The next month was wonderful. Rick didn’t have any more nightmares and was a lot more relaxed. They spent most of their free time together out at the lake or doing some activity. That Saturday morning after the nightmare, they drove out to the campgrounds where his father and Martha had a seasonal camper and spent the day with Rick’s family. When night fell, they returned to Rick’s house and made love again. They tried some of the things that he had read about. Some of the things really turned them on. Other things they realized were anatomically impossible or just not very satisfying. The only thing that saved those experiments was that they both broke out laughing at the ridiculousness of what they were doing.
The next morning, Rick woke her up early and took her into town for breakfast. They rode in on his motorcycle and had breakfast at a little mom and pop restaurant that was popular with the locals. After breakfast, he took her on a long motorcycle trip that included going up to Dubuque and crossing over the Mississippi River into Illinois. They stopped for a few hours in Galena on the Illinois side of the river.
Maddie always loved visiting the little town situated in the rolling hills along the Galena River. Its historic downtown main street brought in shoppers and sightseers who wanted to walk along Illinois’ other Miracle Mile. The tourists who came to Galena were met with nineteenth century charm, resorts and golf courses, beautiful landscapes, and walking trails. They toured Dowling House, Illinois’ oldest stone building that once served as a frontier trading post in the early nineteenth century. It now was a place to display and sell pottery made by local artists.
As they walked down the sidewalk, a combination of cement and cobblestones, they looked in the windows of the different businesses. Antique dealers, art galleries, restaurants, boutiques, and a plethora of other businesses enticed visitors to come inside, look around, and stay awhile. The building storefronts reminded visitors of days gone by when the world was a gentler place, when neighbors knew one another, and when time moved slowly.
They ate lunch at a little cafe furnished like an old malt shop with a big counter for sitting and watching ice cream confections being created. Rick had a chocolate soda whipped up by a soda jerk. Better him than her. She had a cherry cola. Later, while Maddie ate a piece of homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert, Rick excused himself for a few minutes. She didn’t know where he had gone. In fact, she had no idea that he had even left the cafe.
After he came back, they left the downtown area and went to Grant Park, a park named after one of Galena’s most famous former residents, former U.S. president and civil war general Ulysses S. Grant. Rick parked the motorcycle then took her along the trails and across the walking bridge. They walked past one of the cannons that lined a path and stood guard over the town while a statue of the former president stood close by overseeing the area. A sign identified it as a Blakely cannon, used to fire on Fort Sumter in the early days of the civil war.
At one point, Maddie stopped to look at the flowers in a little section of the park. While she did, Rick disappeared, she assumed to wander further down the path. When he returned, he had a handful of white Shasta daisies. They were her favorite flower, something he knew because he gave her one once when he went camping with her family. After she half-heartedly chided his for picking the flowers, she accepted them. He put one behind her ear and took several pictures of her with his cell phone. He deserved a kiss for that.
They decided to drive down the Illinois side of the river and through the small towns before they crossed over the river into Clinton. That portion of the Mississippi River was known for its scenic beauty as it cut through the hills and cliffs of the region.
A few hours later they were back at the lake house, and she packed up her suitcase to go home. It wasn’t until she was home and unpacking that she found the gift that Rick had hidden in her suitcase. Wrapped in paper was a little jade turtle that she remembered seeing in Galena. She changed out the clothing in her suitcase and put it back in her car. After softball practice that evening, she went back to Rick’s house and spent the night. From then on, she spent most of her nights with him at the lake.
The following Saturday, they went to her parents’ house for brunch. Rick thought that it would be uncomfortable seeing her parents after so long, but he was wrong. Her parents welcomed him with open arms.
While Rick and her father caught up with each other and talked about fishing, Maddie helped her mother make brunch. Jeffrey and his roommate came over and joined them for brunch and to do their laundry. Free food was free food, and free laundry was free laundry after all. Now that Jeffrey was finished with his freshman year of college, he got a summer job and an apartment near the university with his friends. Having an apartment and a car left him without a lot of extra cash, and having a new girlfriend pretty much cleaned him out.
“That was good!” Jeffrey said later while he patted his belly and leaned back in his seat after he finished eating. He tipped his chair onto its hind legs for a minute before he was told not to tip the chair by their mother. “I’m going to have to let that settle before I go back for dessert.”
