Our Tattered Lives

And mine? As I didn't understand your feelings; what were and are my feelings toward you, my son, are they oedipal too?

Several months after the death of your father, I was completely alone in my house in Boston; friends, after a reasonable time of being interested in me, had continued with their lives and had gradually withdrawn from me. There were the occasional phone calls inquiring about my health and general condition, but as an example, the invitations to get together and lunch by the wives of your father colleagues had mostly ended.

So, without much motivation or future plans in that city, without any contact with my son, beyond the fact that I had tried to contact you through your attorney, I made the decision to sell the house and other properties and assets, and with that and your father insurance money, decided to close the circle. Twenty-five years later after leaving the ranch for a new life, I was back on to try to rebuild my life, if that was possible. I was forty three at the time; I felt like eighty.

*10*

*Return to my own story*

I went back to work after my father's burial, but I was indifferent to everything around me, soulless. When back in my condo from the cemetery to take a drink, Melanie had told me unequivocally that she did not want to see me ever again; to her, my attitude towards my mother in the graveyard had been a huge disappointment about me as a person, as a son, and as a lover.

I really didn't know what to do with my life. I thought, and thought, and thought trying to make a decision to sort my life and make sense of it. I didn't need to work for money, I hadn't any friends, and now I didn't have the only person in the world that loved me and cared for me. Well I told myself, the last part it is not truth. Melanie cared for me, and I did apart her from my side with my behavior and my stubbornness. And mother? Did she love me? Did she care for me......?

Yes, I finished telling myself, she loves me and cares about me, as a mother do, and I also love her, but, the big difference is, I'm also in love with her, I want her, and now she is free. Now the obstacle who stood between the two, my father, is no more, unfortunately because I loved him deeply; but now if I get my mother to love me as my life partner, I will not be cuckolding him.

After looking deeply inside my soul and thinking hard, I decided to quit my job in maritime platforms for good, go to the house that had been my home, make peace with my mother and try to get her to fall in love with me, not small task. Great was my surprise when I got to what had been my parents home and found strangers living in it.

I found out the name of their lawyer and through mine I got to know what had happened to my mother and where had she moved to. Her new mail address was in Clark Fork, Idaho, so I knew she was again at her parent's ranch. I decided then and there that was my destiny.

********

Clark Ford had not changed much with the passage of time from my childhood. Same old main street, Fourth Ave., the same old Town Square with its monument to some veteran born in the town and died in some war, the forest, and the beautiful river that gives the town its name Clark Fork River. It still has that small town charm where the most hustle and bustle you will see is the elk and deer in the meadows. Its six hundred residents are some of the best around with a humble reputation to please.

So, to Clark Fork I went looking for my mother. Last time I had been in town was when I was sixteen years old, almost ten years before. So the risk of someone recognizing me as the grandson of the Sorensen's was almost non-existent. At that time I was a young city boy who spent his summer holidays with his grandparents, now I was a man of twenty-six who looked fourty

And considering that my features have changed, in some way disfigured, with much gray in my beard and hair, the scar on my face and the strip of snow-white hair on my head and face, I thought I was fairly safe in my anonymity. To complete my disguise I needed to change my name, I elected John Van Nuys, The name of Melanie's son.

One of my first concerns was to find accommodation in a town that because of its few inhabitants had no hotel. I remembered that just outside of town there was a small motel that catered mostly to hunters and fishermen in hunting or fishing season.

So for the time being I made this place my residence site. In every small town, gossip is a way of life, and Clark Ford was no different in this regard. I, being a stranger was a subject of gossip, and at the same time, after a couple weeks in residence I was treated to some small tidbits of the town peccadilloes. Best place was the barbershop, followed by the station-service-bar-restaurant, but I did prefer the post office.

