I must be lost, Kristina wondered.
"Your des-tin-a-tion's in 500 feet," the GPS reported.
It was sunset when Kristina slowed down her car so she wouldn't pass the building she was looking for. The sun and moon still shared the sky, the call of night birds signaled a day almost over, and squirrels followed each other up trunks to turn in for the night. She had just turned onto a tree-lined street with Cape Cod and Tudor homes fit with manicured lawns, driveways filled with cars, and where dog walkers strolled after dinner. The occasional child's bike leaned against a garage door and bird feeders hung from porches.
It didn't look like an annex of a College campus could be located here. Yet, during their coffee the Friday before, Parker had told Kristina, "I have an amazing collection of books about this topic in my other office. You should come by." Then she wrote the address on a napkin.
Maybe the GPS was wrong. Bringing her car to a slow roll, Kristina tapped the navigator's screen to ensure she had entered the correct address.
Is that…Parker's car?
Kristina idled her car and rustled through her bag to find the marked up napkin she had neatly folded away. She double checked Parker's handwritten address, then looked at the matching one on...the house?
A flock of birds released in Kristina's stomach and fluttered up into her throat. Her seatbelt suddenly felt tight and constrained against her chest.
Her house!
"When you get there, park on the street," Kristina recalled Parker instructing her, "then walk to the building at the back."
Every step Kristina took up Parker's driveway was laden with uncertainty. She wanted to sit back in her car and wait for the butterflies to settle down in her stomach. A house was so personal, so...intimate. Had they gotten that close? Kristina wanted to collect herself and understand what was going on. But instead, she got her bearings and walked up the driveway past two cars parked side by side - Parker's and another - then walked along a stone pathway that gently curved around the back of the house. A quaint, one room cottage came into view.
The cottage door swung open before Kristina reached it and Parker stood there assured and expectant - like she had been waiting there all along. She studied Kristina's approach.
"You found it," Parker said with a smile.
There was a hesitation in the doorway; an awkward moment of impulse and restraint between the two of them. An invisible barrier of self-consciousness halted Parker from kissing Kristina on the cheek like a long-time friend. The gesture could be misconstrued; the act, a prelude to other impulses Parker needed to keep at bay. Kristina merely sensed Parker's intention and was drawn to receive a kiss but, instead, she dipped her head and slipped past Parker believing that she had misunderstood. But there was no misunderstanding. They both understood. No words were needed.
Kristina felt warm the minute she entered. Not room temperature warm but the type of warm that starts from somewhere inside - in that place called 'familiar' and radiates from there - connecting her to everything in the room because they're Parker's.
"So this is your other office," Kristina said examining the space.
"Did you have trouble finding it?" Parker asked.
Kristina shakes her head. "I just wasn't expecting it to be - "
"My home?"
"Ya...your home."
There was a palpable awareness that something had shifted between the two of them. From teacher/student to friends to...neither of them could put a finger on what was happening or what they were at that split second.
Decorated in warm colors, the office was open and well-lit. The setting sun spread a glowing aura across one side of the room outlining everything that made the space uniquely Parker's. Without invitation, Kristina browsed the office touching everything she saw. Later, back at her place and alone in her room, her fingers would serve as a memory of everything she touched; a dark wood desk, a laptop, a desk lamp, a leather arm chair and ottoman, a standing lamp. Framed degrees and pictures on the wall. A set of golf clubs; a stodgy activity Kristina could never imagine Parker playing. Built-in bookshelves with hundreds of books soldiered side by side. Kristina ran her finger along the spines of "Sexual Politics", "The Second Sex", "The Claudine Series", "The Autobiography of Heidi B. Toklas". Some of the books were tomes; thick and heavy with gold or dark, engraved lettering. Kristina almost missed seeing another desk tucked away in a small alcove toward the back of the cottage. The space felt inviting. A welcome place to read, to write, to contemplate; not dry and contrived like Parker's College office. Parker patiently watched Kristina explore.
"That's some collection," Kristina remarked. "I see why you asked me over. You could never fit all of those books in your office at school."
"I wish I could," Parker said reflecting on the years and history harbored on the shelves. "But having you here, sharing this with you, means a lot to me. There's so much more you can learn."
Kristina turned to Parker and said, "There's so much more you can teach me here than I could ever learn at school."
Unknowingly, Kristina's finger had stopped to rest on the spine of "Olivia".
With every passing second, Parker absorbed how Kristina fit into her sanctuary; how she moved around her office with ease, handled things as if they were hers, and leaned against the desk.
"Do you like to travel?" Kristina asked picking up a framed picture of Parker and a woman standing side by side in front of the Parthenon. "Greece?"
"Yes," Parker answered. "I do."
"With your sister?"
"No," Parker said. "My wife."
Suddenly light-headed, Kristina steadied her hand on the desk. She swooned, hoping that it wasn't noticeable. She thought she heard Parker say "my wife". She must have heard incorrectly. Parker must have said "my LIFE", like her sister meant a lot to her or something. Of course it was a misunderstanding because if Parker was married to a woman that meant she was…
Kristina didn't even have time to swerve out of the way of this monumental paradigm shift which crashed right into her reality. An unexpected and jarring impact that winded her. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, her vision blurred, she couldn't feel herself anymore; she was numb and ...her heart. Did it just shatter into a million pieces? She was too paralyzed to salvage them.
Her poem. The poem she wrote. The one she read to Parker when they were alone in the classroom.
THAT type of destructive, unexpected force, was needed, fated, to awaken a type of yearning
Is this what it meant? Because at that moment, Kristina felt broken, in pieces, like a mangled piece of wreckage yet, at the same time, everything - everything about what she had been feeling and every feeling she had for Parker - started. to make. sense.
"That's my wife," Parker repeated, thinking Kristina hadn't heard her. All the color had drained from Kristina's face. She just stood there, vacant.
"We've been married since 2015 when the Supreme Court passed the same-sex marriage laws," Parker continued in order to fill the weighted silence that had fallen between them. "Officially married. We've been together much longer than that."
"Oh," barely crackled out of Kristina's throat. It was the only response she could manage to eek out from the rubble; she felt demolished.
Parker's left hand looked bigger than ever, especially with the two rings looming there. Two rings Kristina was seeing for the first time. She wondered why she never noticed them before. Kristina recalls every single time Parker touched her...touched her with her right hand. Of course! She's right-handed - never left - that's why Kristina never saw the rings or...was it because she never wanted to see the rings?
And in that instant, Kristina's lush fantasies turned to dust. Confusion, anger, and betrayal accumulated like tumbleweed. Parker lead her on. Kristina felt set up; she saw red. Hate seethed for this 'wife' who had been hidden for weeks, for months. How dare she show up now when Kristina was this close - this close - to Parker. A whirlwind of feelings stirred an uncontrollable, nervous laugh out of Kristina.
"Did I say something funny?" Parker asked. As much as she wanted to portray an air of detachment, Parker's defenses rose.
"No, it's just…," Kristina tried to regain her composure. "You never mentioned this...this...You never mentioned her. I mean, her, your wife."
Kristina practically stumbled over her own tongue saying, 'your wife'; it left a rancid taste in her mouth.
"I've never had any reason to," Parker explained. "I keep my private life private, Kristina. It's very rare that I allow students to get this close."
"Then, why me?"
"You're not like my other students, Kristina. You never will be."