Route 128, Boston, and Cambridge to work.

Our parents had lived in the house forty years, and then our mother lived there alone another five years after Dad died before she passed. After her funeral, Anna and I had opted to keep the house in anticipation that one of us might move back into the place we’d been raised. Now, five years later, Anna had committed to stay in San Diego because of her work and the proximity to her ex-husband who shared custody of their two children. With Karen’s passing, I also could see no future in the place.

Around the edge of Karen’s death and memorial service, Anna and I had decided to sell the property. Neither of us wanted our parent’s possessions; generally, our parents had lived simple and even austere lives. When our parent’s estate had closed and the last tax returns were filed, my sister and I had been pleasantly surprised at the value of investments and real estate we never knew about. We weren’t suddenly rich, but our inheritances took the edge off financial worry.

Anna, stunning in her own right, came out of side door of the house; she carried a roller suitcase down to the driveway surface and set it down before pulling it to her rental car. She turned and looked nostalgically at the house after she put her bag in the rear seat. She stood tall and beautiful beside the car, the glistening track of a tear on her cheek. I went to hold her and hug her goodbye, mindful of my dusty clothing.

Anna turned to me and stroked my cheek in a loving way, “Jim, will you be all right? I mean, I can stay ... or you could come out to San Diego and be with me for a while. You shouldn’t be by yourself, you know. You need friends around you – people that love you.”

“Anna, I’ll be fine. I just need to recover my wits. I would have been lost without you these two weeks ... the memorial service, notifications, and all; but sometime I do need to learn how to live alone.” We hugged. “Who knows, I just might come visit you. Let me get the house cleaned out and on the market, and settle up things, then I’ll see where I’m at.”

Anna nodded and squeezed me to her with both arms despite my dusty clothes. “What will you do? I mean, you quit your job. They’d probably take you back if you wanted, given the circumstances.”

I replied, “As I’ve worked on the house this week, I’ve been thinking. I’m going to fold up and vacate the apartment in Cambridge that Karen and I shared. I’ve got to get out of there and here – too many crazy memories that make me sad. I may even move out of the area. Karen made me promise not to sit around and mope about her death. Spring is coming; I might go on an extended camping trip – maybe even travel and see some old friends.”

“Will you call? I don’t want to lose touch with you like the last five years – or that stint while you disappeared to Lord knows where while you were in the Army.”

I pulled her away from me with a weak grin, “Hey, you were the one that moved to the west coast years ago.”

Anna grimaced, “And, what a bust that turned out to be. Short romance, short marriage! I learned the hard way. In any case, your nephew and niece are there, plus I do have a great job. The sperm donor is a good guy especially for doing childcare these past two weeks, even going out of his way to get the kids to school on time.” She paused and reinforced her invitation, “Look, please come out and stay with us a while. I’d love having you around. I love being with you, and so would the kids; they’re so big; you’d barely recognize them. I want you to remember that you have a home – even a permanent home – wherever I am.”

I didn’t know what I’d do. Anna’s invitation sounded sincere, and we both knew we could always count on the other. I felt her love and appreciated her willingness to include me in her family. “I promise I’ll keep in touch ... and don’t worry about me. You’re the only family I have now. I never became close to Karen’s parents; they live too far away and seldom came down this way. Karen’s sister Lauren is a little closer to me, but ... And, I did promise Karen that I’d see them, especially her sister.”

I shook my head in disbelief; I’d been doing that a lot the past month. Every time I mentioned Karen’s name my body felt as though someone drove a knife through my heart.

Anna pulled away, but continued to hold onto me as she looked up at me. She was almost my height in heels. She studied me and weighed something in her head. Suddenly, she held my head in both her hands and kissed me solidly – a most un-sister-like kiss on the lips. “Jim, I love you dearly. I really love you. Seeing you these weeks has meant so much to me; it rekindled all the feelings I’ve had for you since ... forever. You’ve allowed me to be so close to you, and I am so grateful for your openness – I adore you. I don’t want to lose this again. Please be a presence in my life.” She pecked at my lips again.

Slightly stunned by her passion, I wondered if she meant to kiss me that way or whether it had been some accident of the moment. I more than liked the kiss, and didn’t want it to stop, but I felt the conflicts I guessed siblings were expected to display in such a situation, yet some inner part of me wondered if there might be space in our hearts for each other romantically.

I allowed Anna to pull away from our embrace and kiss. I followed her to her rental car. With the car door open, Anna turned again and pulled me tightly to her. She whispered, “Jim, kiss me ... please.” She put her lips to mine in a loving and tender kiss that I would remember forever; this kiss lasted longer than the other. Afterwards, she looked at me with questions and intent in her eyes, maybe hoping that I got some message; and then she ran her hand down my cheek.

