Chapter 50: Myth and Reality

February 1981, Milford, Ohio

On Wednesday, Kara simply smiled at me when I walked into chemistry class, rather than greeting me with a kiss. I knew that she and I had to have a long talk, so I didn’t let it bother me. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to her yet, thinking that Friday night would be best when we could be alone for an extended time. Of course, there was a question of whether or not she was willing to go out with me.

“Kara, can I see you Friday night?” I asked.

“Of course! We’re still a couple! Did you think I broke up with you last night?”

“I wasn’t sure,” I said quietly.

“Neither was I,” she whispered back. “I assume you want to talk about it?”

“Yes. I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I have a lot more to do.”

“Good,” she said, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.

That evening, I had my dinner date with Elyse. Like the ones we had had the previous Fall, it was two friends spending time together. We greeted each other with a soft kiss and parted the same way. We talked about Chicago and college and Elyse was clearly sticking with her intention of waiting to see how things turned out with Jennifer. That didn’t make any difference, really, because I was with Kara now and Jennifer and I would certainly be together in Chicago. It would be good to have Elyse around, just as it would be good to have Kathy Will close by, and Bethany and Beth would not be too far away.

Thursday and Friday were, thankfully, normal days, with Kara accompanying me to the computer lab. When I dropped her at home, she once again kissed me on the cheek. It seemed that in her mind she still hoped we could work through the issue, but she certainly wasn’t going to do anything remotely sexual until it was sorted out, one way or the other.

On Friday, Kara and I left school together for our date, rather than her taking the bus home. I wasn’t sure if taking her to the apartment was a good idea. It held connotations of sex that I didn’t want to factor into anything Kara was thinking.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

“You’re worried about what I might think if you take me to your apartment?”

“Yes. It’s clear things have changed between us, and I don’t want to imply anything or make you think I assume nothing has changed.”

“Take me there. But let’s buy some food so we don’t have to go out for dinner.”

I put the car in gear and we drove to Fazio’s. We bought a pair of small steaks and some fresh broccoli, as well as some coleslaw from the deli counter. I wished I could get a bottle of wine, but I wasn’t even old enough to buy 3.2 beer. I knew that Joyce brought her wine from home, with the blessing of her mother. I wondered if my dad would do the same for me, but I didn’t want to put him in a bad spot with my mom for something that wasn’t really that important. I paid for our selections and we headed to the apartment.

I put the groceries into the fridge and got a couple of bottles of Dr Pepper from the fridge. I handed one to Kara, who was sitting on the couch. I sat in the easy chair, not wanting to make Kara feel uncomfortable.

“Are you afraid of me?” Kara asked when I sat down.

“No,” I chuckled. “One thing you may not know yet is that I am very careful about putting people in uncomfortable positions. It’s something I learned from spending so much time with Bethany. I walked on eggshells with her for quite some time, but in the process, learned just how easy it was to make someone uncomfortable.”

“It fits your nature. You really are a sweet, caring, loving person. I truly believe that you actually cared for each and every girl you had sex with in some way. Am I right? Was it ever completely meaningless?”

“No, I don’t believe it was. I made some serious mistakes, of course. Quite a few, in fact.”

“And quite a few of those girls were virgins, weren’t they?”

“Yes. Are we going to go into my history now? In the past, you really haven’t wanted too much information.”

“I’m trying to figure out what truly makes you tick, Steve Adams; who you are at your core. I’ve come to realize that you are way more complicated than I realized.”

“How so?” I asked, a bit nervously.

“Because I thought you were simply seeking out sex for the sake of sex, casually moving from one girl to the next. In one sense, that would make understanding your feelings for your sister easier. If you just wanted as much sex with as many girls as you could have, without worrying about the consequences, I could see how living with a beautiful girl like that would potentially affect you. But that’s not you, Steve. You consider the girl’s feelings and are concerned with her, even if it’s just a one-time thing,” Kara said, pausing briefly. “And that’s what’s eating you up about your sister, I guess.”

I nodded and took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm my nerves.

“It took me two hours to come to that conclusion last night,” I said. “I also remembered something that my first lover told me so long ago — that sex changes us in unpredictable ways, it affects us deeply and can create a real mess. I think I know what caused me to turn to Becky and why I have nagging issues about Stephanie. I had pushed those thoughts deep into my subconscious, but with the help of the three most important girls in my life, I’ve been able to actually admit it to myself.

“I know what my sister wants, and has wanted since she was seven. It’s clear to me, looking backwards through my life, that she’s wanted this, and has been sure of it for half her life. As Bethany found out when she talked to Stephanie, this isn’t something she’s doing lightly, nor something that she’s been tricked or misled into doing. In fact, I actively tried to discourage it at first. Eventually I came to terms with it, and then embraced it.”

“Deep down,” Kara said, “something tells you how wrong it is. That if you do it, everything will change. For you, for your sister, for us, for your relationships with everyone. That’s why you have this internal struggle, and why you let Becky seduce you. Bethany told me that you didn’t want to disappoint your sister by saying ‘no’, so instead, you destroyed her trust in you so that she would call it off. I’m pretty sure that was a bad decision. You tried to make Stephanie make a decision that let you off the hook by doing the one thing you knew would make her do that.” She paused to let me think about it and then continued, “That’s pretty low.”

I nodded, taking another deep breath and letting it out very slowly. Then taking another and doing the same thing. I had to keep my emotions in check while we worked through this. The very fact that Kara was talking to me about it in a rational, rather than in a hysterical manner, was a positive sign. I didn’t think our relationship would continue as before, but at least we might be friends.

