I might have had the best time of my life that night. Not just with the tantric experience either. Everything. The music, the friends, the atmosphere, Scout, and of course, Ryle. I’m pretty sure I hadn’t laughed that hard since Jaycee left me to fend for myself. I even sang with Scout and Tristan, only Tristan was horrible, the worst singer I’d ever heard in my life. In my defense, I was laughing with her not at her. So was everyone else. Ryle was never far away, but as soon as he was, Tristan pounced like a cat on a mouse.
Taking Ryle’s place on the ground, she blurted it out. “Did you do it?”
I swished the moonshine around in my cup, laughing once again. “What? No. You were there. No sex.”
“Where’d you go after that?”
With a gigantic smile and heart full of magical glitter, I admitted the truth. “Okay, we did it.”
“I knew it! How was it?”
“Amazing, out of this world, enchanted, mystical, and I don’t even know. It was the strangest, most incredible experience in my life. I don’t even know what happened, T.”
Tristan dropped her arm over my shoulder like Jaycee would have done, squeezing me to her. “That’s the magic of tantra. It’s so funny he’s where I was back in the spring.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you are asleep and Ryle is awake. You’re lucky, he’s got way more patience with you than I did with Ty. Poor boy. There’s nothing like tantric sex. Your entire perspective about making love changes.”
I asked because I was genuinely curious, and I wanted to know. “Do you always do it like that?”
“Not necessarily. I mean, it’s always powerful, but we have a baby. We don’t always get an hour to connect like that first.”
“None of that makes sense though. You’re not really connecting. Not really.”
Tristan’s head jerked back, her expression heard before her words. “You’re such a silly little creature. You’re actually going to sit there and tell me you don’t think you connected on a soul level, your energy didn’t mix with his, you didn’t have a gazillion extra sensory perceptions when you climaxed?”
“Well, yeah, I felt something.”
“Something you’ve never felt with anyone before?”
“Hell, no. It was intense. Ridiculously intense.”
“Oh, you just wait.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re at a very pivotal point. A lot of things are going to change for you.”
Loudly, I let out a laugh. “Ha, things can’t change much more than they already have,” I assured her, my eyes moving around to the change all around me. “I don’t see what else could change.”
“Lots of things. Expect good things and good things will come. Stop being a victim of your circumstances, Atlantis. You’re not a lost city anymore. Walk through the doors. Realize everything you’ve gone through has led you to this point. You’re about to have a family again. One who cherishes you like you’ve never been cherished before. No matter how hard you fight it, you’re not going to be able to fight this happy that’s dying to come out. Be the four-year-old inside of you. Stop trying to explain it all away and go with the flow. When was the last time you took the easy road?”
I shrugged, wondering if we were thinking about the same thing. “I don’t know. I thought Danny was the easy road. He would have never left me.”
“So that’s worth your entire life? You want to stay with a guy who doesn’t let you sing?”
My head snapped to her, but I didn’t mean to sound as defensive as it came out. “I didn’t tell you that.”
“You didn’t have to. You have this angelic voice, and you’re ashamed of it. Do you know that feeling you get in your gut when someone wouldn’t approve of something you really want to do? That’s why you haven’t sung in years. Somebody along the way told you not to.”
I thought about her words without speaking them, knowing she spoke the truth. My truth. I think I came into the world singing. I was always singing. In the shower. Before I went to sleep. While I played. While I ate, but she was right. Someone was always telling me to shut up and stop singing. And then Penny Jenkins laughed at me in the fourth grade in front of all the girls in music class. Being a new kid is hard, being the new kid better for the lead part in the school play than Penny Jenkins is harder. From that day on, I was the meek little voice in the back. But then I had Quinn. I sang to Quinn from the day he was born. It soothed him, and I could calm him into a deep sleep within minutes. And then came Danny. His dead wife was always singing to their girls. He asked me nicely not to do it. Of course, I got it and of course, I stopped singing. Quinn was my one and only audience. Until now.
“One of my favorite quotes is from Dr. Wayne Dyer, ‘Don’t die with your music still in you.’ Enlightenment doesn’t happen in a cave, Atlantis. This isn’t an accident. This was a well-planned set of synchronicities to get you here.”
“I’m not a spiritual person like you. I don’t even believe in that stuff.”
