Chapter 6

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The next day was strange. We made love upon awakening, but spent most of the rest of the day just sitting around holding each other. Neither one of us talked very much. Just being close to each other, and constantly touching and holding hands was, I think, the most important thing we could do to help each other.

We were both more than a little worried about what might happen in the afternoon.

Now, I suppose, it was time for the shit to hit the fan (another old Southern expression).

I didn’t know how Tom would feel about his first-born moving in with me, but I knew Jennifer was pissed.

Yes, she arranged for us to be together, but apparently she thought it would be more of a brief fling.

Jennifer called last night to let us know they were returning, and would be home around four in the afternoon.

When Mindy told her Mom she had moved all her clothes to my house, and she intended to live with me Jennifer became quite upset. I honestly can’t say I blamed her.

When I got on the phone, she accused me of betraying her trust and taking advantage of her young daughter’s innocence.

The words really hurt.

Now the phone had just rung, and it was Jennifer letting us know she and Tom had returned. She and Tom were waiting for us to come over. Sara had decided to stay in Minnesota with her grandparents for a few more weeks.

We decided to walk over, and I have to say Mindy was handling herself with more aplomb than I would have thought possible. We held hands as we walked, and she kept saying how much she loved me, and she did not care what her parents thought.

As for me, well, I was not handling myself nearly as well. I kept thinking about how I would react if I had an 18-year-old daughter and she wanted to move in with some guy who was 11 years older than she was.

As we were walking, I tried to imagine how I would die, knowing Tom had spent 12 years in the Marine Corps.

My first guess was a very rusty, very dull bayonet, but then figured Tom probably didn’t want to get too much blood in his house.

Knowing Tom was an expert shot, I figured it would be a rifle.

But then I started thinking, what if Tom wants to make me suffer?

I mean he probably thinks I ravaged his virginal daughter.

Would it be a bullet in each knee, then each elbow, then each shoulder, before finally finishing me off?

Wait! This is his teenage daughter, whom he loves more than anything in the world.

And he might feel I am the old pervert who has corrupted her.

Crap! There had to be at least one, maybe two shots to the groin!

I must have stumbled a little at that point, because Mindy asked if I were okay.

“Yes,” I croaked, my normal baritone/bass at least a full octave higher than normal, “I’m fine.”

Then before I knew it, there we stood in front of

THE DOOR!

The door to their house, the door to my execution chamber.

I suddenly thought about an old song by country-western star Marty Robbins, another one of my Dad’s favorites. The name of the song is “The Chair,” and this song is entirely different from an identically named song years later by George Strait.

In the Marty Robbins song, The Chair is an electric chair, and the condemned man is led down the hall, to the electric chair where he is strapped in, last rites administered, and the switch is flipped.

The man’s body jerks as the voltage surges through his body.

No, I will not let Mindy see my last few minutes on earth acting like that man. In the song, as the condemned man is led down “The Green Mile,” his knees buckle and he begins crying, at which point another condemned prisoner, also waiting on death row, yells at him, “Come on, Charlie, be a man.”

If die I must, then I will try to die so Mindy can be proud of me.

As we entered the house, Jennifer was a little friendlier than I expected, but still reserved. She hugged and kissed Mindy, and actually shook my hand.

“I want to apologize,” she said. “Last night I said some things I wish I had not. I am still not happy with Mindy living with you, but I should have been a little more understanding of Mindy’s feelings.

“Tom and I talked about this situation all the way home,” she added.

I asked how Tom was taking the news.

“Actually, better than I expected,” she said with an almost evil grin. “I had expected him to look for an old, dull, rusty bayonet (I think I may have jumped), but instead he grabbed his rifle. At least he wants to get it over with quickly!”

“You are really enjoying this,” I accused Jennifer. She just smiled.

“Tom is waiting, and Mindy and I need to talk,” said Jennifer.

I walked back to Tom’s study, and knocked on the door.

“Come in, Sergeant,” I heard Tom say in his best Marine Corps authoritative voice.

