Part 1 / Chapter Three ⥈ First Tastes

Our dad gave each of us kids a nickel when we turned five with the year of our birth on it. He loved collector coins and later bought us each the commemorative 1967 Centennial Canadian coin set. It included a $20.00 gold coin, which was a real prize in those days. He'd been trained as a jeweller in his home country and always dabbled in gold.

    A knock at my door at 8:30 in the evening surprised me.  I opened it, and there stood my sister with a large bottle of red wine. "I came by to see how you're doing," she said. She was 28 and had just returned from living at Pink Mountain and Fort Nelson, in northern British Columbia. I was 34 and reeling from a very new divorce. 

    "Oh my god," I said. My eyes filled with tears. The kids were with their dad and this was my 3rd night alone. "You are an angel." 

    She seemed all grown up. Five years earlier, I'd seen her off in her gold 1972 Chevy Nova, packed with her few possessions and the trunk loaded with my 1980 CM200T Honda Twinstar motorcycle which I'd gifted her. We'd tied a rope to keep the trunk closed, as the bike was hanging out. She had no plan; she was just heading north, going off to finally start her life after battling a severe illness for several years. That first summer she painted outhouses along the Alaska Highway, pumped gas and served coffee at the Pink Mountain Gas Station and Café. One time she was conscripted to fight a forest fire and had to trek through the bush with a heavy backpack of fire retardant. Eventually, she'd found a job as a tutor for two children living off grid, sons of a guide-outfitter. She loved this job and had mailed me a poster of a beautiful northern BC purple twilight, with a moose feeding in the reeds at the edge of a lake.

    "Cool," she commented, bringing me out of my reverie. "We're both wearing our gold crosses." It was a thing with us. We always wore our crosses when we weren't sure what was coming next. Our early church years always hovered in the background. Secretly, I was pleased that she still had hers, as she'd hocked the first one dad had made, but he'd graciously made her a second one. Although we had talked on the phone we hadn't eye-balled each other for five years.

    The last time we'd spent time together like this was when dad was between his 2nd and 3rd marriages. He'd given our key back to the house and we decided to meet there after she'd finished school one day. Dad's 2nd marriage had been five years of disaster, at least from our side. We felt shunned and all our childhood toys and mementos  had been given away without any thought of consulting us. Don't ask me why, but on that day we had the somewhat peculiar plan to wax our legs. I think we were searching for ways to stay in touch. I'd already started my family and she was still in high school. After we ran out of the strips included with the waxing kit (it was a one-person kit), we cut up all of the tea towels dad had  and used them too. Now, on our second glass of wine already, we laughed hysterically as we recalled this story.

    By this time, Karen was lying on the couch. We'd found a groove and were enjoying each other. We both new in our hearts how rare these moments were, as our lives had different approaches. I was just on the cusp of finishing my master's degree in counselling and starting my first career job with a school district. She was still finding her way, and currently unemployed. I felt daunted by the new responsibilities coming my way, on my own with two kids, new job. How was it all going to come together? She was more happy-go-lucky and very confident that something would come along. This was an attribute I always envied. If there was a line between sense of responsibility and carefree spontaneity, I would generally veer toward duty.

    The laughter heightened our emotion and soon hysterics turned into me sobbing, "I just couldn't turn things around. I really believed we'd get on track, begin fresh - you know, kinda re-write the rules of our relationship now that we had kids. My heart breaks for the kids, well, for all four of us really." 

    My sister looked at me questioningly, "Are you still..." 

    "No", I cut her off. "Finally put that behind me a few years ago. But he's still involved with his other." I'd pleaded with my ex to stop, agree to monogamy. We weren't kids anymore.  It wasn't the 70's anymore.     My sister toned earnestly "Regarding your other, you were possessed, I mean it". 

    A long, agonizing sigh escaped out of me. "Open marriages don't work. Our human emotions aren't meant for that. Everyone ends up losing. But that whole side deal of mine really got the better of me. I don't know what the hell took hold; some deep place in me rebelled. It was like I lost my free will. We didn't even see each other very often, sometimes once in a year." 

    She was looking at me, her hazel green eyes steady. "He slept with mom too - you know that, right?" 

    I desperately wanted to ask if she'd been home that night, but I was afraid to know the answer. Holding that painful image back,  I said, "He wanted to sleep with you, too; that's when I freaked and ended the whole thing." I felt hurt, with a deep shame. There had been no need for such crazy weirdness and it confused me about what our lover/friendship had been. On the day I took back control,  I pledged to live life on my terms from now on, in the way that was good for me. 

    "We're both lost out of love," she said. 

    "Oh?" I raised my eyebrows. 

    "Yeah, I...I met someone in Fort Nelson. A scientist, up there, researching for the summer. Seriously sent me ga-ga! Gorgeous, smart, funny. We hung out a lot, became really good friends. I think, for the first time, I was truly in love." She paused. She stared at the ceiling. Her lower lip was trembling. 

    I went over and took her hands in mine. She had beautiful, delicate hands with long fingers. 'I know," I said. "I know what you're trying to tell me." 

    She looked at me, intently. 

    "I've been waiting for you to figure it out," I said quietly. 

    "She left," my sister said with a wavering voice, "to go back to her university and said I needed more time to be sure." 

    We sat up for a bit, quiet. After a couple of minutes, I laughed "You know where I'm working this summer?!" To pay my new expenses before starting my new position in the school district, I'd taken a job at a vegetable and fruit warehouse run by women, the majority of whom were lesbian.

    Karen quipped "Are those dykes hitting on you?" We cracked up. "Invite me for lunch!" she urged. 

    Suddenly I felt weary, tired, worn out. I lay down on the floor, feeling the carpet in this new rental. Five years of juggling school, kids, working, and keeping an underlay of grief at a distance, the complications of life and family. Yawning, I changed the subject and asked "Hey, remember that night when you called me collect?" 

    

    "Oh yeah,". She sang, 

"If you got bad news,
You want to kick them blues, cocaine
When your day is done
And you got to run, cocaine
She don't lie, She don't lie... (JJ Cale)

Heh heh. Mmm, that was a wild night. That was my first time. The love of my life had left and I partied-hardy. Kinda went on for a few days, actually. I don't remember much, but I liked that high a lot! It's like a whole new universe. That's when I knew I had to leave and come back home." 

    Inwardly, I gulped, stifling a feeling of foreboding. I didn't want to break the present mood between us, this precious closeness. Other universes had already called on my sister in the past; this was not good news.