Chapter 62

At work that day, I didn't have a lot to do. It was still too early to start winterizing the site, and the tourists were almost non-existent. I did cut a little grass and painted a few small items that needed touching up. My partner had been called to another site to cover for someone who called in sick. I was alone most of the day, and had quite a lot of time to reflect on all the new developments and re-developments happening or about to happen in my life.

Shortly after noon, the phone rang. I answered my usual 'Good Afternoon, Parks Canada, Bon Jour." An unfamiliar, but pleasant baritone voice asked. "May I speak with Dave Lloyd, please?"

"Speaking. How may I be of service?"

"You've been of enormous service already, David. I called to thank you personally."

Huh? Who was this? I'd been away from the Park since Thursday, and I didn't recall helping anybody that much in the previous week that would warrant this kind of call. "Excuse me? I don't recall..."

"Oh! I'm sorry, David, it's Ben, Carol Anne's husband, or should I say, second husband?"

Ben laughed at his own private joke. Now that I knew who it was, I detected a deep tiredness in his voice, and a -- warmth, as he explained why he called so early in the day. It would still be morning out there. "Carol Anne went into the office today to get some paperwork caught up, so I took the opportunity to call you when we could speak privately. In one of her letters Diane mentioned the name of the Park where you work, so it wasn't hard to find you and talk to you there, rather than at home."

"Ben? We've never met, but from what little Carol Anne told me, I'd like to meet you and shake your hand."

"No, David, it's I who should be shaking yours. What you did for Carol Anne this past weekend has value beyond measure! She's so happy! That alone was worth sending her off to see you. But you freed her soul, David! You freed her soul! You did in three short days what I've not been able to do in six years with her."

As I listened to Ben speak, there was some inflection or tone of warmth I couldn't quite define, and I just knew that I could tell this man anything. I'd never met him, but I knew instantly, that this man was a friend, capital F-R-I-E-N-D. I let him know Carol wasn't the only one affected. "Thank you, Ben, but she wasn't the only one healed. I was too, and so was my wife, Diane. There's something big afoot, Ben, something really big."

"I sensed that from what was said last night. I did listen in, after all, but felt I had nothing to contribute beyond what Carol Anne told you about me helping plan how to get you to give her a baby, so I kept quiet. Man! That is some love story! I cried with you when you told of your breakup. I don't think she knew I was listening. Carol Anne told me before something about you sensing a Power at work. Someday we must talk about it. Right now, I just want to talk about Carol Anne and the wonderful changes you've wrought in her <I LIKED this guy! He talked like me!>. Do you know what she did this morning when she woke up?"

I just KNEW what Carol did. It seemed fitting and would satisfy her sense of humour, too. I laughed when I said, "Don't tell me — she howled like a wolf, scaring half the neighbours' cats, and waking up every dog for three city blocks, right?"

He laughed heartily. "Yeah, not counting the chill that went down my poor old spine. How'd you know?"

"Ha! Ha! Get used to it, Benjamin, you could be hearing it a lot. That's her cry of fulfillment. She's so ecstatic over her pregnancy and her return to the world, she's gotta let it out. She's always been very vocal in her joy. I suspect she did it as something of a lark or joke, too. She can be pretty outrageous when she wants to be. We didn't tell in our story last night what she did to the little old blue haired lady at Dolly's wake, did we?"

"No, please do."

I told Ben about us taking a quickie, which Carol had announced to the room that we were going to feed the 'pets', the mess we made (as usual) and how Carol jerked that lady's chain but good.

Ben laughed and laughed then he asked me to explain more about the howling.

Suddenly I was drawn back twenty years to one of the happiest times in my life, and I wanted to share it with this man. "It was a little unnerving the first time I heard Carol howl twenty years ago. She got our old black Lab, Clyde, singing. It was the funniest thing we ever heard!!"

Ben and I broke up laughing with the mental image of Clyde singing along with Carol's howl. I hadn't enjoyed talking to a man like this, except for Dad, in many years. Ben struggled to get himself under control. "W-we?"

"Oh yeah, it was New Years, 1966. Carol Anne, Riekie, and I were having our first real-sleep-together night since we got married the previous summer. We were having a LOT of fun, if you catch my drift, and Carol Anne had this absolutely massive orgasm. She felt so good from coming so hard, she actually howled. Clyde heard her and howled back, then he started 'singing', and it broke us up completely. Riekie laughed so hard, I thought she'd piss herself! Later that night, Riekie howled too, only deliberately, when she came a big one, except Old Clyde had moved upstairs, unbeknownst to us, and when he answered Riekie, he was right outside our door! He scared the bejeezus out of us! Carol Anne giggled herself silly."

