Truths of the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

that!
It will be nice to go to faculty parties or holiday affairs not having to worry
about a date, blind or otherwise, awkward looks from people. I feel they wonder
how can someone that attractive (can't help it, I am, good genes, both parents
were striking) not have a man hanging on each arm. Alas, society. But why Carl?
Aside from animal sex, he pursued me, I like to be pursued. Most males are
afraid of me, intimidated, I think, by my mind and my body. Don't want to make
another mistake in affairs-of-the-heart. Picking men (past tense please) was a total
disaster. Simply put, you have never met anyone that satisfied you mentally,
emotionally, and physically: the famous shining triple-threat knight. My
ultimate fantasy has always been to be stimulated mentally, emotionally, and
physically in one long night of ecstasy. But alas, methinks this knight does
not exist. To wit: sophomore in high school, I allowed myself to be maneuvered
by freshman Tom Nesbit into secluded woods. Pinned against an oak tree, I helped
him with his first kiss, a condom in my purse; I led him right up to a
premature ejaculation that scarred him forever. Then there was Ed. Had a
Plymouth convertible, turned out he was an alcoholic at eighteen. Then came
Anthony. Immature, angry at the world, he was like a Friday night ride on a
carnival Ferris wheel. In love with himself, his idea of the ultimate was to
look at me in the nude while he ministered to himself. Then he whined because I
wasn't satisfied. After Anthony, came graduate student, architect major, Allen
Deebs. Spent emotional time together—holding hands, looking at the stars,
brooding, languishing, sighing. But alas, he came far short in the physical
area (is that Freudian or what). Whatever, he simply had little use for sex of
any kind. Then there is Carl, aside from animal lust, his interests lie in
football, football, and football. Emotions run to an occasional game of golf
and, once in a while, fishing. Prefers power boats to sailing. Reading consists
of Playboy and Sports Illustrated. He lacks the first two rungs but he makes up
for the other two in the rack. Ouch! There's a dark side to you, Z. There's a
dark side to everybody. I wonder if maybe my knight is a she … but no that can't
be. Experimented in high school years, remember Donna? Left me blank. No, been
there, done that, if such a triple threat knight exists, the creature has to be
male.
    It will be all right, I love Carl, his overprotectiveness is his way of
showing his love. Socially, a necessity, good thing to do, fills that physical
need and besides, always did like a strong wind at my back. I wonder about Dad.
I wonder why he took his life. What was he thinking? Looking for meaning in
life. Finding that there was none. I think it was more … God knows. Onward, one
day at a time, actually one hour at a time. I wonder how people who have a
terrible disease go on, hope? What if this is it? I miss my father.

 
    She took, kept between the last page and back cover, a yellowed and
faded obituary clipping from the Lansing State Journal and read:

 
    Eric Paul Zannes, 1026 Tulip Drive, Grand Ledge, MI, died last Sunday
while boating at Houghton Lake. Mr. Zannes, an artist, was 45. Cause of death
was accidental drowning.

 
    She stopped reading, Accidental drowning, my foot … how does a
forty-five year old man, skilled boater, tie a fifty-pound anchor around his
neck and fall into twenty feet of water, accidentally?
    She recalled her mother's version given to a Lansing State Journal obit
writer: “Eric slipped while anchoring and glided gently into the deep cool
waters he so loved.” Dear mother believed that until the day she died, but I
know better...
    She closed that thought like the casket lid the funeral director had
dropped over her father's cold dead face, and continued reading the newspaper
obit:

 
    Mr. Zannes was the husband of long time Lansing librarian Esther
Zannes. Eric, a native of Grand Ledge, attended