Chapter 36: Relationships

November 3, 1990, Chicago, Illinois

“I still don’t understand why you told everyone to leave Katy alone last night,” Elyse said on Saturday morning.

“Because we weren’t going to talk her out of it. I could tell by the way she stated her intent. I hoped letting her sleep on it would allow her to hear what we had to say. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“I was surprised that she wouldn’t talk to Jennifer at all,” Kara said. “I thought Jennifer would be the one to get her to listen to reason this morning.”

I shook my head, “Once Lauren didn’t come home for three days, Katy saw nothing left for her here.”

“So she just quit her job, and now she’s packing her car to drive to Vermont with no plans?” Abbie asked.

“I wouldn’t say ‘no plans’. She talked to me about opening a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont and growing apples. She was going to do it with Lauren once Lauren graduated. I think she just moved it forward. She’ll find a place to stay, then look for an appropriate large house with an orchard.”

“Does she have the money for that?”

“Probably,” I said. “She was saving most of her salary when she was married and didn’t have too many expenses once she moved in here. Honestly, I think she needs to get away.”

“So you support her running away?” Jessica asked.

I smiled, “Special circumstances. You ran away from two spouses who wanted you here. That’s not what’s going on with Katy.”

“But what about all of us?”

“We’re her friends. But honestly, with her failed marriage and Lauren effectively leaving her, I can see her wanting to get away. She needs a change of environment.”

“But what if Lauren comes back?” Elyse asked.

I shook my head, “Given that Lauren hasn’t talked to Katy at all and went back to her parents’ house, I don’t see that happening.”

“I can’t believe that she moved home,” Elyse said. “How is that even possible? And all her stuff is here.”

“Her religious beliefs have won the tug of war,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll come get her things or send someone to get them.”

“Isn’t this like what happened with Kara?” Jessica asked. “Kara came back to you.”

“Yes, she did. There are some parallels, but Kara and Lauren are two very different people.”

“Steve’s right,” Kara said. “Lauren didn’t have a breakdown the way I did. In fact, Lauren was completely rational. I sure wasn’t.”

“Completely rational?” Elyse asked.

Kara nodded, “Yes. When I talked to her, she was calm and rational. She’s conflicted but not confused.”

“So what do you think she’ll do?” Jessica asked.

Kara was quiet for a moment, then said, “If I had to guess, she’ll be chaste for a long time. Maybe even for the rest of her life.”

Katy came into the kitchen, where we had been talking and drinking coffee.

“I have everything in my car,” she said.

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?” I asked, making a final attempt, which I was sure was futile.

She nodded, “I need a change. I probably should have done this when I left Kenneth. If I need them, my family and some old friends are in Boston. It’s not that far away.”

“Where will you stay?” Jessica asked.

“I found a room for rent in Londonderry by calling a few realtors yesterday afternoon. It’s a small town in the southern part of the state. I’ll stay there until I find the property I want to buy.”

“What about work?” Elyse asked.

“Not right away. I need some time to relax and get my head on straight. Eventually, I’ll get a sales clerk job, or something like that, until I’m ready to buy the property. If I need to, I could find a job with a tech company in Boston. There are plenty of options.”

“We’ll miss you, Katy,” I said.

“I’ll miss all you guys, too. I promise to call and write. And I expect you to be my first guests!”

“Count on it!” I said.

I stood up, and Katy melted into my arms for a tight hug. She hugged each of the girls, then went to the sunroom where my sister was with the kids to say goodbye to them. When she’d hugged each of them, I walked her to the coach house so that she could say goodbye to Jennifer and Josie. After hugs, Katy and I walked back outside. We walked down the driveway to her car; she hugged me, gave me a soft kiss, then got in and drove away.

“It’s time to get ready for karate,” I said. “I can’t be late because I’m teaching this morning.”

“Have you heard from Sensei Jim about his wife?” Jessica asked as she, Kara, and I went upstairs to put on our uniforms.

“She’s completed her first course of treatment, but that’s all I know. They’ll be doing an evaluation and then deciding on the second course in the next week. When I talked to him earlier in the week, he said she was doing OK. There are lots of side effects, as I’m sure you’re aware, but she’s tolerating the drugs reasonably well.”

“That’s a good sign. A lot of patients don’t.”

