Quixotic Rapprochement

When she finished chuckling, she started the truck and began the forty-five minute drive back to the farm. It was already getting pretty warm but the wind coming in the window cooled things off and to make it even better, I hung my hand outside letting it ride the wind roll-a-coaster as I twisted it to and fro to catch the oncoming air like a sail.

We were soon in the countryside heading away from the concentration of people in town. We chatted about her plan to buy Mama and Pops out, but we didn't get into any serious details. As we turned down our road, she pointed out a couple of new neighbors, and told me some of the older farmers were selling off as well. As we approached the dirt road leading to the house, I saw the old station wagon was up on a trailer over by the shed, the front tires were flat and there was mud in the grill. My initial impression was that things weren't looking too good. Then I noticed another oddity; there was no sign of Bo's car. He was always here or at least he had been. They'd been dating since right before I left for college and I'd even seen him here as recently as last Christmas.

"Is Bo off somewhere?"

"He's off permanently."

"You guys broke up?"

"Yep."

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't -"

"Don't worry about it, I'm a big girl. He was interested in one thing and when it wasn't going to be free, he moved on."

"The farm?"

"Yeah, when Pops asked him when he was finally going to make an honest woman of me, get married and buy them out - well, he didn't hang around long."

"Jeez, Emma."

"Well, it hurt but I'm over it. Now I'm just looking into what I can do to make this work," she said as she spread her arms indicating the fields of young crops growing all around us on either side of the drive. She continued driving and parked between the tree and steps of the two-story farmhouse.

I hopped from the truck at the same instant that the cloud of dust following us up the dirt road enveloped us. As it cleared, I found Samson at my side jumping up to welcome me officially. I patted him and ran my fingers through his warm hairy mane there beneath the big maple tree in the front yard, which cast long shadows over the place in the late afternoon sun. The glistening green tin roof glinted in my eyes and I shaded them to get a closer look. There were late tulips and daffodils overflowing the front flowerbed. Additionally, the porch looked recently painted in white, the porch swing had shiny new chains and a fresh coat of green paint. The shutters and screen door all had a matching coat of forest green. I knew the flowers were probably Emma's work, since she and I had put a few bulbs in right after she'd finished college. She'd continued to add more as each year passed, especially of the later blooming varieties.

"Wow, the flowers are really busting out. Who's been painting?" I asked as the dust cleared and I grabbed my bags.

Emma had joined me to look at the house and said, "That'd be Pops, he's been on a kick to spruce the place up. Wait till you see the addition he put on the back."

"I didn't know we needed more space."

"Well, he'd thought -"

"Oh, I really am an idiot sometimes," I interrupted her the moment I saw her face. Her chin was an array of dimples as she tried to hold back the stream of tears, and I felt a real dolt. "Emma, I wasn't thinking," I said, as I dropped my bags and hugged her close. "It was recent, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, it - just - he - it - was - a couple weeks - ago," she said between sobs.

A momentary thought passed through my mind as I wondered why my mother and father hadn't come out yet. Emma's shuddering emotional state quickly replaced all my thoughts with concern for her. We stood there holding one another while I patted her back and told her it would be okay. I was surprised she'd come to pick me up at all, but that was Emma, she'd often power through what would break most people. This was different though, she wasn't taking it well.

"It looks like I got here just in time," I said kissing her forehead and rubbing her back gently until she'd fully regained her composure.

The lapse was relatively short and she was back to her brusk self in mere moments. "Come on, let's get you inside and washed up for dinner," she said wiping her eyes on her short ruffly sleeves.

Emma treated me like this often enough. The age difference alone played a big part in that, but she was a lot like Mama. Our mom didn't have much time to see how children should be raised, since she and my pop had worked this farm as soon as Emma was born. Her grandparents had given them the land when our mother had turned up pregnant at the end of high school.

Pops' father and brother had helped him build the initial farmhouse, which could be seen in the structure of the existing one; he'd increased it substantially over the years including the addition of a second story. They'd really made something of the place, but it'd taken time and Emma being the oldest hadn't gotten much tenderness.