“I don’t care what you believe in. I’m not trying to make you believe in anything, or anyone else. I don’t care if you’re religious, spiritual, or you’re just arrogant and think out of millions of galaxies, you’re the only one here. You want science? Fine, your brain is constantly putting off endorphins. Ask the scientists, or maybe the physicists. They’re constantly trying to invent drugs to mimic it. You get scared, boom. Endorphins release in your brain and rush through your body. You’re sad. Boom. More endorphins. These are probably debilitating you to a pile of blubber on the sofa with a box of tissues and eighties breakup songs. You’re excited. Boom. More endorphins. Like you’re on a roller-coaster. Scared shitless but strong and powerful. You just had an amazing orgasm. Boom. More endorphins flowing through your veins. You’re happy. Yup, more endorphins.
“I assure you, happy endorphins bring way better things than the self-pity ones. Stop being so closed-minded and just try it once. You’re talking to yourself all day long anyway. Why not decide what you’re going to think about. Don’t let anyone dull your shine, Atlantis. You’re not doing anything wrong here.”
That made me snort. “I just fucked another guy against a camper while my husband is at home with our kids.”
“His kids. Do you really think you need to feel guilty for that? Why? Because society says so?”
“So, you think it’s just okay to go out and hit every guy while you’re married.”
“Of course not. I’m saying that’s from an outdated paradigm. I’m saying if you stay with a guy who tells you not to sing because of his own selfish reasons, maybe he’s not the guy. I’m saying when you’re with the right person, there’s no cheating. You couldn’t even think about being with another guy. Sex doesn’t happen out of neediness or lust anymore. It becomes a sharing and you’ll never feel like you’re just a slam piece with Ryle. I’m saying your entire world becomes entwined and you do everything you can to build each other up. You don’t want to make them feel less than you because you feel what he feels. You’re so deep into each other, nothing else matters. Egos aren’t even an issue. There’re no jealousy, anger, or power trips. You’re equals in every way possible.”
I took a deep breath, letting her words sink in. It was true and I did feel something for Ryle I’d never ever felt with Daniel. Sure, we had some good times, but it was always him and me, never us. I’d just found Ryle and already I felt like we were us, and I couldn’t see my life without him in it. “I get that, but I’m not used to hearing it like that. Sometimes I hate him so much. I just wish I could go back to before I met him. Quinn would still be here. Sometimes I blame him. If he wasn’t so demanding. If he hadn’t texted me, I would have been paying attention.”
“Hate hurts you more than it does him. He’s doing the best he can for where he is in his life. He’s where he’s supposed to be, and you’re where you’re supposed to be. Holding the grudge hurts you more than him. How about you just let go of the ores for once? Stop trying to fight it. It’s okay to take the easy road. You are worthy. You are special. You do deserve happiness. You can claim it. Change your mind. Be happy.”
I raised my arm for Scout as she fell into my lap with a yawn. Tristan and I exchanged a smile, her eyes telling me again to be happy. My hand ran down her soft hair and I knew it was time to call it a night. “You ready to head up?”
“Yes, and I’m hungry.”
My eyes shifted to Ryle in front of me, and I lifted my hand to his. Taking Scout’s hand as I stood, I pulled her to her feet with me. “Come on. I’m pretty sure Nana Mae left us something yummy.”
Tristan knew exactly what it was. She stood and walked with us. “It’s apple-bran muffins and they’re so delicious.”
I walked away with my friends, my guy, my daughter, and my heart full. The thought of apple-bran muffins would have made me gag a month ago, and now I couldn’t wait to warm them up on the wood burner for us, hoping Ryle wanted one, too.
We parted ways to clean up, all of us smelling like smoke from the fire. Scout and Ryle returned just as I removed the muffins from the stove, both with wet hair and pajamas. Scout dropped to the mattress exhausted, like she couldn’t go anymore.
“You had a long day. Here, sweetie,” I said, handing her a plate with a warm muffin.
We all three sat on the queen bed, eating muffins and drinking sleepy time tea while Scout talked about her day. She was busy. Way busier than we were. They sang to the cows, worked on some sort of labyrinth with Teddy-Bear and Ty, collected pine needles and tied them together for fragrant sachets for something Annie was making. They made a rope swing from braiding strips of vines and swung out over a ravine that was more than likely unsafe. Oh, and she helped make the muffins we were enjoying.
