The Things reflected In Lora's Eyes

...And all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men, couldn't put Lorabelle together again.

I told Lora all about what happened with Bethany, and although she gave me a few "looks," she mostly understood and accepted that this person was going to be in my life from now on.

Lora and I have mostly stayed away from each other since Emily left us. being together somehow doesn't feel the way it use to. Eight years together and although we've had our short separations, we've never truly felt like we weren't together.

When Emily came into our lives things really didn't change emotionally between us much. As sad as it is for me to say now, at first, and perhaps for a long time after that, Emily wasn't truly considered a full and equal part of our relationship. Lora had often called her, "Sara's plaything," as if she were there mostly to keep me from getting bored or something.

Emily did spend most of her time with me, and I think looking back, she and I spent more time together that Lora and I did. Emily was there to "keep me out of trouble," and that's what she did.

Of course, she and Lora had their moments. Mora than once they made love when I wasn't there and often I've walked in on them having a close encounter of the emotional kind. (A kiss, talking quietly with smiles on their faces, etc.) We've all felt jealousy of the others, but by keeping it under control and telling ourselves that we had our moments with both the others, too, it made things work well between we three.

But in reality Lora and I both felt that the relationship was ours alone and Emily was added later as something we both became obsessed with having. I guess thinking that way about her made us believe it was okay to do what we did to Bethany. Everything changed for us when she left.

We weren't the same couple we had been for the last eight years. Emily HAD, without us realizing, became a full third of this relationship and slowly both Lora and I were seeing that this just wasn't working right without her in our lives. There were never thoughts of us splitting up because we long ago realized that the two of us were meant to be and nothing would change that. It's just that now we knew that it had advanced beyond that. We needed her, too.

I remember coming home early t'other night to the sound of Bob Seger's "Against The Wind" blaring down the stairs. It was one of Emily's favorite songs, (She is a Bob Seger fanATIC.) and I started running up the stairs, my heart pounding out of my chest, and knowing, just KNOWING, that I would see her when I reached the top.

Instead I found Lora. She was standing in front of the stereo system looking at the huge picture of me, her and Emily that sat above it. She turned around and right away said...

"Remember how many times we came home and heard this."

"Yeah," I said, "But she played it a lot louder."

"I would yell up the stairs, `TURN THAT DAMN THING DOWN!'," Lora said, "...and she would ignore me and come running down the stairs wanting to slow dance with us."

Then added out of nowhere...

"Do you wanna make love?"

"What?," I said, kinda in shock. After a few seconds of her not saying anything I stepped close to her, put my hand on her stomach and said, "Okay."

She looked back at the picture and replied, "Yeah, me neither."

I instinctively wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close to me. Just wanting to hold her. She wrapped her's around me and all of a sudden she started crying. I tried to pull back to ask her what was wrong but she just gripped me tighter when I did and wouldn't let me go. I realized then that I had not felt this in months. I had not felt Lora's arms around me since before Emily left and I started crying, too. (I love crying.)

When we calmed down we started talking, and we talked most of the night. Finally Lora summed up our conclusion...

"We'll leave Friday afternoon and take the weekend off of work. We'll stay in Normal until she agrees to come home with us and if she doesn't we'll just stay there. We'll make a life there near her and we won't come back here without her!"

For the first time since she left us we slept together in the center of the bed. In Emily's spot. I think we both pretended that the other was her, just so we could sleep, and dream, and prepare.


~Sara Poe