Lighting the Fire

I’ll light the fire
While you place the flowers
In the vase that you bought today.

Outside, the wind howled like 15 Irish banshees in a basket. Inside, the smells of onion rings and Tic Tacs mingled in the frosty, fishy air as we sang along with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I scooted down to put my head on David’s shoulder, aching with the need to rest, to rest my head for just five minutes. I loved the idea of a very, very fine house. But no cats. Cats scared me.

Out on a dirt road, miles from home and miles from the lights of town, the Rambler felt like our own private world. I didn’t have to live up to anyone’s expectations—didn’t have to be a good student or a good writer or a good girl. I didn’t have to be anything but myself.

Graham Nash slid into the la la, la la la la’s. David straightened and reached behind him to turn the radio down. Fumbling for the knob, he turned sideways and moved closer to the dash, taking his warmth with him. The rush of cold broke the spell and I realized just how close I’d been to forgetting my most important rule: Never let anyone get too close.

That rule had been with me always. It was, in fact, the fiber and substance of my very first memory.

Two or three years old. Standing in front of a tall, dark dresser, trying to figure out how to get to the drawer that holds dry panties high above my head.

Too late. My older sister has seen the puddle on the hardwood floor. She runs from the room, a victor ready to claim her spoils. When she returns with our mother, they are laughing at me. They are laughing together, and I am, as always, standing outside their charmed circle crying to be let in.

They call me a baby and tell me I should be wearing diapers. They talk about how funny my wet panties look. They hold their noses and make “peeeee yeeeeeewwww” sounds. I promise myself never, ever to lose control again.

By the time David returned to my side, I had moved to another place entirely—practically another planet. I was ready to go home. Then he took me in his arms, and I slid beneath the spell of the darkness and the freedom and his warmth once again. He kissed me gently, then passionately, and I responded with the same mounting fury. My heartbeat thumped in my ears and my cheeks burned.

Minutes later—who knows, maybe it was hours later—David moved away and unwound his arms. With infinite tenderness, he lifted one hand to each flushed cheek and stared deep into my eyes. In the romance novels I’d read as a kid, women were always “melting into” something or someone. That phrase, which had always seemed ridiculous, suddenly made perfect sense. My insides felt like warm chocolate dripping down the edges of a graham cracker. David kissed me again, and the warmth began to pool somewhere south of my belly button. I drew away, bristling at the unfamiliar feeling. Panic overtook me when a strange dampness began gathering down there.

“Take me home,” I demanded.

“But, Jerri. . .” he said.

“Right. Now.”

Silence filled the car. I huddled near the door, miserable and confused. When we got to my house at the top of the hill, I threw the door open before he’d gotten the car into park. From the brick steps of the front porch, I watched the Rambler slowly round the circle drive and creep back down all 10 acres of our hill. I stood, frozen in place, until the rectangular taillights disappeared behind the scrubby elm tree at the front of the property.

Early, early the next morning I sneaked out to the garage and buried my pale pink panties at the bottom of the garbage can. My heart didn’t stop racing until the garbage truck squealed down the hill later that afternoon.