Oh, Shit!!!! Just before I open the door I look down the hall, and Jennifer stands there actually smiling at me. She really does enjoy this, I think.

I entered, and walked in front of his desk, looking at a space about six inches above his head, just like the Marine Corps taught.

“I understand the Major wants to see me, Sir!” I exclaimed.

“Jennifer wants to me chew you up one side and down the other, spit out what is left, then start over,” Tom said.

“So, tell me, Sergeant, do you feel suitably chastised?” Tom asked.

I glanced down, and Tom was actually grinning a little.

“Sir, Yes Sir!” I snapped off, “The Sergeant has received a royal ass chewing, Sir!”

“Good!” Tom said, “Then sit down, Alan, and let’s have a drink and talk a little.”

Tom poured us a scotch, and we talked.

I asked about Jennifer’s parents (they were going to be okay), and Tom asked if I had been able to work any on the beach property (nearly finished), about the weather, about almost everything.

Everything, that is, the obvious reason why I was there.

Finally, Tom began.

“Until yesterday,” Tom said, “I did not know about what happened to Mindy on her 18^th birthday. I knew something had happened, because she changed, but did not know what.”

Tom went on to explain Jennifer had told him everything, including the fact Jennifer and Mindy actually conspired to bring Mindy and me together.

“I don’t really blame you for what happened, Alan,” he said.

“But I would be less than a dutiful father if I did not ask about your intentions towards my daughter,” Tom said, adding how surprised both he and Jennifer were Mindy had already moved in with me.

“I assure you, sir, my intentions towards your daughter are honorable,” I answered.

“When you and Jennifer left, I did not expect anything to happen between Mindy and myself, but it did and I am not ashamed of anything I have done, nor am I ashamed of anything Mindy and I have done together.

“I respect Mindy too much to ever do anything to hurt her. I am very sorry I may have hurt you and Jennifer, but I love Mindy.

“I know it has only been a week, Sir, but if Mindy will have me, then I intend to marry her and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy and be a good husband,” I continued.

“Sir, I would like to request the hand of your daughter in marriage,” I added.

“Wow,” Tom answered. “You know I am surprised, but then knowing the kind of man you are, I am not really all that surprised. It is just the speed of everything that is really surprising me now.

“Alan,” he continued, “you know Jennifer and I really like you. But did you know how much we have worried about you?”

“Worried about me?” I asked, very surprised.

Tom went on to explain they had always felt that I was one of the nicest young men they knew, but also one of the saddest.

“Given what happened to your first wife and two sons, that is understandable,” he said.

“Now, you seem totally different.” Then he asked, “Is this just because of Mindy?”

“Obviously, she is part of it,” I explained, “but not the only part, and I guess not even the biggest part.”

I asked Tom if he were a spiritual person. As long as we had known each other, that sort of conversation had never come up.

“As you well know, Alan, any man who has ever been in combat is a spiritual person,” Tom said, adding “there are no atheists in foxholes.”

I then began explaining to Tom how, after I had gotten to know Mindy better (and here I could feel my face turning red with embarrassment) we had fallen asleep together. I didn’t bother to explain it was actually about three or four or five times AFTER I had gotten to know her better before we actually slept.

I explained about my dream, and my visit from Julie, Joseph and Jason, and about Mindy trying to wake me up, and about how I was crying in my sleep.

How when I woke up and remembered my dream, the real crying began as I grieved for my wife and sons, something I had never done before.

I told Tom about Mindy holding me while I grieved, but left out the part about her cradling my head against her naked breasts (some things fathers don’t need to know), and holding me for hours.

There were tears in my eyes again as I explained how Julie told me she had been watching Mindy for a long time, that I needed Mindy, and Mindy needed me, and about playing ball with my sons, and talking to them, and how they all wanted me to start living again and be happy.

How all three approved of Mindy and what a great person she was, and Julie said I needed Mindy because she was smarter than me.

I talked, I guess, for over 30 minutes and Tom never asked a question, just listened.

“That is the most amazing story I have ever heard,” Tom finally said, after I had finished.

