Page 107 of Virago

Nor could he imagine feeling so complete himself—not that she completed him, but that with her, he felt ... realized. Since Gia, he had become who he wanted to be—because she gave him the space, the respect, to be who he was without making any demands that he meet her image of who he should be. And he’d never felt any urge to change her, either. They embraced the easy parts of loving each other and made room for the challenging parts. As they were, they were perfect for each other.

He’d come to understand love differently, more completely, with Gia. It wasn’t—or, at least, it didn’t have to be—a total absorption of two people into one entity. The idea of ‘two made one flesh’ was not only ancient, it was antiquated. Why did love have to necessitate the loss of one’s individuality, the rubbing smooth of one’s rough edges, the compromise of one’s personal needs? Why couldn’t two people exist together as themselves—the very ground the love had taken root in?

When it came time for Gia to look for a job as a professor, she would likely leave Signal Bend. The odds that any of the major universities close enough to allow her to live in the area would be looking for an urban anthropologist at the precise moment when she was looking for a position as one were microscopically small—and that was assuming she’d get such a job if it were available.

Someday Gia would leave, and she might go far. But Zaxx wasn’t worried. Maybe it would be right for him to go with her, or maybe it wouldn’t, but either way, they would figure out how to make it work. He felt that certainty in his marrow. They had learned to love together, with full respect for each other, and there was room in their love to move independently without losing each other.

Because their love came with no preconceptions, no expectations formed outside of themselves, they would always figure it out. They would make the life that worked best for them, the life that made all the space they each needed for themselves and protected the space where they came together in their kind of calm, confident love. Maybe the shape of that space would look ‘right’ to other people, maybe it wouldn’t. But who gave a shit what other people thought? It would be right for them, and they were the only ones who mattered.

Ages ago, her mother had worried that Zaxx would pull Gia off her path, and Zaxx had worried the same. But way back then, he hadn’t understood how strong, how elastic, true love could be. They would stretch as far as they needed to stretch, and they would come back together in a rush of love and respect.

He brushed a sweat-soaked length of dark hair from her cheek. “I’ll move my stuff in tomorrow.”

She kissed him with her beautiful, smiling mouth.

Epilogue

the following spring

Zaxx stopped at the doorway and leaned on the jamb. “You’re bringing that box, too? You know, books come in digital form these days. You could put this whole library on your phone, and then we’d have a lot more room in Cammy. Or maybe even be able to ride our bikes.”

Gia used a wearing-down Sharpie to write RITUALIZED MASCULINITY across the top of the box in question. She’d sorted all her necessary research according to topic and focus and packed them into three separate boxes—and they were U-Haul book boxes, so they weren’t that big.

Mom said they were packing so much it felt like she was moving away again, but this was her big research trip—first one, anyway. Dr. Santana had finally signed off on her project outline and her travel and research itinerary, but insisted that Gia check in weekly during the trip. Gia wanted to make sure she had the right books when she needed them. They would be traveling for close to two months, and she would have to do some writing during that time, at least to get her fresh ideas down and start theorizing them, both so she could maintain momentum on her writing and so she could answer any challenge Dr. Santana might throw her way.

Anyway, they were packing everything in her Camaro, so they weren’t bringing all that much. Cammy had what Mom called a ‘Mafia trunk,’ with lots of room, but that was about all the room they had. With two passengers up front, both close to or more than six feet tall, and both long-legged, Cammy’s back seat was more of a suggestion. Their backpacks and road-trip supplies took up that slim space.

She picked up the box and brought it to Zaxx. He smirked at the label she’d written on the top.

“Ritualized Masculinity? Is that what I’m doing, carrying your heavy boxes for you?”

“No, that’s performative masculinity,” she shot back.

“I don’t know. These big books sure are heavy. I need to use my big muscles to carry them. I think that’s just regular masculinity.”

“Tell yourself whatever you need to face yourself in the mirror, love. But quit moaning about my actual, real-life books. I can’t underline and make notes in the margins on digital versions.”

“Not true. I underline all the time in Kindle, and I make notes sometimes, too.” He’d started reading science fiction stories; he and Dad were bonding over The Expanse series.

“Totally different,” she insisted with a smirk. “Don’t meddle in my process.”

“Yes, ma’am. Gimme a kiss.”

Gia leaned over the box and kissed him good and proper. “Love you.”

“Love you right back. If you don’t need any more performative masculinity, I’m gonna grab Dottie and go talk to Bo. He’s still in his shop.”

A few days before Christmas, on Zaxx’s birthday, after at least a month of watching him scroll puppy accounts on social media and hearing him talk wistfully about how much he loved dogs when he played with Otto, Gia had taken him to the shelter in Rolla. They’d gone under the guise of bringing bags of old towels and blankets for donation, but when they got there, she’d told him he could pick out a dog for his birthday present, and then they’d go to PetSmart and trick the pup out.

She’d researched shelters within driving distance; she took him to Rolla because they had three litters of puppies for adoption, all of which were on site in the days before Christmas. She’d brought him to the shelter rather than pick one out herself and put a bow around its neck for two reasons: first, she strongly believed that people and animals should choose each other, and that wasn’t possible if the gift was a total surprise. Second, she wanted him to have an out if he wasn’t ready yet after all.

Her instinct had proven correct. Zaxx had first been stunned loose-jawed. Then his eyes had blurred with tears. Not since he’d pulled Doofus’s body into his arms had she seen him come anywhere close to tears.

He’d sat down on the floor of the ‘meeting room’ in the middle of a chaotic roil of nine Golden retriever/Australian shepherd puppies, weaned only that week, and Gia had gotten a little misty herself, watching his joy as he drowned in fluffy, pudgy, grey-and-black-spotted, floppy-eared babies.

A quiet little girl had climbed onto his lap and gone to sleep in the crook of his knee, while her siblings tumbled and bounded and wrestled. She’d picked him. And when Zaxx picked her back, tears slipped through his beard.

He’d named her Dorothy, because he loved old-fashioned human names for dogs. In the past four months, she had accrued a long list of nicknames, but what they most often called her was Dottie. Gia’s favorite nickname for her was Polka Dot.

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