“Do you want another muffin? Scout? Scout?” I questioned with a frown to her lifeless body. One second she was rattling on and on about climbing some rock she named Paul, and the next she was out. Just like that, she was sound asleep.
“And she’s out,” Ryle teased. “I know what rock she’s talking about. Bet you can’t guess why she named it Paul.”
I stood from the mattress, flipping my wet hair to my back, deep in thought. “If I know Scout, I’m going to guess it had something to do with an animal. Maybe a bear paw or something.”
Ryle came to his feet with me, a sneaky grin and a kiss to my lips while he wrapped his arm around me. “No, not paw. Paul. Some guy named Paul carved his name on it in nineteen-ninety-two.”
I shoved him with my arms, half-heartedly pushing him away. “You asshole.”
Ryle laughed, tossing his head back with what he thought was humor. It was a little funny and I may have laughed a little, too. “Tristan and Ty are outside by the fire. Do you want to go out for a little bit?”
“Yeah, sure. Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. I’m going to go grab Scout’s cot. I’ll be right back.”
I smiled after him without asking why. I knew why and even though I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, it made me happy. It also made me not want to go associate with our friends. Laying in his arms suddenly sounded like the better idea.
Just when we sat down around the small fire, Toni showed up, plopping her drunk body on the empty seat next to me. “I fucking hate moonshine.”
Of course, we all laughed. I also wondered about her. Had I not known better, I would have thought she was gay, but then I decided that was shallow and judgmental of me. Just because she dressed like a dude didn’t make her gay. She was funny though. I would definitely give her that, especially when she was drunk. Toni told the best stories because she got into them so much, animatedly standing and acting them out. She talked a lot more when she was drunk, too, but every single one of us laughed. This girl belonged on a stage. My gut hurt from laughing so hard.
Listening to Toni tell us about a nude rally she’d gone to, I felt Ryle’s hand move behind my hoodie, warming my skin with his touch. His thumb swayed back and forth on my back while we exchanged an attaching glance and a linking smile, that connection thing I couldn’t deny. A connection that confused me. Was I tired or excited? Did I really want to sleep, or stay awake forever? Did I give in to exhaustion, or stay alert to keep from missing anything?
Tristan and Ty turned in first, Toni left next, and Ryle and I sat by the dwindling fire, kissing. Like a couple teenagers, we made out, but multiply it by a few hundred. Off the charts kissing we couldn’t seem to stop.
“Damn, girl,” Ryle rasped with warm words on my lips, trying to pull away for the countless time.
I had to fight to open my eyes, but I had to fight even harder to put aside the emotions twirling in my chest. Forget what was going on below my gray sweats. “We can’t sleep together.”
“Yes, we can.”
“You can’t keep your hands off me. Scout. Remember her?”
“Please. Girl. You mean you can’t keep your hands off me.”
A smile and another kiss that lasted longer than either of us meant it to was my reply. This time, I pulled away. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Do you want me to take you to your house tomorrow? It’s only about six hours.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. He’ll be there.”
“You don’t want him to be?”
“No. He won’t let me get anything. Especially with you.”
“Okay, Monday?”
I didn’t mean to sound hypercritical, but even I thought it came out that way. “Don’t you have a job to go to?”
Ryle squeezed my fingers in his hand, pulling them to his lips. “Not really. I gotta help Ronnie Lewis over on Piney Road build a fence sometime next week, but that’s about it.”
“You don’t have a job, job?”
Letting go of my hand, Ryle stretched his arms over his head and his legs out in front of him. “Oh, my little lost city.”
“What’s that supposed to mean.”
“I don’t want a job. I like doing what I do.”
“Which is?”
“Whatever I want. I don’t need much. That old house belonged to my Grandpa John. Scout doesn’t need I-phones, or video games. We grow most of our own food. This kid has seen more waterfalls at nine than most kids do their entire life, and I’m not talking about waterfalls.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not the waterfall. It’s not the destination. It’s the journey getting there. We like adventure.”
“But what about school? She goes to school, doesn’t she?”
“She’s homeschooled, but a lot of these kids are homeschooled. We do a few meetups with them a few times a year. We’re meeting in Churchill, Canada this winter. You want to come? We’re going to stay in glass pods and watch the polar bears and see the northern lights. When are you ever gonna get that chance again?”
