Vinnie nodded. “That’s all true. And you loved me enough to leave me in all that? Alone?”
“I wanted you to wake up and live . . . for yourself.”
“Well . . . you were nice, Fred. You left me in all that . . . for my own good. And you left me one convenience: a telephone . . . so I could call YOU.”
“Surely you used it for other things . . . your children.”
“Oh, the phone was very convenient for emergencies. But, now, I don’t need it anymore. Your plan ‘to help me’ seems to have worked and I had a telephone in the middle of all my other problems. Now you can have it back because I may not be callin you.”
Fred turned his body toward Vinnie and took her hand from her lap. “Vinnie, don’t talk crazy. I didn’t wait all this time for you to put me out of your life. I’m the one who wanted you to HAVE a life.”
“Fred, you waited til I went through all of it by myself.” She smiled that small smile. “I don’t know how to thank you for leavin me in my mess and waitin until life is easier for me so you could come back in it when it is easier for you.”
Fred was urgent, “But I was right! Look, you are doing better, look better. I know you feel more rested and better.”
Vinnie was gentle, but firm. She knew she better be because for some reason she did not even know how to articulate it to herself. She knew she wanted a different relationship with Fred, a stronger, better one. The anger in her heart was real, even though she knew she loved him. “But I have only me to thank for that. You were right! But . . . how do I know what I would have to go through the next time you think you are right and, one time, you may not be right and I will have to change something I want to do or you will step away from me again?”
“Vinnie, I love you.”
“Fred, dear, you say that.”
“I mean that. You were always in my mind.”
Vinnie looked, pointedly, around the room. “Well, I don’t have anything to show for your love except a telephone and I’m going to give that back. The car is old now, but I could buy it from you for what you loaned on it.”
Fred looked surprised, “You mean I should have given you money to help you burden us?”
Vinnie looked directly into Fred’s eyes. “There are other things to give. Love, comfort, support, a day off, a weekend off, music, laughter, togetherness.”
“I want to give you all those things, Vinnie.” He reached for her.
She didn’t move, to him or from him. “When I need them? Or when it is right in your mind? And convenient?”
“Vinnie, you are doing me wrong now.”
“I’m not doin you anything, Fred. I still have a phone, same number. You can call me . . . if you like.”
Fred looked at Vinnie a long time. She only half smiled, not in anger anymore, nor revenge or malice. Even her heart was hurting because she loved him. But, she thought, “He better learn my mind before I give him my heart to hold and keep and he sets it down somewhere, when it is convenient. When I become inconvenient.”
When she closed the door behind Fred, she listened to the slow, heavy footsteps going down the stairs to his car. Again. She could see through the window as he reached his car; he held his head up and shook his shoulders as if he was shaking something off, got in, sat a few moments, then slowly drove away.
Vinnie sat down in her thinking chair and prayed, “God, don’t let me make a mess of what’s left of my life, please.”
Vinnie joined a whist club, but went to take a class in bridge so she would have a different group of friends to choose from. She began to go out occasionally with a few of her girlfriends from her bank job. She did meet a few fellows and she went out with one or two of them, occasionally. She felt like making love, but she didn’t feel like making love to them.
She was able to get a charge account and she bought a few good basic clothes, but she loved shopping at the secondhand store. Vinnie watched her budget; there were things she wanted to do with her house to make it more comfortable and safe for herself. She thought of going to night school to learn something that would give her more pay and security . . . for herself.
Often her new phone rang at night, but when she picked it up, no one said a word. And there were times just looking out of her front window that she thought she recognized Fred’s car passing; always in the darkness of night.
Every once in a while, Vinnie saw her eagles. Mother and child. The young eagle was strong and sturdy now. It flew ahead of its mother sometimes as they played in and with the air. The mother eagle was getting old, but she was yet strong. Not as strong as of old, but still strong. The mother eagle always led the way back to their home as the young eagle would fly and glide, soaring as it trailed behind her. Vinnie was always filled with beauty and love as she watched life in the sky.
