The Care and Feeding of Griffins (6 page)

“
I have to carry everything,” Taryn protested, but she was already following her.

“
A few day’s discomfort will buy you a full belly for the rest of your years,” Birgit called back uncaringly.  “You were willing enough to lug an air mattress and all that other pointless frippery around, weren’t you?”

Out of the cabin and across the immaculate yards they went, with Granna Birgit
’s hands worn and warm on Taryn’s arms.  They went past rows of flowers and neat little patches of pumpkins and corn to a greenhouse, lightly bustling with other old gardeners.  Inside, midway down the second aisle of growing green, Birgit stopped and retrieved a tray from the potting tables.

“
Here we are,” she groaned, and Taryn moved to take the weight of the tray and clear a place for it and the cauldron.  “Good Irish potatoes, those are.  Grow anywhere.  You take them, aisling.  As many as you can stand to carry.”

While Taryn began to load the small, sprouting seed potatoes into her cauldron, Birgit hobbled away, stopping to confer often with the others she met.  When the old woman returned, she had dozens of paper seed packets in her hands. 
“Pumpkins, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, musk melon, kale, bok choy—oh, Edward, you and your heathen vegetables—sugar peas, green beans, turnips, lettuce and corn.  Won’t all grow, I imagine, but something surely will.  Get the potatoes in the ground just as soon as you can, and mix the ashes of your first fire in with them when you plant them so they’ll know you mean business.  And sing to them, aisling.  They’ll be in a new place same as you and be wanting the comfort.”

Birgit
’s hands, soft as roses, cupped Taryn’s face and pulled her down to accept a kiss.  “You’re wanting to be on your way, I see that sure enough,” she said.  “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for one more adventure of my own!  Those days are set now, I suppose, but it does my old heart good to see the fire in you, Taryn.”  She stroked at strands of Taryn’s hair, smiling mistily, and then said, “One more thing, to remember me by.”

When she reach
ed for her neck, for the claddagh that had been her wedding ring and that she now wore on a gold chain, Taryn couldn’t stop herself from crying out.

“
I won’t take that!” she said helplessly.  “I won’t!  I’ll lose it!”

Birgit
’s laughter rang out like a bell, light and free of care.  She caught Taryn’s hand and dropped the ring into her palm, then backed away, waving her own empty hands mischievously.  “No backsies!” she said merrily.  “It’s yours now, aisling.”

“
But—”

“
I hate long goodbyes.  May the Good Lord keep you in the hollow of His hand and never close His fist too tight,” Birgit said, and she turned around.

Taryn looked down at the hand that held her grandmother
’s wedding ring.  It was still outthrust and white-knuckled, with the ring itself dangling and glittering in the filtered greenhouse light.  She looked like she was trying to ward off an attack of plant-people.  With a sigh, she slipped the chain over her head and let the ring fall to join her father’s St. Christopher medallion.  Then she picked up her cauldron full of tiny green potatoes and headed outside.  Her car was waiting and she still had one more bad goodbye.

Taryn
drove to John’s apartment complex.  She sat outside the mud-brown building where her boyfriend lived, staring at his door and listening to Aisling treble his sleeping chirps under his blanket in the backseat.  She supposed she should feel worse than she did.  Which wasn’t to say that she didn’t feel bad at all, but most of what sat cold in her heart was just the dread of doing this in the first place.  John was a nice enough guy. 

She needed to get this done.  Time was passing her by and it was never going to get easier.

Taryn got out of the car and went to John’s door.  She started to reach for her keys, but then left them where they were.  Walking in like nothing was changed and then breaking up with him…how could she do that?  She lifted her hand to knock and then lowered it again.  Knocking felt so formal, so unkind.  All of a sudden, she found herself wishing strongly that she’d chatted with him at least a little the night the egg had hatched, instead of shutting him down and then driving off without another word.  Now she was turning up at his door just to say goodbye.  She supposed the break-up itself was inevitable—they’d been dating three months now, and each day it seemed to take a little more work to make everything okay between them—but it was still depressing to have to admit defeat like this.

