Chapter 74

Sunday, the flight back to Birmingham was much different than the flight to Bolling had been. Cindy seemed quite happy, and spent most of the flight time flirting with me shamelessly. I wasn't able to figure out what had caused such a change in her. I could only take not knowing for so long before I decided to ask her about it.

"Cindy, what's changed to make you seemed so carefree and happy?"

"You've changed. Joyce has changed now too. The whole atmosphere around you is starting to get back to what it was when I first met you."

"I'm happy that you think that, but, I can't see that much difference between Thursday morning and now. What made you think things have changed so much from then to now?"

Cindy looked at me, smiling. She had this look people get when they know something that you don't. I wondered if there really was something happening that everyone but me knew about. Joyce had seemed happier that morning than she'd been when we went to sleep the night before. I had slept well myself, something that was unusual for me anymore. In fact, I'd slept pretty well all three nights, probably because I wasn't sleeping alone like I had gotten used to doing.

"Didn't you notice anything different this time, Kenny? Something that has usually happened with us lately, something that didn't happen this time?"

"Are you talking about our not having sex during the trip?"

I couldn't figure out what she was alluding to. I knew her mood had changed completely. All I could think of was that she had enjoyed having sex with Joyce and Shirley, or else she was excited because Joyce had told her we were going ahead with her work project.

Maybe she was happy that I had agreed to make love to her after we got back to Birmingham too. I just didn't know. Puzzled or not though, I much preferred this happy Cindy to the one who'd been accompanying me on the flight up to Kansas back on Thursday morning.

"Kenny! Think about the trip. What was different about it?"

"I don't know, Cindy. Why don't you just tell me?"

"All of us worked out the problems that kept coming up. We haven't managed to do that in years. It wasn't just one problem that came up either. Every time I've been with you before, since you came back to Birmingham, unless it was a business problem, these things never got worked out. You'd get mad, or else you'd just walk away from whatever you didn't like. You wouldn't stay and help to find a solution to the problem. This weekend, you stayed."

"No, this weekend, I let all of you work things out. I see the difference now too though. Whenever I did that before, things never got resolved. This time they did. I don't know why though. Maybe it was because Joyce really wants things to get better?"

"She seemed the same to me. Shirley seemed more willing to bend to what Joyce was asking her for. That was probably your doing too though. Maybe we all get more reasonable when we see that other people besides ourselves are willing to be reasonable too?"

"Maybe we all see what we want to see, Cindy. You see us all resolving problems now, because you got most of what you wanted on this trip. Maybe Shirley feels that way too, I don't know. I saw some things get taken care of, but I still see a lot that's going wrong, and I'm not sure if any of us are going to be able to fix those things."

"Everyone says you're worrying too much, Kenny. Instead of looking at all the problems you still see, you should pay more attention to the progress you've made. Joyce really seems much more loving towards you than she was the last time we were all together. Sure, she's still concerned with how things are going to get back to the way they once were, but at least she thinks they might get back that way now. Before, all she thought about was how bad things were getting. Joyce never used to let herself accept how things really were. This time she did seem to accept it. She was willing to make changes to help get things worked out. Before, she would have waited to see if they were going to get fixed on their own."

I didn't know whether Cindy was the right person to make those kinds of observations or not. Usually, she only looked out for herself and her family. This was really the first time she'd had a conversation like this one with me. I had noticed a big change in Shirley this visit, but only after we'd made love and she'd allowed some of her guard to come back down. Maybe Cindy was right about Joyce too. Her guard had come down with me as well.

We were talking more, and we were also listening to each other again. For a long time, that hadn't been the case. We both talked, but neither of us really listened to the other. This weekend, all of us had listened for a change. All of us made an effort to give the others what they were asking for. Maybe that was the difference, something as simple as going into a conversation and being willing to listen, and at the same time, be disposed to trying to give the other person what he or she said they wanted.

We hadn't always done that on the visit, but, I had to admit, we'd done it a lot more than we'd done in the recent past. It was something for me to think about. I sat there quietly, listening to Cindy as she described to me all the changes she had seen in me. While I didn't know how accurate these observations were either, I could certainly tell that Cindy had been paying a lot more attention to what was going on with me than I had thought she was doing.

