Feral

What if the space that had once kept me safe was now a place that kept love away?

Staci and Larry

On my second date with Larry, halfway through a busy crosswalk in Old Town Pasadena, he turned to me and said, “Just so you know, I don’t ever want to get married again.”

“Jesus,” I laughed. “I don’t ever want to get married, period.”

His earnest expression turned serious. “Now that you mention it, the fact that you’ve never been married is a bit of a red flag.”

I quickly held up four fingers to indicate the number of trips he’d taken down the aisle. The nerve of this guy. Four ex-wives? I was 50 and still single on purpose.  

My response only made him laugh.

Larry was good-looking, tall with curly hair and a warm smile, but we didn’t have long-term relationship potential. He lived forty-three miles south of my tiny Pasadena bungalow with two almost-grown kids in a big house he’d built with his last wife in Seal Beach. Consciously deciding to drive forty-three miles on any Los Angeles freeway is to acknowledge that you are willing to give up a large chunk of your life trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic for another person. That person would have to be nothing short of fantastic.

On my second date with Larry, halfway through a busy crosswalk in Old Town Pasadena, he turned to me and said, “Just so you know, I don’t ever want to get married again.”…“Jesus,” I laughed. “I don’t ever want to get married, period.”

Four months later, for reasons I couldn’t fully explain, I was surprised to still be driving south, but even more surprised when I heard myself offer to help him throw a Sunday brunch for a family reunion. Sunday was my hiking day. Plus, I’ve never been a fan of brunch. A mimosa at noon just ruins the rest of the day. Larry and I put out a nice spread: lox and bagels, burgers and hot dogs, beans, and potato salad. Orange juice and coffee. His large extended family welcomed me with open arms. When introduced, several made wise-cracks about Larry’s track record and offered to take me off of his hands, which only amused my boyfriend.

At one point, Larry pulled me into a quiet corner, wrapped his arms around my waist, and whispered, “My family really loves you. Just like I do.” All day, I smiled and refilled their chip bowls and coffee mugs, watching them splash around in the pool, sing showtunes at the piano, and try to top each other’s funny family stories. After everyone left, I was washing dishes alone in the quiet kitchen, the last of the daylight fading, when a thought hit me like a stray bullet. “A girlfriend isn’t a wife. I want to be a wife.”

I froze. Hot water ran over the plate gripped in my shaking hands. What was happening?

Check out Staci Greason’s novel, All the Girls in Town.

Before Larry, I’d never dated anyone longer than a year. I’d never even lived with anybody. Friends called me feral like the beloved cat colony that accidentally formed in my backyard in my 40s. One birthday, someone even gifted me a Cat Lady action figure. I was Single with a capital S. The idea that I suddenly wanted something so ordinary felt earth shattering.

A childhood running untethered through the wilderness is one reason that I am comfortable with solitude. When I was 8, my parents moved us West into the Colorado Rockies to escape the rapidly modernizing world of the 1970s. We lived (mostly) off the grid with our own septic tank, water well, solar power, and party-line (eight families - same line - different numbers) but, in spite of their best efforts, modern society still found me.

From the AM radio on my bedroom dresser I heard Helen Reddy’s strong voice sing, “I am woman hear me roar.” I danced through aspen groves pretending to be Marlo Thomas from That Girl, making it alone in the Big City. In my treehouse, I’d light up another Virginia Slims cigarette stolen from a baby-sitting job - You’ve come a long way, baby. – and dream of my life as an independent woman.

Like any feral thing, I was unprepared for the cruelty of men.

Before Larry, I’d never dated anyone longer than a year. I’d never even lived with anybody. Friends called me feral like the beloved cat colony that accidentally formed in my backyard in my 40s.