Anna sighed, turned, and got into the car. She looked up at me from the driver’s seat and gave a forced laugh just before pulling the door shut. She said with a chortle, “If I stayed, I’d only get us in trouble ... but I’m sure we’d both like that a lot.” After a pause, she reiterated, “Come and visit. I love you so dearly ... in so many ways; I hope some day you’ll know how much.”

Anna studied me again through the car window, almost as though she was taking a mental photograph. She started the engine and backed away from where I stood frozen in place by our unexpected goodbye. Did she really mean what I think she meant? Was there some other interpretation of her few words?

Growing up, Anna had played mind games with me; but I knew this time – those kisses and her words – were anything but a game. Anna’s visit had been routine, with little touching or kissing between us except at the memorial service where everyone was kissing and hugging everyone else. Yet, as we lived and moved around the hospital and then the house, we felt so close.

I shook my head with puzzlement after Anna’s car disappeared, turned, and walked back to the cluttered garage. While I regretted seeing Anna go, I also relished the first solitude I’d had since Karen died ten days earlier. Friends, neighbors, well wishers had come, extended condolences, and left us with a well-stocked refrigerator and full kitchen counter that would allow me to dine like a king for a few weeks.

I pulled an old oak chair from the pile of goods that had been atop the motorcycle. Still sturdy, I brushed a layer of dirt from the seat and sat my weary frame into it. I rested before I began the chore of carrying further odds and ends to the curb for rubbish pickup.

Karen’s death made everything so heavy and hard to contemplate. My inner engine felt as though someone had poured some vile sludge into it. After my initial shock of her dying, I sank into a depression. I had hoped that cleaning the house and garage would divert my thoughts, but so far it hadn’t. Thoughts of what my life had been like and would have been like with Karen kept sweeping through my mind, usually bringing me to tears. I had loved Karen more than life itself.

As I sat there in the garage, I gave some thought about Anna’s kisses. Two incidents of our teen years flooded back into my head, maybe the two most important adventures we shared together and surely the most memorable ones from that era.

One day after school, Anna and I experimented. I’ll never forget, although it was just one day. We were in middle school, about to advance into high school; Anna was a year behind me. She came up to me just after we got home from school, looked me in the eye and pleaded, “Jim, will you kiss me? Have you kissed other girls?”

At that point in my life, I had not kissed other girls ... well except our mother, but that didn’t count. I admitted my naiveté to Anna, and she made me feel good by allowing how few boys my age had gotten that advanced.

Anna could be persuasive, and a couple of minutes later the two of us started to experiment with various kinds of kisses. Anna knew a lot more about the subject than I did, maybe because of the romance novels she read and kept hidden in her room. As our kisses progressed, we ended up French kissing, and admitted to each other feeling a strong desire for one another that we’d never felt before. We both didn’t want to stop, but we heard the front door open, so Anna ran from my room, yelling down the stairway, “Hi Mom!” We never kissed like that again ... until Anna’s goodbye in our driveway ... and I felt all that desire return, armed now with the experience and knowledge of adulthood and what those feelings meant and where they could lead.

The second event happened the summer after my high school graduation. I lived at home, had a summer job as a mechanic’s assistant, and got assigned odd hours at the auto repair shop. I’d come home from work smelly, dirty, and grimy as I usual, so I took some strong soap, a brush, and showered.

As I left the bathroom with only a towel around my waist, Anna stood there apparently waiting her turn in the shower. All she wore was a towel. Instead of rushing past each other as we usually did, Anna put out a hand and stopped me. She only spoke my name, “Jim.” Her tone of voice made me pause and look at her, maybe as I never had before.

Anna dropped her towel. This was the first nude female body I’d seen. I gawked.

Anna gestured that I should unhitch my towel. I did, letting it slide down my legs to the floor in the upstairs hallway. In my mind, I recall thinking that reciprocating this way was fair play. We both stood there gazing at each other and taking in every nuance of our bodies. My penis rapidly inflated seeing her nakedness, until it stood rigid in front of my body. Anna took a step closer and grasped my dick, bending to take a closer look at my shaft.

She looked up at me and asked, “Do you masturbate? I think everyone does.”

I just nodded.

Anna stood erect, and admitted, “I do too. I think of you sometimes – often.” She took one of my hands. She brought it to her breast, and with a touch urged me to feel her.

I did.

After a minute, Anna guided my hand down to her crotch. She separated a finger from the hand, and used it to stroke back and forth through the female wetness saturating her slit. She had more of an idea of what she was doing than I did, plus I remained frozen in place, no doubt with that deer in the headlight look on my face.

Anna whispered, “Jimmy, I love you ... I always will. Never forget that.” As she stroked herself with my finger, she leaned across the short distance between us and planted a kiss on my lips that would boil the ocean. I briefly felt one of her erect nipples touch my chest, an event that sent a jolt of electricity through every pore of my body.

