Chapter 13: The Undiscovered Country

August 1, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

Just after 3:00pm, Alli and I were standing on the front porch, saying goodbye.

“Not bad, for an old guy,” she smirked.

“Old? I’m only twenty-nine!”

“And I’m only nineteen! Ten years is a lot!”

“My dad is twenty years older than my mom! And if you thought I was ‘old’, why do it?”

“Because Jacqui was right. That was the best fuck I’ve ever had, bar none!”

“The first one or the second one?” I teased.

She laughed, “Combined! I’ll be back next summer. If you need a temp, have Kimmy get in touch! Thanks for today!”

“You’re welcome! You were fun, Alli Mills!”

She laughed, “And I can tell everyone I had sex with the real ‘Karate Kid’!”

“Huh?” I asked.

“My name! It’s Allison, but I go by Alli. Alli Mills. Just like Daniel’s girlfriend in the movie!”

I laughed, “Cute.”

“That’s actually how your name came up. I said something to Jacqui about needing my own ‘Karate Kid’ and she mentioned there was one I could try on for size, so to speak!”

“And did it fit?” I grinned.

“Perfectly! Maybe I’ll see you next summer!”

“Maybe!”

We hugged, she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and left. I watched her walk down the steps to the sidewalk, then went back into the house to face an uncertain, but sure to be interesting, future.

When I walked into the sunroom, the tension was, as the old cliché said, so thick you could cut it with a knife. Every adult in the room knew exactly what was going on, except Abbie, and I wondered if she hadn’t somehow guessed. I decided to take the safest option and went to where Birgit and Matthew were playing a game.

“Daddy is on my side!” Birgit said.

“Daddy is just going to watch, Pumpkin.”

“Is Jesse still at hockey practice?” Matthew asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s in the morning. Maybe he’s doing something with his moms and Nicholas today.”

“They went to the beach,” Bethany said. “With Francesca and Amber.”

“Amber is going to have a sister?” Birgit asked.

“We don’t know yet. Aunt Penny could have a boy or a girl. We’ll have to see!”

“Steve, do you have a plan for the Michigan race?” Abbie asked.

“Same as always, I think. My plan is to drive up very early Sunday morning and come home Sunday night.”

“MY plan is that I’m not going because I don’t like NASCAR!” Jessica laughed. “But I also work.”

“Who IS going?”

“Well, Penny and Terry can’t go, for obvious reasons. Dave and Julia are going, along with Kara, Jesse, and Matthew. I had planned to offer the other two tickets to Howard and Jeri, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea at this point.”

“Definitely not,” Elyse said. “What about Jolene and Mickey? Or Kimmy and Gary?”

“Offer them to Kimmy and Gary. If they don’t want them, then I’ll see if Jolene wants them.”

“How did you all get into NASCAR racing?” Michelle asked. “Especially you, Abbie?”

I laughed, “I was into it a little bit, but then I met Stephie Grant from Dawsonville, Georgia, in my Freshman chem lab at IIT. She was friends with Bill Elliott. I was already a fan of his, kind of. It all stems from that. I dated her for a few years, then she married Jason Stuart, who was working on race cars in a local shop. He got a job with Alan Kulwicki’s race team. After Stephie died of cancer, he came to visit and he and Abbie hit it off.”

“And that’s how I got into it!” Abbie said with a huge smile.

“Didn’t you meet Kara in your High School chemistry class?” Michelle asked.

“Yes, I did! Mrs. Brewer’s Junior-year class. I was a Senior, but in that class because of the year I’d spent in Sweden. I didn’t get course credit for my work as an exchange student, so I needed the chemistry class to graduate.”

“If he hadn’t met Birgit, we’d probably never have met,” Kara said.

“Mommy, how could he meet me before I was born?” Birgit asked.

Everyone laughed.

“Pumpkin, Mommy meant the Swedish girl who has your same name. She died when I was fifteen. A long time ago. I took Jesse to see where they buried her.”

“Like Nicholas’ dad?”

“Yes, like Nicholas’ dad.”

“Did a bad man kill her?” Matthew asked.

“No. It was a storm. The sailboat they were in capsized. That means turned upside-down. She and her friend Jonas died.”

“Oh, wow!” Michelle said. “I knew she had died, but wow! And I knew a bit about Stephie, too. The adult one, I mean. You named two daughters after girls who died?”

“Yes. Both of Kara’s daughters. She never met Birgit, but she knew Stephie. It’s my way of ensuring they are remembered. Memory eternal, as it were. Like Nick.”

“You’ve known quite a few people who have died young,” she said.

