Chapter 15

"What did you do?" Dena hissed at him as soon as Chrissie fled from the house to go pick up the sisters' mother.  Race tried to go after her.  She was angry at him, and though he was glad he didn't back down from her, he still hated how she looked at him.  He wanted to apologize, but Dena grabbed his arm.  "Oh, no, you don't.  Let her go.  Ya'll pissed each other off again, and I want to know how."

"It's none of your damn business," he said, jerking out of her grasp, but Chrissie's car was already flying out of the drive way.  Race turned to give his sister-in-law a piece of his mind.  However, anything he wanted to say was forced out with a heavy breath as she slammed a heavy book in his chest.

"What the hell!"

"Read it, you jerk.  Chapter One: Patience!"

He scowled at her and the book.  "I don't need any more patience.  I'm full of patience.  I'm overflowing with the damn stuff, and I don't need you hitting me with books I don't need!"

"Oh, you're going to need this one," Dena said, dragging her suitcase to the front bedroom.  She yelled out, "Skip the patience part for all I care!  But you'd better read chapter five, or I'll tie you down and read it to you myself!"  A door slammed.

Just freaking perfect.  Two women madder than a whole chicken coop of wet hens.  That's got to be a record for him.  Not the number of women...oh, no...he'd always been able to piss off the two Hill sisters, but the speed in which he did it.  It'd only been twenty minutes since coming up from the basement, and he got them both seeing red.

There's got to be a better way of getting through this.

Race cracked open the book.  His eyes glazed over when he saw the first couple of words that jumped out at him.  Catharsis...reciprocity norm...free association...  God!  And that was just the introduction!

He flipped over to chapter five.  Counteraction in Marriage.  Counteraction?  What did that mean?  He skimmed through the first page of the section, and soon found himself sitting on the couch, deeply engrossed in the text, wondering why Dena never dropped this stuff on him before.  It was almost as the book described his marriage to a T.

"...Love is odd.  It can fill us up and it can leave us empty.  Yet, we find ourselves unable to live without it and doing things to secure love in our lives.  The man that fears the loss of love may resort to hasty, desperate acts to insure that he is not forgotten.  And the woman who finds herself confused by love and frightened by the prospect of loosing her independence may seek understanding through unconventional ways...

"...You cannot remake your spouse and force him/her to love you, as much as you may want to.  You do not deserve their love; you can only unite with it through patience, kindness, faithfulness and deliverance of your own patient, kind and faithful love.  Every person is different; therefore, every person loves in their own unique way.  It is our memories, the interactions with our closest loved ones and friends, and our past experiences -- whether remembered or not -- that mold us into who we walk around as today.  We cannot change the past, and we cannot determine the future.  What we must attempt to balance is our todays...

"...To find balance in your relationships, a wise person counteracts those things that drive them crazy.  Yet, not in a negative way.  Counteraction is harmony.  It is poise and symmetry.  And it is compromising.  You are not a Creator of Man, but merely a man...or a woman.  It is impossible to reach into your spouse's heart and soul and whittle out the aspects that you find unbearable, or even to restrict their choices and actions because you feel differently.  You are different, as is your spouse.  Instead, you may find that love is individual and not perfect because we are not perfect individuals...

"...As humans, we tend to spend too much time and energy trying to fix the parts of life we cannot tolerate, or we try to change what cannot be changed.  Accept that your spouse may not be the person you married, and seek to understand that together you find balance to your marriage, only if you choose to harmonize each other.  Ask questions.  Listen to each other.  These are simple things, and yet we don't do them as often as we should..."

Race looked up from the pages, thinking about how quickly he and Chrissie jumped down each other's throat.  He can't change who she was right now.  He wished he could, but he can't.  They had to find some kind of balance.  There must be a way to accept each other.

Movement from the hallway caught his eye.  Dena stood there, and he didn't know how long she'd been spying on him.  "Pretty good, huh?" she asked, but there wasn't any malice or supremacy in her voice.

"It's almost like it was written for me," he said, placing a thumb for a bookmark and closing the book to look at the cover.

"Kind of scary, really," she agreed, coming over to join him on the couch.  "I brought two copies.  One for Chrissie.  I don't know if she'd be willing to read it, but it doesn't hurt to try."

"I think after today, she won't be willing to do anything for me," he said weakly.  Dena gave him a sympathetic look, but something in her face said only he was to blame.

"So...you want to tell me about what happened while I was gone?"

She was using that therapist voice, and Race had a strong urge to lie back on the cushions and speak to the ceiling while she jotted down notes on a notepad.  "I really don't know.  She came down to the basement because she wanted to talk, and the next thing I knew, she was on my back, giving me a massage."

