Chapter 19: Reminiscences

Denise and I had been sitting together quietly for only a few moments, when Lissa reappeared from the den. She took in the tableau of her mom and me sitting there, so close together and side-by-side, and showed some evident satisfaction on her face.

"What's up, hun?" Denise asked.

Lissa shrugged, but then quickly took a seat across the table from us and leaned forward with another conspiratorial grin on her face.

"I forgot that I have to give you your little task for this hour, too," she said to her mom, almost giggling.

Denise looked a little embarrassed, glanced sideways at me and back to her daughter. "Um, ok?" she prompted.

"So, I think you should do it, right here at the table," Lissa commanded, with a triumphant tone.

"With Jason sitting right here?" Denise asked, whether with real or feigned panic, I couldn't quite tell. Perhaps a cognitively dissonant combination of both?

Lissa's grin widened. "Of course, mom. He can sit across from you, like where I am ... he won't see anything..."

Denise glanced, involuntarily, at her own lap, and across at her daughter. Swallowed, slightly nervously. I thought, after what she'd made me do, standing at the counter in the kitchen, there was some justice to this request of Lissa's. Almost as if Lissa knew, and was assisting. Hmm.

" ... as long as you're careful, of course," Lissa concluded, her expression turning serious again. And added -- unnecessarily reminding us all of how things had been progressing -- "Trust me, I did it just the other day, sitting across from Jason just like this, and it went just FINE." She then widened her grin even more.

And with that, and without looking back, she got up and returned to join her friend Marie in the den.

So as to prevent further argument, I immediately stood and moved to the seat directly across from my sister at the table, and met her gaze challengingly. With a bit of a grimace of combined annoyance and mischievousness, Denise allowed her hands to disappear under the rim of the table and I avidly noted the wiggling of her upper arm and elbow as she worked loose the button of her jeans, and then I clearly heard zipper go down in the near silence that reigned. It was very intense, with our eyes in almost locked contact, and not a word exchanged.

A minute or two into her "five minutes," Denise began to talk, unbidden: "you know, it's weird, this isn't the first time I've done this."

I raised an eyebrow in surprise, but let her keep talking, not wanting to break the spell.

"I think it was the first year I went away to college, but I was home, visiting like over Christmas break maybe -- I don't recall exactly. But you had just turned fourteen. And my old friend Mikaela was over, I think."