“No sir,” I interrupted, “that may only be the second most amazing story you are going to hear today.”

I then explained everything that happened in North Carolina, about the song “No Blade of Grass,” which he actually had heard before, about the gun and the suicide attempt.

About driving down to Florida having no idea where I was going.

About buying the house next door (I left out the part about the bonus money to the agent), about meeting Mindy for the first time and now realizing how attracted I had been to her even then.

At that point I had to stop as I heard myself say those words. I had never really thought about it, certainly never articulated those feeling even or perhaps most especially, to Mindy. “How attracted I had been to her even then.”

I realized, much to my ... I don’t know how to even say it ... not embarrassment, not discomfiture, not shame ... perhaps the only word that would apply was chagrin. How much I had been attracted to a then 16-year-old girl.

I jumped up from my chair and began pacing across his study.

“Oh, my God, Tom,” I blurted out, “I just realized I think I have been in love with Mindy for over two years!”

I began to cry at that point.

“God, I must have been some kind of pervert,” I stated. “I fell in love with a 16-year-old.”

“I ... we ... Jennifer and I knew you had ... feelings ... for Mindy,” Tom said. “But to tell you the truth, we were never really worried about you taking advantage of Mindy.

“By the time we realized you ... cared ... for Mindy, we had gotten to know you a lot better and we trusted you with both Mindy and Sara,” he continued.

I was so stunned with my own revelation about my long term feeling for Mindy that I really didn’t pay much attention to what Tom said then. I mean I heard the words, but they didn’t completely register.

“Once I realized you had those feelings, I ... I contacted an old friend from the Marine Corps and he did a little research into your background. I knew then you were an honorable person and Mindy ... and for that matter as well, Sara were both safe with you.”

At that point Tom walked over to me and handed me another scotch with the order to, “Drink this.”

I also told him Mindy had told me about her suicide attempt (very pained look on Tom’s face), and what else Julie had told me about both of us being forgiven.

After talking this second time for another 30 minutes, both of us just sit there quietly.

“Yeah, you’re right Alan, that story is even more amazing” he said.

“Since Mindy told you about her suicide attempt,” Tom added, and I could see the tears in his eyes as he began remembering, “there is one other thing you need to know.”

Tom explained the pain pills had been for his “stump” where it attached to the prosthetic. After running in the different races, or just running to keep in shape, sometimes the pain was acute. It was a very powerful narcotic.

“The doctors told me half of what Mindy had swallowed should have been enough to kill a full-grown man,” Tom went on, “and yet somehow Mindy, who only weighed about 80 pounds at the time, lived.”

“They told me it was a medical miracle she was even alive when I found her,” Tom said, and now he was really crying.

I didn’t know what to do, so I just walked around the desk and put my hand on his shoulder. To tell you the truth, knowing exactly how close Mindy had come to losing her life had more than a few tears coming out of my eyes as well.

Tom said when he and Sara got home from running at the school track, they found Mindy laying on the kitchen floor.

“Her body was so cold, and her lips were blue,” he related.

He wasn’t even sure if she was still alive, but he began administering CPR while instructing Sara to call 911.

He continued with the CPR for about 15 minutes until the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) arrived. They continued with the CPR all the way to the hospital where they pumped her stomach, and, according to Tom had Mindy hooked up to “every damn machine in the hospital.”

After her stomach had been pumped, the hospital doctors came to talk to Tom.

Tom had to stop again for a few minutes.

“The doctors told me even if Mindy somehow lived, she would probably be a vegetable, that the pills, in combination with lack of oxygen, would have destroyed her mind,” he finally continued, after several minutes with both of us crying.

“And yet, five days later she walked out of the hospital, with no apparent ill-effects from the overdose,” he added.

They told Sara she had an allergic reaction to some medicine, and told everyone else she had food poisoning.

The entire time Tom had been talking, there was something in the back of my mind I knew I needed to ask, but wasn’t sure just what it was. I guess it was a similar feeling to almost having a word on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite remember what it was.

Then it dawned on me.

