Home To My Mountain

 Looking into her eyes, he looked at absolute love. Oh, Leslie, my precious Leslie, I love you so very much. I love you more than anything. Why can’t I say it! Feeling her next to him and her hands upon his face, he realized she was more woman than he deserved. She was too good for him. I love you, Leslie!

     “Thanks for the confidence. I need it,” he said, laying back on the rock.

     “When are you leaving to go back home?” She asked, resting her head on his chest.

     “Week after next. It’s going to be good to see my folks again. It’s been over a year.”

     “Take me with you,” she asked in earnest.

     “Um... I don’t know,” he answered, thinking he would really like to, but many people back home were not as open minded as most people were. He could imagine the neighbors saying, “And they drove all the way across the country together and you know they didn’t sleep in separate rooms. Now you tell me what kind of girl would do that?” He couldn’t bear the thought of someone thinking that of her, but narrow-minded people would. He really would like her to go with him, but it would be best if she didn’t.

     “I was only kidding. I can’t get off work.” She lied.

     Sitting up, she peered down at him and asked, “What’s going to become of us?”

     “What do you mean by that?”

     “I mean what are you going to do about us, and what am I going to do about us?”

     “One of these day’s I’m going to make love to you,” he kidded, as he tried to draw her to him, but she held fast.

     “No Bob, that’s not what I mean. I mean what’s going to become of our relationship?”

     “I knew what you meant I was only kidding.”

     She lay down beside him interlocking her fingers, using the palms of her hands for a pillow, and stared into the heavens saying, “When I was a child my mother used to tell me a story that her mother told her when she was a little girl. She said when you’re ready to find love, go to the morning side of the mountain to find it. It is on this side of the mountain where the sun first shines, and that makes the flowers grow bigger and prettier than any place else. It is also the place where the softest breezes blow, and the songbirds sing their loveliest songs. Above all else, it’s the first place God sees in the morning, and this makes it the most special place on his earth. It is a place of love. Love found here will last forever.”

     “That’s beautiful, Leslie!” He said, looking at her with a newfound respect.

     “I use to ask her where this place was, and all she would say was, you’ll know it when you find it. Its different places for different people. It has to be discovered, no one can tell you.”

     “Where is it Leslie?” He asked pushing her hair from her forehead.

     “Just think Bob, some people go through life and never find it. Wouldn’t it be sad if you found it, and you found it alone?” 

     She turned her face to him with a tear in her eyes. He gently wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked upon the beauty of her face, and with a lump in his throat asked, “Where is it Leslie? Where is it?”

     “Oh Bob, I don’t know! When I find it I will know it, but will you? Will you know it Bob?”