Trying to sound flirty and serious at the same time, I bumped his knee with mine. “You’re a big kid. What’s that teaching her? Don’t you want her to have things?”
“She’s nine. What things does she need? She has a nice backpack, she has a zero degrees sleeping bag, and she has hiking shoes. What do you have from when you were nine? Exactly. Nothing because you don’t even remember what stuff you had when you were nine. It meant nothing. That’s why you don’t still have it. I’ll bet you a dime to a dollar she won’t ever forget seeing the northern lights or those bears.”
“How do you afford all that when you don’t even work?”
“I work. I just made seven-hundred-bucks a couple weeks ago helping with a roof. I just sold an old pickup truck I didn’t need any more for a thousand bucks. I sold three loads of wood last week at fifty-bucks a pop. Look, babe.”
I couldn’t hear another word. My heart was too busy melting into a puddle of goo. Nobody ever called me babe, or any other pet name for that matter. Ryle took my hands, held my eyes with his, and tried to get me to understand where he was coming from. I tried, but it wasn’t easy. Nobody I knew thought like these people, and I didn’t understand how they thought they were exempt from the system of life. It would eventually catch up with him, and that worried me. For Scout.
“I have plenty of money because I expect to have money. I couldn’t tell you the last time I worried about money. Even if I run short, something always comes up. Just like our trips. Scout loves it as much as I do. She’s a little gypsy. She likes picking up pop cans for money, or selling pints of raspberries she picked by herself alongside the road. Scout would rather go experience life rather than buy it. We have one television in the living room with no cable, and movies. Half of them we’ve never even watched.
We’re busy, but not because we clock in and clock out. We decide what we’re going to do. We like to create things, help people, and see things, mostly nature, but we do check out cities, too. We have a shell that goes on the back of my truck, so we don’t pay for hotels. Either we’re in a tent or in the truck. We eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies so we don’t spend a lot of money on food. I heat with wood; my electric bill is around fifty bucks a month. My property taxes are nine-hundred bucks a year. The money is there, just waiting for January to come around. We live like this because we love it. Because we don’t let other people think for us, and you shouldn’t either. Your truth is your truth and nobody else’s. Do the best you can do and the rest of the world will either catch up or disappear out of your life. I’m writing my story the way I want to with my daughter, and I’m not going to let any system write it for me.”
“But don’t you think this is messing with her? She’s going to want a sweet sixteen party. She’s going to want a boyfriend and a dress for prom.”
Ryle took a deep breath like I was the one who didn’t get it, stroked my hair with his hand, and pulled my lips to his. “Let’s go to bed.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m just trying to remember you are where you’re supposed to be right now. I know you don’t understand this, Atlantis, and that’s okay. I’m not going to get all excited about something you can’t help right now. It’ll work itself out, but don’t worry. I’m okay and so is Scout. She has more than enough, and I’d say she’s a pretty happy kid.”
I couldn’t argue that, and I couldn’t argue the fact that she was so much more pleasant than Ashley and Caitlyn. More alive and what a personality. I’d never seen such a high self-esteem on a little girl. There was nothing she was afraid to say or do, and her love for animals was close to being obsessive. She didn’t care who she offended, she was standing up for the animals and that was that. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Agreeing to disagree for now, I followed Ryle to my bus. He situated a cot with a thin mattress close to our bed and moved Scout from the mattress to the cot by an arm and a leg. I zipped her up in her sleeping bag and kissed her head while he stoked the fire and then climbed into bed. With my clothes, of course.
As tired as I felt, Ryle kept me from relaxing enough to fall asleep. I could listen to his stories all night long. His tale of the adventures he and Scout shared weren’t even close to the vacations I remembered. The last vacation I had was to an amusement park with Danny, the girls, and Quinn. Daniel spent the whole day walking in circles with his phone to his ear, trying to look important. He wouldn’t let me take off with Quinn because he wasn’t about to let the girls run around alone. That left little for Quinn to do. He wasn’t big enough for any of the things the girls wanted to do, so either he was whining, or they were whining. Nobody was happy.
“So, you just lived at this guy’s house for a month?”
