Pixie, Katie and Me Ch. 03

She thought for a moment and added, "Oh, and Dan – yes, I even loved him way back when. I'd just as soon not see him now after how he dumped Katie, but years ago we had mindshare and feelings for each other."

She thought for a few moments and asked rhetorically, "Do you suppose Katie's doing all right?"

I reached over and took Mel's hand to underscore my comment. "Tomorrow, when the timing's better, you should call her." Deep inside I yearned for knowledge of how Katie was doing. I wanted her back in the house, living with us as she had for most of the past year. As the feelings surfaced in my mind, I added for emphasis, "Please call her. Please ask her to come back."

Reunion and Redemption

I'd just finished straightening the garage early on Saturday morning, when Mel came out of the house and joined me. She held a mug of coffee out for me as she sipped one of her own. I saw that Mel had a tear rolling down her cheek.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I just talked to Katie's mother," Mel started with a slightly choked up voice. "Katie's not a happy camper. Her mom says she spends all the time in her room. She doesn't get dressed in the mornings, barely eats, seems to have forgotten about working or job hunting, cries a lot and often just sits in the dark. Her mom says she's really depressed. She's worried about her but doesn't know what to do about it."

I felt a tug at my heart based on what Mel told me. A tear even came to my eye as I felt Katie's pain across the miles. Someone I loved hurt - badly. I thought for only a second and said, "I know what to do about it." I dusted my hands off on an old rag and tossed it onto my workbench. I led both of us into the house.

A little over three hours later we'd parked the kids with my parents and Mel and I were on a flight to Boston's Logan Airport. About six hours later, Mel and I pulled our rental car up in front of Katie's childhood home. Her mother opened the front door to welcome us. The Pixie got a loving and warm hug from the middle-aged woman and 'guilt by association' being what it is, I also got a hug.

Katie's mother said, "She's up in her room. She came down around lunch and got a glass of milk and some bread. She's not eating well, not talking to us, not working, not playing ... not doing anything. She just sits and stares out the back window, even in the dark." She gestured us towards the stairs, knowing that Mel knew where she was going in her old best friend's home.

The two of us crept up the stairs to the small hallway at the top. Mel tapped gently on the door to Katie's room. A flat and lifeless voice just shy of a whisper came from deep within; "Come in. It's open."

Mel opened the door and the two of us stepped into Katie's room. The room was in shambles. The messy room was so uncharacteristic of her time with us, and showed something seriously wrong with the room's occupant. This space belonged to someone that just didn't care about her life anymore.

Katie sat in an armchair looking out a small window over the backyard of her parent's home, but her view was mostly the tops of trees and some sky. She didn't turn or say anything. I could feel the depression, the apathy, the lethargy.

I slowly walked over behind Katie and kissed the top of her head, stroking her shoulder and down her arm as I did. Mel was right beside me and duplicated my gestures of love.

Katie whirled around and alternately looked at the two of us with amazement. Her face broke into a grimace and then a choke and plaintive sob from deep within echoed across the room; "Ooooooh, God." She rose from her chair and threw herself into my arms, reaching out with one arm and awkwardly clutching Mel to her.

She cried, inconsolably, for five minutes without interruption – huge racking sobs that made her whole body shake with pain and remorse over some deep hurt. My shirt slowly became soaked with her tears. Neither Mel nor I moved a muscle except to more fully embrace Katie with our love. The only words we spoke were to say over and over again, "We love you. We're here for you."

Finally, the sobs and crying became rougher, almost harder to maintain at that level. Brief spaces of sniffling and snuffling started in between the tears, and then even periods of quiet that became longer. Lastly, a trembling female voice asked, "Why are you here? Why now?"

I whispered, "We came for you. We love you and want you back with us."

Mel said, "We're incomplete without you. We want you to reconsider. Come back."

A long quiet descended on the room. I nodded to Mel, indicating that we should just accept the silence as it came and not try to fill it with hollow words in any way.

Katie sputtered, "But ... but ... but ...I was getting in the way. The decisions ... I changed your family ... Richard ... you ..." A sob came through occasionally. The thoughts were incoherent even knowing the background of what was going on in our lives just prior to her departure six weeks earlier.

"All that's past," I said.

Mel pulled Katie into a light kiss then told her, "So much has happened over the short time you've been gone. We've learned a lot – about our family, our relationship and our love for other people – and you especially."

"That's why we're here," I said. "We want you back in our family – as part of our family. We don't feel like a family without you. We hope you want to belong there. We hope you'll take us back."

Katie looked between the two of us, a surprised look on her face, "Take you back?" she asked, incredulously, then broke in a sob again. Through her tears she said, "I felt I was in the way. I'm flattered you want me back."

