Free KARTER by Scott Hildreth, SD Hildreth Page B

mother hissed as she lowered the butter knife and turned to the kitchen.
    As I retracted the steel tape measure into the case, Karter stood with her back against the wooden door trim. She looked into my eyes and smiled. Her eyes were a translucent green, and a complete compliment to her skin and hair color. As I continued to admire her, I became lost momentarily - simply standing in front of her and staring. She leaned into me and after a soft hesitation of uncertainty, kissed me softly on the lips.
    Karter’s carefree attitude, fearless nature, and expressed love for me allowed me to accept life as being without fault. With her in my life, I had no room for anything else to creep in. In her absence, without a doubt, my life would be nothing but turmoil. Karter filled me so full of what was good, that the bad I had spent two decades witnessing never had an opportunity to come to the surface. Karter was not only filling my heart with love, she was undoubtedly saving me from myself. 
    “See,” my mother said.
    I turned her direction as she paused.
    “She couldn’t kiss you like that if she wasn’t six feet tall, Jak.”
    At that moment I realized to my mother, not unlike me, Karter was as big as life itself. I turned my head and smiled over my left shoulder, “You’re right, mom. There’s something wrong with that thing.”
    I turned to face Karter and puckered my lips. As I slowly moved my mouth to hers, I winked my left eye, “Always has been.” 

JAK. “Well, if a man looks in the scripture, there’s no reference to it. They took the time to make a statement about all other things a man can imagine. Stand to reason Jak, if there was somethin’ wrong with it in the Lord’s eyes, he’d a made sure and got it writ down in there somewhere. As a matter of fact,” Oscar paused and rubbed his goatee.
    He nodded his head and smiled, “Sarah was ten years younger’n Abraham.”
    “I’m talking a few more years than that,” I sighed.
    “Don’t think it matters, Jak. You tryin’ to talk yourself out of it?” he asked as he pulled a cigar from his pocket.
    “No sir. Just two men talking, that’s all. There are only three people I trust right now, Oscar - you, her, and my mother. And neither of them have any concern about age differences. I’m just asking you man to man, that’s all.”
    “Well I’ll give you my opinion about it, ‘cause I know that’s what you come for. You see, life is about quality, not quantity. You know that, right?” he asked as he raised the cigar to his lips.
    I nodded my head, not quite sure what he meant; but confident he’d expand upon the point he was trying to make sooner or later.
    He pulled the cigar from his mouth and pointed the tip of it toward me, “Let’s see. Say a man is married for fifty years. Say he met his wife in high school. Maybe they was sweethearts. Got married at say, oh hell, eighteen years of age. Now they’s sixty-eight, Jak. And they lived a life of drunkenness by him; and let’s say he’s mean as a damned snake when he drinks. And he’s a cheatin’ on her and comin’ home drunk and slappin’ her around for fifty solid years. That ain’t a very good fifty years of marriage, now is it?”
    “No sir,” I responded.
    “And if someone like you meets someone like Karter, and they have the same age difference, but let’s say they ain’t you - for sayin’s sake. If they’s as happy as you two seem to be, and let’s say they live twenty years together. And every day, Jak,” he paused and shook his cigar.
    “Every damned one was as good as the last. And they’s a runnin’ and a playin’ and having fun, and livin’ life to the fullest. Hell, they can’t imagine livin’ without each other. These two ain’t a fightin’ or a fussin’. Not even once. They’s meant to be in the eyes of all who see ‘em, and in God’s eyes too. So, God bless her soul, the lady gets cancer and she dies, Jak. After twenty years. Now would that twenty