Meagan (7 of 7) #

“As luck would have it.” It’s a familiar phrase. It’s also a presumptive phrase. Luck? What is “luck?” The dictionary starts off by declaring it a “force.” If you look up “force” it is defined as an “energy” and a “cause of motion.” So a lucky event is an occurrence in which good luck brings about a circumstance of good fortune.

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And so, as luck would have it, Brian and Lois’ house just happened to be, on a scale of one to ten, in their gated community, an eleven. It was on the largest plot of land. It had greatest amount of square feet. It had the largest pool; a heated indoor pool. It had been professionally landscaped and meticulously maintained. It had a four season gazebo that cantilevered out across a spring fed creek where kids and grandkids could fish. It had a walk-in safe in the basement. And then there was the matter of that billiard’s table, all nine feet of it with not one but two inches of gray slate weighing in at an estimated two tons. Brian had bought it from its original owner twenty some years prior. That was before they put in the nearby interstate that led into the big city some forty miles to the north. It was a corporate executive dream; that or a lottery winner. Brian’s realtor had listed it at mid seven figures. So as luck would have it, it would not move quickly.

It had been one of the longest months in my life. Lois had promised she would get back to me as soon as possible before closing the door behind her. “Soon.” What length of time is “soon?” If she had promised that to me when I was younger, by now I would have lost patience and done something rash and probably have come to regret later. And yet, even now, with decades under my belt, the anxiety level had not diminished. However, experience had taught me that doves return to the boat. Carrion fowl do not. I turned off the light and loitered around in the hall of sleep before being cast off into that black pool of ink.

For twenty-five years Kathy and I had slept in that full sized bed. Along with assorted pets down through the years it had served its purpose. Yet in an early morning dream state I sensed her again slipping back into bed after one of her visits to go tinkle. The softness and warmth of naked female flesh felt good. She snuggled in close and whispered a sigh, “Mmmm. You’re so warm.”

Suddenly I was awake and without turning over, I knew who it was. I drew her hand over me and held it tight.

“You smell good,” I told her.

She kissed the back of my neck and then nibbled on my ear as her hand pushed away from my own to skitter down between my legs to take hold of my manhood. She sighed again.

“Mmmm. You must have been dreaming about me,” she joked about my early morning tent pole.

We had both come to where we thought it best to stop our physical affections for one another. Those anxieties were always there but ceased being the fiery darts they had once been. But this… this was a whole new level of passion.

I flipped over and captured her in my arms and buried my head in her tangled web of golden hair, whispering how I hated the thought of losing her forever. Bad luck. It floats around and falls seemingly without care on the unexpecting; the unfortunate. We each drew breath and whimpered.

“I love you, Wayne. I never, ever want you to forget that. To my dying day, Wayne, you will be the love of my life.”

As a teenager freshly graduated from high school, palling around with my brother’s fiancé while he was off serving his required two year Navy reserve deployment, Eve had me pull into an unknown driveway. It was Fran’s house, one of the girls she was in school with. The front porch was a tropical paradise wherein Fran’s parents sat, inviting us in and offering us lemonade to drink. Apparently, Fran’s house was used to school mates dropping. As we sat there drinking our lemonade, another car pulled up and two shadows got out and made their way up to the porch, First in was a boisterous fire cracker with satiny dark brunette hair and a mischievous grin that went from ear to ear. I liked her right from the start. But slithering in behind her was another young latin girl, short, skinny and shy. The first girl was Marie while the second was Sylvia. I don’t know how I came to the conclusion so quickly, but I knew then and there that that tiny little whiff of a girl would become the love of my life. And if it hadn’t been for me dropping out of college to earn money so that we could get married and in the process then getting drafted to go fight in the rice paddies halfway around the world, it would have been her now in my bed and not Lois. Sadly, while serving my country Syl ended up marrying someone else. And as they say, and that was that.

Mr. Daws might have gotten struck by lightning seven times in Benjamin Button but not in my wildest dreams had I ever expected for it to strike me twice in my life time. Though I don’t ever remember Sylvia telling me that I was the love of her life as Kelly Frears had confessed to Chuck Nolan in Cast Away, yet tonight such words would forever be etched in my brain with the sound of Lois’ voice half crying, half whispering, “To my dying day, Wayne, you will be the love of my life.” And just like Kelly Frears, Lois was married and I had to face the fact that I was going to have to let her go.

We were a weeping tangled web of arms and legs and kisses and tears and hugs as I drove my expressed my seed deep within Lois’ velvet glove that squeezed every drop out of me. I had rolled on top of her and pounded her as if my fists were shaking at the god of fate for having once again torn away from me a happiness which completed me. We walk about in this life with a sense of incompleteness, ever on a quest for wholeness. Then as if being struck by lightning, completeness floats into my life only to be stollen away once again.

Lois continued to stroke the side of my face, repeatedly sobbing in a vain attempt to apologize, as it were her fault for pulling up stakes and leaving me behind.

It’s all a blur thinking back on it now. We laid there together as if somehow our very souls could weld themselves together in some sort of Nirvana. Life is a story being told and then it’s over.

“Mr. Peterson! What are you doing out here in the hallway. Did Clara wheel you out here when she was changing your bed sheets and forget to wheel you back in?” The woman looked around at me as her hand took hold of the chair. “I’m sorry,” she apologized as I re-entered the land of the living. “Were you sleeping? And who’s Lois? You were calling her name.”

“Do you believe in time travel, Martha?” I asked my favorite nurse.

She gave me that smile that people seem to give me now. They’re placating smiles. They were a way of saying, “Sure, sure, Wayne. Whatever you say, Wayne.” Condescention with a smile. I don’t blame her. Many of my fellow inmates were truly crazy. Me? I was just faking it for the free food.

“Martha, I just came back from traveling,” I smiled back up at her. “Lois was the love of my life. I was just visiting her.”

Why do people not realize that you can time travel any time you want to? “And your old men will dream dreams.” All I have are memories now. No one comes to visit me. But contrary to their whispers, it doesn’t bother me. For I have my memories and I know, just as I will once again be reunited with King, and Bootsie, Ellie and Bree, the best dogs a boy and a man could ever have hoped for, just so, I know that when I cross on over that bridge of sighs, Lois and Meagan will be there on the other side waiting for me. That blonde mop headed woman, will come along side once again and slip her arm within mine as Meagan does the same, both drawing themselves up close to me, smiling with eternal love. Two days after Lois had slipped in under my sheets, together they had come to visit me. It was late and i was sitting in the living looking out the front window into the blackness of night, licking my wounds. It was a quiet visit. It both disturbed me yet put me at peace. You see, that was the night Lois’ husband fell asleep at the wheel. The family never made it back down to Alabama. They told not to cry. They told me they would be there waiting for me when my time came. So let me assure you, my friend, there is a peace which passes all understanding.