Autumn’s Summer

Autumn’s Summer
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Not Your Typical Love Story
By
Felicity Talisman
Author, Frank Talaber in collaboration with Jen Talaber.
A Bridges of Madison County romance with a fantasy twist.
What if you were given up for adoption NOT because your
mother didn’t want you, but because she was trying to protect
you from a curse?
Great loves come and go
Profound Ones Mark your soul
In ways that take the rest of your lifetime to comprehend.
2
While comprehension is one thing,
being brave enough to break other people’s hearts is another.
Sometimes the best is left unsaid.
That way only my soul cries in dismal agony.
Prelude
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Unexpected moments come, sometimes once in a lifetime.
Unfortunately not when planned or expected. That’s the magic and
the beauty of them.
Is it possible to love two people at the same time and not have the
courage to reveal the truth to one or leave one for the other?
Richard; if you are reading this, I am dead, and even in death this is
the hardest thing I have ever had to do. My hand shakes; not from the
cancer, but from my innermost hurt.
First of all, I have loved you deeply. You made my life the happiest It
has ever been, or could have ever been. I could never have asked for
more wonderful man, husband, or partner than I had in you.
And, as always, I was a coward, as you know.
But there was a part of my soul that was unfulfilled, I have
discovered. This has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with
me.
I would never have left you, would never have broken your heart in
that way, but neither could I leave her.
I am only telling you to put my soul to rest and hope that, in yours,
you will find a way to forgive me.
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Please don’t hate me.
Or her.
It wasn’t her fault.
Some things, I’ve learned, are destiny.
One’s never meant to be, but once set in place, can’t be altered
by either party.
And for that I’m sorry, truly deeply sorry.
Please.
Love, Always
Autumn
March 31st, 2011
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Richard stared at the brief four-page cover letter, the handwriting rough. She must have written
this letter just before she died. From the padded envelope he pulled out a thick leather-bound
diary, the cover an engraved Celtic Tree Of Life, a pink opal heart at its center. His hand shook
as he unwound the leather lace binding it and stared at the first page; My Journeys With
Summer.
The package had been delivered this morning; one year and one day after Autumn had
succumbed to that dreadful disease that had swallowed her so rapidly. A brief letter from their
lawyer’s office accompanied it; they’d been given instructions to so do. He held the book,
shaking, unable to turn a page, not knowing what to expect. Not knowing if he wanted to read
any of it. It wasn’t a man she was with, but it was someone she loved and… he swallowed; made
love to?
He made himself comfortable on the loveseat they had so often shared and stared at the
large writing on the four handwritten pages again. Breathing deeply, he turned to the first entry.
Dear Richard;
This journal begins the tale of another romance. One I shouldn’t
have started, yet called to me every day; it haunted my every
dream and pulled at me whenever I saw a woman with red lipstick.
You will read some shocking and intimately explicit parts, but
after I’m gone I just want to be fully and completely open and
honest with my feelings and you. Maybe it will give you some
idea of why I did what I did and, once started, why I couldn’t
go back to my former life and the person I once was.
I began a diary on my computer after first meeting Summer,
to process my thoughts, realizations and learnings. I had read
it helps if you write down what you are going through, it helps
the mind to process. When the cancer was discovered, I began
writing this journal, a record for your eyes, written by me now
as I read back through my original diary. Some details you will
already know as I would have shared them with you at the time,
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but I am adding them in as well to show the whole picture, and I
want the complete story to be told to whomever you choose to
share it with. I cannot bear to leave this world without
confessing all to you, not in a bid to hurt you but, as you will
find out about this eventually, to be the one to tell you. It is
so important to me that you know, no matter what had happened
between Summer and me, that you were always the love of my life
and that I would never have left you. I just couldn’t bear to
let her go either.
I do not know, and now never will, if you ever suspected.
But, if you ever did, it was with Summer, not another man. I am
unsure whether that will make a difference to you as I still
cheated on you and for that I am deeply sorry. That is something
I have to deal with wherever we go in the afterlife.
Richard paused and stared at their wedding photo on the mantel. We were so in love. Or so I
thought.
Nope, she hid it well, I had no idea other than she and Summer had become very good
friends, and neither had ever alluded to anything more.
Summer took me to places that I didn’t know existed and, in
the end she saved my life, as you will read, before I found out
about the cancer.
Summer knows nothing of this journal. I hope when you are
done reading it, you have the courage to allow her to read it as
well.
I bought and planted the lilac tree and the lavender to be
reminded of her when I was at home. If I shut my eyes it was
just like being with her, in her backyard.