Anna backed away and whispered, “Now, we know. Just this one time – maybe.” She dropped my hand, even pushed it back to the side of my body. She stooped and picked up our two towels, handing me mine, before she walked around me into the bathroom and shut the door.

For over a minute, I remained unmoving, fearing that a step in any direction would make me forget what had just happened in those fleeting two minutes. I went to my room, closed the door, and masturbated to the images burned on retinas of Anna’s body and to the feeling of love between us.

Anna, what were you trying to tell me in those driveway kisses?

Over the following week, I emptied the Cambridge apartment that Karen and I had lived in, and turned in my keys to our landlord and agent. Every day I fought back the depression and despair. An occasional day would come when I wouldn’t get out of bed. I lay there in the cot at my Dillon home staring at the ceiling and thinking of Karen – trying to will her back to life, as though I could clear a bad nightmare away by force of thought. My tears slowed, and the real grief set in – grief that filled the corners of my mind with darkness and pain. Sorrow filled each minute of each day.

One morning, about a week after Anna left, I stood in front of a tall mirror and studied my nude body after a shower. I desperately needed a haircut. My eyes and face were gaunt; I had circles under my eyes. My body was pudgy and fleshy, and not a muscle showed when I flexed my arms or shoulders.

Since I’d left the military, I’d had only desk jobs in front of a computer, the kind of jobs that make you flabby and soft. A week before Karen had died, I’d quit my work. I didn’t know what I’d do, but I knew I couldn’t stay there.

Each evening when we’d come home from our jobs, Karen and I would compare notes about how our day went. She knew enough about software development and websites to be more than appreciative about what I was doing at work; she’d even give me great ideas to try on the company’s clients. I’d been a nerd – a behind the scenes, inconsequential geek.

Looking in that mirror, I felt another burst of pain, only this time about how I had allowed myself to deteriorate. During the eight years in Army Special Forces, I’d had a hard and muscular body. I resolved to get back in shape, partly because I knew it would improve my outlook on life and help me get through some of the grief.

I developed a routine. I’d wake up just after dawn and run. I made some makeshift weights; an exercise bench, exercise bars, and installed a sparing bag in the garage. I’d workout there for another hour when I got back from my run. At first, I could barely run around the block, and ten pounds seemed like a strain to lift three-times-fifteen. I willed myself to improve every day. By the end of the first month, I could run two miles without stopping, and by the end of the third month I could knock off seven or eight or more miles nonstop, and I’d started pressing a hundred-and-forty-pounds, and doing two hundred sit ups with a twenty-pound medicine ball. My weight plummeted and revealed biceps, pecs, lats, and other muscles that had been hidden by my bad habits. I cut my own hair, keeping it short, neat, and manageable instead of the unruly mop it had become.

After my exercise regime in the morning, I’d work on the motorcycle. The Harley became the project in which I bestowed my sanity and salvation from the grief over Karen’s death. I felt driven, not by haste, but by careful thoroughness to restore the bike to its pristine condition. I believed that if I could rebuild the motorcycle, I could rebuild my life.

All day, every day, I worked on the motorcycle in the garage. I created a near sterile work area in one bay of the garage where I lovingly disassembled the entire bike, carefully laid all the parts out, and assessed how I could rebuild.

A few parts cleaned up well, but many were beyond repair and needed to be replaced. I scoured eBay and Craigslist for parts, and I also discovered a market for used Harley parts in the area. I spent over $5,000 at a mechanic’s shop that specialized in re-chroming. Other money went for a new seat, sissy bar, luggage rack, new struts and shocks, and new chrome rims and tires.

After disassembly and restocking parts, I started the reassembly process. I suspended the bike frame for rebuilding with a home-crafted sling from the garage rafters. I rebuilt the engine, replacing every ring, gasket, filter, and slightly worn part. On a test stand, the engine ran better than new when I finished. Day by day, a new motorcycle emerged from the mass of parts carefully laid out on the floor and workbench. The frame, fenders, and gas tank received new high gloss paint and pin striping. A new instrument cluster, light bars, handlebar, and roll bar took their place amid the chrome front of the bike. I added safety lights and a strong luggage carrier to the back. Last, I added new chrome exhaust pipes, and then rich leather replacements for the destroyed saddlebags.

I considered it a monumental day near the end of April when I carefully lowered the bike to the garage floor and declared the project complete. With high expectations, I got on the bike, put the key in the ignition, and cranked the engine. The motor caught on the second crank as the new gas finally reached the carburetor, and the Harley rumbled into life after its fifteen-year repose. I rode up and down the street a few times, testing the gears and brakes for any signs of malfunction. Everything worked perfectly. I might have smiled for the first time in months.

