Read Online Garden of Eden by Sharon Butala - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sharon Butala
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help, no one will mind.
As she’s driving out of the parking lot an unaccustomed relief floods over her. She has never minded these events before, even enjoyed them, nor has she ever questioned their necessity knowing, as she does, that they are what make the community. Still caught up in surprise at her reaction to leaving the hall full of her relatives, friends, and neighbours, she momentarily catches a glimpse of Barney moving slowly on horseback through the lodgepole pines that surround his cabin in the wilderness and she understands a little about why he’s gone. Abruptly, she’s gripped by the desire to reverse herself, to throw everything up too, run to him, and throw her arms around him:
I give up, you’re right,
she’d say.
Somehow she’s turned the wheel left when she meant to go right, and there it is on the corner: the house where James or Jake Springer used to live, newly painted a pale blue with white trim, its big yard still framed by the ancient sixty-foot poplars the pioneers planted. The memory of their lovemaking, so long ago now, hits her low in her abdomen with an immediacy that stuns her — his mouth on her breasts, his gentle, insistent hands on her body, his … She catches her breath. The one person who loved her wholly, without equivocation, dead now, gone forever. And she can hardly believe she could ever have done such a thing — her, a respectable married woman, a woman in love with her husband, and him a good man who didn’t drink or abuse her or even look at other women. Even more puzzlingis her lack of shame at her adultery, as if the pure, desperate love she and James shared is its own justification.
And what about the pain? she asks herself. The need to sneak around, lying to Barney that she was cleaning his house and seeing to it that he ate the occasional decent meal, when in fact her cleaning was perfunctory and she rarely did more than make a pot of tea. What about the constant terror of being caught, her life ruined by her own unaccountable, driven need for an old man? Not for the first time, and not without perplexity, and something else less easily nameable, she thinks there was something in their relationship that felt like father and daughter. Maybe that was part of why it was so good. Her own father so distant. She pulls back in distaste from this line of thinking. It was love, she tells herself, that was all, and we were a perfect match sexually.
Sex with Barney has become a disaster. When he comes home for a night every week or so she is so ardent, so tender, eager to woo him back, trying to please him with all the things she knows he likes best: touching him just so, her kisses studied, expert, filled with desire, and him apologizing afterward — “I dunno what’s — the thing is —” She can feel the effort it takes him to respond at all. Then lying silently beside her, awake but pretending not to be, while she does the same, hurt and angry, desperate to speak to him about this nameless thing that’s spoiling their love, but afraid to say a word for fear of hurting him, or of having him say something she couldn’t bear to hear — or even worse — of scaring him away so he stops coming home at all. She holds back tears and grips the steering wheel more securely. She has decided he’s having an affair with his ranch, and until he tires of it, or begins to remember all the bad things about ranching that he once couldn’t wait to get away from, she’ll have to settle for being second best, even if she hates it with every fibre of her being. Patience, her father would say. Wait it out. You got time. That’s how he did business, she remembers grimly, it always worked for him.
The small, muddy town recedes behind her now, as she climbs out of the valley and begins to gather speed on the highway. Sun has broken through the clouds; the haze that has for days obscured the distance has dissolved and she can see the prairie, varying from flatto slightly rolling,
As she’s driving out of the parking lot an unaccustomed relief floods over her. She has never minded these events before, even enjoyed them, nor has she ever questioned their necessity knowing, as she does, that they are what make the community. Still caught up in surprise at her reaction to leaving the hall full of her relatives, friends, and neighbours, she momentarily catches a glimpse of Barney moving slowly on horseback through the lodgepole pines that surround his cabin in the wilderness and she understands a little about why he’s gone. Abruptly, she’s gripped by the desire to reverse herself, to throw everything up too, run to him, and throw her arms around him:
I give up, you’re right,
she’d say.
Somehow she’s turned the wheel left when she meant to go right, and there it is on the corner: the house where James or Jake Springer used to live, newly painted a pale blue with white trim, its big yard still framed by the ancient sixty-foot poplars the pioneers planted. The memory of their lovemaking, so long ago now, hits her low in her abdomen with an immediacy that stuns her — his mouth on her breasts, his gentle, insistent hands on her body, his … She catches her breath. The one person who loved her wholly, without equivocation, dead now, gone forever. And she can hardly believe she could ever have done such a thing — her, a respectable married woman, a woman in love with her husband, and him a good man who didn’t drink or abuse her or even look at other women. Even more puzzlingis her lack of shame at her adultery, as if the pure, desperate love she and James shared is its own justification.
And what about the pain? she asks herself. The need to sneak around, lying to Barney that she was cleaning his house and seeing to it that he ate the occasional decent meal, when in fact her cleaning was perfunctory and she rarely did more than make a pot of tea. What about the constant terror of being caught, her life ruined by her own unaccountable, driven need for an old man? Not for the first time, and not without perplexity, and something else less easily nameable, she thinks there was something in their relationship that felt like father and daughter. Maybe that was part of why it was so good. Her own father so distant. She pulls back in distaste from this line of thinking. It was love, she tells herself, that was all, and we were a perfect match sexually.
Sex with Barney has become a disaster. When he comes home for a night every week or so she is so ardent, so tender, eager to woo him back, trying to please him with all the things she knows he likes best: touching him just so, her kisses studied, expert, filled with desire, and him apologizing afterward — “I dunno what’s — the thing is —” She can feel the effort it takes him to respond at all. Then lying silently beside her, awake but pretending not to be, while she does the same, hurt and angry, desperate to speak to him about this nameless thing that’s spoiling their love, but afraid to say a word for fear of hurting him, or of having him say something she couldn’t bear to hear — or even worse — of scaring him away so he stops coming home at all. She holds back tears and grips the steering wheel more securely. She has decided he’s having an affair with his ranch, and until he tires of it, or begins to remember all the bad things about ranching that he once couldn’t wait to get away from, she’ll have to settle for being second best, even if she hates it with every fibre of her being. Patience, her father would say. Wait it out. You got time. That’s how he did business, she remembers grimly, it always worked for him.
The small, muddy town recedes behind her now, as she climbs out of the valley and begins to gather speed on the highway. Sun has broken through the clouds; the haze that has for days obscured the distance has dissolved and she can see the prairie, varying from flatto slightly rolling,
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