RichEisbrouch
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Before we could talk with Spence, we had to wait. But that was all right because we had a lot to wait through. First, there was Mary and me. It was one thing to accidentally fall asleep on her bed, another for her to see me unintentionally naked, and a third for me to start to see and touch her in any way other than as her doctor. And that somehow seemed easier for her. “We’ve already touched each other,” she said, and that was true – we’d held hands and casually kissed for my parents. S
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Thanks. Yeah: there's a lot of laying in information at the beginning. And a lot of characters. And so much is in dialogue. And I know it still seems an odd story for this site. But I've very glad you like it.
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Thanks. Thanks very, very much. Though I write the other kind of book, too, and several are here on this site. So please don't be disappointed if you stumble on one of those, looking for a good story. There's still a good story. It's just that the guys have their clothes off. A lot.
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Interesting. My dad started as a Navy pilot in WWII but couldn't see a particular shade of pink so eventually became an Army air traffic controller. Good thing, too: as a Navy pilot, he would have been sent to the Pacific, flying antique planes, and he probably wouldn't have survived.
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Thanks. Sometimes, I worry about both it and about readers on this site continuing to follow it.
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The baby was born on April 16th. “You’re right,” my father said. “Not the Fourth of July.” “And not a bruiser,” my mother added. “Nope,” Mary told them. “Just a normal, healthy, seven-pound baby girl.” “So not early, either,” Dad pointed out. “I wouldn’t know about that,” I said. “I’m just a doctor.” “And a father. Congratulations.” And he shook my hand. And my mother hugged and kissed me and then practically climbed into the hospital bed with Mary – she was trying that h
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By March, in my examining room, Mary clearly looked seven months pregnant, and she was already in her eighth month. Still, dressed, she could pass for six. “Gonna be an athlete,” my father joked. “That’ll be a first in our family.” “Oh, come on,” I objected. “Ben knows his way with a bat and ball. And I know my way around a boat.” “Not the same as being a weight lifter,” Dad cracked on. “And this little one’s gonna to be a bruiser.” “What if she’s a girl?” He only needed to t
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So when did Mary get to see what I looked like without my bathing suit? When did I finally satisfy the curiosity of the woman who was steadily becoming my closest friend? I knew I wasn’t her closest. That was Claire and possibly always would be. But even as I was trying to pretend I was convincingly married, I was slowly becoming use to the idea of it being real. But with Claire. Still, there was a night when Mary accidentally came out of the bedroom just as I was putting on my pajamas. Norm
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A friend of mine, Rita, recently mentioned that she has a three-year-old grandson named Ajax, and I realized there was a connection to Greek or Roman mythology, but I didn’t know the specifics. She added that when her son and daughter-in-law‘s friends hear the boy’s name, they joke, “Is he going to marry a girl named Windex?” or “Is he going to marry a woman named Comet?” It turns out that Ajax was a Greek warrior, but I had to admit that when I hear Ajax, the first thing I think of is “Boom
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The best thing that happened in November was Franklin Roosevelt won the presidential election. Despite the fact that Mom and Mary had been walking all over the Upper West Side, they weren’t really worried about Roosevelt’s popularity, at least in New York. After all, he was the well-liked governor. Still, the fact that he won in almost every state and that his victory was considered a landslide -- though it was really well less than a two-thirds majority – made them feel they were part of someth
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Sure thing, but be careful: reading a few of these can go a long way, and you soon feel like an English teacher, correcting papers.
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Of course, there was another reason my mother was distracted. Since the beginning of September, when she got back from Barnegat, she’d been working some evenings after school and part of most weekends to help get Franklin Roosevelt elected as president. “He’s a really good man,” she told us all one night at dinner. “We’ve got to vote for him.” There was never any question that anyone in our family wouldn’t – we were lifelong Democrats. So her words were aimed at Mary, whose politics we d
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Of course, that was just the beginning. And there are always surprises, especially when you don’t know what you’re getting into, and you’re feeling your way along. At least, Mary and I were comfortable together, and we had a built-in go-between in Claire. So we went to Niagara Falls. We did the tests, and got the license, and found a minister, and we slept together as chastely as possible in what seemed like an increasingly narrow bed. “I’m not used to actually sleeping with anyone,” I s
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Medically, certainly. I’m not sure about emotionally.