Eventually Vinnie met one gentleman she liked. Steve. Steve worked as a roofer, but was very nice and he liked to dance. He was a little plump, but light on his feet. They started going out every Saturday night. His only problem, to her, is he thought a date meant ending the evening in her bed. She didn’t want that and told him it would take more time for her to get to that. He accepted that, for the moment, because he just knew that he would, finally, get what he wanted from her because all women pretended not to give in too easily. Besides, he liked to dance. Too, she was a nice-lookin woman who lived alone in her own house. He had a little time to put into this. “Who knows what might happen,” he thought to himself. Vinnie was tiring of him because he never stopped asking, hinting and touching too much. She wanted to make love, not sex.
One Saturday night she didn’t feel so much like dancing so he came over to play cards: gin rummy. While he was there, her phone rang over and over again, but when she picked it up, no one said a word. Steve commented on it, but since it was none of his business, she didn’t say anything, just shrugged her shoulders.
The next morning, Sunday, it rang again, early. When she said “Hello,” Fred answered, “Hello, Vinnie?”
“Yes?” Her heart skipped a tiny little beat.
“This is Fred.”
“Hello, Fred,” said in a very pleasant voice.
“I see you are dating, at least, I heard about it.”
“Yes, Fred, I am.”
“Well . . . I’m calling to see if I might have a date with you. A little dinner? And dancing? Unless you have a man . . . now and he won’t want you to.”
Vinnie smiled. “No, no. I’m a free woman . . . Fred.”
“Well, Free Woman, may I have a date this Saturday evening?”
“Not Friday anymore?”
“Well, we can go out Friday and Saturday if you want to. I want to talk to you.”
Vinnie looked at her clock, she was thinking of church, then leaned back into her pillow. She wanted to see him sooner than Saturday. “Friday is better. For dinner only, though. I’m kinda tired.”
Fred’s voice hardened a little, “Yes, I guess all that dancing lately can wear you down.”
“I also work.”
Fred let a long sigh escape, “Well, if Friday is alright, that’s good. Still, I would like Saturday, too.”
Vinnie smiled, saying, “Well, let’s talk about Saturday on Friday.”
Fred was silent for a moment, then, “Alright, Vinnie. Six o’clock?”
“Six o’clock.”
After she hung up the phone Vinnie’s heart was glad, happy, however not too happy because she loved him, but he was still Fred.
That Friday, he picked her up and they took that long drive to the restaurant and the dinner was, as usual with him, good. She had been reading a few new things about etiquette and this time she was not so nervous. She relaxed more and had a better time with him.
He drove slowly back to her house. As he parked, he asked, “I know it’s late, but can I come in for a minute? To talk?”
“Of course, Fred, you know I enjoy your company.”
Inside her house, Vinnie turned the radio on . . . softly.
As Fred removed his coat he said, “Put on some records, some romantic records. Your son didn’t take his record player with him, did he?”
Vinnie laughed gently, “You have fed me so well, I’m just too full to fool with anything. We’re just gonna talk anyway.”
Fred sighed and sat back on the sofa, then took another deep breath. Said, “Vinnie? Girl, woman, my life is more empty every day. I got most things I want, but these years you been out of my life, my life ain’t nothing and I don’t have no desire but one and that’s you.”
Vinnie, sitting beside him, looked down at her hands in her lap.
Fred reached for one of her hands and said, “I thought I was right. And I was, but I wasn’t alllll right. But, I don’t think you are all right either. I was kinda blinded by my own self. I could have done more . . . but I didn’t think it would take you this long . . . if you loved me. I see the error in my ways now. With your help. And . . . and . . . well, there is no other way to say it. I just love you. I still want to marry you. You stay in my mind, between me and anybody else. Ain’t nobody for me but you. And we can do things your way too. Together. I’m not right all the time; I see now. I mean . . . I can be right, but there is a right way to do things.”
He took a deep breath because he had said quite a bit and she was still looking at her hand in his. “Vinnie? Do you . . . love that man you been going out steady with?”
Wasn’t any sense in lying. “No, I don’t.”
Fred breathed half a sigh of relief. “You make love to him? Or anyone else . . . at all?”