“I’m surprised you could even think about dessert after two large platefuls,” Maddie teased him as she played with the remaining food on her plate. She was full, too, and dessert was definitely out until later. Her eyes had been bigger than her stomach, and she still had two sausage links remaining in a puddle of syrup.
“You going to eat those?” Rick asked her before she pushed her plate over to him.
“I don’t know why you’re hassling me?” Jeffrey shot back with a grin. “Rick had two plates, too. He’s thirty and has to watch his figure, while I am only twenty. I let the girls watch mine. By the way, Rick, it’s nice to see you again, man.”
“Nice to see you, too, Jeff,” Rick responded as soon as he was done chewing and swallowing the links. “The last time I saw you, you were only a punk kid still wet behind the ears. Now look at you.”
“He’s still a punk,” Maddie quipped.
“Definitely still wet behind the ears,” Maddie’s father added while he stacked plates on top of each other to give to Maddie’s mother. “I think that because your mother made us such a fine meal, with Maddie’s help of course, that you two boys can do cleanup.”
“I’m all for that,” Maddie’s mother said as she took the plates to the counter. “But before you do that, sit tight and have some more coffee. Your father and I want to show you what I’ve been working on.” Maddie’s father and mother left the room in a hurry. Their laughter trailed after them down the hall as they disappeared around the corner.
“I can just imagine what she’s up to now,” Jeffrey told the remaining members at the table with a roll of his eyes. “Probably making costumes for the next play. Do you remember last winter when they did that Shakespeare play? I couldn’t bring any of my friends over without having them become costume models because mom wanted to see how everything would look before she took the costumes to the theatre.”
“Oh, yeah.” Maddie nodded her head emphatically and laughed at the memory. “You should have seen this place, Rick. The theatre was putting on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I had to dress up like a fairy, and mom wasn’t content to have me just model the costume. No! No! I had to pretend like I could fly and flit around so that mom could see how the costume moved.”
“I was a centaur, so don’t complain,” Jeffrey quickly pointed out. “Try walking around with a horse’s back end attached to you and not smash into everything. Rick, take my advice. If mom starts talking about a new play, run! Run for the hills!”
“Was there a centaur in that play?” Rick asked with a chuckle. “I don’t remember a centaur being a character.”
“There was in this version,” Jeffrey exclaimed. “The centaur was a living prop. I had to pretend like I was just walking through the forest. It didn’t have any lines.”
Rick laughed again and promised that he would be sure to disappear if their mother began recruiting costume models before he winked at Maddie. Maddie started to tell Rick about most of the changes over the last few years and what her mother was now up to. While the Sullivan children had been growing up, her mother stayed busy with their activities and the house. A houseful of children, who were all in sports, made it impossible to do otherwise. But now that they were all older, her mother jumped back into her first love. She joined their community theatre and usually sewed the costumes, as well as, acted in several of the productions. She was actually really good at both.
“You guys all ready?” Maddie’s mom called from the hallway.
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Jeffrey called back. Their parents walked back into the room, and everyone started laughing. Jeffrey laughed so hard that he tipped his chair backwards and fell. Maddie was doubled over and had tears in her eyes, and Rick snorted his coffee. Chad, Jeffrey’s roommate sat in shocked silence. The expression on his face had Maddie laughing even harder when she saw it.
Edward and Caroline Sullivan were dressed as Batman and Catwoman. Her mother even had the funny ears and a whip.
“What is this?” Maddie asked as soon as she was able to talk again. It was difficult because her parents chose at that time to walk around and model the costumes. The costumes were actually really very good. They weren’t like store bought costumes. They fit perfectly and moved with their bodies.
“Next week is your aunt and uncle’s thirtieth wedding anniversary,” Maddie’s mother stopped twirling and told them. “That’s your Aunt Clair and Uncle Miles, by the way.” It needed to be explained because her father had several siblings. Her mother was an only child.
“Clair wanted to celebrate great lovers in literature, so they’re throwing a costume party,” Maddie’s father continued the explanation. “If I remember right, her exact words were, ‘I want a memorable anniversary party.’ Who better than Batman and Catwoman?”
“Oh, it will be memorable if you show up in those costumes,” Jeffrey said after he straightened his chair and sat back down again. “Aunt Clair will be thrilled.”
He was speaking facetiously because “thrilled” wouldn’t be the word to describe her reaction to seeing her parents dressed as Batman and Catwoman. She would be less than pleased. Maddie knew her aunt, so she knew that her aunt likely didn’t specify that the characters couldn’t be from pulp fiction because she would have thought that it was understood. Her aunt was a literature professor and didn’t have much interest in popular fiction. She was the oddball in the Sullivan family.
