Chapter 54

The aunts were curious as blazes what we talked about with Mom. Carol filled them in quickly, explaining we had basically overdosed on our own pheromones, and needed some time in the fresh air. She also explained to them about Joanne's odd behavior and that they needed to air the house completely, especially our room. Once they heard this, both aunts simply said. 'Ah, so!' and promptly started opening windows and doors.

Carol and I went up to our room to dress, and opened both windows completely, letting the cool September breeze blow in. When we left, we propped the door open so it wouldn't blow shut. Even the short exposure to the breeze while we changed helped. I was still hard, but it didn't throb as much, and my head felt a little clearer. Carol said she felt a little better too.

Carol slipped on her sexiest summer frock, and I wore loose-fitting pants to accommodate my nuisance erection. Once dressed, we told the aunts we were going for a drive to look around the old cottage and maybe recapture some sweet memories. They though that was a wonderful idea. We didn't know how long we'd be, but we'd definitely be back for supper. They quickly packed us a small lunch for midday, and we left for our outing. We put the small picnic cooler in the back, jumped in the truck and rolled down the windows. I even opened the floor vents. Carol snuggled up to my right, and we pulled away for our trip down memory lane.

As Mom said, we weren't out in the air more than ten minutes before I felt a definite reduction in pressure on my penis. The air blowing into the truck was sweet and clean. Carol even enjoyed the flow from the floor vent blowing under her dress, cooling Miss Pussy.

It's only about a fifteen minute drive from the aunts' to the old cottage, and even after all these years, I could drive it blindfold if necessary. There was no rush, so we drove slowly, acting the typical Sunday driver out just to look around, so it actually took closer to twenty minutes to reach the turn-off to the lake. By then, my penis had completely subsided, and was its normal flaccid self. I rather enjoyed the feeling of not feeling.

It was another mile or so around the lake to the old place, and we really took our time, noticing the changes and additions to the houses and cottages along the way. The summer was officially over so most places were closed up for the season. There were a few permanent residents, but we didn't recognize any of the names on the mailboxes.

We rounded the last bend to the old cottage, and stared, amazed. We hardly knew the old place. Someone, probably the new owners, had gone to considerable expense to really fix it up. The old shingles had been replaced with a red steel roof. The small addition that had been for Joyce and her family had been removed and a garage built in its place. A closed-in porch ran the full length of the side facing the lake, where there had been two concrete steps where we used to sit in the evenings.

The little beach had been enlarged and new sand laid, but the floating raft was still there in the deep water. It wasn't the exact same raft, but it gave us one touch of familiarity. There were flower beds we didn't recognize and most of the old shrubbery had been removed. The house itself had been resided from the grey-white clapboard I remembered, to fresh looking cedar siding. One additional touch of the familiar — the old lawn swing had been replaced or rebuilt to almost new, and still hid behind a lilac bush.

The house had been tastefully done, but it wasn't our cottage any more. There was a car in front of the garage when we pulled up, and a friendly looking man in his fifties came out to greet us. I could see he was quite taken with Carol. We told him my wife Carol's family used to own the place. We said we spent many happy hours here, and that we were married here twenty years ago. The nice man offered to give us a tour of the house, but we declined graciously. There were already too many changes for us to reconnect with it, and we just knew the interior was nothing like we remembered. For our purposes, better a faded memory than rude new reality.

I asked the man if he minded if we left the truck in his driveway while we went for a walk, and asked if the old trail out back was still there. He said it was, but not many used it any more, and it might be grown up. I said we'd take our chances, grabbed our cooler from the back of the truck, thanked the man for his hospitality, and slipping my arm around my beautiful wife's waist, turned up the old trail.

The man was right, it was starting to grow in, so we couldn't walk it side-by-side like we used to, but we managed in single file, holding hands. In places it was little more than a game trail now, but we knew it well and every now and then saw a stone or tree we recognized. The first such was the stone Riekie was sitting on, crying, when we found her the night we married her. We spent a few minutes reminiscing about that, cuddling. It wasn't the same, but it was a lovely early fall day, and we were glad to just be out together. The leaves were just turning colour nicely, and the trail was very pretty.

We arrived at a spot I recognized, but Carol didn't, until I pulled her off the trail a bit. It was our private little glade with the leaning tree. The tree was much bigger now, but the little clearing was still there. Carol and I spent quite some time there, just being together, not saying much, each lost in our own happy memories of this spot. We were a little melancholy at what had been. We had made love here many times, but there were enough subtle changes that we didn't recapture the mood. We did kiss and hold each other, rocking together in our recollections.