Dena narrowed her eyes.  "In Chrissie's present state of mind, I can't see her doing that.  What did you say?"

Race looked anywhere but at her.  "I might have lied about a cramp."

"Ah...okay, so you played on her weak spot.  Go on."

He risked a glance at her.  She wasn't accusing him of anything just yet, but it was coming.  He could feel it.  "You know that's the one thing I never quite understood about Chrissie.  She's a bit vindictive when she mad, and she gets a little crazy when she doesn't get things her way, but she could never pass up pleasing other people."

"It's the First Born Syndrome in her and the fact that she's a daughter," Dena explained.  "It stems from growing up with only a memory of our father.  I was too young when he died, so I didn't really know him, but Chrissie does...to a point.  She remembers how kind he was and how he was always willing to help others in need, and in return she strives to imitate him.  First born children are commonly like that.  They are also known for harboring their problems and passions quietly and then releasing it all with one giant explosion."

"That's Chrissie," Race commented.

Dena chuckled.  "I never told her this -- or anyone for that matter -- but my thesis was written about her."

"What did you write about?  Her perfect aim or that shrill shriek that can pierce the eardrums of an elephant?"

She rolled her eyes.  "It was about first born children and their roles in the family.  Chrissie provided me with a lot of material on that subject."

"I'm sure she did," Race laughed.  "Did you learn anything new about your sister?"

"Actually, I did, and it made me appreciate her more," Dena said honestly.  "You just can't imagine the burdens she's carried all these years."

Race studied his sister-in-law.  He never had a sister, so he couldn't imagine what it was like, but when he married Chrissie, it seemed as though he got Dena as a pesky, immature, baby sister, always thinking of her that way because frankly, Chrissie did too.  Today, she'd proven that she was smarter, more grown-up than he assumed.

"I'd like to know what you know," he said to her, hoping she didn't revert back to her smartass character.

"What would you like to know first?"

"Tell me about your father, and how Chrissie dealt with his death.  She never wanted to talk about it."

Dena sighed and tucked her legs under her.  "Well, typically a lot of first born children are natural leaders -- bossy -- and perfectionists.  You see how she tends to scrub things until they shine when she's frustrated, or how you didn't get a choice on decorating the house, right?"

Race looked around him.  He never thought much about it before.  After they married, he was only allowed to bring with him certain things when he moved into her house.  At the time, he didn't mind, because frankly all his stuff was crap.  He recalled putting his foot down about his stereo and exercise equipment, but Chrissie immediately directed him to stick it in the basement out of sight.  Again, at the time, he didn't mind.  Chrissie had a talent for decorating, and he'd been afraid of ruining her meticulously designed home.  Now, he wondered, Had I been to eager to make her happy that I let her walk all over me?

Dena went on, "Well, when Daddy died, Chrissie had to take up some of the slack.  Mom moved us up to the mountain to be closer to her family, and with Mom trying to supervise the resort, it was up to Chrissie to care for the cabin we lived in."

Race frowned.  "She couldn't have been more than five or six.  Surely she didn't take care of the house all by herself."

"No, not entirely," Dena said.  "We had a maid, a girl that worked part-time at the hotel and then part time for us.  But Chrissie was determined to have things just perfect.  If Wendy didn't do something right, Chrissie was right behind her, doing it all over again.  She wanted everything spotless and in it's place.  It was the only way she knew how to deal with the responsibilities she took upon herself.  It was her way of organizing her life so she didn't have more to deal with.  I wasn't allowed to take my toys out of our bedroom or eat anywhere except in the kitchen.  Chrissie and Mom are actually a lot alike.  Our cabin was Chrissie's domain, and the hotel was Mom's.  It drove Chrissie crazy that Mom wouldn't allow her to fix up the hotel; it still does."

Race smiled.  "Yeah, I've stood in the backlash of many of those arguments."

"And that argument stems from the fact that Mom can't seem to let Daddy go," Dena said, exasperated, but more with the situation than Race's comment.  "Mom and Daddy met up on that mountain--"

"Like me and Chrissie," Race inserted, and Dena peered at him curiously.

"Yeah, you did, didn't you?"

"You were there," Race supplied in a sarcastic tone, but Dena wasn't listening to him.  She jumped up off the couch and disappeared through the hallway.  "Hey!  Where are you going?"

"Just give me a sec!"

She came back, a binder in one hand and a pen in another.  Great, she really was going to start taking notes on him.  Then Race wondered if she would charge him for a therapy session after all this.  That kind of made him smile.

