Part 7 (1/2)
”What is it?”
”Women excite me. Then they quickly bore me. I have a high need for physical touch, for s.e.x.”
”In that way we're not alike.”
”We're not?” she asked teasingly.
”I'm practically as.e.xual. I've always envied people to whom touch came easily.”
”And I've always envied people who weren't ruled by their s.e.xual fantasies.”
”Then we should make great friends.”
We both laughed.
”Tell me about Gallagher. I want to know more about this woman who was in your life,” she requested, settling back into the booth.
”Well,” I paused, trying to think about how I would begin, ”we met four years ago playing on a softball team.”
”Did you approach her or did she approach you a” I love to know how women got together.”
”Neither really. We started out as friends. Both of us needed a friend then. My lover Lisa had just moved to Los Angeles, and Gallagher had recently moved here from Boston.”
”Were you physically attracted to her?”
”Oh G.o.d, yes! She's a beautiful woman!”
”What did you like best about her?”
”Physically, you mean?”
She nodded.
”Her shoulders, I guess. She has these great broad shoulders.”
”What about your relations.h.i.+p a” what was it like?”
”The first year was fantastic! I couldn't believe how happy I was. I kept expecting someone to come in and steal her away, but they never did. From practically our first date, Gallagher made it clear to me, and everyone else, that she was in love with me.”
”Didn't that scare you, how much she cared about you?”
”It terrified me. It still does. None of my other relations.h.i.+ps had prepared me for how much Gallagher loved me or for how loyal she was. She taught me a lot. About trust. And about pa.s.sion.”
”So you were pa.s.sionate then?”
”Were we ever. I mean she's Italian, how could we not be? Our first year or so, we made love all the time. It was the happiest year of my life. I called it ”The Year of Pa.s.sion.' ”
”What happened?” I could see the concern on Destiny's face.
”The same thing that always happens, except this time, it was devastating for me, because I thought Gallagher was my life partner. Gradually I stopped being able to be close to her. We made love less and less and fought more and more.”
”How sad.”
”It was sad. Gallagher was in therapy trying to work through the effects her mother's physical abuse had on her. I was trying to sort out feelings about my family. Pretty soon, we were no longer in love, we were in therapy. It took over our lives.”
”I know that feeling, like it's consuming your life.”
”Exactly. How could two broken people keep all the pieces together? We couldn't. At first, our fights were funny, almost charming. Then, slowly, they became more desperate. One night, I found myself walking home in the rain because we'd had a fight and I refused to ride in the same car with her. I was fifteen miles from home, in a terrible neighborhood, at midnight. That's when I knew we'd gone too far. We were destroying each other.”
”Was that why you ended the relations.h.i.+p?”
”Partially. Mostly, I ended it because too many things were broken. An alarm clock. A lamp. Our insides.”
I fought back tears as I struggled to tell her the dark truth.
”One or both of us would go into these violent rages where we'd break things and push each other around. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't stand to be around the anger, in her or in me. We still brought out the good in each other, up until the day she left, but G.o.d, did we bring out the bad in each other, too.”
”I've been in some pretty rough fights myself,” she said, perhaps sensing my guilt.
”Not like ours you haven't. At least I hope you haven't.”
”You'd be surprised.” She reached out to calm my fingers which were drumming on the table. I recoiled inside, but I let her hand stay on mine.
”Thanks for saying that.”
”I'm not just saying it to be kind, Kris. It's true.”
”I always thought we were the only ones who took our anger that far.”
”Not hardly.”
Much to my relief, the waiter interrupted with our food, a vegetarian burrito for Destiny, chicken fajitas for me. After he left, I quickly changed the subject.
”Are you ready to hear a little about my time with your father and your grandma?”
”I guess so,” Destiny answered, taking a deep breath.
”Okay. Stop me anytime it gets to be too much for you.”
I started by summarizing my afternoon with her father. She interrupted me several times to ask questions.
”So they weren't able to have kids?”
”Right.”
”But they never knew which of them was unable?”
”Right.”
”Okay, go on.”