Throughout my work on the Harley, I’d brooded about Karen. As I disassembled some part of the bike or polished a hidden cog or spoke, I retraced every step I could remember about our meeting at a party, our on and off again dating, the first time we made love, becoming engaged, and marrying. We’d lived together for seven of the eight years we knew each other, and learned the rigors and joys of patience, forgiveness, gratitude, and our love of being together. We were married for six of those eight years. We’d used the term ‘Soul Mate’ to refer to each other.

I recalled some of the arguments we had with each other, starting with the one about my leaving my smelly socks around the bedroom. None of our arguments was relationship threatening. We tried to never go to bed mad at each other, but there were exceptions when one or the other of us would stomp around and decide to sleep on the sofa.

Six months before she died, Karen got sick for a couple of weeks, a malaise and weakness that made her miss work. We tried various treatments including prayer and meditation, but suddenly the symptoms went away. Six months later they came back with a vengeance. Karen awoke one morning and went to get out of bed. She felt weak, couldn’t stand, and fell back on the bed with a confused look on her face. One hour later after an ambulance ride, the doctors at Mass General were examining her; four days later the doctors put her in the ICU; and then she never left that room until the hospital nurses moved her body one last time so the men from the funeral home could take and prepare her for cremation.

At first, I couldn’t believe she would die. She was only thirty-two, and no one died at that age. You live forever. But then, halfway into her hospital stay a doctor near my own age pulled me aside and had an earth-shattering talk with me. He started, “We’re out of options and treatments. All we can do now is palliative care. Lacking a miracle that we don’t expect, your wife has about three to seven days left to live.” He seemed genuinely apologetic and sympathetic. I was speechless. This couldn’t be happening to Karen.

I quit work that afternoon. I went into shock and determined on my own that he must be wrong. I raged at the hospital and doctors. In a fit of anger I insisted on other opinions, yet all they did were validate the inevitable – she wouldn’t last past mid-February. I could do nothing to help her. I prayed and used every device and promise I could think of. Nothing worked; Karen got progressively worse.

Karen’s parents and Lauren came down from northern Vermont; they stayed nearby in our apartment while I stayed every possible moment at the hospital holding Karen’s hand. Towards the end, Lauren joined me in being with her sister around the clock. We learned a lot about each other during those trying days. Lauren taught nursing in northern Vermont at a teaching hospital, and knew things that made Karen’s life easier. I felt so grateful that Lauren had come.

Karen and I took a few moments alone one night to say goodbye; the doctors had warned that her time to leave this life neared. She’d been scared for a while when she knew she’d not recover, but then seemed resigned to her fate. We had a teary goodbye, and she had me make some promises – how I should remember her, how I should keep in touch with her parents and especially her sister whom she said had a special place in their heart for me, and how I should meet and see other people; and even find another soul mate, remarry, and create a family.

I wondered if another soul mate existed on the planet; I didn’t think so; weren’t soul mates unique and one of a kind? You didn’t find ‘another’ soul mate. Remarrying was such a foreign thought; I dismissed it out of hand without disagreeing with Karen.

Karen and I had wanted a family. We’d decided on two children, a home in the suburbs with a lawn to mow – maybe even refurbishing the Dillon house. Karen had stopped taking her birth control pills about a year earlier, and we were starting to think about doing a more thorough medical investigation about her lack of a pregnancy when she got sick.

The day after we said goodbye, Karen slipped into a coma. Karen’s parents, Lauren, Anna, and I were at the hospital at the end. We cried a lot. Lauren and I never left Karen’s side until after the life monitoring systems in her room signaled her passing with alarm signals that brought the doctors and nurses running to Karen’s room, but to no avail. Lauren was with me, and we clutched each other like lifeboats in a stormy sea. Karen had insisted on a DNR notice to the medical staff – Do Not Resuscitate.

The motorcycle and the deep thinking I did as I worked on it were my therapy. I called Anna twice a week, and she’d listen with seemingly great interest about my progress on the bike, but paid more attention to my mental state and my recollections about Karen and me. She always expressed her love for me, and encouraged me. Anna told me, “You’re doing what you should be doing – grieving and working on something lasting simultaneously.”

Anna gave me the ‘Big Idea’ during one of our calls about a month after she’d returned to her home. “Why don’t you ride the motorcycle out here to San Diego? It’d take you, what, a week or two? You’ve always wanted to see the country, and I know that even Karen would have wanted to tour with you. It won’t be the same without her, but you could see lots of interesting things, meet some interesting people, and who knows – maybe even have a fling or two along the way.” She laughed gaily as she always did when she gave me advice about my love life.

I liked the idea of the road trip. It gave the Motorcycle Project an end goal.

I went to AAA and got a map of the United States. I tacked it up on a wall in the garage where I could look at it every day and ponder what a road trip across the U.S. would be like. I drew a straight line from Dillon to San Diego where Anna lived; if I could follow the straight line I’d go through thirteen states and travel over 2,600 miles.