“Tom ... Tom when did Mindy overdose?” I asked.

June 15, five years earlier.

Tom told me I turned white as a sheet, despite my suntan.

I told Tom that Julie, Joseph and Jason had been killed on June 12, and buried in the morning of June 15 – five years ago!

Tom and I just looked at each other, neither wanting to be the one who actually said what I think we were both thinking about.

“You know Alan, to this day, the doctors can’t explain what kept her alive,” he finally said, “but I knew Mindy had lived for a reason. Now, I perhaps understand what that reason is, and perhaps what ... or who ... kept my daughter (and here his voice broke again, as he began crying) ... kept my daughter alive and brought her back to me.”

“To be totally honest,” he added, after a couple of minutes, “I have thought of you and Mindy getting together. Once I even told Jennifer that Mindy could do a lot worse.

“Now, I don’t think she can ever do better,” he said.

“Alan, after hearing your story I don’t think you need my permission, nor anyone’s, but, yes, you have my permission to marry my daughter.”

Then Tom dropped the bombshell on me.

“You do realize you are now going to have to tell Jennifer about your three degrees, don’t you?” he asked.

Oh, Hell!

“Uh, Major,” I began, “I ... that is ... I don’t suppose you would...”

“Sergeant,” he answered, “I would volunteer to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, unarmed, before I would do that. I would be safer there, than here if she finds out I knew about your degrees and never told her.”

Tom then asked me to get Mindy, and be sure to come back with her.

I was just walking through the door when Tom called me back.

“For your sake, please tell me you did not tell Mindy what Julie said about Mindy’s being smarter than you,” Tom asked.

I guess he could tell from my expression that I had let that cat out of the bag (is that a Southern expression, or do they say that up North as well?).

“Sergeant, you know she is NEVER going to let you forget that don’t you?” he inquired, with a big grin.

“Actually, Sir,” I answered with my own rueful grin, “she is already reminding me of it every day.”

A few minutes later Mindy and I returned, and I could feel Mindy literally trembling. Tom asked us both to sit down, but before he could say anything, there was something I had to know.

“Mindy,” I began, “for the past week you have told me at least a dozen times you knew we were destined ... you kept using that word ... destined to be together.”

She nodded her head “Yes.”

“What did you mean? I mean how did you know we were ‘destined’ to be together?” I asked.

Mindy said she had known since she was 13 she was going to meet the man she was to marry after she turned 16.

Tom and I looked at each other.

Less than two months after her 16^th birthday she met me.

“How have you known,” I asked, “did someone tell you or what?”

Mindy said while she was in the hospital, someone did tell her. Some lady told her after she regained consciousness for the first time.

Now Tom was the one who had a question.

“Who was this lady,” he asked, “was she a nurse or a doctor?”

Mindy said she really didn’t know, just one night, after visiting hours were over and the lights had been turned off, some lady woke her up.

“My only impression of her was she was tall, because she had to bend over some to hold my hand,” Mindy added. “Oh, and she had long, long hair. I think her hair was red.”

“She held my hand, and told me not to worry, everything was going to be fine, and after I turned 16 I would meet the man I was to marry.”

She also added the woman told her she would have to go very slow, since this man had lost people who were very dear to him and he wasn’t ready for a long-term relationship yet.

“In fact, she actually said to wait until I was 18 before I let him know how I felt about him,” she added, “then she left.”

Mindy said the lights were off in the room, so she could not see what she looked like.

Mindy then put one hand against the side of my face as she looked directly into my eyes.

“That first day we met, and you said your wife and children had been killed ... well, I knew then ... I knew then you were the one she had been talking about.”

Mindy’s eyes were filling with tears.

I told Mindy she had turned pale that day.

Mindy nodded, and said she wasn’t surprised. “I could hear the pain ... the incredible pain and anguish in your voice, and I think I realized any happiness for me was coming with a very high price for you. A terrible price. I ... I wasn’t sure if I could accept ... seeing how much pain you were in.”