I had spread the word I was looking for work, preferably something related to numbers, but accepted any other kind of work; since I was in a kind of spiritual and sentimental recovery from a failed relationship. In the whole time I was in the town, I hadn't seen my mother even once, and I would not inquire about her to avoid any suspicion. If we met, I wanted it to be by chance.

I found that Mrs. Sorensen came to town once a month or so, and was due anytime. I tried to be prepared for what I was going to do.

Three days later I was loitering near noon looking at some notices at the post office when she opened the door and entered. My heart leapt and skipped a beat and it seemed to stop in my chest. She was incredibly beautiful, gorgeous and glamorous, even wearing cowboy clothes; jeans, riding boots, a red plaid flannel shirt and a cowboy hat that covered her beautiful white blond hair now tied in a ponytail by a red cloth strip.

"Oh mother, mother" I thought "How much do I love you".

She gave a perfunctory look at the place and looked at me disinterestedly when passing by my side as she asked if she had any mail.

The answer to her question was negative, and she made a gesture of ill humour in response. She gave the impression of being a person not accustomed to being denied. Then she took a few deep breaths and asked politely if the lady in the post office would send word when the book she was waiting for came.

The clerk, answered yes of course, and asked what kind of book was, and what topic was referring to, so she knew when she sorted the mail.

My mother answered it was a kind of accounting book, as she was having some trouble to straighten the bills and the bookkeeping of the ranch. I was elated, I had now the means to approach the ranch, become indispensable to my mother in the management of the ranch, and become indispensable to her in other ways.

Next day with my accounting books, the same I use to manage my investments, I headed for the well-known road to my grandparents' ranch. Now all my years of keeping account and study to control my investments would bear fruit; not money, of that I have enough, now they would serve to get me my mother, or so I hoped.

The road to the ranch ran through a dense forest, quiet and in communion with nature; I made the thirty or so miles to the ranch house in less than an hour; at the end of the road, the forest opened into a wide valley at the bottom of which, were the house, barns, corrals, warehouses, and ranch hand bunk house.

When my car approached the railing of the house veranda, the door opened and on the threshold appeared a beautiful blonde goddess shading her eyes from the sunlight to distinguish who had arrived, my mother. I was mesmerized, and in a flash I felt how difficult was going to be working at her side, if she accepted my offer.

"Good morning sir, may I be of service" was her greeting. I was tongue tied and with a tremendous effort I answered her.

"Good morning to you Mrs. Sorensen."

She looked at me patiently waiting I explained what my business was. I tried to explain.

"Well, err...I was in the post office yesterday morning and....well..."

"Yes?" her manner was cold, not arrogant or disdainful, just in a kind of---explain your business and lets go forward with our lives--- manner.

"Well, as I said, I was in the post office yesterday when you came in and I heard, unintentionally of course, your conversation and your need of a certain book".

She did not say a word, just raised her eyebrows and her eyes had a certain air of interrogation, or perhaps indifference, her attitude was remote and I was getting increasingly nervous and could not express my thoughts clearly. And to think this was the same woman I thought I hated and had refused to see her.

"You see madam I have worked as an accountant and I was thinking that I could be of help".

She looked at me in a strange way and said mockingly, "Just like that, you come out of nowhere, and you try to come into my house"

My mother was as tough as beautiful.

"No, no, it would be preposterous on my part to think that way; I would live in town of course, that is if you hire me. I could help with other chores at the ranch, if need arose".

She looked thoughtfully, as if trying to remember something or someone, and then with a shake of her head she asked me:

"Do you have any references? Someone who can vouch and endorse what you say"

At that moment I almost made a mistake that could had been fatal, I was about to give her the phone number of my attorney to contact. Suddenly I remembered she had the number, and with despair I thought of who else could give references of my character that my mother didn't know of my previous life; I thought: Melanie.

"Well yes, you can contact one of my former clients" and with that I took out of my wallet a business card with Melanie's name and phone number and gave it to her.

She took the card and after reading it raised her eyebrows and only said,

"Your only reference is a woman?"