"You made me think of something," Dena said as she resumed her seat and flipped through the pages inside the binder.  "Ah ha!  Here!"  She thumped her finger on a paragraph, and Race leaned over to see what got her so excited, but she already started reading.  "'Children imitate their parents for various reasons, but they have a tendency to not obey parents because they fear becoming just like them.  It is a contradiction that many adults have grown up to ignore in themselves.  When dealing with pain and grief, children learn the concrete actions and responses of their parents and apply them to future experiences of grief and pain.  In the event where a child looses one parent, that child may repeat the same experiences of the other parent to alleviate some of the pain inside them.'"

There was a lot of that which Race didn't understand, but he got the gist of it.  "So, you're saying, that because Chrissie and I met at the resort like your parents did, she married me because that's what your Mom would have done?  She was compensating for her unhappy childhood?"

Dena chewed on her lip as she silently read a little further.  Then she raised her eyes and addressed his questions.  "Actually, Chrissie might have married you to spite our mother."

"What?!" Race soared to his feet.  

"Calm down," Dena said.  "She fell in love with you, that's why she married you."

"But you just said..."

Dena tossed the binder behind her.  It landed with a thump on the floor.  "Never mind what I just said.  The great thing about psychology is that nothing is written in stone.  Nothing applies to everyone and everyone is different.  These are just guides."

He slumped down on the edge of the cushions, rubbing his temples.  "I'm getting a headache, and we're getting completely off subject.  The important thing is figuring out what's wrong with her memory.  How can we fix anything or psychoanalyze anything until we know what's going on?"

Dena slapped her knees.  "That's the exact thing I was trying to tell you earlier, but you want to stir up things, so I'm trying to help you get a grasp on it all."

"You're driving me crazy, is what you're doing!  With all your talk about patience and counteraction, and now you're telling me I married my mother-in-law because Chrissie misses her daddy!"

Dena snatched a pillow from behind her and whacked him with it.  "Stop that!  This morning, I told you to leave her alone for a while so she could get a grasp on this new reality of hers.  But noooo!  You had to kiss her, and be selfish and hasty, and try to seduce her in the basement.  You don't like how this day is turning out?  Tough tomatoes, bonehead.  You wrapped up this nice, neat, little present, so you get to be the one who unwraps it.  I hope you like what's inside--"

Race groaned.  "Ah, crap!  Chrissie's present!"  He dashed down to the basement and emptied out his largest suitcase onto the floor, thinking he'd get it picked up before Chrissie saw it. 

Oh, hell! He really was a well-trained monkey!

That caused him to stop and stare at the mess.  Already, his fingers were itching to straighten up his little, sub-level domain.  She can just get over it, he thought.  With him down here and after what happened between them earlier, he didn't expect Chrissie to be making many trips to the basement in the near future.  That made him feel a little better about rebelling against his wife, so he rummaged through his wrinkled clothes for her present again.

"Please, please, be here," he muttered to himself, and then, "Thank you, God," when he found the gold package still wrapped in one of his shirts.  For a second, he thought for sure he left it in Chicago at the airport.  The stupid security guys insisted that Race unwrap it before he could board his next flight.  He couldn't remember if he put it back or not.

"So..." Dena hummed as she slowly dropped down the stairs one at a time.  "What did you get Chrissie?  You know how picky she is."

"Yeah, I do," he replied quietly, brushing some lint off the metallic paper and attempting to fix the damaged bow.  Maybe he could figure out how to wrap it again.  He couldn't give Chrissie a rumpled present.

"So, are you going to show me, or do I have to guess?"

He looked at Dena.  "Only if you help me re-wrap it.  I don't know how."

Dena grinned.  "Yeah, sure."  He tore the paper off and handed over the small, black box.  Dena removed the top and shifted through a layer of tissue paper.  She studied his gift for a moment, reading the inscription, and then nodded, placing it back.

"Do you think she'll like it?" Race asked anxiously.  "She's been dropping hints for a while, and I practically had to sell my soul to get it.  Mr. Fisk only makes the jewelry for his wife, but when we met Ophelia at a charity exhibit a few months ago that displayed the pieces in the collection, Chrissie fell in love them, and Ophelia promised she'd get me one.  The problem is that I don't think Chrissie will remember."

Dena didn't answer right away.  She took her time gathering her words.  "Don't worry, Race.  This right here is proof that Chrissie married you because you were meant to be together.  How could she not be in love with you?  I imagine that you did have to sell your soul to get a hold of one of those.  They're worth more than a handful of diamonds because no one will ever get a hold of one.  It's beautiful and she'll love it."

Race clutched the box to his chest.  "Thank you, Dena.  That helps me a lot."  He cleared his throat and shifted his feet.  "You think you might be able walk me through that chapter on patience?  I don't know if I can do this without you."

His sister-in-law laughed.  "Some days I wish I saw you first, Race," she teased him and they went back upstairs to get his book.  "Not today, mind you," she added, "but occasionally."