Blackberries in Fall
If Danny had entered the relationship with no more intention than simply passing the class, how shocked he must have been to find himself madly in love with Ivo on the other side. But even the most Machiavellian of beings would have fallen for Ivo. I, for instance, was smitten before he ever spoke a word to me. There was something about him – something different in the ordinary.
I imagine them living together – Danny slovenly, Ivo tidy; Danny subsisting on fish and chips, Ivo picking blackberries and apples from the garden for dessert; Danny angry, restless and bored, Ivo sitting on the couch quietly reading John Muir or Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
I suspect they had shouting matches as Ivo and I did – Danny desperate to provoke him for attention. Was Ivo more patient or less in those days?
One thing I do know is that Danny changed over time, his rage fading as his needs were met. Ivo provided it all – love, money, encouragement.
Security.
It is rather hard not to blossom in that setting. After all, I too had laid my demons to rest with Ivo's patient ways.
I used to ask myself what Ivo had done to deserve us. We laugh about it now but it had to be hell at the time. He says he had no intentions one way or another – Danny walked into his class and I walked into the elevator. He just assumed that was how love happened – leave the back door open and see who shows up. He was very much of the "love the one you're with" philosophy; once he found someone, he simply made it work. "Once one is in a relationship," he told me pointedly, "one stops looking."
Perhaps that was my problem. I always assumed that once you got what you wanted, you moved on to something else. Ivo's way seemed too –
Simple?
Plain?
Old-fashioned?
I wasn't sure what word I was looking for. I had assumed love had to be turbulent, the way it was when we first met. I thought stomach aches and head aches and heart aches were all part of it. I couldn't imagine that a placid existence could would make me happy.
How very wrong I was!