I was the baby of our family and probably got the easiest treatment from our parents. They hadn't doted on any of us from what I'd heard. Most of what I had heard came from Emma, because my brothers both got shipped out to Vietnam shortly after I was born. Emma came back from college just about the time I needed someone to watch over me as I started school. She became my main caregiver in many regards.

I grabbed my bag and followed her to the door she held open for me. "You know where everything is. I made your bed and put clean towels on the bar in the bathroom."

"Thanks, I'll be right back down," I offered and trotted up the wooden stairs to the top.

My room was off to the right and when I entered it I found it was just as I'd left it. Looking out the back window, I got a glimpse of the addition which was right below my back window. I dropped my bag on the bed and went back out to the bathroom. There was one bath upstairs, there was another downstairs, since it had been a three-room house to start: kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. That's how the three of them always told it; I never saw that iteration. When I was born, there was already a second story and I don't remember many changes to the place as I was growing up. Hearing that there'd been an expansion on the ground floor came as a pretty big surprise.

In the bathroom, I closed the door, stripped down and hopped in the shower. The three days of dirt, and maybe some of my recent dust bath, washed down the drain. With the washcloth, I cleaned everywhere including my face and ears, cleaning them very thoroughly due to Mama's obsessive checking of them. When I got out, I notice there were clean clothes on the hamper and my dirty ones were gone. I put the washcloth back on the rod neatly and grabbed the towel to dry off. All clean and dried, I dressed in the fresh clothes someone had left me, and then I headed back downstairs. Some soothingly familiar aromas wafted into my nose and I followed the scent of them back into the kitchen where I found Mama and Emma hovering over some pots on the stove.

"Where's Pops?"

"He's laid up back there in the addition," Mama said coming to hug me and check my ears.

"He's injured?"

"Yes, although he's making it out to be nothing. He hurt his foot shortly after putting that thing on," she said pointing to the new doorway that used to be an exit to the outside.

"Wow, nice!" I exclaimed as I walked into the new room. "Hey, Pops, what have you done?" I asked bending down to hug my dad.

"Oh, this ain't nothin' but your Ma won't lemme up," he said tapping the cast on his left leg.

He was sitting in an easy chair, but there was a big bed in the room and I'd observed that there was a door right as I'd entered that led into what I presumed was a new bathroom since it appeared to be tiled.

"Pretty nice handy work," I said admiring all the newly finished construction.

"Yeah, came out nice, I think. I made a new mudroom out of the old bathroom and put this addition on over the old backdoor."

"It looks great. How'd you break your -"

"It's just the small bone in my leg. Doc put this on to mend 'er good." He paused for a moment then said more softly, "It were ma temper."

It must have been a huge effort for him to admit that. Pops wasn't one to allow himself fault. Almost as soon as I'd thought the thought, he answered in a shushed tone. "That bastard Bo, left your sister a marked woman."

"Marked?"

"Shush, she'll hear ya. Come over here and sit," he said indicating the bed.

I went over to the bed and sat beside him. He'd never really spoken to me like this. It was well out of character.

"They's been together goin' on three years, they's sposed to been married. Who gonna be with her now?"

"Emma's smart and looks good, she can still find someone. She's not that old, Pops," I whispered back. "What'd you kick?"

"The damn car."

"Is that how the station wagon came to be up on the trailer?"

"Yes sir, it is. I drove out after him in the rain. Them tires were balder than my head. Good thing though, I was gonna kill him."

"Jesus, Pops."

"Watch your mouth, Sonny."

The whole interaction with Pops was another of the reasons I'd chosen a school so far away. I respected him and loved him but his gruff manner and hypocritical behavior had us at odds more often than I wanted to remember.

"Yes, sir. I'm glad it was just your leg. I'm guessing you went off the road."

"Yep, just about a week ago, now."

"Emma said they'd been broken up for two."

"She's trying to put a brave face on it."

"You two finished telling all of Emma's woes?" Mama yelled from the door.

"Mama you shush, she's gonna hear that," he told her in a hushed voice.

"Ain't no room around here for standin' on ceremony," came her usual reply. "Dinner's ready, come on and eat."