On the return leg, I saw something that looked familiar, and stepping to the side of the trail, I pulled some brush aside. There, before me, was an incredibly beautiful sight. The old tree-lined road was still there. The trees blazed in their fall colours, the light on the trail golden. It was magical. Carol and I stepped through the bushes into the old road, almost holding our breath at the beauty of the scene. When last we'd seen it, everything had been green, almost spring-like, even in late August. Today, the old road glowed with the autumn colours of the leaves.

Carol ran ahead of me, giggling and dancing in delight. I'd half expected this place to be grown over as badly as the trail, but except for a few small bushes, it was still open, the roadbed covered in new-fallen red-golden leaves. It was as idyllic a spot as one could ever wish to see. The low stone walls that bordered the old road were still there, a few of the stones having fallen to the ground, but mainly intact. The stately old maple trees that lined either side of the road interlaced their branches overhead, forming a golden canopy. The air was fresh and sweet and between the trees, we could see out into open fields, the long grass golden in the September sun.

Birds sang and twittered in the branches overhead, and somewhere a red squirrel chattered and cussed at the intrusion of people into his domain. Carol returned from skipping a short distance up the road ahead of me.

"David, this was beautiful the first time we found it, but this is like a brand new road! When we were here before, I wondered what it would look like in the fall. I thought it might be something like this, but imagining and seeing are two different things. It was beautiful in the summer, but the fall colours are more radiant. The lighting is almost magical."

Carol's artist's eye had seen deep into the allure of the place, and she was entranced with what she saw. Some years later, someone took a photograph of a similar location and used it as wallpaper for a computer operating system. It has always been my favourite.

"You're absolutely right, M'lady! The fall has always been one of my favourite times of the year, the colours a celebration of life and love. The light has a golden, otherworldly quality you don't get in any other season. If there's magic in the world, this is the time for it."

Carol came close and turned her face up in supplication. I kissed her lips with a tenderness I'd almost forgotten I possessed. She was perfect in this setting -- a wood nymph in her element. The soft golden light in the tree-lined avenue revealed subtle highlights in her hair that danced and shimmered. Her beautiful face was radiant, her skin glowed and those wonderful blue eyes as we exchanged a long, loving gaze, glowed with an inner light that illuminated my very soul. This was a timeless place, and what we shared in that look and kiss was eternal. We returned to the world of light and birdsong, and Carol snuggled into my arm. We strolled up the old road, marveling at the otherworldly beauty.

Carol wondered. "Is that old barn still standing after all these years? It was Riekie's wedding day, but that day was special for all of us. We connected deeper and more completely that day than at any other time, I think. Somehow I think we were supposed to come here. I feel almost as if my soul is being repaired and made whole again, just by being here. I wish Riekie were here with us, don't you?"

"She is. We brought her in our hearts."

"David, you have always had a way with words, but that is one of the sweetest things I've ever heard you say. No wonder I have always loved you so much."

We stopped and I pulled Carol into my arms, looking into those forever eyes. I never expected the torrent of love and emotion that followed the single, almost rhetorical question I asked next.

"You have always loved me?"

"David, even through the darkest days of my soul when I thought I couldn't go on living another minute, I loved you, and I knew that where ever you were, you loved me too. I never stopped loving you. Oh, David, I have loved you since the first time I saw you. I tried to hide it from myself sometimes, but those became the truly darkest moments for me, and my sense of loss became almost unbearable. Our love, though we couldn't be together until the miracle of this weekend has literally kept me alive — not well, but alive.

"Taking your name symbolized that for me. In my heart, with your name, we were married beyond doubt. In my everyday life I lived a fantasy and even signed my name Mrs. Carol Lloyd on everything except the most sensitive legal documents. No one, not even my father, could ever take that from me. He was the only family member I told I changed my name, and when I did, saying it was because of him, he was furious! He was so angry, he never told any of the others, and always told me it was the family shame that I would forsake his name for yours. His anger made me even more sure I had done the right thing."

Carol was crying and clinging to me as she poured out her heart. This magical place was indeed helping her heal herself. I kissed the top of her head and pulled her tighter, letting her feel my closeness and love.

"Stupid question, maybe, Sweetness, but how did you keep it from the rest?"