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Richard wandered over to the French doors and stared out at the lilac; it had grown quite large
over the years. How long, he wondered? If memory serves me right, was what nearly three or
four years ago?
As per Autumn’s request, her cremated remains were interned under the lilac. A Celtic
ceramic cross marked the location of the modest wooden box. He had sprinkled some of her
around the tree as well. She said she loved the sweet scent of the blossoms and wanted to be
close to him.
Only it wasn’t just me she wanted to be close to, was it?
He remembered the few times they had fought. It was rare; that was why he loved her so
much, they got along so well together. Soulmates, he’d told her. She’d storm out of the house and
sit under that tree crying, on the ceramic bench adorned with flowers and hearts. It never
occurred to him it was for another reason. Most of the time she’d sit out there, and write or read,
usually with a glass of red wine or herbal tea, looking so peaceful.
Richard sat again and poured another glass of red wine from the bottle on the small side
table. He drank back half of it and stared at the journal on his lap. He wanted to cry, but had done
enough of that already in the last year and a half or so.
I don’t want to, but I need to know that side of my wife, the woman I thought I knew so
well. Apparently, hardly at all when I wasn’t here but out on my business meetings. Taking a
deep breath he turned once again to the journal, and continued to read as tears oozed from his
eyes and down his cheeks, their faithful Jack Russell, Jackson, peacefully sleeping in front of the
fire.
He wondered if he’d ever sleep as peacefully again.
April 12th, 2011
Easter had passed and you were gone on another road trip. The
kids had stopped by for Easter Sunday dinner and now the house
was quiet again. How many times after Julie and David were gone
did I walk into their bedrooms, one after another, run my hands
over already pressed sheets wishing they were all scrunched up.
Or stare at their desks hoping to give them heck for leaving a
mess that wasn’t there, or hear their voices giggling talking to
a friend over the computer or I-phone? Sounds I never thought
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I’d miss.
I sat down and cried yesterday beside Julie’s bed wishing I
could see her face looking up at me as she woke up. She was the
lazy one of the two that dragged the bed hours out as long as
possible, unlike David.
“Hurry, David, get off your computer. The school bus will
be here in less than an hour.” In my mother’s scolding voice
that I no longer was or needed to be and never knew.
Even just to see them there and know they were mine and I
loved them and loved looking out for them? A parent’s remorse
over knowing they were out there living their own lives and my
job was done. Was this what so many mothers went through? I
didn’t truly know as I never had a mother to know if this was
normal.
A part of my lifetime that had ended and I hadn’t accepted
nor wanted to end in the realization that another phase had to
begin. But a phase into what?
Closing doors that didn’t need opening, yet I still did,
wishing for something to fill my life again.
You’d be gone for days, Richard, sometimes a week or more
on business trips. Yes we had a well-established habit you’d
call around eight every night, our suppers done just to talk,
hear your voice before watching some detective show or thriller
crime drama relaxing with wine to dull my senses.
What I realized is that it didn’t matter what I watched.
Nothing mattered, I was supposedly happy, content in this self
contained, non-eventful life.
One where the highlight of the day involved walking
Jackson, our dog. Sipping wine before a fire, waiting for your
voice on the phone and making sure the beds were made and all
your clothes ready for your return and making sure I had on
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clean clothes after a long shower. The rain of water felt good
most of the time, reminding me what it was like to be alive.
Which I know now I wasn’t inside.
Living the life that many working women aspire for.
I should have gone out to find a job, perhaps help in a pet
shelter or food bank. Although I knew if I did that I’ve be
bringing home dozens of strays. That was it, I was a stray.
Untied to anything, especially after finding out I was
adopted.
A being sitting in a wonderful shelter, safe protected, but
with no one to love me, protect me or guide me or just someone
besides you Richard to say thanks for being in my life. The kids
had me, loved me immensely and occasionally they’d call or I’d
call them when I was lonely, which I know now was most of the
time.
I had no one to call, say hello mom, I love you and miss
you. No one to kiss my on the forehead and wish me a good night,
sweet dreams like I did with the kids. Only you Richard and two
kids that weren’t there anymore.
And you weren’t here half the time and no mother that
wanted me was ever here. I think that made me sink into my shell
even farther after I finding out I was adopted, which in my
soul, I already knew.
As it was I rarely called my step parents. My mom, Alma was
okay, except I knew she only adopted me because she couldn’t
have any kids and due to her strict Catholic up-bringing had to
be a real mother otherwise she’d feel like a failure to her
husband, to the church and to herself.