When we had our uniforms on, we walked to the dōjō. It was unseasonably warm for early November, with the temperature in the mid-60s.

“Are you OK with Katy leaving like that?” Kara asked.

“Does it matter? This has been coming a long time, and as much as I love Katy, she, like everyone else, has to make her own way in the world. I do think she’s right about needing a change. She’s fulfilling her dream of living in Vermont, running a bed-and-breakfast, and growing apples. Is she running away? I don’t think so. More of an escape. I’ve been there.”

“But you basically went home after I broke up with you,” Kara protested.

“I was thinking more generally about coming to Chicago or going to Sweden for my Junior year. Or you deciding to go to school here, even before your dad died. Or Jennifer deciding to go to Stanford.”

“Escaping from you?” Jessica asked.

“That’s part of it, yes. She needed to be away from me to figure things out.”

“And why Bethany had to go home, though that’s a bit of a different response.”

“Yes. She couldn’t stay in the area for a host of reasons.”

“And me?” she asked.

I shook my head, “I think that was a very different thing. That was running away. If it had only been for a few days to get your head clear and you had talked to me, it would have been different. I tried to talk to Kara, and Jennifer and I talked. And even when I came to Chicago, I kept in touch with my dad, Don Joseph, and others.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jessica said. “I really messed up by refusing to talk to you at all. Or to any of you. I especially regret not talking to Kara.”

“It’s OK, Jess,” Kara soothed. “I did the same thing to Steve for a long time after my meltdown. I totally understand how lost you felt.”

“Katy is going to be OK,” I said, trying to reassure everyone. “We need to focus on our family. Katy and Lauren were going to move out by the end of the year. Now we have three rooms available to work with.”

“One for the boys and one for the girls?” Jessica asked. “Who gets the third one?”

“At least for now, we should use it as a playroom. That would get all the kids’ toys and games out of the sunroom. They can still use the sunroom, of course, but this helps keep things a bit neater downstairs. We’ll keep a bed in there for emergencies, but in general, it’ll be their room to goof off in.”

“A bed, huh?” Kara giggled. “That’ll come in handy in about twelve years!”

“Oh, stop!” I chuckled. “Yes, our kids will be free to do that, but let’s not get carried away!”

We arrived at the dōjō, and with help from Jolene and Therese, I ran the morning class, then my wives and I headed home.

“Steve, Lauren called,” Abbie said when we walked in the door. “She wants to pick up her stuff sometime this weekend.”

“Did she leave a number?” I asked.

“Yes. I told her you’d call when you arrived home from karate practice.”

“Thanks.”

I decided to shower and dress before I called Lauren. She was very matter-of-fact, and I simply said she could come any time to get her things, pointing out that we had our Guys’ and Gals’ Nights in the evening and the Rap Session on Sunday afternoon. She said she’d be by later in the afternoon. I ate a quick lunch, then waited in my study for Claire to arrive for her tutoring session.

Claire was getting better at working through the design of her programs and developing proper algorithms. I didn’t think she’d need help much longer, and I felt she might be a good prospect for an internship or work-study when she was a Junior or a Senior. We worked through her issues quickly, which helped her gain confidence in her ability to solve the problems on her own.

“Do you play computer games?” she asked when we finished.

“Sometimes, though not as much as I used to.”

“Do you use your joystick?” she smirked.

I chuckled, “It depends. There needs to be an available joystick port to plug it in to!”

“Good one!” she laughed.

“You set ‘em up; I knock ‘em down!”

She smirked, “Do you talk like this to all the girls you tutor?”

“Usually, I tutor ROTC cadets from IIT. And they’ve all been guys. I am not interested in playing with joysticks!”

Claire laughed hard, “Not your thing?”

I shook my head, “No. Definitely not.”

“Are you having your Rap Session tomorrow?”

“Yep. Are you coming?”

She smirked, “Well...”

I chuckled, “Never mind! See you tomorrow!”

The conversations with Claire reminded me of the ‘romantic novel’ silliness that Jeri liked. But Claire appeared to be neither a shrinking violet nor a blushing virgin. I was seriously considering her for a dalliance, but I’d need to confirm that with Elyse and my wives before I pushed it any further. I was pretty sure Claire would be receptive, but I’d make sure it could be passed off as teasing or joking if she wasn’t.

