When You Walk Through a Storm

Friday: Act I - Scene One

“Dear Bemmy,” I’d written again and again in letters composed, and tossed, all day. The final note was five sentences long, and it said that he should move by August 31. I was in a panic all afternoon, feeling that a heart attack was imminent.

I had the note printed on beautiful stock and in an envelope when I got home. It said:

June 30, 2006

Dear Bemmy,

We love you so much that it is tremendously difficult to tell you that we really feel we need to have more alone time. We hope that you can understand. Our sincere hope is that it will be best for all of us. It is with the deepest anguish that we have decided to ask that you check out of Chez Ravenel by August 31.

Rolf & Vig

Now, Monday morning, it is in my underwear drawer.

I should have walked right in the door Friday and handed it to him, but I was a coward. I snuck in the house, tip-toeing until settled with a near-beer in a lawn chair behind a tree in the back yard.

Rolf misunderstood the desperate hug I gave him when he got home. Unfortunately, as soon as he’d changed clothes and joined me in the sun-room, Bemmy entered in the other door bearing boxes and announcing that he had “Little Gift-ies”.

“Wait, wait” I wanted to shout. “Don’t give us anything, because you’ve got to get out.” But I didn’t. Rolf had his diplomatic “Oh, isn’t this nice” face on, which disguises great levels of vitriol.

Let’s see, Bemmy gave me the vocal score to The Light in the Piazza, a cinnabar bud vase and stand – which had the $45 price sticker on it, even though I said it didn’t. There was also a stained glass sun catcher, and a drag-queen white-trash cookbook that I said I wasn’t interested in before I left the room. There was more in the box.

To Rolf he gave a Buddha, a “grow-your-own-bonsai kit”, and hmm. . I don’t know what else.

So – how then do you say “Get-out?”

Scene 2

“That must have gone well,” Rolf said as we were walking down the hill toward the back-gate.

I looked at him sideways, and took a deep draft from my extra-tall vodka and tonic, in a disposable plastic cup.

“I didn’t tell him anything!” I said.

“What was that hug for then?”

“I thought I was going to have a heart-attack waiting for you to get home so we could tell him together!”

He groaned and tried to laugh, when from the bridge, we were horrified to see the damage caused by last weekends flooding storms. The lake is being dredged, but there was so much silt deposited from the rains that it looks like the dredging barge has run aground. Lake Accotink really is beginning to look like “our little mud-puddle.”

Friends and neighbors who were also heading to the sunset concert joined us on the bridge, and we all stared at the infill in disbelief.

Scene 3

We sat on a park bench at the marina. The National Concert Band played John Phillip Sousa marches, Viennese waltzes, selections from Carousel, closing with “America the Beautiful,” Armed Forces Medley, “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and “This Is My Country,” from the pavilion up on the hill. We talked, held hands, laughed, sang, and cried, while we watched the sunset. Yes, I cried - I cry when things are perfect, and sitting holding hands with in public with Rolf is a big enough deal, but add in trying to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" to the accompaniment of a beautiful orchestra, and it is all I can do just to breathe.

We’re buying another house. When we bought this house, we promised that we would fix it up, but we can’t afford it. So, we’re buying a house in Richmond Virginia that we are going to renovate and sell. My dear friend, 2Rolf2, who lived across the street from me from kindergarten until sixth grade, lives next door to the property we’re going to flip. He is going to do the onsite management of the project, and we’re going to split the profit. If this works, with our share we’re getting new windows for our house.

Oh, yes, by the way, his name is the same as Rolf’s. So, I will refer to him here as Towmy, as in The Other White Meat with a “y”, because I still call him Rolfy as I have since I was 6, and he always growls “My Name’s ROLF” when I introduce him to my other friends. So, I always call him Rolfy because it’s fun!

Well, anyway, if the house flip doesn’t work out a 100%, we could have an extra mortgage to pay for. And money’s already too tight. So, we decided not to kick Bemmy out. But, I am not going to let him fall back into the pattern he’s been in for the last six years. And I’m going to do it tonight.

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At he end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone.

- Carousel

Oh; help.