She wasn’t overly affectionate, her strict religious
upbringing prevented that and she wanted to be in the higher
echelons of the local church group, so I was often sent away off
to schools, to quote get a better education, only I realized
later to not have to deal with the crazy red headed daughter
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that didn’t look remotely like her or her well to do husband.
It was funny, he travelled a lot for his job as well.
Something I learned later from Summer a thing called the comfort
zone. I attracted into my life a man that was just like my
stepdad who wasn’t there.
Don’t get me wrong Richard, I’m just spilling out
realizations now as they come to me. Part of the opening up of
Autumn, as Summer called it.
All part of the lessons of learning who I was or wasn’t
even if they were lessons I didn’t want to learn.
As I mentioned, part of the Autumn you never got to see,
who cried by her kids beds wishing they were there to look
after, tuck in, to give back the love from someone that I never
had in my comfort zone.
From the Autumn that didn’t exist in any comfort zone I
never had. Nor ever could until I became aware of what I wanted,
yet had never experienced, hence why my life became what it was.
The empty part inside that I’d grown up with, which I now
had begun to reclaim due to Summer.
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Chapter One
April 24, 2008
My eyes had been inexplicably drawn to the ad on the grocery
store’s corkboard and for an unknown reason my heart pounded. I
was staring at it, lost in thought, when a wave of ylang-ylang
or Patchouli washed over me like a soft fleece blanket.
“I see my ad has caught your attention.” Her voice, soft,
sincere, washed into me and something inside jumped as I turned
to stare for the first time into soft blue eyes with oceanic
depths.
So it began.
****
It was late spring, just before the beginning of Summer. That
was her name by the way; Summer.
I had stopped on the other side of the Sammamish Lake at
the Lakeside Full Line Grocery store. I usually hit the big city
store on the way home, but had realized I’d forgotten a couple
of things for dinner. On the way out, postings clipped to a
corkboard caught my attention. One for canoe lessons, something
I’d been meaning to learn, and wanted to surprise you with. Our
two kids, David and Julie, had flown the nest and had begun
their own lives. With your career in sales you were often gone
for days or weeks and, although I wanted to return to my
writing, to the journalistic career I’d put on hold for
domesticity, I wasn’t sure where to begin. Learning to canoe
would at least be an achievement. I’d love to go out on the lake
to pass the hours without you. When we went together, I was
submissive, happy to let you paddle. I enjoyed it, letting you
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be in charge of me. Or so I’d thought. I tore off the strip of
paper from the bottom of someone called Jason’s ad, meaning to
phone as soon as I returned home.
But another ad caught my eye, and my spirit, as I picked up
the heavy shopping bags. A hand-drawn picture of someone
meditating, legs crossed and a heart erupting over them. ‘Yoga
classes, meditations, spiritual readings, etc. Sign up and find
your inner voice and spirit. Fulfill the deeper meaning of your
life.’ The words hit rather hard. I had no deeper meaning, other
than cooking, washing, cleaning the house and looking after the
kids that were no longer there. I realized right then and there
how empty I was inside. I should be happy; your well-paying job
provided very well and had bought the lovely house on a gorgeous
lake. And I was very happy, or so I thought. But perhaps there
was something more?
The words called to me again and again as I stared like a
deer dazzled by headlights. I stood lost in the knowing that
what I was about to do, no, wanted to do, would change something
inside me. The weight of the shopping bags pulled at me, calling
me back to my humdrum, yet peaceful life. Go now! Cried out from
my mind as I put them down.
Did I want to complicate it? Still a part of myself called
from within. At the moment I had nothing, was nothing, only a
housewife.
Most likely some crazy hippy chick doing woo-woo stuff to
make a buck out of us richer folk out here at this lake. Or,
perhaps, a more down-to-earth person connected to herself and
the planet. Since college, marriage and two kids I’d not had
much time to indulge in what I liked or wanted to do with
myself. Quite frankly I wasn’t really sure what that was or who
I really was anymore.
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I picked up my bags ready to turn and exit the store,
allowing that cynical voice to take control once again.
“I see my ad has caught your attention.” Her voice, soft,
sincere, washed into me and something inside jumped as I turned
to stare for the first time into soft blue eyes of oceanic
depths. A moment of sheer co-incidence, only as I learned later,
nothing is co-incidence.
****
This was the meeting that prompted the computer diary. For the
first time in an age, I was compelled to write, wanting to put
down my thoughts while they were still fresh. Meeting Summer had
awoken my muse and questioning realizations. This was a positive
start.