I almost fell out of my chair, laughing at those happy old memories. I could hear Ben laughing until he started to choke. It felt so good to have a real deep-down bust-a-gut belly laugh after all these years. I finally regained a little composure, although tears still ran down my cheeks. "So get used to it, Ben! You're gonna hear more of that! So am I, I think. Diane let a howl out of her last night that set off a local coyote!"

We broke up again at the images created. Still laughing, Ben managed to ask.

"What it is with you and these girls that you can make them so happy and fulfilled they howl? <CHUCKLE> Are you that good in bed?"

"Ben, I could brag, but I can't. No, it's not so much me — it's them — they bring out the best in me. They're totally innocent, completely uninhibited, virtually insatiable and are extremely exuberant in their joy and love of life. When they're in love, it's total, and at the risk of bragging, it's lucky me they're in love with. Some people, Carol Anne's family included, used to think I was Superman or something. I let them think it, but I knew, it wasn't me, it was those Super GIRLS pushing all the right buttons because they love me, and I love them. They still push those buttons.

"Carol Anne is especially innocent and naive. Because of her 'illness' for lack of a better word, over the last twenty years, she has actually been frozen in time. She's no more a sexual sophisticate now than when she was at seventeen, and that's what I love about her. When she's well, as she is now, she's as disingenuous as a child, and if we'd stayed together even as we'd planned, I think she'd still have been like that. Diane's the same. She's a terror in bed, but she's totally innocent and unprepossessing about her sexuality. I haven't seen Riekie in eighteen years, but I have a notion, despite her sophisticated education, and unless her husband has changed her, she's just like the other two."

"David, I don't know how to thank you enough for what you did this weekend. You gave Carol Anne back to herself, and you gave us all two new babies. I've NEVER seen her actually happy before, and then to see this joy, almost rapture! Oh, and what that's done for me! I'm an old eunuch, as you know, but the vision that walked into my home yesterday made even me sit up and take notice. I always knew Carol Anne was attractive, but I never realized just how truly beautiful she is, until she walked in here yesterday! I hardly recognized her. When I first saw her get out of the cab, I thought one of my sons' girlfriends was coming to visit.

"I sent a matron East, and you sent a luscious coed back! That hair! It's simply gorgeous! I never knew! I may be a eunuch now, but I still remember what it felt like to be with someone that beautiful and sensuous! And those legs! When I was younger and was still a man, I fancied myself a leg man. My kate had gorgeous gams, but Carol Anne's are the standard, I think. She always wore baggy slacks or long skirts, so I never saw much of them before. To show you just how attractive she is, I watched the cabby that drove her home as she walked into the house — he never pulled away until she was out of sight! My! My! David! What miracles you can accomplish!"

"No miracle, Benjamin. Yes, Carol Anne's legs are magnificent. I agree; they are the standard by which I gauge all other women, although Diane Marie is a close second. The real Carol Anne was there all along, all she needed was to be released from the prison of her own conscience where that man put her, and refused to release her. Did she tell you about him? I think he's going to jail for what he did to me, and we have some other goods on him as well."

"Yeah, she told me the whole thing after she got off the phone with you and your family last night. I didn't tell her I listened to the whole thing and already knew what happened to him. He deserved everything he got and then some. I just hope your friend can really pin something on him. Carol Anne had told me most of your story, but what you told together, with your parents was amazing. From what Carol Anne had told me before, and what I heard last night, I'm afraid I was like your dad and wanted to go hunting that serpent myself. <Chuckle> And Diane and Carol have fallen for each other, eh? Interesting!"

"I guess they have! Diane held that picture I gave her as if it was the real person, and would hardly put it down even at bedtime. But... that's not the half of it Benjamin, now Diane is falling for Riekie, too, sight unseen and word unspoken, except for her prom pictures. Now that's interesting!"

"My! My! Oh! You know something else Carol Anne did when she got home? She took all that stuffy old underwear she used to wear, and threw it in the trash! She said she wouldn't be needing it anymore. Seems she wants to be ready for you any time, all the time! Hey! Hey! You're one lucky S.O. B.! And she sent most of her clothes to the Goodwill, too. I think my credit card is gonna take a beating while she gets her wardrobe back in order. She's like a damn teenager, almost giddy! I don't know if my heart can take having such a young person around now.

"Which brings me to why I really called, David. If there's any way at all, I intend to see you two fully re-united as soon as possible. The serpent said he'd move Heaven and Earth to separate you. I'll move them to get you back together. There's no way so much love should ever be parted, and I'm including Riekie in that, too. I had a love something like yours once, and lost her to illness. I sometimes think my cancer is my own body's way of saying I'd remain true to her. But I mustn't let myself get maudlin and sentimental just yet. You know, don't you, that although I married Carol Anne, we're really just extremely good friends?"

