Chapter 2

I awoke that Saturday morning seven years ago at eleven-thirty. My mouth tasted like shit and I was groggy. I made it out to the kitchen. It was empty. There was no sound from anywhere in the house. I could hear our milk cow bellowing as if she hadn't been milked. The drawers to Sarah's bureau had been emptied of most everything. I went upstairs and Bert and Willow's room was in the same condition. There was the smell of pot and the sheets on Bert's bed were covered with fresh drying stains. In the bathroom I found an empty bottle of sleeping pills and a saucer that held a residue of crushed tablets.

I did chores and went in and brewed coffee. There was a note on the table and I put it aside for the moment. I remembered Willow waking me sometime in the night and telling me I needed a drink of water. It must have had something in it. I sat and pondered what had happened. I had an immense sense of loss. Willow knew if Sarah and Bert got in bed together again, that I would drive her and Bert away immediately. She promised they wouldn't. I hadn't considered that Sarah and Junior might be leaving with them.

I opened the note. "Bill, I caught Bert and Sarah upstairs together. Both were stoned and were having sex. We are all leaving, for as angry as you have been, I fear you will hurt one or all of us. Junior should be with his mother. Don't worry about him, for I will care for him as if he was my own. You will have to trust me on this. Someday I will return him to you. I know he will grow up to be a fine young man. I regret leaving and want you to be aware of the loss I am feeling. Love, W"

I knew now that I had not only lost my wife, but also another woman who loved me. Loved me enough to keep a promise to me. My thoughts turned to my son. If he was with just my wife, I would certainly be on the phone to the police. He was with Willow and she declared Junior loved her as much as he loved his own mother. She would be the one that I now could trust to care for him. "I destroyed Bill's family and his happiness. It is up to me to see that his son is brought up to be a credit to him." That is what she would do. But then, how could I tell for sure?

It was three months later that I received a letter in the mail. There was a cashier's check that fell from between the pages when I opened it. I was expecting an apology from Sarah, but I was disappointed. "Bill, I'm still pissed at you for not following the plan. We could have been all so happy together. Willow won't discuss why she made Bert and me pick up and move out the night we left. She drove us out of bed and right out into the van and ran around throwing clothes into the back of it. Don't worry about our son. I wanted to leave Junior with you, but Willow insisted he come with us. She acts as if she is Junior's mother now and he is her first priority and is well cared for. She didn't think you should have to care for the farm and Junior too.

"The check that is with this letter is to pay someone to help with all of the chores. Bert has objected, but when Willow told him she was pregnant with a child he had better do as she says. Otherwise he would never see his baby. I guess in one way, it is good that we all didn't get together. Willow is a bitch sometimes and isn't all that easy to get along with. She just has to be the boss.

"I wanted to let you know where I am, but Willow won't allow it. We move from one commune to another. It is pretty exciting to me and I'm seeing a lot of the country. You can't believe the experiences I'm having either. Someday I hope to have a home again. Willow says when she gets big with the baby we'll find some place warm to live. Bill, I still love you." There was a long space that had been erased. I tipped the letter to the light. She had chopped the sentence off. I could faintly make out the words, "but I love Bert very much too." At the end there was just, " Sarah."

I guess you can say all I had left of the marriage I started with was the farm. My wife was gone. She couldn't leave the man she had got into bed with. Maybe it was the sex, compounded with the drugs she had been plied with. Who knew? The thought crossed my mind, what if I had started a life with Willow? That was an unknown! I suspected though, it would have been more solid than the one I had with Sarah.

I went on with my life the best way I could. I was careful with the people I chose to help me. Still, during the long nights, I wondered if I would have been happier now if I had embraced the different lifestyle. I was just so alone!

It had taken me a year to locate my wife and the others. All three who had abandoned me, were living in New Mexico. Bert and Sarah were living openly together as man and wife. Willow had a small trailer where Junior and the new baby lived. I found them by keeping in contact with several of the hippies that lived in this area. Whenever I met someone new that was visiting around, I asked if they had run into the Smiths who were traveling with a woman named Sarah and a little boy called Junior.