A loud cough came from the kitchen followed by a sad laugh. I was certain it was Emma without even seeing her. They were both rough as dried up corncob husks and I loved them dearly. Pops grabbed his crutches and started toward the kitchen. I followed ready to catch him, since he didn't look very stable and he seemed to wince as his foot came down. Emma was at the sink with tears running down her face and the biggest smile you could imagine. They were all a paradoxical mix of bluntness, softness and love.

We each took our places around the oblong table; Emma was opposite me and Mama opposite Pops. There was home canned Lima beans, some mashed potatoes and Mama's meatloaf. It was something I'd been looking forward to the whole trip home. Simple as it was, this was what I'd been craving and my homesickness melted away a little more with each bite.

As we talked over dinner, I found Mama and Pops had taken the room downstairs since Bo and Emma weren't going to use it. His leg being broken was the main reason, but I could see the years on him. Working like he had all this time seemed to be taking a toll. Our mom looked just slightly older than Emma to my eyes but I'm a terrible judge of a woman's age.

The longer hours of the summer had the sun still up after Emma served up some maple shortbread cake she'd made just for me. The cake was still warm and Mama topped it off with homemade vanilla ice cream which began melting almost at once.

"You're going to spoil the boy," Emma said as Mom gave me a second scoop.

"My second Mama," I said and everyone laughed.

The love in that room couldn't be matched any place on earth as far as I was concerned. This was why I'd come home, why I'd needed to come home. Later that evening in the family room, I remembered a slightly different saying more clearly than I ever had when I'd read the book by Thomas Wolfe, 'You Can't Go Home Again'.

It occurred when I asked, "Has anyone heard from Luke or John?"

They were my older brothers and I knew "We don't talk about them!" but I'd brought it up on my first night home. Love in our home had boundaries. I had heard descriptions of my brothers being quite a handful, but I barely remembered them. They'd both gone off to war before I was six months old. They were helping Pops on the farm when they got drafted. I never knew what the whole disagreement was about and maybe that was why I always blundered back into it. Emma shot me a rueful glance when I'd spoken the words and then shook her head as the predictable response came.

They didn't want to talk about them, they hadn't come back to the farm and they'd settled in San Francisco with their wives. It seemed like it was twofold: disappointment and maybe some racial prejudice. It didn't seem like the whole story; there must have been something more to have them so disavowed. Our parents were fairly religious and I suspected that was at the root of it, but Emma had been with a man for several years, even in this very home. Somehow, she'd escaped their disapproval, so I wondered what they saw as worse. It was a mystery that even Emma didn't seem to fathom.

My twin brothers, Luke and John, had married twin sisters, Cam and Anh, during the war. They'd all flown from San Francisco to Vermont so they could attend my high school graduation and both couples had given me a bit of money to help me get some kind of a vehicle for use during college. They'd done that over Pops' loud objections. They hadn't stayed in our home after that fight; they'd stayed with our father's younger brother James in Burlington. Uncle Jimmy seemed to be on the outs with our parents as well, so I guess it'd made some sense, to avoid conflict.

I suppose every family has some deep dark secret, but eventually I'd thought, they'd make peace with them and come to some understanding. That hadn't happened here. The furor from my question finally settled down after a bit and I listened to them tell several fresh stories about the new neighbors' silly mistakes in farming. They repeated some of my favorite stories about Emma taking care of me when she got back from college, too. The evening was coming to an end with everyone in a generally good mood despite my earlier mistake.

Once the sun had been down for about an hour, Emma said, "Well, I've gotta get to bed. There's eggs to gather in the morning and chores to do."

"I think I'm going to head off, myself," I said. "It was a long trip and I need to try and get on east coast time."

Everyone said their good nights and I followed Emma up the stairs. We took our turns in the bathroom and I went to my bedroom to go to sleep. Emma, came around shortly after I'd turned out the light.

My door cracked open and she whispered, "You asleep, Squirt?"

"No, I just thought I should try and get on the time here. I probably won't be able to go to sleep for another three hours."

"Mind if I come in?"

"Sure, what's up?" I asked, turning on my nightstand lamp, sitting up in my bed and propping myself upon a spare pillow.

