One More Time

The barn would be the place. Definitely the barn.

No one else is home & mom has this thing about entertaining when we are home alone, especially when the guest is of the opposite gender. She would say, “It doesn’t look good. The neighbors will talk.”

“What neighbors?” I would ask. “The nearest farmhouse is another half mile down the road & no one has lived there for at least twenty years.”

“We’ve still got neighbors on this stretch &, while they may be over a mile away from us, they still work fields on all sides. They come by here & see a strange car parked in the drive, they’ll have questions. How am I supposed to answer?”

She hates gossip, especially when it involves her. But in this case, her concern is for both of us. I have just finished my second year of college, only two more to go, & then it will be off to seminary. I had told her back when I was in the ninth grade I wanted to become a minister. At the time she simply nodded & said, “You’ll change your mind.” By my senior year she had changed her tune to, “Whatever you do, don’t become a priest. They only live half a life.”

I thought, “Mom, a sexual reference from you… & a positive one at that!”

Was she looking out for me or just trying to hook me? She was never shy to remind me that any scandal could hinder me on the path toward ordination. Any time I stayed out later than she thought appropriate, or I hung out with people of whom she did not approve, I got the speech. I tried to remind her that “those people” were the type with whom Jesus hung out.

If I had been a betting man, I could have won a lot of money guessing her response. “You’re not Jesus.” She rarely failed me, although sometimes she would switch it up with, “And look at what happened to him!”

But this is different. A young woman is planning on meeting me here, a young woman I have known for two years at college, with whom I had become best friends while she still had a boyfriend & with whom I had fallen helplessly in love long before she broke up with him. Now she is coming here & no one else is home.

It must be the barn. I cannot invite her into the house. Mom would know. She always knows. Yep, it must be the barn.

Really, it is perfect. It is raining so we farm folk cannot be working in the fields or mending fences. At the same time, it is the middle of August, & if you live anywhere on the plains, you know that when you get an August rain you want to be near it. I can open the barn on both sides, breathe in the sweetness of the air, continue with my chores, brushing the horses, cleaning the stalls, getting fresh hay for the stalls, cleaning the tackle, & still be able to see her the moment she drives up. She can even pull part way into the barn so she will not have to get out in the rain. I have two hay bales set up for us to sit where anyone who happens to drive by can clearly see us & a pitcher of iced sun tea for us to drink while we visit.

While we visit. What is this about? She had been quite clear at the end of the school year that we would not work as a couple. She had tried to make that clear all the time we were dating. But ever since the first time we talked….

I pick up one of the saddles, the one that needs the least work, carry it over to the bale nearer the road, & begin cleaning, mending & treating it as I think about that evening almost two years ago.

She had not been in classes that day. I asked a friend who lived in her dorm & found out that she was sick—nothing serious, just enough to stay in bed & miss some school. As an aspiring minister, this gave me the perfect excuse to call on her because, well, you know, that is one of the things ministers do.

From the first time I met her, just a couple of weeks before, I knew she was out of my league. She was slender, two or three inches taller than me, & she had brown hair so dark you would almost swear it was black. She wore it shoulder length, softly curled at the ends & around her face, parted on the right allowing one curl to drop just over her left eyebrow. She had a birthmark on her right cheek, slightly red & irregular, that was both exotic & mysterious. And her eyes sparkled like Brenda Starr’s from the old comic strip. They were the kind of eyes in which you could easily get lost &, blissfully, never find your way out.

Did I mention that she was connected? Her father, an ordained minister, was now tenured faculty & head of his department.

My heart was in my throat as I approached her room. The door was already open so, as I knocked on the door jam, I could see her lying in bed looking miserable. She looked up, gave a weak smile, & invited me in. I pulled over the chair from her desk & sat next to her. We talked for, what was it, thirty minutes? An hour? Two? It was all the same to me. Time had no meaning while I was with her.

At some point her boyfriend stopped by. I did not even notice, but she told me the next day he was upset because I was visiting while she was in bed. She had defended me, pointing out that it was an act of Christian charity, I was going into the ministry, & the door had remained open the entire time. I never told her he was probably right.