The hippies were much like the gypsies of Europe, traveling and stopping for a bit, and then moving on to someplace new. The welcome was out to whoever stopped for the night or for a week. Food and bed were shared without stint. Stories were told and past acquaintances were asked after. During that year, I even talked to one person who had shared my wife's body for a night somewhere in North Dakota. He reported she seemed happy with the lifestyle and had no plans to return to Vermont.

Willow was mentioned by the same person. She had some hold over her two companions and was always berating them over the excesses that Bert and Sarah indulged in. She didn't participate in these herself in any way, because she had a two and a half year old child to care for and was apparently pregnant herself.

I don't know how long my mind had been in the past. Willow was patiently rocking in the chair, and staring into space. I guess we both returned to the present at the same time. She asked me to tell her how I made do with them gone.

"The first couple of months after Sarah and you left were rough. My Dad came and did chores until I found an older man, Randy, who was willing to do them for me. I paid him minimum wage. He also needed a place to live and I said he could have the cabin to live in if he would fix it up. He was quite handy and he put the cabin into better shape than it had been before Bert and you arrived. When it was ready to move into, I gave him a year's lease in return for the work he had done. You should see it now. It is quite the little home. I rent it out sometimes, but only to a single man.

"In a way, I suppose I have bartered for services the same here in the main house. One of the women that I worked with, had a mother who was looking for a place to live. I let her move into one of the rooms upstairs. She was sixty-six years old, a widow and on social security. That didn't amount to too much as it was only $144 a month. She lived here in return for housekeeping and fixing my meals. Randy, my hired man, and also retired, was soon taking his meals with us. They got married and moved downtown. I sold the animals when they moved out.

"The hippies like you are settling down now that they are getting older. I think maybe just as you have. Some of those that I met years ago, show up to reminisce about their times around here. Just last week, a big black Buick drove in and two men got out. I swear, the suits they were wearing must have cost what I earn in a month or more. One is a medical doctor and the other is a psychologist. They both practice in Boston.

"They lived in a camp over on Cemetery Road. They visited here for the Fourth of July one year and I was invited over there for breakfast the next morning. Probably it doesn't seem unusual to you, but when I drove in, three naked women came out of an old bus that was parked beside the camp. It was quite a treat for me and I suppose if I was interested, one would have been available.

"Three years ago, one kid who had worked for me during sugaring season, wanted a recommendation. It was to be mailed back to the University of Maine. He was here visiting in the spring."

"No woman in your life now?"

"Willow, I'm married. How can there be?" I said this with a grin. I continued. "I do go out sometimes. It isn't often, but I do have the chance to sleep over on occasion, but I don't make a habit of it. I figure I might as well. Sarah fucked her way across the country. She doesn't know it because she dropped her family, but she has been disowned by her parents. Her father has died, but I don't suppose she cares. They wanted to know their grandson, and she took him with her, which has made them pretty bitter."

"You're bitter too, aren't you?" I didn't answer that observation.

"With her asking for a divorce, I suppose I will see if I can find love again. I'll tell you one thing, it won't be with someone like Sarah. I'm just not that trusting anymore."

"How can you tell if the woman is trustworthy?"

"I can't I guess. No woman will ever get so much of my heart and love as she did again. That's for certain." It was time for Willow to share with me some of her own life and I asked, "So, I understand you are living in New Mexico. How come you decided to settle there?"

"How do you know where I live? I haven't said."

"I've known where you have been living for the last six years. I probably couldn't find you in today's time if I had to look for you. The hippies have stopped moving around so much. You do know a woman named Peggy Brant. We correspond quite often and have for years. She wrote to me when she moved to New Mexico a year after you left here. She worked for me during the first winter you were gone. I bought a snow plow for my pickup and she plowed snow. I paid her wages while I was working at the factory. She knew much of what my situation was. She recognized Sarah's name and contacted me."

"Peggy never said she knew you. She lives in the same park as I do."

"I know and I asked her not to. It wasn't you I was concerned about. It was Junior."

"Wow, that is why she always asks how my little boy is and wants to know how he is doing in school and everything. Did she tell you I had a baby girl?"

"She didn't need to, but she told me about her the same as she did about Junior. I received one letter from Sarah sometime after you guys took off. She said it was you that made Bert send me some money and that you were pregnant. By the way, thanks. The money came in very handy." The question had to be asked. "Where is Junior now?"

"He and my little girl, Robin, are downtown with an old friend that I know still living here in the area. I thought I had better come see you first to see if you would speak to me."