She came in and closed the door quietly behind her, then sat on the floor beside my bed. She had on a short and very lightweight summer gown that didn't leave much to the imagination. It showed off a great deal of her cleavage and the way she was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, gave me an unrestricted view of her white panties. An initial furtive daring glance at the region revealed several tufts of golden escapees, and I attempted to focus on her face. At that moment, I noticed two things: she looked very much like Madame Soliel with her golden but straight hair and she was staring at my crotch, which is when I noticed a third thing; I had a sudden erection. The sheet hid it from view, but it was lifting the white linen up and the lamplight caught it and cast an odd shadow.

It was slightly embarrassing, but I didn't try to cover it or will it away. She wasn't commenting about it, so I just cast my gaze back toward her. Her cleavage drew my eye momentarily until I noticed that her nipples were prominently poking out the loose gown. My windows were open, but the air coming in was not really cool. I wondered for a moment if we were simply going to stare at one another's excited bodies.

Emma finally broke the silence, "You've grown up to be a handsome young man."

This caught me completely off guard. We usually traded barbs, not admiring stares and compliments. I went along with this, but had no idea what she wanted.

"Well, I think Bo's and idiot; any man would be lucky to be with you."

"I think you actually mean that, don't you?"

"We haven't always gotten along, but you've always - always been there when I needed you. You even told me about Jenny before it happened, I just didn't want to believe it. After the break up, you even went as my date for prom."

"I had fun and since we're admitting stuff, you told me about Bo, the first time you met him."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I should have listened to your instincts," she said this and shifted her crossed legs to an even wider angle so her legs were foot to foot. "Love is blinding, but he didn't return my love either," she fell silent and looked away.

The silence was deafening and I suddenly found it impossible to look anywhere but her crotch. I could now feel myself becoming more erect as I stared. There was more golden hair visible as her panties allowed more escapees but there was something else that I hadn't expected. The lamplight also caused the terrain of her mons and vulva to become very apparent with the light and shadow it created there. I tried to look away, but her lips were swollen creating a crease and in the cleft, I could detect that her clit was excited too. After several minutes, she recovered and returned her gaze to my situation which brought the briefest of smirks.

"You know you shouldn't have brought up John and Luke."

"I don't get it, I never got it and I still don't!" I said in a loud whisper.

"Me either, sweetie. They're both great guys and their wives are cute as can be."

"What's their beef with Uncle Jimmy?"

"You're more like him than Pops and I think they wanted you to take over the farm."

"Yeah, well that wasn't ever going to happen and doubly so after Jenny."

"You didn't say much about your love life in the truck."

"That's because there isn't much to tell."

"You're over her by now, right?"

"Yeah, I'm focused on graduating next spring."

"There are some women on that campus, aren't there?"

"Yes, of course. I'm not really very skilled at social interaction with them though," I said.

My thoughts wandered back to Madame Soliel for the briefest of moments. God, she had been so beautiful in that white sunlit dress. Her curly golden locks, so stuck in my mind's eye, reminded me very much of Emma, who was talking to me again. As I realized this, my eyes suddenly refocused back to her gown and then her crotch.

"What were you saying?" I asked, unable to pull my stare away to look her in the face.

"I was asking if there were anyone there you found attractive?"

I felt a little trapped with my eyes engaging her there while she asked me about my love life and women. I could feel a blush rushing over my whole body. I was completely nude beneath the sheet and the question made my member twitch, jerking the linen upward lightly.

"The women I'm attracted to lately, seem to be unattainable."

"Oh - okay, so there are some?"

"Attractive women? Yes, there are but they don't even know I exist."

"Surely, that's not true."

"Okay, they might know I exist, but they don't know I'm interested."

"Well, we'll have to work on that," she said getting up.

As she did her gown, drooped open and I saw her breasts. She stood up quickly and flung her hair backward. I just stared at her wondering if she'd done it on purpose. Really, all of it felt vaguely out of character, but especially the sitting cross-legged and then open legged.

"That's all you wanted to talk about?" I asked, disappointed she was leaving so soon.