“I think that you’re right,” I said. “I think that deep down, my reason for doing it was so that Stephanie would call it off and I would be free of the internal torture of what could happen. As I said, sex changes us in unpredictable ways and if it wrecked my relationship with Stephanie, it would destroy me. It will change me and it will change Stephanie, but I don’t know how. And that’s frightening.”

“So, what do you think now? What do you want?”

“I have no idea. Not for sure, anyway. I absolutely have to patch things up with Stephanie. The thing is, at this point, restoring our relationship to what it was might actually mean going through with it. Well, assuming she forgives me and then changes her mind. There’s no guarantee that she will, of course.”

Kara looked at me intently, a question clearly forming in her mind. One that she had to ask and that would determine our future.

“Steve, do you want to restore your relationship with your sister, even at that price?”

I had thought about that for three days now. I knew the answer was going to create problems between me and Kara. But I also knew that the answer I was about to give was the one Jennifer thought I should give, the one that Bethany and Karin had accepted. It was the only one I could give.

“I need to restore my relationship with my sister, no matter what the cost. No matter what price I have to pay. If I don’t, I’ll regret forever throwing away the most important relationship in my life.”

Kara nodded gently, “I knew you would say that. I knew, in the end, it had to come to that.”

I sighed, “It had to, didn’t it? In the end, all my concerns, all my fears, all my insecurities pale compared to my need to restore my relationship with my little sister. The taboo against what we wanted to do, what we may do, just can’t stand in the way of that. I’ve paid little concern to what society thinks of how I live my life, preferring to do as I told your father — doing my best to not harm anyone, living by the golden rule.

“I know from harsh experience it’s not possible to live your life without hurting others or being hurt by them, but that same experience says that it’s possible to avoid much of the hurt that people usually inflict on others simply by listening to Jesus on the matter — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I know that might sound like a contradiction, but in the end, it’s not. Christians were persecuted for violating societal norms. The Romans called them atheists at one point, given they rejected the pantheon!

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way, shape, or form saying that what I’m doing is condoned by the Bible. What I am saying is that if you, as an Evangelical Christian, live your life the way you believe you should, then you’ll violate all kinds of societal norms. That’s why you sat at the table with your religious friends — you, as a group, rejected much of what society was saying. It was symbolic when you moved to my table because that announced loud and clear that you didn’t care what your social group thought of your choices. Well, I don’t care what society thinks of my choices.”

Kara was silent for a bit. I picked up our empty soda bottles and put them on the counter. I got a drink of water, then went back to sit in the chair. I knew Kara needed time to process everything I was saying.

“Let’s make dinner,” Kara suggested. “I need more time to think things through.”

“That sounds good to me,” I replied, relieved that she hadn’t asked me to take her home.

I prepared the steaks while Kara cut the broccoli and steamed it. We set the table together, and when the food was ready, put it onto the plates. I got the coleslaw from the fridge and put some on each plate. We sat down to eat. I waited for Kara to pray, but she just stared at me.

“Aren’t you going to pray?” I asked.

“No. You’re the man. You need to do it, not me,” she said softly.

I nodded and said the typical prayer I had learned in Catholic school, “Bless us O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ Our Lord, Amen.”

Kara said, “Amen,” then continued, “You say that kind of like a magic incantation.”

“In the end, is it any different from how your dad or your pastors pray? I heard basically the same repeated requests, just more free form. Or is there some rule that the prayer can’t be repeated? After all, didn’t Jesus give us a very specific way to pray? Something we call the Lord’s Prayer?”

“But we’re not supposed to simply pray in rote fashion, it says so in the Bible.”

“Actually, it tells you not to pray in public, too, Kara. You’re supposed to go into your private place to pray.”

She giggled, “I really can’t get you on any of this stuff, can I?”

“No, I don’t think you can!” I smiled, grateful for the break in seriousness.

We ate and when we finished, I got us each a scoop of ice cream from the container in the freezer for dessert. I put water on for tea and we cleaned up the dishes and the pots and pans we had used. By the time we were finished, the tea was ready, and I poured us each a cup. We went back to sit as we had before, with Kara on the couch and me in the easy chair. We sipped our tea, and I waited for her to talk.

“It’s sort of changing the subject,” Kara said, “but not really. I was thinking about the Bible and I know that Abraham and Sarah were half-siblings, and that Cain had to have married one of his sisters...”

“Stop, Kara!” I interrupted, speaking firmly. “That’s not the case at all!”

“What do you mean? It has to be the case! If Adam and Eve were the first people, then if Cain married, it had to be his own sister!”

“I can explain why that’s not the case, but once I tell you, I think your world is going to be rocked to its core. You can’t un-hear what I’m going to say.”

“Go on. You know the Bible better than anyone I know. Well, maybe that’s not accurate. You’re willing to look at the Bible in ways nobody in my church will and find things that they don’t see.”

“They don’t want to see them. Those things create big, big problems. First of all, I need to tell you that Genesis, at least the first several chapters, is myth, not history.”

“What? Are you saying it’s made up? That it’s not true?” she asked, her voice showing serious concern.

“Kara, please just calm down for a minute. If the people that Jesus told the parables about didn’t really exist, would that make Jesus a liar? Would it invalidate his teaching?”

“No, those are just stories to make a point.”

“Exactly. And that’s what the creation stories are as well.”

“Stories? Like more than one?”

I smiled. This was one of those things that was going to really make her think about her faith. I was a bit concerned, but I was never one to hide information. I remembered my surprise when I had first noticed it back in fifth or sixth grade, and I checked out some books from the library to read about it. A lot of stuff in those books went way over my head at the time, but I got the gist of what they were saying.

“Please, just listen to what I’m going to say. You can ask questions afterwards. Would you promise me that?”