"Are you going to let me see my son?"

"Of course I am. I'll bring both of them here. Bill, before I go after the kids, I'd like to tell you some things I think you should know. I hooked up with Bert long before college. At that time my parents didn't approve of him. Just to get back at them, I tried to get pregnant. Hey, it was my body and I could do what I wanted to with it. That was my thought process at the time. I screwed his brains out for five years. For almost two of those years right here in the room upstairs. I never used any protection and I figured it was me that was incapable of conceiving a baby because of something that happened in my past.

"You know something else? You and I made love several times over the space of five days. I wanted to get pregnant by you just as badly as I wanted Bert to make me pregnant, but for a much different reason. You may not believe me, but having sex with you was so much different and I have to say so much better as well. I felt it and so I was not too surprised when only a month later, I knew I was carrying your baby. Robin is your child, because I haven't slept with Bert or any other man since my time with you. There was certainly no chance of getting in bed with him, because Sarah took him for her own.

"You've heard about two people being soul mates. Well that describes Bert and Sarah. They didn't realize it until I discussed the reason why Bert didn't impregnate me. It is he that is sterile and not me. Suddenly, Bert realized that Sarah might become pregnant by someone other than him. He urged her to go in and have her tubes tied.

"Not only that, he began to object when she got together with another man. It is surprising that she didn't conceive sometime during the year we were moving around. She was pretty wild. Both were for that matter. Some different than when he was willing to share her with anyone. That was the time I felt we should settle down."

"You mean if I went down to New Mexico and demanded my rights as her husband, it would make him jealous? I might just do that." I sat back and played a scene through my mind of getting into bed with Sarah and Bert standing watching as I closed the door. I glanced at Willow.

She was looking concerned. "Bill, please don't do that. The two of them are more husband and wife than she and you ever were. They are totally monogamous. They have now been directing their energies into religion. Bert has what some people would describe as having a golden voice. There was a small church that only had a few members, many of them older people.

"After Bert learned he was sterile, he was depressed. Not only about his own condition, but about how he was going to convince Sarah to stick with him. This was a troubling time for both, with her promising to always be faithful to him. They ended up attending a gathering one Sunday. The church was so small the congregation couldn't afford anything but a lay preacher. Bert had taken classes learning public speaking and oration while in school. Right now, he is going to school and is going to be ordained a minister by next spring. He wants Sarah by his side as his wife when that takes place.

"That is why I am back up here in Vermont asking you to divorce Sarah. Bert is good. The congregation has grown under his lay ministry, and has merged twice already with other congregations. It is now the biggest church in the area and promises to get bigger."

"Does the congregation that he preaches to know that the woman he is living with isn't his wife? Or that this woman has a husband she has abandoned taking his child with her?"

"No they don't. It isn't all her fault either. It was me that made Bert and Sarah leave here. The promise I made you aside, I was worried you would get violent when you found out Bert and Sarah had bought drugs and were having sex again after they had made a promise to abstain. They promised both you and me. I also made the decision that Junior should be with his mother, so I made her take him with us that night when we left. I must say I couldn't leave the little fellow either.

"I came to look on him as my son. The night we left we went to Johnson's pasture. Sarah went wild. She was meat for the grinder. I moved all of us out of there as soon as I could. I could see at that time Junior was never going to be safe to be left alone with Sarah if she continued the path she was on. I became mother to your son that night. I have been his mother ever since. I think I have been a very good one."

"I think you have. Peggy Brant has written me that you have been. That is why I didn't go and get him after I found out where you were living. Does Junior know who his real mother is?"

"Yes. At least once a week I would get him dressed and say, 'We are going to visit your mother.' He calls her mother, but he doesn't look on Sarah as if she is. I'm Mom to him just like I am to Robin. He refers to Bert as father. I have let Sarah handle that. I have also told him that he has a dad in Vermont. He was excited to think he was soon to see you and call you Dad. He is waiting right this minute to meet you and he isn't only five miles away."

"What about the girl? Am I expected to be her Dad as well?"

"I wish you would be. Robin is only six and you will break her heart if you don't. The two children have been brought up to be treated as brother and sister. I have let Robin call Sarah mother, even though there is no connection. There again, I'm her Mom and she knows the difference."