“Well, she wanted memorable,” Maddie’s father said philosophically. “You should see what Mike and Ellen are going as. They’re going as Han Solo and Princess Leia, so it’s sure to be a memorable anniversary party. Your aunt needs to lighten up a little. Miles is actually jealous because he has to walk around in a toga all night pretending to be Mark Antony because Clair decided she wants to be Cleopatra, so I don’t feel bad. Besides, I didn’t want your mother to make something for the party and something different for Comic-Con.”
At the mention of Comic-Con, Maddie told Rick that her father’s sixtieth birthday was also coming up in July, and being the nerd that he was, he wanted to go to Comic-Con, the big comic book and science fiction convention in San Diego. Her father didn’t take any exception to being called a “nerd.” He knew he was a closet nerd and techie. Her mother filled in that her aunt and uncle, Ellen and Mike, would be flying out with them when they went to California. The costumes were doing double duty and would be used at Comic-Con, too. Her father said that they might not be the youngest Batman, Catwoman, Han Solo, and Princess Leia at the convention, but they were sure to have the best costumes.
“I can’t wait to go,” her father said with a big grin. “I’ve wanted to do this for years.” Her father’s green eyes glowed when he talked about it.
“That reminds me,” her mother said quickly. “I have the Han Solo and Princess Leia costumes here to do the finishing touches on, and I need some models. Maddie, you and Rick are about the right size, so go put on the costumes. They’re in my sewing room.”
“Run!” Jeffrey told Rick. “Run for the hills!”
“Mom!” Maddie exclaimed at the same time that Jeffrey spoke. “We are not modeling the costumes.”
“Yeah, I suppose I’ll have to wait until your aunt and uncle come tomorrow,” Maddie’s mother conceded. “But you won’t get out of it this fall when I’m doing the costumes for Beauty and the Beast. Rick, you’re just the right size for Beast. Jeffrey, I’ll need you for Lumiere.”
“Ha,” Maddie laughed at Rick and her brother. “I’m too tall for Belle, so I’m out of this one.”
“That’s true,” her mother pointed out. “But you are just the right size for Wardrobe.”
“Ha,” Jeffrey laughed back at Maddie just as she groaned at the news that she would model the costume for Wardrobe.”
“Chad,” her mother spoke again. “Don’t think that you’re getting out of this. I’ll need you for Cogsworth.”
“Crap!” Chad said under his breath.
“I heard that,” Maddie’s mother said as she pointed to him for emphasis.
Maddie’s father saved them all from further costume assignments when he spoke up.
“Ok, Caroline. I think that we’ve tortured the kids long enough. Let’s get out of these costumes so that Jeffrey and Chad can do the dishes.”
“Oh, man! I forgot about that,” Jeffrey said before he stood up and began to clear more of the dishes off of the table. “Get over here, Chad. I’m not doing this alone.”
Chad quickly got up to help.
Later in the day, while Maddie was outside looking over the flower gardens with her mother, Rick went downstairs to the man cave with the rest of the men to play billiards and watch television. When Maddie and her mother went downstairs an hour later, the men were all sitting and watching a video that Maddie hadn’t seen in a few years. It was a video her mother had shot of the college championship softball game from Maddie’s junior year. That was the year that Maddie was awarded the MVP award at a special ceremony after the game.
The video wasn’t of the best quality, and Jeffrey and her father teased her mother about the cinematography. Her mother had shot the video with her new digital camera. At times the video was out of focus as her mother changed exposures midstream or panned around. There were shots of her and Mary Davidson both at bat.
There were several times when people were talking that her mother would pan over to them to catch them on the video. There was her father and Kelly cheering. Jeffrey made a smartass comment on the video that earned him a scolding and a slap across the back of his head from their father. Maddie didn’t remember that from the video. Lisa made funny faces for the camera, and Maddie smiled at Lisa’s image. Lisa had just finished chemotherapy. Her skin color looked good, and her hair was starting to grow back. Her mother zoomed in to catch Donnie, Kathy, and Joe at one point after Mary hit a double and drove a run home. Then there was Tom, Maddie’s ex-boyfriend, who was there with her family. He talked a lot. She had never noticed how much he talked about himself before.
