the ring.”
Suddenly I felt I understood this creature called Wilbur. Somewhere out there was the love of his life who’d left him because he hadn’t forked over the diamonds. She’d failed the test. Maybe he wanted her soul and she just wanted some gold-plated imprisonment, which had confirmed his worst fears about women and love.
It took incredible restraint for me to resist hugging the naked teddy bear in front of me and telling him that everything would be all right—that love would conquer all. But the cynical bitch inside me knew that love was a myth. After all, neither love nor radiation was going conquer my cancerous lesion. But it wasn’t in me to punch Wilbur in the gut with my jaded perspective.
This time, I flipped my own hands over.
“No, I got the ring, and I do feel owned instead of wanted. I really don’t know what our relationship would have been otherwise—we got married so fast. My mother had just passed away and I think I was desperate to replace her. I know how awful that sounds. I wanted to replace her, not so much with him, but with a child. When that didn’t happen, I just complacently accepted that Evan was my fate. I had chosen him as my path and I needed to live with it.”
“Are you unable to have children?” Wilbur asked brazenly.
“We tried for about ten years. My doctor told me that everything appeared to be fine, but without conducting invasive tests on both Evan and me, there was no way to tell what the problem was. Evan refused all of it; he said it made him look weak. At some point I began to question what kind of father he would be anyway.”
“Is that why you left?”
“No, not really. It’s a little more complicated than that,” I replied softly, realizing what a painful subject my infertility continued to be for me.
I was glad Wilbur didn’t reply, and I decided to change the subject before he could delve any deeper.
“I was in a relationship before Evan, and in hindsight, it was really great. It had a lot of the qualities you described. We wanted the same things, and we were great friends, but, my mother never liked him—Michael. I think it was the fact that he’d always wanted to take me away. But when she got sick, it changed me. I felt like I was betraying my mother by staying with him. I married Evan instead and I don’t know what became of Michael. I’ve thought about contacting him over the years, but never knew what to say.”
“Maybe you should do it now.”
I considered Wilbur’s suggestion for a moment before I noticed that Misty and Paul were gone and had left the soap and two towels on the bank next to us. I had been so engrossed in my soul-and-body-baring conversation with Wilbur, I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by.
“I think this is the most I’ve ever shared with a naked man,” I said as I grabbed the soap and started washing.
“You mean besides your husband?”
“No, I mean period, ” I admitted.
I jumped out and quickly wrapped the towel around my water-wrinkled skin before Wilbur had an extra chance to gander. When I glanced back at him, however, he was purposely looking the other way.
I dried off as I headed inside my tent where Misty had left me shorts and a T-shirt that read “Leave me alone, I have a lot of nothing to do.” I dressed, grabbed my mindless romance novel, planted myself in one of the collapsible chairs, and did nothing but read; it was great. Wilbur followed suit, although his reading material consisted of some giant, dauntingly metaphysical tome. We sat quietly reading for hours before Paul and Misty arrived back at camp and interrupted the silence. I was jolted back to reality and out of the mystical land of my romance novel, where I’d cast myself in the title role, and Wilbur as my Fabio.
After a quick lunch, everyone decided it was a good time to meditate. Everyone but me, that is. I had no idea how to properly meditate, so I’d never attempted to do so before. I guess I’d always
Suddenly I felt I understood this creature called Wilbur. Somewhere out there was the love of his life who’d left him because he hadn’t forked over the diamonds. She’d failed the test. Maybe he wanted her soul and she just wanted some gold-plated imprisonment, which had confirmed his worst fears about women and love.
It took incredible restraint for me to resist hugging the naked teddy bear in front of me and telling him that everything would be all right—that love would conquer all. But the cynical bitch inside me knew that love was a myth. After all, neither love nor radiation was going conquer my cancerous lesion. But it wasn’t in me to punch Wilbur in the gut with my jaded perspective.
This time, I flipped my own hands over.
“No, I got the ring, and I do feel owned instead of wanted. I really don’t know what our relationship would have been otherwise—we got married so fast. My mother had just passed away and I think I was desperate to replace her. I know how awful that sounds. I wanted to replace her, not so much with him, but with a child. When that didn’t happen, I just complacently accepted that Evan was my fate. I had chosen him as my path and I needed to live with it.”
“Are you unable to have children?” Wilbur asked brazenly.
“We tried for about ten years. My doctor told me that everything appeared to be fine, but without conducting invasive tests on both Evan and me, there was no way to tell what the problem was. Evan refused all of it; he said it made him look weak. At some point I began to question what kind of father he would be anyway.”
“Is that why you left?”
“No, not really. It’s a little more complicated than that,” I replied softly, realizing what a painful subject my infertility continued to be for me.
I was glad Wilbur didn’t reply, and I decided to change the subject before he could delve any deeper.
“I was in a relationship before Evan, and in hindsight, it was really great. It had a lot of the qualities you described. We wanted the same things, and we were great friends, but, my mother never liked him—Michael. I think it was the fact that he’d always wanted to take me away. But when she got sick, it changed me. I felt like I was betraying my mother by staying with him. I married Evan instead and I don’t know what became of Michael. I’ve thought about contacting him over the years, but never knew what to say.”
“Maybe you should do it now.”
I considered Wilbur’s suggestion for a moment before I noticed that Misty and Paul were gone and had left the soap and two towels on the bank next to us. I had been so engrossed in my soul-and-body-baring conversation with Wilbur, I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by.
“I think this is the most I’ve ever shared with a naked man,” I said as I grabbed the soap and started washing.
“You mean besides your husband?”
“No, I mean period, ” I admitted.
I jumped out and quickly wrapped the towel around my water-wrinkled skin before Wilbur had an extra chance to gander. When I glanced back at him, however, he was purposely looking the other way.
I dried off as I headed inside my tent where Misty had left me shorts and a T-shirt that read “Leave me alone, I have a lot of nothing to do.” I dressed, grabbed my mindless romance novel, planted myself in one of the collapsible chairs, and did nothing but read; it was great. Wilbur followed suit, although his reading material consisted of some giant, dauntingly metaphysical tome. We sat quietly reading for hours before Paul and Misty arrived back at camp and interrupted the silence. I was jolted back to reality and out of the mystical land of my romance novel, where I’d cast myself in the title role, and Wilbur as my Fabio.
After a quick lunch, everyone decided it was a good time to meditate. Everyone but me, that is. I had no idea how to properly meditate, so I’d never attempted to do so before. I guess I’d always
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