Maybe it would be easier to do this over the phone.  She felt wrung out enough already from the scene with her family, with Rhiannon.  She didn
’t want to do this anymore tonight.  Aisling was waiting in the car.  He’d need to be fed again pretty soon and she still had some rabbit in a plastic container waiting in the car.  She’d rather be wrist deep in that than have to deal with this.  What did that say about her?

No.  The break-up may have been inevitable, but John still deserved to hear it face to face.  She
’d make it as painless as possible and she’d let him get mad if he had to, and then she’d get out as soon as she could and get on the road.  On the steps of the Redmond library, Romany may already be waiting for her.  All this would probably hurt a lot more tomorrow, but by then, she’d have plenty of other distractions.  Raising a griffin out in the wilderness of Washington state probably wouldn’t leave her with a lot of spare time.  She just had to get through this first.

Taryn fished out her keys, found the one for John
’s apartment, and unlocked his door.  She was struck first by the dinner-smells, good ones, garlic and wine.  Not a bad cook, her Johnny-boy, especially when it came to Italian.  Lunch was still an unhappy lump in her stomach, but the thought of curling up on John’s shoulder with a plate of his lasagna was very appealing to her.  He was—

He was
…

He was in the bedroom, she realized, as the sounds she had been hearing for some time now finally began to have some meaning.  He was in the bedroom and he wasn
’t alone.

Slowly, Taryn shut the door behind her.  She looked vaguely toward the dining room
—two plates of half-eaten lasagna, two glasses half-filled with wine—and took John’s key off her key ring.  He’d want it to give to his new girlfriend.  Or maybe he wouldn’t.  But in either case, she wouldn’t need it anymore.

The sounds from the bedroom were getting louder.  She supposed she
’d ought to leave.  It seemed very important to her that she not embarrass him.  But it was somehow just as important that John get his key back and that he hear her say goodbye.  It seemed the only decent thing to do.  He’d been a pretty good boyfriend up until now.

The bedroom door was open.  Taryn had only to walk
a dozen measured steps to stand in the doorway.  There, she could see the two figures clasped together on the bed quite plainly.  See them, hear them, even smell them.  Sex had a smell.  How ‘bout that. 

They must have started out wrapped in a sheet, but now it and all the rest of the bedding was pulled loose and lying in drifts on the floor.  The girl had a pillow under her head, and another under her hips.  How considerate he was, seeing to her comfort like that.  Or maybe the pillow under her hips was more
pragmatic.  Maybe it just wasn’t possible for her to lock her ankles around his waist like that if her hips weren’t tilted back.

It was hard to watch this.  She didn
’t love him, she was more certain of that now than ever, but it was impossible not to feel betrayed.  She’d known sex was important to him.  From the second date, he’d been trying, but she hadn’t been ready and he’d always said he understood.  He’d always said he’d wait until it could be right and special.  Now she had to wonder, was this girl right?  Was she special?  Had it been about this all along?  Never really about intimacy and trust, but just this?  Would any body do, as long as it would lie open for John’s naked thrusting? 

She could see everything so starkly.  His muscles were all light and shadow rolling together in that rhythm Taryn had never known and yet recognized at once.  His hips moved steadily between the thighs of his keening partner
, unhurriedly, skillfully.  Taryn could see the thick length of him each time he withdrew, could watch him slowly plunge back inside his partner.  She could see light gleaming wetly along the swollen sides of his shaft, hear the greedy sucking sounds as he was received.  His hands were never still; the sound of them sliding over the skin of the girl beneath him was painfully abrading to Taryn’s ears.  He was kneading the girl’s breasts, suckling at them, teasing the nipples that stood out so erect.  And he was kissing her, covering the girl’s face with the tenderest of touches, until Taryn’s own mouth stung.  She found herself wondering detachedly if it would hurt as much to witness this if only he made love less well.