Claire paid me for the tutoring session, gathered her things, and I walked her to the front door. After saying goodbye, I went to hang out with my wives, my kids, and my sister in the sunroom. I expected Lauren at any moment, but she didn’t arrive until around 4:30pm.

“Hi,” she said. “Is Katy here?”

I wasn’t going to volunteer any information because I had no idea what had been said between them if anything. I didn’t think they’d talked, but I wasn’t 100% sure.

I shook my head, “No.”

Lauren looked relieved, so I let it drop. I walked with her up to their room, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

“She moved out?” Lauren gasped.

“This morning,” I said.

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t think it’s my place to tell you that,” I said.

“Why?”

I wasn’t really in the mood for a debate, especially given her rationale was religious, and that was, in the end, an unwinnable debate unless she was willing to change, and her actions told me that she wasn’t.

“You chose not to speak to her, Lauren. You simply walked away without talking to her or telling her what was going on. You gave up any right to ask me that question when you did that.”

“But...” Lauren protested.

“But what? All you had to do was call her, or better yet, talk to her before you decided to go with your youth pastor and disappear! You chose not to. And then, to cap it all off, you moved home. Sorry, Lauren, but you really hurt a close friend of mine. If she wants to get in touch with you, she will. If not, and I don’t expect that she will, then there’s nothing you can do about it.”

A very sad look came over her face, “If I wrote her a letter, would you see that she gets it?”

“So you can hurt her even more?” I said, sounding as vicious as I felt.

“No, so I can try to explain.”

“Explain what? That you’ve decided being gay is a sin? That you decided to break things off with Katy without talking to her? You simply can’t fuck with someone’s life that way and expect there to be no repercussions! Honestly, just get your stuff and get out of here!”

A tear ran down her face, but she began packing her clothes in the two suitcases she’d brought and her mementos and other things in a cardboard box that she had in the closet. As I watched, I thought about how harsh I’d been, but she’d really hurt Katy, and that just wasn’t acceptable in my book. I thought about what Katy had done to Kenneth, but in the end, she had talked to him. But as I thought about it, she didn’t have a substantive conversation with him for a couple of months. She had, though, told him she was leaving and then told him that she was coming to get her things.

When Lauren finished packing her things, she asked me to carry the box. She took her suitcases, and we went downstairs and out the back door to where she’d parked, about a half-block away. We put the things in the hatch of her car, and she turned to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Then figure out who you are and what you want from life. Then you can decide who you should be with. Until then, stay out of relationships.”

“You don’t have to be so harsh!” she protested. “I said I was sorry!”

“What do you want me to say? SOMEBODY has to speak plainly to you about what you did. I don’t think your pastor or your parents will. You have to live with your decisions. But so does Katy. Just remember that in the future. I don’t know how you’re going to deal with the contradiction long-term, but unless you stay chaste, the same issues are going to arise over and over. Going back into the closet, so to speak, won’t fix it.

“Think about it! Are you REALLY going to be happy with that life? One where you can never, ever have a public relationship? And I know first-hand that you aren’t going to be able to fake it and get married. It’ll turn out exactly as it did for Katy. I’ve known Katy for eight years now and Jennifer for thirteen. I’ve seen the struggles and the heartache. I may not have personally experienced it, but I lived through it with two women I love dearly. So yes, I do have to be harsh.”

She didn’t say anything in response. She simply shut the hatch, got into the car, and drove away. I went back inside to help make dinner. Elyse was cooking dinner, and that gave me a chance to talk to her about Claire.

“Claire’s been flirting a bit,” I said.

“And you want permission to pursue it?” Elyse said with a small laugh.

“I don’t know if she’s serious or not, but if she is serious, then yes, I’m interested.”

“I think she’s OK. Remember the rules, though. She has to be tested.”

I nodded, “I remember the rules.”

“And you use a rubber. I know you hate them, but you don’t know her well enough to trust her with something like that.”

“I remember the rules,” I said.

“It’s my job to make sure!”

“That’s why I’m talking to you.”

After midnight, when Guys’ and Girls’ Nights were over, my wives and I were cuddling in bed.

“Are you both OK with me pursuing a dalliance with Claire?”