Chapter 21

2009 - Home

Back at home, Karen insisted that she would need to look at the scratch on my cheek. The result was that I had a long band-aid on my cheek by the time we prepared some lunch. Pam, Hana and Naiya were also back before we could start our talks. Both Pam and Hana asked what had happened to me, but before I could say anything Karen answered.

“I almost made a terrible mistake again, but Greg saved me.”

Pam just smiled and came to hug me.

“Good for you, Dad.”

Then Hana hugged me, too. I guess that both my wife and my daughter just gave me permission to deepen my relationship with Karen. Didn’t I just make the decision to take control of my own life?

Karen and I retreated to our still sparsely furnished living room and we had big mugs of coffee with us. Pam and Hana had decided that it was their turn to prepare some dinner, and departed to the kitchen. Our laughing ten month old terror Naiya decided to shuttle between these two places, while Karen smiled at the little girl who didn’t seem to know where to start.

“Karen, are you in serious debt? Something that would need some immediate attention?”

“No, nothing that serious - yet. I have maxed out my credit cards though, and cannot get new ones to replace those left in Africa until I have paid them off. I do have some cash, but not enough for that. I was supposed to get some good money from that article, but it just ‘went south’...”

“We can take care of that tomorrow. I’m sure about that.”

“You don’t understand, Greg. I’ve always had money. Always!”

When I tried to remember back to our time together in the college, I believed that it was the case. She had never had to worry about the money. She didn’t even have to think about it. But even if money had always been available, she had never really squandered it while we were together. Well, at least she didn’t do it very openly. I had never been poor myself but, she had always been rich in a different way.

“Greg, I can admit now that by the time of our breakup you were totally and absolutely right. Yes I was deeply in love with you, but I was also a rebelling little girl who had never really broken her connection with her home. So when someone with connections to father came to me telling lies about you, I believed.”

“The problem was that they weren’t totally lies.”

“But I did it all wrong. I should have trusted you.”

“That’s water under the bridge, Karen. We’re both different people, now.”

“Yes, we indeed are. Besides, now you have the money, while I’m the one who’s all messed up.”

After that I was mostly silent while Karen continued her story. She agreed that she had dated the idiot for a few months - her words, not mine - who showed her the video. For a while her father seemed to be happy with him dating her; but after some time, her father seemed less and less happy with him, and soon afterwards he broke up with Karen.

“I guess that deep in my heart I already knew that I had made a serious mistake, but I was much too stubborn and proud to admit anything like that. So, I concentrated on my studies, and chose journalism as my second major.”

Karen admitted that she had dated some guys, and that she’d had sex with a couple of them.

“The problem was that none of them was you, Greg. They were either just idiots not able to carry a discussion past football and beer, or they thought that they were God’s gifts to the other sex and we should worship them and their organs, just because. They just were not like you.”

“Does that mean that I was right to be terrified when I saw it for the first time?”

I blushed deeply when I heard the comment from Hana, who had stopped by the door while wiping her hands on a towel. Karen laughed at her.

“Yes, I think so. But I’m quite sure he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No, I guess it was as wonderful as it can be. With a man, I mean.”

I rolled my eyes when Karen and Hana giggled together. Naiya crawled on all fours to Karen and giggled together with the older girls - or women. Karen lifted Naiya to the sofa with her and the look in her eyes was something that I couldn’t fully read. She played a bit with Naiya, who after a while fell asleep on sofa next to Karen. Karen raised her gaze from the sleeping girl and looked at me.

“Greg, you should also know that I almost got married. He was the son of a business associate of my father’s, but I didn’t know it in the beginning. He was smart and charming and he knew his way with women without being showy. Maybe I was not smitten, but I was happy that someone like him was interested in me. After about six months of dating he asked me to marry him and I agreed.”

As I had been in serious relationships and even married myself, I knew that I had no claim on her for the time that we were separated, but something in the way she had said it still hurt me. Also Karen seemed to be lost in her own thoughts since she had a long pause before she continued.

“Someone might say that karma’s a bitch only if you are. I guess I was a bitch to you.”

She took a deep breath before continuing in a low voice.

“It was only a couple of weeks until our wedding when I found him in my apartment fucking my supposed to be friend, who was supposed to be one of my bridesmaids. When I ran out yelling and drove home to tell my mother and my father that there would be no wedding, my father just told me to grow up and forget it as that is what ‘real men’ do. It turned out that she wasn’t my only friend he had been screwing. But there was no wedding.”

She was silent for a while.

“That was two years ago. That was when I made the decision to find you again, but it turned out to be more difficult than I expected. During those two years there has been no-one except that bastard once, and now you. I also broke off almost all contact with my mother and father. Therefore, I didn’t know what was happening with them until I read it in the news.”

“I wasn’t here, myself. First it was my lawyer and then the Feds who handled it.”

The smile on her face was a bit grim.