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Friday morning, I had the expected news for Mary, which I couldn’t give her till Friday night. I wouldn’t have given it to her on the phone anyway, and besides, her aunt’s store didn’t have one. Instead, I gave it to her with a nod at the train station, and she accepted it the same way, while Claire stood by, no doubt unaware. Then we all went to Jenkinson’s, me grabbing my usual sandwich on the way. Spence was waiting for Mary, and they immediately danced. Al, Mike, and Larry were dancing w
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Absolutely.
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Then there came a Monday when Mary turned up in the city. She called first and left a message with my answering service, assuring them it wasn’t an emergency, and she didn’t need to go to a hospital. Still, it was more than just a friendly coincidence that she was in New York on a supposed day off. “I didn’t think you had days off during the week” was the first thing I said as I slid into a booth in the theater district restaurant where she’d chosen to meet. I knew she wasn’t in town to see
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Thanks. Your thoughts are appreciated.
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Still, when – besides the occasional early breakfast – could Claire see Spence? When did either of them have time? He was tied to the beach and the finally steadily sunny weather, and Claire wanted to be at the lumber yards whenever she could, mainly taking time off for one of her charities. Though for a couple of weeks in late August, that seemed to focus on one beneficiary – Mary. And instead of trying to lecture Spence, Claire chose to demonstrate. “It was like a experiment,” she later e
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It’s not close to four AM here, to match the time that you wrote me, and while I’ve been babying my back for twenty-five years-or-so, it’s never gotten so bad, as yours suddenly seems to have, where surgery has become a better option than exercise. Also, I’m not half-reclined in a Lazy Boy, in a family room, with a laptop across my legs as you were. I’m at my home office desk, where I usually write, and we don’t have or need a family room. But other than that, I kind of mirror you as being the o
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When I went to report to Claire, after she came out of church, I realized Spence hadn’t really given me an answer. Claire was with her parents, starting their usual Sunday lunch at the middle-fancy of the three Barnegat beach clubs. Calling them that made them sound too sophisticated, but there was no better name. I slipped onto the chair Claire had kept for me, added my accustomed western omelet to their order, and chatted politely for a while about family and the upcoming election. Claire’s fa
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Talking with Spence wasn’t going to be easy. For one thing, I’d never had that kind of talk with a guy. With women, yes – kind of. But mainly when things seemed to be getting too close, and we needed to ease apart. And I’d had them with my parents. But those were largely about education and careers – mine – and most of the time I was listening. Sometimes, Dad was, too. Mom would ask all the difficult questions and make us think. But I supposed I could turn that around if I needed to. “I’d ap
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And maybe Claire’s worry continued when – despite her confidence – she began to wonder more about Mary and Spence. She suddenly seemed to feel their casual friendship might not break off so easily in September. “Why not?” I asked, having seen no change. “I can’t put it in words,” she seemed to hedge. “I just watch Mary and see... Well, she’s not Mary anymore.” “In what way?” Maybe I was lost because I hadn’t known Mary as long. “She’s just different.” “Well, she’s older...”
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Thanks. It's sometimes fun to imagine what our parents' young lives might have been like. Originally -- as I think I've already mentioned somewhere -- I thought this might have to do with one pair of my grandparents, though moved ten or twenty years later. But the story turned out to be far more more layered. In any case, glad you're enjoying it.
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Maybe Claire started to worry about Mary when she and Spence regularly began to break the twenty-five-foot rule. That was always arbitrary, but they’d wander further and further on the beach while Claire and I stayed on the boardwalk. “Should we follow?” I’d finally ask, when it was obvious Claire was nonchalantly straining to see after them. Almost self-defensively, Claire would joke, “I can still see them.” Then she’d add, “We can move a little closer if they start heading towards the
