Quilted (eBook)

Chapter One:
ENDING IS BEGINNING

1994

When I broke up with Alison, my partner of ten years, I realized I’d been trying to keep us together for nine of them. I was frustrated and angry. Nine years of too many conversations abruptly escalating to volcanic heights spewing toxic insults and accusations. In my direction. The details varied from episode to episode but the assumption underlying each argument was always the same. Alison believed I’d been having an affair with Harry, our married neighbor from down the street. If this hadn’t been so outrageous and painful it could have made a great format for a fun question and answer game show. The differences being, of course, this was no game, no fun and the one asking the questions was also the one answering them. It was not me.

What took you so long getting back with the pizza? You stopped at their house, didn’t you!

Who made those footprints in the snow? You had company when I wasn’t here!

If you were home sick, why didn’t you answer the phone when I called?

Why are you so dressed up if you were just going shopping?

I had no questions for her. The situation was clear. We were finally over.

It’s not that I ever had the illusion of the perfect “as seen on T.V.” marriage where couples always share in decision-making and never disagree on anything. They both always smile and their voices are never raised. On the contrary, I know from my parents’ example that real marriages could be loud, angry, and messy, with stinging insults and ridicule. I was determined not to become my parents. My marriage with Alison would be different and definitely better. After all, we were in love.

When we met, Alison was a returning college student who had gone back to school to complete her degree. She and several other tenants, students as well, lived in a 3-story house near campus. They each had their own private room and they shared a living room, bathroom and full kitchen.

I was an elementary school teacher by day and a ballet student at night. The bank and I owned my first house, a small cottage with a few trees and a large open yard facing the river. I was proud of my successes. Despite this, I had always noticed a dark undercurrent of depression throughout my life, so I had begun seeing a therapist for counseling. I’d recently been introduced to the words “Incest Survivor” and was learning how those two words applied to me. For the last week’s therapy homework, I’d been assigned to creatively address the issue of self-image and bring it to therapy to discuss. I ended up writing the music and lyrics for a song I titled, “Refection in the Glass.” It was about talking to the reflection as if it were a child version of myself. What I saw was a frightened child. This is why I had my guitar with me that day when I walked into the waiting room.

Other than the woman sitting on the couch opposite the entrance, the room was empty. Judging by the backpack on the floor at her feet, I assumed she was a college student and a few years younger than my thirty. I took the chair nearest the door and tried not to make a racket as I settled in with the heavy case. It looked as if she’d been writing out a check but stopped mid-way when she heard the door open. Her long blond hair and spray of faint brown freckles caught my attention and I was surprised at hearing my internal dialogue assessing her as she sat there. She glanced my way briefly, politely acknowledging my presence, but instead of returning to the quiet anonymity of a psychologist’s waiting room, her eyes moved immediately to my guitar case. I’d hoped the interest I saw from her wasn’t just for the guitar.

When she finished writing her check, the woman introduced herself, Alison, and started talking. She asked why I’d brought my guitar and then shared that she also played and wrote music. At that point my therapist interrupted us, thanked Alison for her check and invited me into the office. Later, after my session as I opened the door to leave, I saw a note with my name on it on the chair where I had been sitting earlier. Written inside was Alison’s phone number.

On the drive home I thought only about Alison, her hair, her freckles, her easy demeanor. I was surprised by how naturally our conversation had flowed and how unusual that was for me. Even now it takes quite a while for me to feel comfortable with new acquaintances. I’ve never been a “people person” and I still don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone on first meeting. But with Alison it was different. We had music in common and she seemed self-confident, yet without conceit.

I drove the entire hour home with only one hand on the steering wheel. The other was in my pocket holding the paper with Alison’s phone number.

That coming weekend we had our first date. For me, it also was the first date since realizing I was lesbian. I couldn’t tell if my nervousness was because I’d had little dating experience throughout high school or college or if it was my excitement about being with Alison. I felt an unfamiliar awkwardness. I picked her up at her apartment and drove us to the nearby theater complex where E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was playing. For two hours we sat in the dark being entertained by the movie and each other. We shared popcorn, soda and M&M’s, and enjoyed tender handholding, shoulders rubbing and knees touching. After the movie we went to the diner and talked past midnight. Back at her apartment house we ended our date the old- fashioned way, with pleasant nervous exchanges and a kiss.

Between our two schedules and the geography between us we didn’t get to see very much of each other during the week. With school still in session, Alison had papers to write and studying to do and I had my ballet classes and modern dance. We tried to make up for that absence with late night phone calls to help bide the time until the weekend, but the hours apart seemed endless. Weekends, on the other hand, held no schedule, no requirements to fill, nothing on someone else’s “Must Do” list. We met each other’s friends, walked scenic trails, played miniature golf, wandered through museums and county fairs. Our friends commented on how well we got along. So unlike my parents.

During that time, I was on an emotional high. My body wanted to catch up but I knew I wasn’t prepared for a truly physical relationship. Heather had known both of us as individual clients before we met so, believing she knew us better than even we knew ourselves, we sought her advice on moving our relationship forward and scheduled a couples’ counseling session. A major focus of this was centered on my issues as an incest survivor. Not surprisingly, this took up most of our couples’ session. Heather explained that I was a survivor of childhood trauma and advised us to take things slowly. As a result of the trauma I was dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sounds or actions that could easily go unnoticed by most people might shock or even frighten me. She suggested gentle non-sexual massage as a way of building physical trust and to be mindful that seemingly innocent touches might feel threatening to me at first. We needed to discover together what kinds of touch were okay. We needed to communicate the emotions that may arise with each. Alison and I agreed.

At about this same time, Alison received notice that the house she was living in had been put up for sale and she needed to move. Unexpectedly, Alison was about to be a student with no access to campus and no place to live. I suggested she move in with me, but we both agreed that although my house was fine for occasional sleepovers, it was geographically undesirable for daily commutes to the college. She asked classmates, students and friends if they needed a roommate, checked bulletin boards and postings and school newspapers daily but nothing turned up. Adding to the mounting pressure, the academic year was coming to a close and deadlines for papers and reports were approaching. Alison became increasingly anxious and depressed and it looked more and more as if she would be forced to drop out of school. I couldn’t let that happen. We wanted to be together.

So I decided that Alison’s not being able to find a new rental was a sign from the Universe, telling us it was time to move in together. I suggested I would put my house up for sale and we would use that money towards a new purchase as a couple. Then, in a year or so when Alison would be graduated and working full time, we could design a fair way to share the expenses. It was perfectly logical and seemed like the next right thing to do.

For the next few weeks we were house-hunters and before long we were new homeowners. We had agreed on a two-bedroom house that was small but pretty much an equal distance between Alison’s college and the school where I taught. It was situated at the end of a cul de sac behind which were a few trees and an old wood fence separating our property from the inlet. In the front yard were forsythias and some large clay pots that must have held flowers before having been neglected. We had met the neighbors on one side when the realtor showed us the house. They were a heterosexual couple with two little boys and a baby on the way and seemed unfazed at learning their new neighbors were lesbians.

We did it! We found a place to start our life together. The hard part was over!

We settled into our new home and immediately started planning our Commitment Ceremony. We knew that in our state lesbian and gay couples were denied the legal rights of a traditional marriage, but we didn’t mind. It didn’t matter what...