"Nope. I'm faithful to my horse?"

"Big Enough? Best warn you —he's a gelding."

"Takes one, to know one, Jed."

At the time Jenny threw out her comeback to his silly bit of chatter, both thought it funny. Later that evening, the contemplation of what she had said brought tears to her eyes.

The two of them started out to paint what there was of Cascade City red, by Jed teaching Jenny how to dance a cowboy two step push-pull to the shit-kicker tune blaring out of the box at Uncle Only's Place. The fact that the hardwood floor was warped, and required careful planning when dancing east to west across the north-south furrow, had them in giggles.

It was at the stand-up mahogany bar, getting down to 'serious' drinking, that the conversation had somehow slipped into a discussion about a certain ex-wife.

Jed rambled on about the good times, he felt, they had experienced together —until that day he had come home to an empty apartment. He tried to explain the guilt he felt for not providing material things. She had wanted a clothes drier. Just an ordinary clothes drier for Christ sakes, instead of saving for an upcoming sabbatical and independent research project.

"Jed, look at me," Jenny had finally demanded, grabbing him, and shaking him upright. "You are not the one at fault."

"How can you say that?" He blubbered into his beer, "I loved her. I should have listened to her desires and needs."

"No one who says, 'I will love you if you do this, or that, to make me happy,' is worth crying about. What really happened was that you were a convenient scapegoat to blame for her unfulfilled ambitions. Who knows what that might have been? And, deep down —I will bet— even she would have to admit that whatever 'it' was, she caused the failure.

Sounds to me that she didn't realize that material possessions do not bring fulfillment. That more and more, just creates a need for more. And, that she will never be content with life, until she is content with herself.

I hate her. I can understand not feeling fulfilled, and forgive. What is unconscionable was her manipulation —the gelding— of you, out of an anger with herself."

The sight of Jenny crying made Jed forget his self-pity long enough to ask, "Why are you telling me this? Don't punish me with tears, I can't handle that."