The girl suddenly screamed.  It was not a pleasure-cry, the culmination of the ardent moans that had been building all this time.  It was a fear-cry, a caught-cry, and John twisted around in the next instant.  His eyes were blue.  Really, really blue.
  She’d known that, of course, academically, but she’d never really seen how incredibly blue they were.  Taryn looked silently into those eyes as John hunched over his girl, a gesture that struck her as appealingly protective.  He was still moving, still making love, although his movements had quickened and coarsened considerably.

Taryn turned around and went back into the living room.  She sat down on the couch, pulled a cushion onto her lap and waited.  Through the curtains, she could see part of her car.  Aisling was sleeping in the backseat.  Romany was waiting on the library steps in Redmond.  And John was naked in the bedroom with another girl.

Frantic whispers.  The girl sounded near tears.  Taryn felt very bad about that.  Poor unnamed girl.  Taryn had ruined what seemed like a very nice time.

A minute later, in a rush of half-dressed limbs, the girl came streaking out of the bedroom, past Taryn, and away through the door with a bang.  She didn
’t say anything.  Taryn didn’t watch her go.

It seemed much longer before Taryn heard the low shuffle of John
’s bare feet on the carpet.  There was silence and then he sighed.  “What?” he asked.  He sounded tired.  “Am I supposed to apologize?”

The question surprised her strangely. 
“I don’t know,” she said.  “Are you sorry?”

“
Not really.”  He came around and sat beside her on the couch.  He’d put on his bathrobe.  The red one.  She’d got him that one for his birthday.  “I’ve tried to patient, Tare, but I’m a man.  Men have needs.”

“
Oh, for God’s sake.”  The lameness of the justification angered her in a way the infidelity itself hadn’t; she shot him a glare and he looked away, flushing.  “I could quote you chapter and verse of sex studies proving that retread went out with the rest of the gender bias from the 50’s, but I’m too tired.  If you’re going to cheat, then cheat, but find a better excuse, will you?  Show me that much respect.”

“
Okay.”  He still wouldn’t look at her but his voice had hardened.  “Maybe I should have said, “I have needs,’ and left it at that, but I didn’t think you’d understand.  It’s not the sort of thing you relate to.”

“
And now it’s my fault,” she remarked.  She tossed the cushion aside and clasped her hands between her knees, staring out the window at her car.  Aisling.  There was a baby griffin in her car and she was in here breaking up with her boyfriend.  Surreal could not begin to blanket what she was feeling.

John held on to his tight silence for a little while longer and then let it all go in a sigh.  He sagged, his head dropping, and then he looked at her at last. 
“It’s not your fault,” he said.  “But it’s not my fault, either.  I wanted sex, Tare.  Normal, healthy people want to have sex.”

She drew back, stung. 
“I—”

“
Yeah, I know, I know.  You’re not ready.”  John expelled frustration in a curt gust and stood up. He went to the dining room and topped off one of the wine glasses, keeping his back to her.  “And you’re never going to
be
ready, Tare, that’s the thing.  You know, the day after we first went out, I bumped into one of your exes and he told me you were frigid.  I figured it was your typical ex-boyfriend thing.”  The laughter he used to punctuate this was a bitter thing to hear.  He drank his wine.

“
I’m not frigid,” she argued, hurt.

John snorted.

“I’m not.”

“
Really?”  He turned around, resting his hand on the back of a chair and crossing one ankle laconically over the other.  Between the red robe, the gently-swirling glass of wine and his piercing, dry smile, he looked like a commercial for fine cheeses.  “Then what are you waiting for, Taryn?”

She lifted her hands and dropped them again. 
“Someone I love.”

His face turned to stone.  He swallowed and set his glass down with an icy deliberateness that was as hard to watch as his sardonic laughter had been to hear. 
“Okay,” he said evenly.  “I guess I deserved that.”

“
Oh please.”  Taryn pulled her braid around to rub between her palms, her eyes fixed on her own red hair so she wouldn’t have to look at him.  “Don’t say that like it hurt.  If you loved me, you wouldn’t have had Miss Muffet over for dinner.  I could almost understand just bringing someone home to have sex with, but you made an effort here tonight, John, so don’t even try to pretend that you love me.”