When we got to my house, we just seemed to both drift naturally to the bedroom. Partly as a result of what we had talked about on the flight back, I found myself wanting to make love with Cindy. I knew I had already agreed to doing that, but now, I really wanted to. Her words had encouraged me to feel better about things, and I was starting to think she had a lot more invested in me than just her immediate hopes of being given a promotion. If that was all she wanted, she wouldn't have kept nearly as close an eye on my moods and my actions over the past months. She knew a lot more about what I'd been going through than I'd given her credit for knowing.

We stayed in bed together for about three hours. It was satisfying in a way it hadn't been for a long time with us. It was more than sex, and it was a deeper communication than our earlier talking together had been. We were feeling each other again. There's no other way to describe what had happened. I knew the relationship was changed for me. Cindy had gone along with almost everything I'd asked of her this weekend. She'd also gone along when Joyce told her that Mama had said it would be better if I concentrated on just one wife at a time. She had balked about being in bed with Shirley and I at the same time, but had gone up to my bedroom with Shirley willingly enough later on Friday. She had, in a word, been helpful in doing whatever Joyce and I had asked of her. There had to be a reason for her doing that, and, for the moment at least, I was willing to attribute that to her honestly caring about us.

After Cindy got out of bed to get ready to go back to her apartment, I had a chance to think about what I should say to her. I didn't want to go too far, but I did want her to know I was beginning to think about her a little differently after this weekend. When she came out of the bathroom, all clean and ready to leave, I walked her out to her car.

"Thank you for coming up with me, Cindy. You helped make this a better visit than it would have been without you. I hope you're right about things being better for all of us now. I'm beginning to feel more optimistic too. About things in general, and about you too." Cindy reacted to my words by leaning her head and body up as much as she could and kissing me. Her arms were around my neck and she was squeezing me. When she released me, I could see definite signs of emotion in her eyes.

"I'll see you at work in the morning, Kenny. This was my favorite part of the weekend, out here in your driveway. I enjoyed a lot more than that, but this was the best part for me."

With that, she got in her car and drove off. I stood there, watching her drive away. She was still confusing to me. There were so many contradictions. One thing I'd noticed though was she never brought up her project with me even once after we left the big house in Ridgeline. It was as though it had taken a back seat in her interest for awhile. I knew it was an important thing in her life, so I had to conclude that, for the past seven or more hours, she believed our family relationship was more important than her project. If my conclusion was accurate, then my earlier assessment about Cindy's reasons for wanting to get back with me had to be mistaken. If they were mistaken, how much else was mistaken too? I walked back into the house. For once, the possibility that I'd been mistaken didn't worry me. Maybe everyone was right, maybe I should try to be relaxed more, and just let things work themselves out.

At six thirty, I called Shirley. We had a good phone conversation. We talked about the just concluded visit, and about her hope that she could get moved back into the big house in time for my next visit. She asked me if Cindy had made any comments about her, or about the time they'd spent together in my bedroom.

"She didn't really say anything about what she did with you or with Joyce. She did say she thought we were starting to get back to the way things used to be. She said it was because we all stayed around to work out our problems when they came up. I think she was referring to us all getting the sleeping arrangements worked out in the end."

"I thought Joyce was trying harder to get things worked out. Lately, she doesn't seem to work as hard to make things come out okay. Before, I think she had given up. She isn't like that now though. I'm going to go to the office tomorrow, so we can spend the day together. She and I need to get some things straightened out too, especially if we're all going to be living with each other again."

"Go easy on her, okay? She's got a lot on her plate right now already. She isn't looking forward to what Dr. Fellows might have to tell her."

"I wasn't planning to argue with her. I meant we should try to be closer than we've been for the past months. We were so close before, all of us, but things came up that seemed to make us all want to take sides. I didn't want to do that, and I'd already decided I wasn't going to just stay there, doing nothing, while Joyce tried to keep things together all by herself. I guess I thought it would be easier for her, if she didn't feel like she had to take care of me and the kids too. I can see now that it was a mistake. I guess I already knew it would be, but I was being selfish. I wanted the children acting differently with each other than they were doing. I wanted Derek to get to really know his sisters, instead of only choosing to be with Bunny and Bertie like he had been doing."