"It was no deep dark secret; if they had found out, it wouldn't have hurt them, but I thought I would have had to reveal my shame, and I couldn't handle that myself so I just never told them. Whenever I sent them a card or letter, I just signed it 'Carol' like I always did. And now I can tell them! The shame is gone, and the pride I have in my new name can be revealed. There are no secrets anymore! My father has been fully exposed, and I am clean of my shame. David, you can't know how much of a miracle you worked on my soul Friday evening!

"Since that awful night, I had always avoided your eyes. I thought I'd see nothing but loathing and disgust at what I'd done, but what I saw Friday night when our eyes met was hurt and pain at lost love, and then the most incredible JOY and LOVE was there! David, you freed my soul in that instant, whether I learned the truth about my father or not, because I saw that you didn't care what I had or had not done. You just loved me, for me, nothing else, and always had.

"Then when you completely exposed that man as the fraud and pervert he really is, I felt such a weight lifted off me! I wanted to sing! And I knew that My Man was there again, and he was still My Knight in Shining Armour, for he rescued me from the tower of my shame and guilt. I think that's why I felt so hurt when you told me about helping that girl. You said you had been someone else's Knight, when you were mine and Riekie's alone until then."

Carol held me so close it was difficult to breathe. I thought she'd said all this before, but I heard a note of deeper conviction than before, as if until now, it hadn't completely sunk in. When I thought about it, I wasn't surprised — this whole weekend had a dreamlike quality about it, and so much had happened in such a short time, that I was only now coming to full realization myself. She sobbed a little as she gathered her thoughts.

"And now we come to this wonderful magical place that holds so many magical memories for us, and I fully expect to turn a bend and meet us as we were, coming back from a wonderful day at the barn, happy and so in love! Is this a dream, David? Am I going to wake up back into my old hurt and shame?"

"Carol Anne Lloyd, this is no dream, but the sweetest reality we've had in too many long, sad years. I think you're right. Somehow we were meant to return to this place, and Riekie is with us -- I can feel her. Where ever she is right now, whatever she's doing, she has joined her heart to us, and is feeling the love we all felt in this place. There are other magical places for us, too, but this was the first one where the three of us first joined as a true family, and so it is fitting that we reclaim our family here, even if one member can't be physically present.

"I loved you on first sight, and never stopped, although I locked it away deep inside to dull the pain of loss. Friday night, I released that old love and added new. That first look into your eyes almost literally knocked me off my feet, it was so powerful, and gave me the strength to do what I knew had to be done.

"Carol Anne, I love you and will love you to the end of time. Words cannot describe how much I love you. And even though she's not here, I know she hears me when I say it: Reikie Scott-Lloyd, <read 'Not'-Scott --Lloyd> I love you with all my heart and soul, and will until forever."

"David, I feel her too, all warm and fuzzy, wrapped around us, so I know she heard you, and she'll hear me when I say: Riekie, I love you as my wife, my lover, my friend, and my sister with all my heart forever."

Suddenly we felt a warm glow pass over and through us. The breeze had blown the branches aside to allow a single beam of the autumn sun to shine its warmth directly on us, but we knew it was more than a trick of the breeze. Riekie had heard and sent us her own love in return. We were three again!

Carol and I circled an arm about the other, and continued our stroll up that old lane, her head lying comfortably on my shoulder. We didn't talk much except an occasional contented "Mmmmm, I love you." As one or the other squeezed the other a little tighter, and little tender lovers' kisses as we strolled. Another idyll stolen out of our tumultuous lives.

Presently we rounded a bend, and there before us stood the old barn. After twenty years, it should have been little more than a heap of rubble on the ground, but there it stood, gleaming in the golden, hazy autumn sun, much as we'd left it that August so long ago.

As we approached it, we saw that time had worked some changes. A few more boards were missing on the more weathered side, and some steel was missing from the roof, but the structure looked firm and sound. We walked around to the back. I expected to see that the weather had caused severe damage from the old doors being left open, but someone had closed them.

This was a place of real and happily intense memories for us, so I broke from Carol's embrace and tried the doors. It took the two of us, but we got them open, the rusty old rollers squalling in protest, enough for the two of us to enter.

The interior was much as we remembered it. The one mow was weather damaged, but the other, where we held Riekie's wedding day, was still dry, the hay still sweet smelling. The boxes Bob had placed around as tables were still there with their old lamps. There was a patina of dust on everything, but it was all there. The only things missing were the blankets we'd left behind. I assumed Bob had retrieved them sometime later. Happy memories flooded my brain as we wandered around inside the old barn.