How fresh-faced and new, how glowing pink I must have appeared to the 26-year-old stranger who made me his conquest. I was two months into college, virginity still intact, even though I had a new boyfriend. The man said he only wanted to be friends. He lived with his father in a dingy apartment with faded plastic blinds behind a bar they owned in Denver. There was a bean bag. Its vinyl covering stuck to my back. I squirmed and said no, but politely, so that he wouldn’t be mad. The act was over so fast. Did I bleed? I remember pretending to be okay, seated on a barstool waiting for him to help the bartender close. At 3 a.m., the man finally drove me back to school in his Nissan 280ZX. When he pulled up to the dormitory curb, he leaned over and placed a hand on my thigh. I escaped out the passenger door and didn’t look back. When I recited my experience to my boyfriend, I remember feeling lost over his reply, “Wow. I guess this is a really bad time…” to tell me that he loved another girl.

After a wild thing is wounded, what does it do? It flees. Hides. Buries its tracks so that no one can sense vulnerability. Survival is key. Make a home for solitude and heartache until it feels normal. For three decades, I held fast to my Helen Reddy anthem, my Marlo Thomas dreams, reinforcing my belief that women should stay single, and eventually embraced a sort of Cat Lady action figure identity.

Life is hard on feral cats. They are the target of misunderstanding, terrible abuse, and early death. In my 40s, when two females deposited their untamed kittens in my backyard, I quickly learned how to manage a colony. It was a sweaty, nerve-wracking, endeavor. The vet recommended that one tiny, vicious, gray and white kitten, covered in fleas be put down. I kept her because I understand misunderstood things, and named her Miss Kitty Carlyle. I created a safe space in a large cage on my back porch. Every day, I read her poetry aloud, with my back turned while she ate, waiting for her to grow. Three weeks of spitting and hissing later, I was reading Mary Oliver—“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”—when I heard a faint meow near my head. I carried the cage into my house and opened the gate. The next morning, I found her fast asleep curled in a patch of sun on the living room floor.

Was it the easy way Larry hiked behind me on my favorite trails? Or the secure feeling of his warm leg pressed against mine sitting on the beach at sunset? His dedication as a single father? School lunches made each morning, dinner cooked almost every night. That time he dried his teenage daughter’s wet hair before school while she sniffled with a cold. The one-liners traded between him and his college-age son, their raucous laughter so infectious. Or was it our phone calls that lasted long past midnight, words pouring out of me, Larry listening, like he’d been waiting a long time to hear my whole story.

Staci and Larry’s wedding photo, by Kathy DeNinno

I turned off the kitchen faucet, set down the plate, and ran into the backyard. Larry was stuffing discarded brunch trash into Hefty bags.

Still shaky and breathless, I announced, “I just realized that I do want to get married.”

He laughed. “Right now?”

I nodded. “I’m so sorry.” I felt like I might get sick.

“Oh. You’re serious?”

We had made an agreement on our second date that neither of us wanted to be married. My realization changed everything. I went back inside, grabbed my overnight bag waiting near the front door, and wheeled it out to my car.

Larry chased after me. He held up the garbage bags in his hands as if he were under arrest. “If you want me to marry you, I will marry you.”

“Is that how you proposed to the other four?” I could hear how unhinged I sounded. “I don’t want a marriage proposal under duress.”

“It doesn’t scare me anymore. I could do it. I could be married to you.”

Still shaky and breathless, I announced, “I just realized that I do want to get married.”…He laughed. “Right now?” I nodded. “I’m so sorry.” I felt like I might get sick.

Terrified, I jumped into my car and peeled off, watching him in my rearview mirror, standing in the street still holding those damn trash bags, until I rounded the corner.

That night, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. What about the promises I’d made to myself to not be owned by any man? I reached back and placed my fingertips on the headboard to hold steady. A kind of tiredness washed over my body that I didn’t think I could withstand. I remembered walking through my neighborhood at dusk, past pretty little houses with warm windows, inside a child drawing at a dining table, a man at the sink, a woman drying dishes. My chest ached with longing.

Suddenly, my life didn’t feel free. It felt empty and lonely. What if staying single wasn’t only about keeping my independence or flipping off the patriarchy? What if the space that had once kept me safe was now a place that kept love away?

Before dawn, I fed Miss Kitty Carlyle, poured a cup of strong coffee, and climbed into my old car headed forty-three miles south. I didn’t know what the future held, or who I would become, but I was ready to find out.