IT'S ALL PERFECT

…O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storm, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs as the trees and animals do. Walt Whitman April 25, 1986 Albuquerque Catori Moriarty sank into the driver’s seat with and audible sigh. She felt as if it had been an unusually long day at Sandia Labs where she worked as a roving project consultant. In fact it had not been a long day or a bad one. It had been a normal day, or what passed for normal these days. It was such a relief to let the car support at least her physical weight, though that had decreased over the past few days. If she continued losing, Nadine, her current mother, would start clucking even more than she was over Tori’s heartache. She scooped her long, extremely curly light brown hair away from her face, revealing more of the three inch scar that flared up just below her left cheek like a Nike, Inc. swoosh. At first sight the scar seemed incongruous in her elfin face and deep-set, normally joy-filled amber eyes. New acquaintances always thought there should be more story behind it than a slight mishap during an ice hockey frolic on the pond at McAes, the Montana Challenge Academy for Exceptional Students, when she was eight years old. Very soon after meeting her, most people no longer noticed the scar. Placing her hands on the steering wheel where John had held it, Tori closed her eyes and pressed her body into the seat to capture the feel of him. After the first day of their weeklong road trip, he had done all the driving while she knitted. She’d only known him for half a month, had been with him for less than ten days. And yet every moment of every day, every breath she took was informed by her knowing of him. She called up an image of him, which evoked a subtle whiff of his clean scent. He was a several inches over six feet with a medium frame that had yet to fill out to full manhood. His hair and eyes were dark brown and his lean face was weathered by his outdoor lifestyle. She smiled as she remembered how they met that rainy evening in Seattle. An angry man on the other side of the door pull had propelled her into the hotel lobby. Like some belated April Fool’s joke, she had fallen on the feet of her handsome prince charming. They were halfway through dinner that night, and more than half in love, before Tori discovered that he was more than a metaphorical prince. She thought he had said his name was Winslow, not Windsor of the House of Windsor and the fourth son of the Queen of England. She had traveled to the area to consult at Microsoft. He had fetched up there for the night having gone aimlessly AWOL after a minor Crown appearance in California. Neither was ready for their interlude to end just then. They drove back to New Mexico taking the northern route, stopping for a few days at McAes. They experienced no big adventures, just slices of life getting to know each other with some of the most spectacular landscape as a backdrop. The first day out John developed one of the migraines that he had recently started having, which threatened to end his career as a pilot in the Royal Navy. Using alternative healing techniques, Tori cured his headache. Later Abby, the nurse/chiropractor at McAes, rooted out the cause of the migraines. Perhaps saving his career was the cosmic reason for their unlikely meeting, but it felt like so much more. Neither one of them had been looking for love. By every external measure they were wrong for each other. He was ‘born to the purple’ at Buckingham Palace while she was found in a dumpster in Moriarty, New Mexico. National laws, royal protocol, and the debilitating mantle of history dispassionately restricted his life. Three unconventional families reared her in loving acceptance and reverence for individual expression. To his family and class, appearance and appearances were of paramount importance. She was casual in dress and manner, had little notion of ‘one’s proper place,’ and was visibly scarred. Yet by character, interest, to say nothing of emotions, they were so right for each other. Both were much older than their chronological ages. He was twenty-one on March 14, the same day she was seventeen. Both were completing doctoral programs in physics. Both had learned the value of keeping low profiles as they carved out viable niches in life as odd ones out. And then there was their unique internal bond. They had each been nestled in the other’s consciousness since Tori was born. This at times telepathic connection became stronger and more clear as they spent time together. They even shared each other’s dreams. This constancy of shared presence was like breathing clean air. Since John had flown away nearly six days ago, the immediacy of their connection had been severed. He was still tucked in the back of Tori’s awareness, but she had been used to so much more. However well suited they were as individuals, any life together was not to be. Aside from being from a relentlessly incompatible world from Tori’s, John was also married and doubly inaccessible for much future with her. Any association they had must be covert. Even their letters could not go directly to each other but through John’s friends. They might never again see each other. Tori inhaled hugely then exhaled, attempting to release some of the burden of wanting him. I have to find some balance, she thought. It’s not fair to my family or myself to wear this grief so persistently. At least those outside my family aren’t so aware of the dark side of the new me. If I can conjure joy with them I can do it for my family – and myself. She straightened her back. I will write to him tonight. However it starts out, I will continue to the end. No more tearing letters up because it’s too hard. I can do hard. And if I can’t yet maintain easy, I can choose less hard.