"We wouldn't be here if we didn't really want you. Six hours ago we woke up to what we were missing – really missing – in our lives. You! We also finally learned that you might miss us too." I paused and looked to Mel for support; she nodded for me to keep going. "Please come home with us."

Katie broke into sobs again and this time allowed Mel to pull her over to the rumpled bed where they both sat. Katie leaned against Mel's small body, her tears now falling on Mel's shoulder. I stroked her back for a few minutes until she calmed down again.

Between a couple of her sobs, she managed to squeak out the one word question, "Really?"

"Really!" I declared with an air of finality to it.

"Really!" Mel said with the same degree of certainty to it.

Katie gradually calmed down. I sat on her other side and we took turns holding her as we extolled her praises and many virtues. She just nestled into us, soaking up the love we'd brought back to her life.

About this time I could almost feel the veil of depression lift from Katie. Perhaps it was an illusion, but the late afternoon sunlight seemed to brighten in the room, the air seemed to clear, and the odor of chocolate chip cookies seemed to waft into the room from the kitchen below.

We could feel Katie actually come to life as we held her and talked. We revisited a few moments of the happy days in our past year, including how our kids missed her and wanted their 'other mommy' back in their life. We emphasized that what was more important to us, however, was that we wanted her back in our lives.

Mel slipped out of the room at one point and was gone for almost half an hour. When she came back she carried a tray with three glasses of milk and a plate of fresh baked cookies. I cleared a space on the chair Katie had been sitting in and Mel set them there.

"I talked to your Mom," Mel explained. "You've been a worry to her. Why didn't you call us, or better yet come back?" She passed each of us a glass of milk and then some cookies.

"I just didn't feel I could," Katie muttered. "I mean you two are so special. I just got to thinking I wasn't ...worthy. I guess I got in a depression pit. I couldn't seem to pull out of it. I guess I did a bad thing; I hid it from you. Then that question about Richard came up and I realized that my being there changed the situation in various ways. I mean you had to ask the two of us, not just Doug," she said as she turned to Mel.

"Oh, Katie," I said in a sympathetic and loving voice; "You are so worthy of being loved and so wanted by the two of us."

She looked at me with a question still on her face. I went on, "Katie, of course you changed the dynamic of our relationship. You can't add a third person to a relationship and not have it change. We know that. We chose that with you. We wanted what resulted. We want it back."

Mel continued by train of thought, "When you arrived over a year ago, we could have politely nudged you back to Boston after you'd healed from the worst of your marriage breakup. But we didn't. We didn't because we both decided we liked having you with us – no we loved having you with us. We both fell deeply in love with you."

She went on, "You may think it screwy to be loved by a woman – even desired sexually and in all the other ways you feel when you love someone. Well, I think it's sort of screwy too, and I've only felt this way about a few women in my life. You know about Joy and sometime I'll explain about the others. But right now, more than ever, I want you to know that I want YOU." The last word came out with great emphasis and we all smiled over her exaggerated emphasis.

I went on, "Your last day with us you said you want a 'traditional' marriage. Well, we can't offer that. If the three of us live together, it'll be anything but traditional. We're guaranteed to be different just because we're three and the world thinks in 'twos'. Mel and I think that's fine and so do a lot of our friends, even our friends and neighbors around home. They've already accepted you as part of our family. They know it's unusual but they just take it as it is."

Mel said softly, "You want kids. Well, you left two beautiful children that love you just as they love Doug and me." Mel shot me a look and I nodded; I knew where she was taking this comment. "Further, if you want the overrated thrill of pregnancy and childbirth, we'll provide that to you too, if you don't mind Doug being the father."

Katie turned to me with such a tender look in her eyes that several more tears ran down my cheek. I nodded my love to her as I squeezed her hand. She tried to whisper something, but no words would come out she was so choked up.

I gestured to Mel and we both knelt in front of Katie as she sat on the edge of the bed.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a small black, velvet covered ring box. I opened the box and extracted a large diamond engagement ring. I held it between my thumb and forefinger, first showing Mel our offering. Mel put her hand on mine and together we extended the ring towards Katie.

"Katie, we'd like you to wear this ring as a symbol of our enduring love for you – for each other. If this part of the world allowed it, we'd marry you. For now, this will have to do."

Katie's eyes got as big round as saucers as she looked at the ring we offered. Two more tears rolled down her face, yet the corners of her mouth turned up in newfound happiness. They were tears of happiness.

For over a minute we were a frozen tableau. Mel and I kneeling and holding the ring out to Katie, and Katie fixed - looking at the ring. I could feel her weighing all the alternatives, thinking of the implications of the ring and what it would mean for the rest of her life.

Finally, her voice came alive, "This is forever, right?"