When Rick asked who he was, Jeffrey told him. Maddie noticed that Rick became a little quieter after that. She reached over and rubbed his shoulder, which seemed to cheer him up. When they finally left the house an hour later, he pulled her into his arms. Tom was forgotten.
The rest of the month went by smoothly. Lisa got the job at the cancer center and loved it. She met a new guy. Maddie and Rick babysat Ethan one night out at the lake when Lisa and the new guy went out for their first date. Having Ethan at the lake was an eye opening experience. Rick took to little Ethan much like she expected him to given how he was with Jessie and Evan. After Ethan went to bed that night, Rick made love to her on the couch. She had just gotten her energy back when he took her into the bedroom and made love to her in a frenzy that left her completely exhausted. After a few hours, he made love to her again like she was the most precious woman on the planet.
They had agreed to use condoms, but in Rick’s frenzy, he forgot to use them. She began to wonder if he wanted to make her pregnant. It was the right time of the month, and he knew that. When she said something to him the next morning, they began to discuss having children. They both wanted children and wouldn’t want to wait until after they were married to “hypothetical” spouses for years before trying. They also wanted children born close together so that the children had playmates. Maddie was Kerri’s Irish twin, born ten months after her, and Mark was Kevin’s Irish twin, too.
Rick appeared to be very happy that she wanted children. When he told her that Clarissa hadn’t wanted any, Maddie looked at Kevin and Clarissa’s relationship differently. She realized that Kevin wanted children, and his wife didn’t. That would be tough on any marriage.
* * * * *
She discovered that she wasn’t pregnant a few days before the motorcycle trip. It was just as well that she wasn’t. She and Rick both took the news in their stride because it wouldn’t have been the right time to have a baby, anyway. Their relationship was too new, and they weren’t married.
She was nervous about going on the camping trip and meeting Rick’s friends. Rick had told her so much about them, especially Carlos and Maria, that she knew that she would like them. She just hoped that they would like her in return because she was the youngest person in the group. In addition, Maria had a pretty protective streak when it came to Rick, or so she had been warned. Maddie was prepared to go under the Maria Acuńa microscope.
The plan was to ride up en masse on the afternoon of July third and set up camp. They would return to Iowa City on the sixth. Donnie and Kathy were taking Harvey for the holiday when they went out to the Black Hills with their fifth-wheel. They left on the first, so there was nothing for Rick and Maddie to do except pack some clothing into the saddle bags, pack their tent and sleeping bags, and put food in a cooler that was being brought up in one of the rider’s RV camper. Rick told her that the guy’s back was too bad for sleeping in a tent, so he and his wife drove the camper and took the motorcycle out for touring during the day.
They met as a group in the parking lot of the EMS station. There were seven couple’s going, in all. Everyone was dressed in jeans and black leather, and they looked like an intimidating bunch. The oldest members of the group were the couple in the RV, who were in their early fifties. Carlos and Maria were next at forty-eight, and everyone else ranged in ages from that down to thirty. Rick was the thirty year old, but he was celebrating his thirty-first birthday in four days.
Some of the women had their own motorcycles. Maria was one of them. One couple had a trike. As Rick introduced her to everyone, she realized that they were all happy to meet her and treated her as one of their own. Carlos and Maria both gave her hugs and welcomed her to the “club.” She recognized Maria right away as one of the patient advocates who worked in the health clinic that Maddie used, and the man in the camper was an accountant who owned his own accounting firm.
The weather was hot when they left the parking lot and headed toward Dubuque. Maddie welcomed the breeze created from riding and soon cooled down. It would be a few hours before they arrived in Savanna and the park, so she leaned back against the backrest and enjoyed the scenery. Over the last month, she had become a lot more comfortable on the bike and looked forward to going out with Rick. It was around six pm when they eventually arrived at the park.
After the camper was situated and the tents were set up, everyone pitched in to make supper. A feast of steaks, corn, onions, mushrooms, and potatoes was grilled on a large ad hoc grill made up of cattle fencing and chicken wire placed over the fire and supported with cement blocks. Renee, the woman in the camper, had also made up a batch of homemade cobbler for dessert.
Nobody could move after the meal, and a few of the guys loosened their belts. For hours afterwards, they sat around the campfire and talked, told jokes, and planned the excursions that they would be taking over the next few days. As the evening wore down into night, Maddie excused herself and began making her way to the bathroom/shower complex to wash up for bed. Maria excused herself, too, and followed Maddie.