I nodded, “Birgit, Stephie, and Nick. Kara’s dad wasn’t very old, really. And while I didn’t know him, I knew who Elyse’s uncle Jim was. He died in Vietnam. I was an altar boy at his funeral.”

“Did you meet Elyse then?”

“No. You know, I never asked. I honestly don’t remember much from that day other than Father Buschmiller and Jennie. Elyse, were you there?”

“I was. We were ten. I don’t even remember seeing you. I vaguely remember two altar boys, but my memory of that day is Jennie crying. And the American flag. Just like at Nick’s interment.”

“That was your second one!” I said. “I didn’t even think about it!”

“Jim was buried about fifty feet from where Nick is buried.”

“And all these years, you never mentioned it and we never talked about it.”

“I tried to put it out of my mind. I never put two-and-two together about you being an altar boy. I knew Aunt Jennie had met you at church.”

“It’s funny the things we’ve never talked about.”

“Steve, I did meet Birgit,” Kara said. “Sort of.”

“What?! How?”

“After a volleyball game. In fact, you were there, interviewing her for the newspaper. Your silly article Sweet Swede Sweats for Success! I was at the game, and Sandy van der Meer knew someone on the team. I don’t remember who, but she was friends with Birgit. I don’t think I even talked to her, but I did meet her.”

“And you never told me?!”

“I never really thought about it again until just now when you and Elyse were talking about the funeral. I didn’t know her, and as I said, I didn’t even talk to her. She was just there with Sandy’s friend.”

“I suppose it’s no different from Katy being a huge fan of Katt Sundström and me not knowing until we went to Milwaukee. And Katy not knowing I had dated Katt!”

“Katt?” Michelle asked.

“A Swedish ice dancer I dated when I lived there. I saw her some when she was in the US training before she and Mikael became a couple. They’re married. In fact, they’re going to be here in about two weeks, after staying a week at Katy’s bed-and-breakfast in Vermont.”

“You do seem to have an interesting history!” Michelle said.

“Oh, he does,” Jessica laughed. “VERY interesting. Hang around long enough and you’ll hear all kinds of interesting stories.”

“Kara, I thought you said you met Steve in chemistry class,” Michelle said.

“I did,” Kara smiled. “I knew OF him, but didn’t know him. By the time I actually met him, he had a serious reputation!”

“Courtesy of Jennifer and Melanie,” Bethany laughed. “I did know Birgit, but she was never a close friend. I spoke to her a few times. Steve’s friend Larry was her closest friend.”

I smiled, “And I encouraged him to go after her and could never understand why he wouldn’t when she showed obvious interest! Now I know!”

“Know what?” Michelle asked.

“Larry is gay. He has a partner, Drew, and they visit occasionally. They’re really good friends with Jennifer and Josie. I had no idea that Larry was gay until MUCH later.”

“Do you have ANY normal friends?” Michelle asked, then covered her mouth, and blushed.

“Don’t worry, Michelle,” Abbie laughed. “None of us are normal! In fact, as Mel Brooks might say, I’m Abbie-Normal!”

All the adults, including Michelle, laughed hard.

“On THAT note, I’m going to make dinner! Jess? Kara? Would you help, please?”

The three of us went to the kitchen to start making dinner.

“You want to talk?” Jessica asked quietly.

“I figured this was the best way to do it without seeming too obvious. Ed and Stephanie will be here soon, and Jennifer, Josie, and the boys should be back any minute. They can all keep busy while we make dinner and talk.”

“She seems less nervous than I would have thought,” Jessica said. “She was a bit antsy while you were with Alli, but as soon as Alli left, she seemed to calm down.”

Kara smirked. “Telling a guy that he needs to fuck another girl before he can fuck you is a bit strange, don’t you think, Jess? That would make anyone a bit ‘antsy’.”

“If you think about it, though, it makes sense in a warped kind of way,” I said. “Remember, she couldn’t ASK me to do it. She had to find a way to make it inevitable, so to speak. Think Lafe putting cotton into Dewey Dell’s sack in As I Lay Dying.”

“Please do NOT remind me of that book!” Kara groaned. “I HATED Miss Alvis’ class. Ugh!”

“You and me both,” I said. “I am not a big fan of most early 20th century American literature! Other than All the King’s Men, I preferred Orwell, Huxley, Asimov, Shakespeare, Twain, Poe, and Dickens.”

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Tiger?”

“Once I had Alli, the die was cast; the Rubicon was crossed. That decision was already made. The inflection point was our conversation earlier today. To use the phrase as it was in Star Trek, we’re going into the undiscovered country of the future.”

“Not the one from Hamlet, I hope!” Kara replied.

“No! Not death. Not this time, anyway.”