"Right," we both said in unison.

"Will I belong to the two of you?" Katie asked.

"NO," I said quickly. "You'll be your own person. We won't own you or possess you any more than we can possess a rainbow or a ray of sunshine. We'll willingly share ourselves with each other, support each other, and most important of all, love each other."

Mel nodded and added, "It's hard to define commitment without ownership – most people wrap the two together, but we don't and that's how we want it. For always, it means we've made a decision that we want you in our lives. As we all know, there are no guarantees on longevity, but from this side of things it looks like forever."

"Will we be engaged? What does it mean?"

Mel said, "It means we share our love. You can say we're engaged if you like, or even just say you're engaged to Doug – or to me – or to both of us. Someday, if the laws change we'll do something more formal, but for now this is about it. If you want a ceremony we'll do one. It won't mean any less to us and those that know us though just because we haven't been through one."

Katie looked carefully into our eyes. We both held her gaze.

Then slowly, and with care, Katie raised her left hand towards us with her fingers spread, her ring finger slightly separate from the others.

"Yes. Yes, I want you both so much it hurts. I didn't know when I came back that I could miss any body so much – any bodies so much." Tears flowed down her cheeks.

We slipped the ring on her finger.

Katie flung herself from the bed into my arms, rolling me backwards onto the bedroom floor with her atop me. She kissed me passionately then turned to Mel. She pulled the Pixie into her open arms as she rolled from me onto her back. The two women kissed passionately. Soon we were all hugging and kissing, expressing our love for each other and how we'd all been so foolish to draw apart. And, for the first time since our arrival at her house, we heard the joyful sound of laughter and happiness erupt from Katie.

A few minutes later Mel and I followed Katie downstairs. Her mother was puttering around the kitchen, apparently starting the fixings for dinner.

Without saying a word, Katie went and hugged her mom. We heard her say, "Thank you, mom. Thanks for being so supportive these dark months." She paused and pulled away slightly, then said to her, "You should know I've been rescued. My knights in shining armor have come and claimed me."

Katie held her hand out at arm's length, proudly displaying the large diamond in the platinum setting. Her mother let out a little shriek and turned to the two of us, her eyes full of questions yet she had a smile from ear to ear.

"The two of you ... err, three of you?" she asked hesitantly.

"The three of us," I said softly. "We love each other."

"But you're married, aren't you?"

"Yes. And now we'll have a third member of our family – plus our two daughters, of course."

Katie quickly added, "And we'll probably have a couple more."

"How will they take it?" Katie's mother asked, genuinely concerned.

"Just the way they have for the past year. They have two moms that love them and care for them. It's a bit unconventional and we don't and won't flaunt it; it'll just be the way things are in our household versus all the others."

Katie nodded emphatically as I spoke, a smile on her face and tears of joy again rolling down her cheeks. Mel moved to put her arm around Katie, a gesture unusual in its delivery since the Pixie was six inches shorter than Katie.

Katie's mother looked between the three of us and finally said, "I'm happy for you all, but particularly for my daughter. I can't believe the transformation in her that you delivered in the hour you've been here."

*

Four Years Later

"I'm pregnant – again!"

The last time I'd heard those words was over five years earlier from the Pixie when she'd become pregnant with Catrice, our second child.

This time, however, the words came from Katie. She stood at the entrance to the kitchen facing the entire family holding the wand from a pregnancy test kit. The red plus sign was clearly visible in the small window of the wand. Katie had a grin from ear to ear and suddenly, so did I.

We had a family cheer for Katie – really for all of us. "Hip, Hip, Hooray" echoed half a dozen times around the kitchen from everyone. Everyone consisted of Mel – the Pixie, my wife and mother of two of my children; Ashley, my oldest child with Mel, now a precocious eight year old pixie; Catrice, my youngest child with Mel, who at five years old had leanings towards being a world class musician as well as a lively pixie; Taylor, the beautiful three year old girl I fathered with Katie after she rejoined our family; and of course Katie and me.

I rose and gave Katie a kiss and a bear hug then picked her up and swung her around the kitchen as she clung to my neck. Gales of laughter rang from the kitchen table where the rest of the lunch crowd sat. I finally set Katie down and she resumed her seat at the table where she got a kiss and hug from Mel and then from Ashley, Catrice and Taylor. Mel enthusiastically explained to the children that there was going to be a new baby brother or sister in a few months.

I leaned against the counter and looked across the room at all the people in my family. I felt such appreciation to the Universe for the life I'd found, that I'd helped create. I had a harmony that most people never find, a unity with that Universe. I felt such love and contentment. I remembered a quote and whispered it aloud to myself to reinforce its meaning in my memory.

"Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every moment with love, grace and gratitude."

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