We quickly became best friends. We could tell each other anything. And we did.

By the beginning of second year, she had broken up with her boyfriend & we started dating. Soon after I began to suggest we might have a future together.

I lay the saddle down, get up from the bale & begin to pace, somewhat agitated. Had I jumped the gun by asking so soon? But so much had already happened between us.

She had been fascinated by the fact that, at nineteen years of age, this farm boy had never been kissed. So, she told me she was going to teach me! She said not to worry. She would tell me if I kissed like a fish. She invited me to sit close &, as we wrapped our arms around each other, our lips met. She parted hers slightly & flicked her tongue between mine. My lips & tongue responded in like fashion & so began this delicious feast of teasing, wrestling & playing—my tongue tagging hers before darting back to hide, hers drawing mine out & back into the warm, moist regions on the other side.

I pick up the saddle oil & saddle & return to my chores.

A faint smile crosses my lips as I treasure the memory, especially the memory of what happened next. We must have kissed for twenty minutes before she leaned back & asked me, “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” “Reading,” I replied. Apparently, I did not kiss like a fish. We kissed a lot after that.

Then there was the time she told me I had bedroom eyes. I never quite knew what she meant, but it sounded good.

And the coup de gras, the night that continues to haunt me. The night my roommate ‘Coke-cased’ the two of us into the room. I was lying on the bed; she sitting next to me. She put her hand on my thigh & said, “If you don’t stop it, it’s going to keep on moving.”

I responded with casual assurance, “No it won’t.’”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because if it does, one of two things will happen. Either I will stop you, which will leave you frustrated, or I won’t, in which case I won’t be the man you thought I was.”

After pondering this for a few moments she said, “You’re right,” & withdrew her hand.

I stop working the oil into the saddle as a wave of regret washes over me. I am beginning to think that I should have handled that differently, no matter how clever I thought I was at the time.

I return to the saddle. My horse gives a snort as though to ask, “Are we going riding yet?”

But “we’d never work, we want different things, I’m afraid you’ll choose God over me….” Her refusals had been constant.

Now I begin to mutter to her under my breath as though she is already here. “Until my last day before returning home for summer break, you told me I needed to take this time to get my head wrapped around that fact."

I feel a knot twisting in the pit of my stomach. My head is aching, lips trembling with each word. “And I have…, at least I’ve tried. Every day for the past three months I have been pounding it into my brain, sharp blows from the heel of my hand, ‘She’s right. You know she’s right.’”

I see her car turn into the drive. I set the saddle & oil down & go out to meet her. She gets out in the rain & runs inside. I invite her to sit on one of the bales & ask if she would like something to drink. She says she is fine.

So, we are getting right to it. Fine, my speech is rehearsed & ready, though I feel none of it & disagree with all of it. I tell her I understand. I proceed through the entire litany of her reasons from the past year. I cannot look at her as I push through the words. I just know I must do this for her sake, for her peace & happiness.

When I look up, her head is hanging. I hear a pickup drive by but do not see it. I am focused on her. Finally, she says, “And I drove here thinking that I should give us a chance.”

Be strong. “Why what’s changed?” I ask if she is now willing to become the wife of a preacher who is not called to a nice salary & comfortable living but to service with the least of these. Ironically, she is much more aware of what these words mean than I. She grew up as a preacher’s kid. For me it is still an ideal.

“No,” she admits. My heart sinks as I fight back tears. She cannot say the words I need to hear, that she loves me, I am enough, that we will figure a way, that we are worth fighting for.

I watch her pull out of the drive. For another thirty-four years watching her leave will be the hardest thing I have ever done.

A short time later, mom returns home. She has heard. She tries not to be too harsh with me, but her voice is scolding. She needs me to understand it does not matter that we stayed in the barn. People will talk. I must understand that this is not good.

I stand there taking it, never letting on that my heart is breaking more desperately than I have ever known. When she finishes, I go back to the barn where I can be alone & finally set my tears free.