"Cindy thinks everything is going to get worked out with us. All of us. She thinks the more I become relaxed, the easier it will be for that to happen. She already says I'm a lot more relaxed than I was."

"I'm not sure relaxed is the right word. I think you've started caring again. When you were sick, it was as if you didn't care about anyone. You only seemed to care about whatever it was you wanted. I think you started caring again when the children started being allowed to really visit with you, not just see you like they'd been allowed to do from the beginning. I think they changed you because you knew you couldn't say anything bad to them, or hurt them. Dr. Fellows told us you wouldn't hurt your children, and she was right."

At nine o'clock, I called Joyce. We talked for a little while about Cindy. Joyce made me give her a graphic account of what we'd done together in bed. She seemed a little disappointed that my account didn't include many lurid details, but it hadn't really been very lurid sex. We had been together, but it hadn't been that sexy in some ways. It had been more romantic, or even friendly, than it was sexy. We had enjoyed each other sexually, but it hadn't been the main emphasis of what we were sharing.

I told her about what Shirley and Cindy had said about the visit, and why each thought it had gone as well as it had. I told her about Cindy's relaxed theory, and about Shirley's caring theory.

"I hate to say this, Kenny, but I think both of them are wrong. I don't think you've really changed that much from how you were when you first came out of the clinic. I think all the rest of us are doing the changing, not you. I've talked to Shirley and Cindy about this, asking them to describe all the changes they say they see. What I think happened to them, and to me, was we all got so lonely and discouraged that we just decided it was easier to give up. When you give up and have nothing left, you make things up to trick your own mind into accepting what you know you still need. I think we've all done that with you. I think it was the best thing we could have done too, because we finally realize what you've been saying is mostly true, who you are now is all that's available for us, so it has to be enough.

"You made me realize why it's enough for me this weekend, when you brought Cindy up for me. If you were my whole life, then it probably wouldn't be enough, not with you being the way you are now. You're the main one in my life, but now I'm understanding that you aren't the only one. I can't have most of the others, not unless you're there too, and only then, if they also accept you just like I have. I woke up this morning realizing that. It made me feel better. I needed to understand about all those other people in my life, to realize it wasn't just you I was rejecting. When I did that, I realized how much everything I loved about our old life came from these other people too, and from all of the other things I do. I also realized that what you said to me before was true. I needed to be with you, to accept you, if I wanted to have all these people and things back in my life again."

"You really can't see all the changes I've made?" I was a little hurt by what she'd said, and a lot disappointed that she didn't see all the ways I'd changed. I'd worked hard to change the way I looked at things, and the way I now acted in certain situations. I knew I'd developed a lot more patience and self control. If I couldn't change my personality that much, at least I had changed the way I treated people. I was still me, just not the same me I'd once been. I was changing how I did some things to make myself act closer to how I'd acted before.

"I see the changes you're talking about, but those aren't changes in you. You've changed some of the ways you come across to people, but you haven't changed who you are now. That's okay though. How you are is important, and who you are is fine with me now too. I decided it was okay. What made it easy for me to decide this was understanding all of what you had always meant in my life. We can still have that life together, even if you are different. We both want that life again, and, I'm sure I love you now, even if you are different than you were before."

"You think this is the same way Cindy and Shirley see things too?"

"I'm sure about Cindy. We had some talks together this weekend. She hasn't been happy for a long time. She thought she had something that was perfect for her, then she saw you get sick, and she knew it wouldn't be the same. For Cindy, there had to be a man involved. She really does love you. You should have heard her being so upset when she first got here, because she said you didn't believe it was you she mostly loved.

"Shirley is different. She liked our life too before, but, with you out of it, she still had the children, and her friendship with me. The sex parts, with all of us girls, they were never that big a draw for her. When you were sick, she lost most of her reason for going along with that part of it. Shirley felt secure with all of us before. She felt like she was a part of something, and she hadn't felt a part of too much when she was growing up. She liked belonging, so she was willing to put up with some things she wasn't too crazy about in order to be able to belong with us. You know how she always was about you. She knew she wasn't going to get all of you, but she had part of you, and she always had her dreams. She knows she can't have her dreams unless she's with you. She'd rather fool herself that you've changed, than continue to live without her dreams. We all would."