“I shouldn’t answer that, but no. Though I am sure you do. I have some dreams of my own for my future.”
Fred held her hand tighter. “Well what do you think? Can we get back together?”
Vinnie thought carefully. She loved this man. He was a good man. But, the main thing was, this was her life and she wanted her remaining years to try to be good ones with a man or good years without one; whichever was best for her. Her. “Well . . . Fred . . . We can start over . . . if you like . . . and see where we get to this time.”
His happiness bubbled so that he laughed out loud without intending to. “Oh, we are going all the way, this time. I don’t want to lose you. Ahhh . . . Can I kiss you?”
“I don’t kiss on my first date.” Vinnie smiled.
“Just a ‘hello’ kiss?”
“Well . . . one.”
Fred, smiling, “Then come on over here in my arms.” “Meet you halfway?”
“Let’s each come as far as they want to, together.”
They both moved toward each other and Fred held that one kiss for as long as he could, until they both needed to breathe. Vinnie kept it to the one kiss though it took all her strength because her body was hungry and she loved him, too. But, she thought, “This has got to be for real and it has to be right or it ain’t gonna be nothin. I don’t trust myself with my heart beatin like it is now.”
The kiss held more than a promise.
Josephine, seeing Fred’s car at Vinnie’s so often, made it her business to let Vinnie know, “I hope you are not letting that man back in your life again! He won’t do you right this time either! You need to learn about men! You a fool for that man! He calls and you go running! That is not the way to get a man!”
Wynona, of course, knew what was happening to both Fred and Vinnie because each of them told her how they felt. Wynona, never having listened to Josephine anyway, laughed with her brand of huge delight when she was told. To Vinnie she said, “Girl, I know you smart! But don’t take too many of them chances cause he is a good man. I done told you that!”
In a month Vinnie was wearing an engagement ring. A small wedding was even planned for two weeks later.
One talk they had before the wedding, Fred said, “We’ll sell your house and you live in my house until we get a larger one for us.”
Vinnie answered, smiling, “No, dear. I don’t think so. I’ll just fix this one up and rent it out. That way the income can help us and if either one of us ever gets blinded by our ‘own’ ways, I’ll always have a home of my own.”
“Ahhhhh, Vinnie, let’s not talk about that kind of stuff.”
“But, you taught me, Fred, and you are right. We will stay together, always, but I may want to do something else with the house. No rush to sell. Let’s just concentrate on being together.”
Fred nodded his head, slowly. “Yes, let’s just be together.”
Another promising kiss.
Then, one day the wedding was over. Vinnie’s things were packed and ready. Eduardo came to move her things out of her house. Vinnie watched the workingmen as they moved her things from her past to her future.
When the house was empty, Vinnie stood by her favorite window where her thinking chair used to be. It was another drizzly, misty day. As she looked out she saw those moving specks, way, way up in the sky. She stood still, watching them for a long time as the eagles came closer and closer. They flew so gracefully, so beautifully; gliding, swooping, turning in that wondrous arc, flying up one minute, descending effortlessly the next minute, with the wind flowing over and under their wings. The birds seemed to circle above her house, even though they were high in the sky; then when they flew above Josephine’s house, the eagles seemed to arch their backs, one at a time, youth following mother, they would fly straight up . . . then off . . . then away.
Vinnie pressed her hand to the window and said, “I will really miss you, my eagle birds. I do not know where you keep your nest, your home and whatever is in it. You are untouchable in that sky. You seem to be so free. Please, stay awake to dangers. And know that some of my spirit is always with you.” She sighed. “But this is my house and I am going to keep it in case I need it or my children need it. I will come back. To work on my yard and look in on old Mother Foster and I will look for you. Always, I will look for you. You are very beautiful . . . and I love you. I wish you would follow me to my new home and let me keep seeing your beauty. Try. Take care of yourselves. And I’ll try to take care of myself. I am in Love . . . you know.”
The eagles were flying away, soaring, their wings seemed to wave “good-bye” to her. Vinnie picked up her purse, looked around the room, then, walking back to her thinking window, placed both her hands on it as she watched them.