“And nothing can dissuade you?” Jessica asked. “It really is a fait accompli?”

“Armed gunmen could break into the house and kidnap me. Lightning could strike. Nuclear war could erupt. Or Michelle could change her mind. Or any one of a million other things. But that is the path we put ourselves on earlier. With our eyes wide open.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Jessica said. “But what happens with Samantha?”

“The same thing which was going to happen before this decision was made. She stays for the week. No sex, remember, that was the agreement. We aren’t there now, and we may never be again.”

“And Michelle?”

“I think she’s going to need some serious thinking time. I bet you anything you care to wager, she goes to church in the morning and spends a lot of time tomorrow alone. And I wager also she goes to church every morning for at least the next week. She’s going to have to figure out how all of this fits together, and nobody can do that for her but her.”

“You sound as if you think she’s going to be messed up by this,” Jessica said.

“Confused is a better term. And we’ll all be here if and when she wants to talk about it. Kara wasn’t exactly certain about the future when she took me to her bed. Neither of us had any clue what the future held, did we?”

“No,” Kara said. “And honestly, the parallels are there. That’s the one thing that gives me pause. If she has the same feeling about making love with a man that I do, then what?”

“Unless you two are thinking of inviting her to our marriage bed, then she’ll have to figure out how to deal with it. What would YOU have done, Kara?”

“Nobody joins our marriage bed,” she affirmed strongly, but then asked in a sweet voice, “Aren’t you the one who objects to ‘What if?’.”

“But YOU don’t!” I said.

“Eventually, I would have found a way to get past it and found a man to marry and have children with. It would have been difficult, but my need to be a wife and mother would have eventually overpowered my belief in only ever being with one man. My mom overcame that and married Paul. And she and I are very much alike, as I know she told you.”

“Yes. She was stifled first by her mother and then by your dad. I’m glad she found true happiness.”

“A loving husband, great sex, two wonderful granddaughters, and five semi-grandkids!”

I laughed, “Great sex?”

“You don’t think mothers and daughters talk?”

“Kara,” I said laughing, “Did you tell your mom about US?”

“Of course, silly! That you give me orgasms that make my toes curl and my eyes roll back in my head! I told her that back when I was seventeen!”

“You are SO bad!”

“And you love every minute of it!”

“Today seems to be the day for revelations,” I said. “Bits and pieces of the past which I didn’t know.”

“Here’s one to ask Doctor Barton about,” Kara said. “Fawn has always been a big fan of ice skating. I read in your journal that you went to Indianapolis in December of 1980, I think it was. I bet you anything, Doctor Barton took Fawn to that competition!”

I laughed, “It’s a small, small world. If Fawn is by chance here in two weeks, she could meet Katt and Mikael.”

“She’s supposed to be home for a week this month, but I’m not sure when.”

“I’ll ask Al,” I said.

“Are you prepared for Michelle to have a bad reaction?” Kara asked. “She could have one.”

“Yes, she could. So could anyone to their first time. All I can do is see what happens. I think the most likely result is a couple of weeks of introspection.”

“And then?”

“She might discover her sexuality is like Kara’s,” I chuckled.

“In your DREAMS, Tiger!” Jessica laughed. “NOBODY has Kara’s sexuality!”

“You do know I have to spend the night with her. This isn’t a ‘fuck’, or even ‘sex’. This is a pure expression of love on both our parts. It can’t be anything else the first time.”

“I know,” Jessica said quietly. “That’s the one thing that gives me pause.”

I put down the utensils I had and took both my wives into my arms.

“You know I love the two of you more than I do anyone else, except for the kids, who are on par. And that love is a decision I made. Not a feeling.”

Jessica smiled, “Yes, I know.”

“There is nothing that can separate us from each other. Nothing. Do you believe that?”

“I do,” she said.

“Me, too,” Kara said.

“I take back what I said before. There is one thing that could prevent it. And that’s the two of you telling me not to do it. Actually, either one of you. This isn’t a democracy, this is veto. And you both hold veto power. I won’t be upset if you exercise it and I’ll explain it to Michelle if need be.”

They were both quiet, and exchanged a look that I was sure conveyed some kind of message, but I couldn’t read it. That was interesting, because I could communicate non-verbally with both of them, but they also could with each other, in a language I didn’t understand. And that was similar to my ability to communicate with Jennifer or Stephanie, at least in the past, though with those two, lengthy conversations could be had without words being exchanged.

“I think it’s fine, Tiger,” Jessica said.

“Me, too,” Kara said.

In THIS case, acquiescence was consent, because consent had already been given. They were communicating that they weren’t withdrawing it.