"Yes, Carol Anne told me that. Why did you marry her then, if it wasn't romance?"

"There was some quality about her that made me want to protect her and help her, and because I'm a eunuch, I was non-threatening to her. She was also good for me, drawing me out of a well of self pity I'd thrown myself into after the death of my wife and then my illness. She helped me, but I was never able to fully help her. Oh, she was a little better, and more able to function, but there was no spark. Now, there's spark! Boy oh boy! There's spark!"

"Carol Anne told me you would probably help her pack her bags and happily drive her to the airport if she decided to come home, but she won't leave you, Benjamin. You're her legal husband and most importantly, her friend, and as long as you need her, she'll stay with you, regardless of how much she wants to be home. That's what friends do. You were there for her, now she needs to be there for you. I think she's told you enough about me, that I would do no less myself. Carol Anne couldn't abandon a friend to come to me, especially me. I'd think less of her if she did, and she knows that. So, until such time as you either pass over or actually divorce her, you're stuck with her and the twins. I only hope you'll let them come East from time to time and let the rest of the family come to visit them."

"David, visiting is not an issue, you're welcome anytime. I know you can't give up your life back there and move out here to be with her. She wouldn't want that anyway. Her home is with you and the others. She has never considered the west her home, as I think you know.

"But David, I called when she's not here because I don't want to upset her so soon after her miraculous rebirth. She'll know soon enough, but I want to spare her for a little while. Did she tell you anything about my prognosis?"

"Yeah, she said the doctor thought you were no longer in remission, and gave you two more years. That's an awful short time from my perspective, but it's literally a lifetime for you."

"Carol Anne doesn't know it yet, but two years was the upper limit. I could have considerably less. I had hoped to live long enough to hear the twins' first words and see them walk, but it isn't going to happen. I can feel the cancer eating away at me every day. I try not to let it get me down, for Carol Anne's sake, but I know she senses something, and she's worried. She knows something's up, because the paperwork she went into the office for today is to basically wrap up the company's books before the new owners take over."

"Huh? Carol Anne never mentioned you'd sold out."

"I haven't actually, yet, but it is for sale, and I have a couple really good offers. Carol Anne has been after me to sell out and retire while I still had some health ever since we got the business back on its feet. I always found an excuse not to, and now that I have decided to sell, it's scaring her, because she's afraid the end is near.

"Actually, I've been quietly liquidating all my assets so Carol and the kids will be looked after when I'm gone, but she doesn't know that. When we got married, we drew up a prenuptial agreement that specified what was mine before remained mine, and the same for her. Carol Anne isn't a co-owner of the business, she's a paid employee. Well paid, and with signing authority on the current and payroll accounts, but an employee nonetheless. She has unlimited use of a company car, and we've never had to get anything jointly. Carol Anne's needs have always been amazingly basic. As long as she has a roof over her head and food on the table, she's relatively content. It's like she's been marking time.

"Jamie and Robbie have been looking after all the details for me. Carol Anne thinks I gave it all to them, but it's hers and her co-heirs when the time comes. All that's left now is the business and the house. The boys will get the house; they're already well looked after from their mother's estate. I'm liquidating everything so it will be readily available when the time comes. Everything but the house goes to Carol Anne and her co-heirs."

"So why are you telling me all this, Benjamin? You know I want my children and Carol Anne home, and they'll be looked after. I can guarantee you that. You might say I'm only 'loaning' them to you."

Ben chuckled at that, but I could hear he was tiring fast. All the laughing earlier had sapped his strength.

"David, the way I feel right now, I could die any time. It's all I can do to function most days. I just want you to be aware of the situation, and if something does happen quickly, I want to hear it from you, that you and Diane will drop everything and come to be with Carol Anne. She'll need both of you near the end. Will you come?"

"Whenever I get the call, Benjamin, we'll be on the next available flight. Count on it. But it won't just be because of Carol Anne, my friend, it'll be for you."

"Thanks, David. I'll keep in touch and let you know how things are going on the QT. I don't like keeping things from Carol Anne — we've never had any secrets — but I want to spare her as long as possible if I can. What do you think?"

"Benjamin, you're asking the wrong guy. I was raised to believe that no matter how painful, the truth, and nothing but the truth, was the only way to go. Carol Anne believes that too. I understand your concern for Carol Anne, and sympathize. I've kept a little back from her myself to spare her needless pain, but nothing on the scale you are. In the end, if you keep it from her too long, her pain will be that much worse. So, yeah, let her have a couple days to get over the euphoria of this past weekend, then tell her. She has the right to know, and is a LOT stronger than you give her credit for, especially now, because now she knows she has other people who love, support, and especially trust her. Am I making any sense?"