“Yup, synchronicity, my love. We were in the right place at the right time. Happens all the time. We were on a weeklong hike at the end of the AT Trail in Maine. It just so happens Trey Holly decided to get on the trail at the exact same place and time as Scout and me. Divorced doctor with his ten-year-old son taking full advantage of his six months on with his kid. Scout and I went to Alaska after that, stayed in his lodge and swam in his indoor pool for a month while they went on some exotic vacation in India. Hell of a nice guy. That’s what I mean. There isn’t a state in this country I couldn’t go to right this second for free. Getting to know people personally has way more advantages than social media.”
“You house sit for some guy you met on a trail? You didn’t even know him?”
“I make friends everywhere I go. Don’t you just love meeting new people?”
“You sound like Tristan.”
Ryle’s hand ran over my stomach, his lips kissed my nose, and our legs entwined below my heavy comforter. “Thanks, but she sets the bar pretty high.”
I rolled up against his chest, my leg crossing over his waist and my hand gliding through the patch of hair on his chest like it was the most natural thing in the world. Just when I thought we were going to doze off, Ryle slid his hand down the back of my pants and squeezed my butt cheek. The thrust from both of us caused another make out session that lasted at least ten minutes, before we finally gave up and passed out. I’m pretty sure daylight was near, but it didn’t feel like it. Time stood still with Ryle in a way it never had with anyone else. Except Jaycee and Quinn. They made my time stand still.
That’s the last thought I remembered before drifting off into a deep sleep. One second I was missing them like crazy, and the next it was daylight and I was alone. For a minute, anyway. As soon as my eyes were open a smile touched my lips. Just like any other day, my little guy was the first thing I thought of when I opened my eyes, but this morning was different. I didn’t miss him because I felt him. I’m not sure why that morning, but it was that very day something in me changed. The hole in my heart was gone, miraculously mended. The place that missed him so deeply, the deep hole that held the guilt, the anger, and the sadness. I didn’t feel it.
I felt the bus move when Ryle stepped up carrying hot tea, and I closed my book. That’s what I had named it. “Morning, sleeping beauty.”
“Beauty? My eyes feel like sandpaper, and I don’t even need a mirror to see the dark, puffy circles under them.”
Ryle set the cup down and kissed me. “Just say thank you.”
I chuckled shyly, dropping my eyes briefly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s all set. My mom’s picking up Scout here this evening for a couple days. We can head out later tonight if you want. I know a place in West Virginia around our half way mark where we can stay. It’s on top of the world.”
“Okay, but Scout can come.”
“Oh, no she can’t. I’m going to teach you more Tantra.”
My lady bits did a little dance and my cheeks turned a little red, but I agreed. Of course, I did. “We can leave tonight.”
“Thought you’d see it my way. Come on. People are starting to head out. Let’s go say goodbye.”
We spent most of the day doing very little, just the three of us for the biggest part of the day. After breakfast, we helped a few people take down their tents and watched the crowd of people head out. Not all of them left. Some stayed. A lot of them stayed but I didn’t know for how long, and I was too busy exploring the trails with Ryle and Scout. She was so much like Quinn. Full of life without a care in the world and always bursting with energy.
She ran ahead of us, climbing up boulders and jumping off while Ryle and I snuck kisses behind her back. Hand in hand, we walked paths, following the stream to another waterfall, this one not as vast, but breathtaking nonetheless. From there we lay in an open field, staring up at a blue sky and puffy white clouds.
For the longest time, we didn’t move, or say one word. Not even Scout. I thought about what Tristan had written in my notebook that morning. Another one of her silly exercises. Because I got interrupted by Ryle, I thought about what I would write before I went to bed. Just like she had instructed in her notes, I let myself go back twenty years and silently asked my little girl self what she wanted to do today. It had nothing to do with fake people who weren’t really my friends back home, calling my mom, taking care of Danny’s house the way he wanted it taken care of, catering to his spoiled kids, or spreading my legs for him to have his way. Everything I thought I wanted had shifted, and I didn’t want any of them anymore. Not the house, the car, the clothes, the dinners, the benefits, none of it.
I wanted waterfalls, butterflies in my belly, laughter in the air, and love in my heart. I wanted Emmerson and Scout Ryle. Home really wasn’t a place at all. Not on the outside anyway. Home was where you were surrounded by people who loved you. Home was a place in your heart.