All righty then, I thought next morning. Let’s look at the odds of my dilemma. I mean, what are the odds that one chosen path is better than another? Have you ever noticed, while driving, that some days you hit nothing but green lights, and on other days, all lights are red?
What are the odds?
I mean, is it random, like flipping a coin, heads come up half the time? Is it your karma? Your mood? Distractions from your too-spicy Thai food lunch?
I never saw it coming.
That he’d actually leave without me.
That he’d actually leave me.
Like all unsuspecting lovers, in hindsight, I should have seen the signs.
He’d kept his own house, he’d lived in his own time zone. He’d appear to spend a week or a month with me, then he’d just leave.
What I always expected to happen, what I’d really wanted, really dared to hope would happen, was that one day I’d have Nathan permanently at my side, arms around each other, eating at Kingfisher or Ric’s or Janos or Cuvee or Hacienda del Sol or Nonie or the Arizona Inn. The two of us seeing movies, hands across adjoining stadium seats at some mall cineplex. Okay, so I loved Robert De Niro and he liked Finding Nemo, so what, I’d see anything.
Of course, it never really happened that way.
In truth, Nathan Brittles, my two-year lover, my partner, he didn’t care for movies or fine restaurants at all. I might watch or eat anything. He didn’t. He’d said more than a few hundred times how he’d rather be back up on the rez. How he wanted to be dineh again.
Indian.
Navajo.
One who returned and lived the old ways.
Let’s not dwell on this, I thought. I’ll go see this Emich woman, then I’ll drive up to the rez. Just one step at a time. I heard that in a black church one day, in Yakima I think, back in my wild days. Had no meaning for me then.
I snugged into my oldest swim suit, black, with a racer back and the embroidered Speedo logo. Chlorine-resistant, but old enough that the chemicals had degraded the polyester. I snapped it against my butt and breasts, my nipples erect under the fabric, we used to call them high beams. The suit a size too small, but this morning it protected my heart, squeezed my heart inside so I didn’t have to deal with it.
I slid into my pool, dove through layers of heated water toward the bottom and cooler water. Breath almost gone, I surfaced like a small whale and crashed back into the water. Without thought, I swam idle laps, easing into a backstroke. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk dipped and dived, riding a thermal, surveying me and my property for
rodents
snakes
birds
anything small enough to eat.
I powered into a freestyle sprint for four laps, focusing my body and focusing my thoughts.
I needed my private investigator license back. I’d do whatever it took. I’d always run my life that way:
set a goal
move undistracted to that goal
find another goal
one step at a time
This morning I fixed the most important goal in my life.
I’d accept that Nathan had just left, unannounced, as he’d done many times. And that he’d come back to me.
That was my goal.
I’d meet Mary Emich later in the morning, I’d shuck her off quickly, I’d report to Bob Gates that I’d done my absolute best, but I really needed to get up to the Navajo rez today.
Goal fixed.
Head clear with determination.
And so I’d go running, then I’d see my Reiki master and psychic.
When I came back, Nathan might even be home.
Or not. I’d face that if I had to.
Later, I sat in the kitchen, munching celery stalks, still wearing the wet swim suit.
Yesterday, sure, there were problems in my life, but when I went along with Nathan to the reservation, after he’d adopted that boy into his family, then I figured we’d just work out who lived where and how much time we should spend together. Check that. How much time I should spend on the reservation to keep Nathan happy.
And today, everything’s so…so complicated, which is to say, I no longer felt serenely confident in working out problems, in fact, I didn’t believe there was a serious problem. I’d naively believe that my days as a licensed, working PI were over, my involvement with violence reduced to occasional random computer searches that no longer bore any resemblance to the illegal hacking I’d done.
I stared at the television where I’d watched Bambi the night before.
Bambi, the innocent.
Today, I felt more like the hunter that killed Bambi’s mother, I felt…I felt as though…I felt as though I was destroying my love for Nathan, but I felt powerless to make the choice of love, to join Nathan and leave police work behind, I felt impelled to get back my PI license and in that, my dear friends, I felt more like the hunter than the innocent deer.
Decision. Enough soul-searching, second-guessing, emotional games.
Eventually even Bambi has to grow up.