“Good. I wanted to talk to you alone,” she told Maddie as she walked beside her. “Rick’s birthday is coming up, and Carlos and I were thinking about what to get him. The two of you have been seeing each other a lot over the past month, and Carlos told me that you knew each other when you were younger. You must know him pretty well by now, well enough to know what he likes. We were thinking of getting him tickets for the country music festival. Do you think that he would like that?”
Maddie looked at Maria’s face as they walked and caught a gleam in her eye.
“No, Maria. He wouldn’t like that. He likes country music, but he won’t go to a music festival or a concert. But then you know that already, don’t you?” Maria gave her a big smile and wrapped her arm over Maddie’s shoulder.
“Ah, Maddie. You got me,” she said as she dropped her arm again. “Yes, I knew that Rick would hate going to the festival. It would be too loud and busy for him. I got him a bunch of CDs instead. I’m glad to see that you know that about Rick. Has Rick told you about the PTSD and being an alcoholic?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Has he tried to get you to leave? Has he tried pushing you away, yet?”
“Yes, he tried that a month ago.” They stopped walking and looked at each other as they stood on the path. “Did Carlos try that with you?”
“Oh heaven, yes! He sure did,” Maria exclaimed with a head nod. “But I knew that he didn’t want me to go. That’s why I stayed. Maddie, it takes a strong woman to love a warrior when he is healthy. The military becomes his life. Even when he is no longer in, it affects how he acts and views the world. It takes an even stronger woman to love him when he is not healthy. You’ll go through some trials, but it is worth it if you can get through them. You’ll go through it together and find your new normal. I think that you are one of the stronger ones. You love Rick, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Is it obvious?”
“To me it is.” Maria stopped talking and looked at Maddie closely. “Rick is good man. He’s one of the men worth fighting for just as my Carlos was. I shouldn’t say that because everyone is worth fighting for. But I don’t tell that to everyone. Rick isn’t a violent man, and I doubt that he ever was. He’s not angry, either. It would be different if he were. I tell women who come into the clinic to be very careful with men who are violent and angry. It’s ok to love that person, and fight for that person, but it isn’t always ok to be there.”
“I tell them that if they don’t feel safe, then they need to get help. It comes with my job, I suppose. But I digress. We were talking about you and Rick. Maddie, Rick is a wonderful man who deserves someone who will love him and see the man he is despite his problems. I think that you are that someone. I wanted you to know that if you ever need someone to talk to who has been there, then you can call me.” They began walking again in silence as Maddie considered what Maria had said. The complex was up ahead about one hundred feet.
“Maria. I do have a question for you. Do you ever worry about Carlos drinking again?”
“I used to everyday. But now I can see that he is strong and alcohol doesn’t have a hold on him. He doesn’t think about alcohol anymore. He doesn’t celebrate his years of sobriety like he used to because for him to do so would be to think about it. He thinks about his family, his work, and everything he has and came close to losing. He has a strong faith, too. I think that those are what keep him strong.”
“He always tells our children to accept that they have weaknesses but to focus on their strengths and on the positives. It is what we think about that we become. Focus on weaknesses, and you become weak. Focus on strengths, and you become strong. It doesn’t mean to forget about your weaknesses because you should still work on them.”
“We all have weaknesses. We all have things that we aren’t good at or need to improve about ourselves. But we also have things that we are good at, too. We all have things about us that when we do them, we know that we are doing a good job. When we do them, we feel good about ourselves; we feel at ease; we feel proud. Everyone needs something to be proud of, to feel strong. Rick is finding that out, and I think that you will help him see that.”
“I hope so,” Maddie said as they walked inside.
* * * * *
Later that night as Maddie lay on her side with Rick behind her, she felt his lips on her ear. She rolled onto her back and looked up at him.
“I’m glad that you came with me,” Rick whispered.
“So am I,” she whispered back. He kissed her a few times. They were soft kisses
“You have Maria’s stamp of approval,” he told her before he dropped down on his back. “Come here. I want to hold you.” He pulled her over, and she snuggled into his side. “No hanky-panky, though. Only sleep.”
“You’re no fun.” He laughed at her statement then kissed her head. Within minutes, she could feel the evenness of his breathing and knew that he was asleep. She kissed his shoulder then looked up at him. “I love you,” she whispered before she dropped her head back to his shoulder and closed her eyes. She didn’t see him open his eyes or see the smile that formed on his face.