Mindy said before actually meeting me, she used to dream about the guy she would meet, and how wonderful it would be, how happy everyone would be, like in a fairy tale. She had never considered how difficult it might be for “the guy” the lady had told her about.

“I had a foolish school-girl fantasy you would be a knight in shining armor who would ride in on a white horse, scoop me off my feet and we would be happy ever after. This was even after the lady told me I had to wait until I was 18 because you had lost people dear to you – I just never imagined it could be your wife and children, especially children as young as they were.”

Mindy had to stop for a few minutes because she was crying so hard.

“I think I grew up a lot that day, meeting you and realizing life is not a fairy tale, but something where real people struggle and feel pain, and have to go through losing people they love.”

“I could not believe I actually hugged you that day,” she said, adding “it was not planned or anything. But once I put my arms around you, I just couldn’t seem to stop.”

“Then I started thinking about the pain you must be going through, losing your wife and children, and I started crying,” Mindy continued. “Then I was so embarrassed, and didn’t want you to see me crying!”

After she and Sara left, Mindy said Sara really got on her case about how she had acted, about how embarrassing the prolonged hug had been, not to mention the tears!

“What were you doing?” Sara demanded.

That was when Mindy told Sara she had just met the man she was going to marry.

Sara scoffed, and asked Mindy if she was going psycho.

Again, Tom and I just looked at each other until finally Mindy started questioning why we were asking.

“I’ll explain later, Princess,” I said, “but for now, I think Tom wants to talk to you.”

Tom then started questioning Mindy while we held hands.

“Mindy, I am your father, I love you, and always will, and only want you to be happy. Do you understand that?” he asked.

Mindy quietly said yes.

“Alan and I have had a long, long talk, and now I want to hear from you,” he said.

“Mindy, what do you want?” he questioned.

“Dad, I love Alan, and have since the first day I met him,” she stated, and looked at me with such a beautiful smile. “You ask what I want. It is simple. I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

“Are you absolutely sure about this, Mindy?” Tom asked.

“Yes, Dad, I have never been more sure about anything in my life,” Mindy answered.

“As a father, my biggest concern is the fact that you are only 18,” Tom started to say, when Mindy interrupted long enough to blurt out Mom was only 17 when she married him!

“I know, Honey,” Tom said.

“In fact, I have thought about that a lot, since last night when Jennifer told me you had moved in with Alan,” he continued.

“That fact actually has a lot to do with my decision now,” he added.

“Alan has asked my permission to marry you!” Tom told her, “And ... I have said yes!”

Mindy gave a squeal of pleasure and ran around the desk and gave Tom a hug.

“Thank you, Dad!” she said, “You are the best!”

She then ran around the desk again and threw her arms around me and gave me a hug and a kiss.

“I think you should go get your mother,” Tom suggested.

Mindy had explained much of the past week to Jennifer while Tom and I were talking, and now we filled in any remaining details over the next 30 minutes.

Tom said I had asked permission to marry Mindy, and Mindy also wanted to marry me as well.

Tom explained to Jennifer he had given his blessings for us to get married.

“So Honey,” he added, “we aren’t losing a daughter, we are gaining a Jarhead!”*

(*For those of you who don’t know, Jarhead is something Marines will call each other.)

“Well,” Jennifer said with a kind of wry grin, “I have put up with one for over 20 years, I guess I can learn to put up with another one!”

“Besides,” she added, “now that we know Mindy is the smart one in the family, how can they go wrong.”

I guess Mindy had told her Mom that part of my dream, while I was talking to Tom.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said.

“Alan, I am only 10 years older than you,” Jennifer indigently exclaimed, “If you ever call me ‘Mom’ again, then I will be the one looking for the dull, rusty bayonet.”

“Love is being stupid together.” Paul Valery

Early one Friday morning, about two weeks later, Mindy and I were both in the kitchen. I was replacing a ceiling fan, and Mindy was cooking breakfast. I had played one of my favorite songs for Mindy, entitled “Forever and Ever, Amen” by Randy Travis.

Mindy laughed out loud at some of the words, then immediately wanted to hear it again. It really is a very touching song. Then we played it a third time.