I stared into her eyes as rivers ran into me, through me,
waves thundered into the cliffs of my existence. Journeys never
traversed in this lifetime, but I’ve dwelled in others, calling
to this life in the serenade of water splashing on my canoe or
the dust of an old country road humming along the heat of a
summer’s morning. Time, love, and, ultimately death come to us
all. Amongst the haunt of lilacs wafting in a warm breeze and
crackles of a cozy winter fire, seduced by acrid smoke and
chilled wine there is a need or want that calls hauntingly to
our souls. To mine.
At that moment I was utterly stunned, those words came to
me again and again, later after a couple of lessons. I heard
them calling like being dared to fly and thrust off a cliff’s
edge. I remember being scared and thrilled at the same time, but
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more scared at finding out the true me; the me I’d never really
known.
****
She had soft red lips, high, wide cheek bones, longer blonde
hair that trailed over her shoulders with in curly waves; a
single braid strung with colored beads laced her right cheek. I
inhaled, my breath taken away, like I’d seen her in some of my
dreams or in some erotic visions. “You okay?” she asked, a
puzzled look on her face.
“I, er yes, I guess I didn’t expect to meet the… er author
of the ad,” I lied, hearing words whispering to me from inside
my mind.
Her smile held, a twinkle of mirth crossed her lips. She
shifted her shopping bags to one hand and reached out with her
other. “I’m Summer.”
Warmth, tingles ran in electric waves as I felt a touch I’d
felt forever for the first time. I didn’t want to let go as
sensations of mists calling to forests below slide down granite
cliffs. Still somewhat even more stunned. “I’m… ah… Autumn.”
Finally finding my breath.
“I love the autumn, colors exploding, spirits going to rest
before the numbing caress of winter begins.”
Her words added further to my incredulous astonishment,
which happens to some of us when we hear and become aware
internally of a song verse or a phrase unexpectedly on a TV
show. I didn’t expect, nor would ever forget, what she said that
day. The light in her eyes told me I’d caught her attention as
well. Like when you meet someone and know instantly you’d like
to befriend them or in some perverse erotic dream spend time
with them alone.
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I realized I was still holding her hand and, blushing,
reluctantly relinquished it. I said something inept like, “nice
meeting you. I was thinking of signing up for one of your
classes.”
Summer smiled back as an older couple shoved their way by
as we’d somewhat blocked the exit of the store by our meeting.
“Excuse us,” they both grumbled, miserable looks on
miserable faces, spent in what was obviously miserable lives now
too lazy and late to change; stuck in what they were and too
afraid to venture into the unknown. Was that me the realization
hit hard?
Did I want to become that person? Without having to answer,
I already knew I was.
“Hope to see you there.” She smiled affectionately, her
blue eyes widening, and I felt my heart tremble as she shuffled
her heavy bags and sedately strolled to her car, turning once to
catch me staring at her. I could see a slight smile cross her
lips and felt the loss of the brief moment of contact. Wishing
for more.
I stood there long moments as others shuffled behind me
before I snapped a picture of her ad, then tore one of the
information strips from the bottom, obviously for those not-so
tech-savvy types.
I stared at that strip of paper in my hand, and already
knew the question it asked couldn’t remain unanswered. There was
something that had haunted me my whole existence. I dreamt it
sometimes, knew there were closed doors I couldn’t open, not
even in my dreams and hadn’t wanted to until now. Something
missing from my life and not just because I was adopted. I had
always thought my mother, the one I couldn’t ever find abandoned
me.
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So yes, Richard, I am a coward. But not that day. I put the
paper into my pocket and picked up the small bag; it didn’t feel
so heavy now. As I waited for another couple to scoot by me, I
knew a great weight, some forgotten weight from this past life,
had been lifted from me and I was about to start something,
what, though, I had no idea. Only a purpose, one involving her
helping me find myself.
Later in one of our meetings she talked about how people
wake up in the morning and have a set number of energy points to
go through the day with, say, for example, a hundred. But they
have so many threads of past events that are unresolved or
things they’ve regretted doing, or regretted not doing, that
they have already used one hundred and twenty points, and that’s
why they have no desires or driving force in them. They are
dragged down, weighed down, burnt-out before even rising to
brush their teeth, let alone dress.