My face grew red under my beard and before I could answer her she dismissed me with an "I'll leave notice for you at the post office, letting you know my decision. Good morning".

Suddenly I was alone in front of one house I knew intimately, the door closed behind her. I got in my car to go back to Clark Ford and wait for her answer. But an idea came to mind, I had to talk to Melanie to put her aware of what was happening, and she to give my mother a good reference on mine. So, from the ranch I went directly to the town of Troy in Montana to let her know of my plan to reach out to my mother and what I needed for her to tell mother if she phoned. I also told her I was using, as an alias, the name of her son John, and not to take this the wrong way. She only said coldly Ok.

*********

*Who is he?*

Natasha was thinking <"I have in my hands this unknown woman's card, it is strange, everything is strange, this man is known to me, but I can't remember the how or where. And I ask myself, I don't know why, this woman, were his boss or were something else? Is she young or is she old? Do I call her or just forget it and tell this man I don't need him? My thoughts were stormy inside my head. I badly need someone with accounting skills that would allowed me to unravel several years of records, I don't know where I stand with respect to taxes; are they due? I have to sort and pay overdue bills to suppliers, and I have accounts receivable to slaughterhouses for cattle sent and not collected, in short I need urgent help with something that I have no experience with at all.">

She was hesitant and let two days pass before going to talk to him. She doesn't know why, but she did not call the contact he had told me to ask for his reference, Maybe she didn't want to find out things from his past. Was she making an error?

It was almost noon when she got to Clark Fork and went directly to the post office where she inquired as to the whereabouts of one John Van Nuys and was directed to a small motel outside town. She asked a boy to go fetch him and put a ten dollar bill in his hand. Half an hour later John and the boy were back, she gave the boy another ten dollars and started the relationship that was to change, for the good, the remainder of her life.

"Well John Van Nuys, I'm of a mind to hire you, but first we must discuss your terms wages and our working relationship"

"Of course madam, you just tell me what you want for me to do" he answered politely.

"Well as apparently you already know, first of all I need someone with the skills to unravel the accounts at the ranch; do you have the skills?"

"Yes, madam...." he started when she interrupted him.

"You just call me Natasha, or boss, whichever you like better, just not madam anymore."

"Ok, Natasha boss..." she interrupted him, with a hearty laugh, her first in many, many months.

"Oh, sorry to interrupt you, it was funny calling me that" please continue.

"Well Natasha, I have been in accounting now for several years and I'm quite good at it, I hope I won't disappoint you, also I have with me everything necessary to start working."

"Well now the terms, you'll live on the house in one of the spare bedrooms; it makes no sense for me you going back to your room in the motel every day in the evening and come back in the morning, your wages will...."she was quietly interrupted

"If you don't mind we'll discuss that later, when you have a good idea of my work, how I do it and the worth of it."

"All right if that's how you want it."

"Good, now I will pack up and see you at the ranch in the evening if you don't mind."

And with that, he went for his things and she returned to the ranch.

**********

*Pierce going home*

That was, I hoped, my definitive returning home, to my mother, to my new life. The ranch bookkeeping was a mess, and I started from very way back to the present. It was a hell of lot of work and it would take several months putting all accounts in order and up to date.

I could appreciate Natasha, my mother, was a very lonely woman. At first she was very reserved around me; I worked from my grandfather's office, a comfortable blend of living room and den and she rarely appeared; talking to me outside the room, I usually gave her the reports on the morning after drinking coffee, or at night after dinner if there was something important she had to resolve early in the morning.

In the first few months our relationship was strictly professional; her attitude towards me and my work had changed little by little as I gained her confidence and we began to know each other better. After a time her cool stance was warming and our relationship was, at least, friendly enough for her to bring me a cup of coffee in my working hours. It was nearly Christmas one night, when after dinner she very subtly, as most women interested in a man are doing since the beginning of time, started to ask me about my family, my previous work, and for aspects of my former life, questions such as if I had a wife or ex-wife; any girlfriends and what were my plans for the future after, if ever, I finished my work with her.