Finally, on the fourth play, Mindy and I started singing it together, even though I was standing on a ladder about eight feet up in the air.

Neither of us realized it, but Jennifer walked into the kitchen just as we were singing the final part of the song, and we were really hamming it up!

“Oh darlin’ I’m gonna love you forever,
Forever and ever, Amen,
As long as old men sit and talk about the weather,
As long as old women sit and talk about old men,
If you wonder how long I’ll be faithful,
Just listen to how this song ends,
I’m gonna love you forever and ever,
Forever and ever Amen.
I’m gonna love you forever and ever,
Forever and ever
Forever and ever
Forever and ever ... AAAAAAAAAAAAMENNNNNNNNNNNN!”

The first we knew of Jennifer being in the kitchen with us was when we heard these words:

“Eight years of classical piano lessons wasted. Three weeks with you and you now have my daughter singing red-neck, country songs! What’s next? Making moonshine?”

Without missing a beat, Mindy (bless her little pea-pickin’ heart) turned around and said with a perfectly straight face, and very heavy Southern drawl:

“Well, Howdy, Ma! Me and Alan were a-fixin’ to have breakfast. I’m tryin’ to rustle up some grub. Y’all want some country ham and red-eye gravy, along with grits and scrambled eggs?”

I am dying, I mean dyin’ of laughter, while trying to maintain my balance on top of the ladder and still holding the heavy ceiling fan.

“You know,” Jennifer said with a disgusted look, “the two of you deserve each other.”

Then she explained she had just come over to let us know Tom wanted to take all of us to dinner at his country club that night at 8 pm.

I had finally managed to make my way down the ladder without falling off, still laughing like crazy.

“Okay, Ma,” I said, “tell Pa that I will wear my best bib overalls!”

Jennifer walked over to me, and stuck two fingers in front of my face.

“Two things,” she said, reaching over with her other hand and touching one finger at a time. “One, you will wear a suit and tie – a very nice suit and tie. And Two – if you ever call me Ma again, you will be eating baby food through a straw for the next six weeks! AAAAAAAMENNNNNNNN.”

As she was saying the prolonged Amen, she made a fist and pantomimed punching me in the jaw.

By now I am laughing so hard I am crying. Mindy is laughing so hard she is having to hold her sides and is crying also.

Jennifer storms out of the kitchen and slams the door with a very loud, “good-BYE.”

Mindy and I are laughing so hard, we can’t even answer, and we both kind of collapse on the kitchen floor. I have been laughing so long and so hard my sides are killing me.

Every few minutes Mindy and I will both finally be able to stop, but then we look at each other and start laughing again. Finally, after about 15 minutes we manage to stop laughing.

But then I look over at Mindy and have to say, “You know, I think your Mom is really starting to like me!”

Then we start laughing again.

At some point the laughter turned to little kisses, then the little kisses turned to bigger kisses, and the bigger kisses turned to our going back to bed where we made love again.

We were lying in bed, with Mindy in her customary position on her side with one leg thrown across my stomach and her head on my chest.

She then asked me what I was thinking about.

I told her I was actually thinking about an old song by a man named Ed Ames.

At that point Mindy told me she was starting to worry about me.

When I asked why, she answered here I was lying down beside a naked woman, and I was thinking about some guy named Ned?

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Alan?” she joked.

I told her his name was Ed, not Ned, then gave her beautiful back-side a playful little slap, telling her I haven’t forgotten about turning her over my knee some day and giving her a spanking.

She again called me a brute and a cretin, and claimed she would not be able to attend the dinner due to her severe injuries, so I started kissing her “boo-boo,” then started kissing even more.

Before we knew it I was deep inside her as she was sitting straddled across my legs.

We finally managed to get back to work (hanging ceiling fans and making breakfast), and the rest of the morning passed really fast.

I just casually asked Mindy if she had anything really nice and sexy to wear to dinner tonight, and she answered she had nice and she had sexy, but not both. I suggested we drive into Miami and purchase a new dress for her.