She didn’t have to tell me; I knew that I’d expended my
hundred energy points before I got out of bed every morning
denying what I wanted to be or do with my life and maybe some of
that was from feeling abandoned, not worth anything to the woman
that bore me into this life. I immediately felt so much lighter
just because I’d made the decision to attend her classes and
learn about myself. Threads of me, attaching to me, melting
away. Suddenly the shopping bags felt weightless as I strolled
out the door. I looked around, intoxicated, like a spell had
been put over me, but she was already gone. Vanished into the
mystical realm of bizarre happenings, like an apparition that I
thought I’d seen, but hadn’t. I touched the paper in my pocket,
the smell of patchouli still sang in my nose and the memory of
her blue eyes connecting and touching mine. She was real.
Back in my car, I mused for long moments, wondering at what
had just happened. Her touch on my hand; I still felt it, the
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memory of her warmth sending shivers deep within me. Tingles of
wants, cravings to be fulfilled. Wondering how a single
unexpected moment, could change your entire lifetime. I didn’t
fully realize it then, but I just experienced an epiphany, at my
local supermarket of all places. I thought enlightened moments
came only when you meditated for long hours in some holy place,
inhaling the heady scents of special oils and incense, not
holding grocery bags of all things.
Her words rang in my head, ‘I love the autumn, colors
exploding, spirits going to rest before the numbing caress of
winter begins.’ The realization hit hard. She, Summer, I knew
was something I wasn’t; deep. I had no depth, just someone going
through life like those two miserable elders at the store. Fixed
into the motions of just existing and not living, only to die
one day nothing but a husk, more empty than the shell I’d leave
behind. I wanted to be more like her. I knew nothing about
myself, I was merely a stranger in a strange body. It didn’t
help that we’d found out from my parents I was adopted; and just
before our wedding. Great timing. Abandoned and, sorry to say
this, made to look after and please others her whole entire
life, including you, Richard. Tears ran down my cheeks as I
started the car. The learnings had already begun.
As I said, this was when I started the diary, as soon as I
reached home. I wanted to record the whole experience before any
of it faded away, and then I signed up for one of her courses on
meditation and awareness. Knowing somehow the course of my life
had just hung a wicked left down Mulberry Lane or some such, to
a place I never had imagined, and on to an adventure I could
never have dreamed of.
I also remember staring at your picture and saying to
myself that day, so sorry, but I need to do this, even if it
means disconnecting from you.
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Being true to yourself is one thing, hurting others that
love you is another. I will use that phrase many times through
this journey, Richard. On the one hand, I am so sorry. But on
another note, somehow I am not. I needed to find my true self,
the self I’d kept hidden from me all those years ago and
hopefully you will understand and still love when you read this
journal.
Please forgive me.
****
Richard left the journal open, upside down with both covers splayed, and walked back to the
French windows, staring unseeingly at the garden. He felt a sudden urge to hurl the wine glass at
the window with all of his might. But didn’t.
“Fuck!” He yelled to the universe, and the remaining spirit essences of Autumn dwelling
here, and changed his mind and threw the glass against the wall. Sharp springs of exploding glass
and redness seared the area running like scarlet tears down the yellow wall; like the red aching
tears going through my heart, even more raw now than when I held her hand and felt her pass
away from me, from us.
Or what I thought was us.
She is right, I am cut beyond all belief. I never even suspected anything like this, let alone
with another woman. Shit, I am such an idiot.
I think that hurts even more. He grabbed a broom and began to sweep the mess up as
tears continued to stream down his face.
It didn’t matter, nothing mattered now. She was gone and whatever she did, didn’t
matter. My wife is gone, my heart has shattered since then and no matter what she has to say in
this journal make anything better.
He fell in a heap onto his knees, not caring if any glass cut into him. She was making love
to someone else all of these years.
Wearily rising, Richard finished sweeping the shards of glass, berating himself for
causing the mess he now had to attend to. He stumbled out to the Celtic cross in their backyard
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and sank heavily onto the ornate bench sobbing, listening to the rustle of branches as a storm
threatened.
Sometime later, he realized it was now near dark and quite cold. He was chilled through
but hadn’t noticed. The sound of a wolf or coyote howling called from the dark and, as he
listened, trying to stop the tears splattering on his jeans, a great warmth surrounded him like a
blanket. As if she had put her arms around him, like she had so many times, giving her deep
grounding hug she did so well.
Richard sobbed long and hard some more before rising.
Thanks for that, he said to the Celtic marker and took a deep breath. Now to continue.
Like she said, no matter how much this is going to hurt, I have to finish her journey in order to
be true to her heart; to find out what I didn’t know about the woman that I loved all of these
years.
Back in front of the fireplace, Richard stared at his wristwatch; time for bed. He glanced
down at Jackson, who was happily chewing on a rawhide bone, oblivious to his master’s
heartache. Okay another few pages and off to bed.