I wouldn't have had any trouble answering all her questions, as my life in general had been quite vanilla, but being her son, I had to be very careful with my answers so that when, if ever, later I clarified my family relationship with her, we shouldn't return to have conflicts again.

By that time winter had come in all its fury, first rain, and then heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures; with the livestock sheltered the remaining hands on the ranch didn't come out of the bunkhouse much, except to give the animals water and food. At the ranch house Natasha and I were alone, she cooked and made the things a housekeeper usually do and I mostly watched TV and read in my free time; most evenings after dinner she with a glass of wine and me with coffee or tea watched TV if the signal was clear, and talked. She asked me again and again about my hobbies, my interests in life and my plans for the future, I answered her the best I could without compromising myself too much, my answers were deliberately vague, and as a counterpart I started to ask her about her life and how she, such a beautiful lady, had become a rancher.

She blushed at my words praising her beauty and I realized how lonely my mother was. I decided that by the New Year I was going to conquer her heart, the heart of my mother, as John Van Nuys and bed her. After that I would see how to change John for Pierce Bridgeport, her son, without affecting or changing our relationship.

That was when she told me a small and very edited part of her story; how my parents met when she was at college and dad at that time was a professor; she told me how they had fallen in love and that when she got pregnant dropped out of college and married my dad. She told me at the start there may have been many sparks in her marriage, but as time went on and they had me, the romance, if not the love, had waned but they had stayed married and were good friends. The rest she told me when our relationship couple was a fact and she knew I was her son.

She told me to the best of her knowledge my parents had never cheated on each other. I almost asked her what kind of sexual life she had, but I refrained to avoid damaging a relationship that was going smoothly in the way I desired.

*11*

*The Christmas present*

With the pass of time and paying attention to her, her moods and how she behaved when problems or difficulties in the ranch arises, her reactions, her tantrums and her forlorn attitude I had realized that she was a lonely woman a very lonely woman, a woman with the need to have someone to lean on, a love-starved woman; a woman in need of someone who would love her. And in the closed boundaries of the ranch house with a particularly inclement weather on the outside that prevented spend much time outdoor these features become more acute; apparently it seemed, to her I twenty years her junior was the right person. Never mind whom I was or where I had come from what my past could be; we were alone in that special prison and we only had each other.

It was evident, my beautiful mother is a very sensual person and in need of a loving relationship in her life. As we were confined alone in the house most of the twenty-four hours daily she gradually began, most probably unconsciously even to herself, a subtle campaign of conquest. She was the huntress and me her prey. She primped each morning carefully as if each passing day she would go to a soirée; she was beautiful and I would tell her so, each time I praised her beauty or the clothes she was wearing or an special meal she has prepared as if she were a young girl she would blush deeply.

Near Christmas, inspired, I remembered a Christmas fifteen years ago with my grandparents and I went to the storeroom in the back of the house and brought up an old Christmas tree that we had first used when I came on vacation from High School. It was an old artificial tree, in a place full of live pines, which had grown old with Mom; it was still packed full of old ornaments and lights. In the course of the several months I'd been living in the ranch I made a show of seeing the house and other dependencies as to not demonstrate prior knowledge of the premises.

We, Natasha and me, spent that evening putting up the tree and we thoroughly enjoyed decorating it.

I asked her about her memories way back when she was a girl and she told me about her parents (my grandparents) and Christmas when she was a teen, then (each for different motives) I silently and she verbally recalled special memories evoked by specific ornaments of hilarious disasters involving the tree and our efforts to decorate it in our youth. Miraculously the lights were still in working order and the first time we plugged them in, Natasha was so delighted she clapped her hands and jumped up and down like a child. She isn't a child, of course, and I couldn't help but notice how her breasts bounced enticingly under her blouse.