Moderation

Rhea's social nature required an outlet. Thoughts of proposing to her were left on my back burner whilst I organised her immediate needs first.

With my assistance, she joined the local migrant resource centre, not attending like the majority, to improve their English. She already spoke it as a third language—a proficient speaker of German plus her native Polish. In less than a week, she shone at the centre as she developed new friendships fast.

Rhea greeted me one evening as I arrived home, sporting a broader smile than usual.

After a cuddle and a kiss, she gushed, "We discussed at the centre today, our favourite time of the day."

I asked what hour she favoured.

She chimed, "Five o'clock."

This was the time I arrived home.

We shared a smile.

A few days later, on a Saturday, we were outside tidying the small courtyard adjoining the rear of the apartment. I wore scruffy patched pants, an outdated check shirt and heavy boots. Rhea wore faded jeans and a blue t-shirt that had seen better days.

I paused between weeding polyanthus, a garden present from my mum. Rhea knelt, doing the same, helping me. She liked the primrose ones; my favourites were the banana creams: pretty soft butter yellow petals and a darker golden centre. We exchanged a smile and resumed weeding.

On an impulse, I stood and extended my hand, requesting her to rise. I clasped her hands, drawing Rhea close. She greeted my eyes and waited.

Informal, so casual, I asked, "Will you marry me."

"Yes."

To the point, we kissed chaste, lips to lips.

I didn't say — I love you.

I don't think I even thought it.

We bent and silently completed the gardening.

I ponder now: How unromantic!

Rhea's girlhood dreams of a proposal. She received one. Mine surely ranks amongst the worst ever offered.

Rhea outwardly appeared to accept it as it was offered. She held quiet to herself in a backyard garden, pulling weeds.

Strange, so like me for a moment.

Later that evening, after dinner, we started to plan our wedding. Rhea organised the key elements; she was adaptable and efficient. Practical as she indicated the impossibility of her sister and mother attending. She elaborated, hinting at financial reasons and the difficulty of work leave at short notice.

We agreed to speed up our day before Rhea's holiday visa expired. Otherwise, the complexities of immigration services could swoop and delay our proposed nuptial. I suggested small in fairness to Rhea. And the promise was that we would visit her family as soon as practical.

I invited my brother James to be my best man, and he agreed. He remained unaware he ranked as my second option. I wrote to Josh, my choice for best man. Josh wrote back, wishing me every happiness. He apologised and explained why. He was accompanying his parents, visiting his ageing grandparents in Ireland. I was heartened, glad his relationship with his dad had improved since college. I wrote again and wished him well.

Arranging a wedding at short notice, someone will be unable to attend. I rang Coral in Sydney. She gushed over the moon for me. Her voice only once betrayed her sadness at missing my big day because she was locked into an overseas commitment in LA. Her job required her to oversee acquisitions for the gallery. She kept saying how happy she was for Rhea and me.

Could Coral and Josh have reunited at my wedding?

I never considered inviting Ruby.

The rest of the wedding party comprised my family. Rhea invited two close friends from the migrant centre. Our mini boutique wedding was solemnised in the local botanical gardens. My bride glided delightful in her hired white wedding dress with a veil. James and I wore matching grey suits. Rhea and I exchanged traditional vows.

The weather stayed sunny perfect. The hired photographer snapped memorable images. Three, we enlarged and framed. One beneath a nineteenth-century brick archway, another on a red bridge in the Japanese garden and my favourite holding her ring hand as I stood beside Rhea seated on a broad bench.

We held a family reception at our apartment. Rhea's bridal bed became the bed she shared sleeping in over the past few weeks. Our wedding occurred on a long weekend; we termed it a mini honeymoon travelling to visit an underground wet cave complex. Rhea liked the glow worms and adored a cavern called the Pixie Glade. The tour guide agreed to snap us cuddling, framed by an imaginary stalactite and stalagmite palace.

I started married life together without seeking — what was her life dream?

I learned over time that Rhea worked with what was in front of her. Even the initial uneven relationship investment. Perhaps she believed love grows with time.

I know Rhea grew to love her silent partner. She liked my gentle nature as she delighted in running her fingers through my hair in the evening. Her head leaning on my shoulder, Rhea didn't search or press me for words.

It would take a trip to her homeland before I matched my bride's love.

Greater love has no woman than to gently save a man from himself as she reattaches him to the pulse of life.

We made it together from the steadiest of starts. Friar Laurence's moderation. Not Ruby's fleet-footed passion. Maybe I matured in life. Rhea's maturity was already there, so down-to-earth and homely.

Plus, our bodies contributed to joining us deeply. Two bodies keen to seek and reciprocate. Rhea liked veiled sex, lithe when aroused, and if it happened under the doona, it ignited her sweetest response. I nested in her feminine moisture in the dark. I sucked and licked 'till she arched and murmured. Instinctively, she joined us in mutual oral sex one evening. She embraced my parts as I absorbed hers. This became our signature position of foreplay.

Relationships survive when two individuals sacrifice a portion of themselves. Rhea intuitively practised this while I learned it. My partner initially lacked confidence in her body if the doona was thrown back. She opened her body eventually because she knew I appreciated it. I reassured her vulnerability; I stayed tender.

Rhea was and is my Rokeby Venus, Velásquez's masterful nude—a canvas, both sensual and intimate. Venus' flesh flows as she reclines posed from the rear. The painting combines the sensual and the desirable in a moderate and controlled manner.

One summer afternoon, Rhea shared her streamlined curves, her Venus moment. My partner rode me, building mutual enjoyment. However, she was intuitive in crafting 'the more' of togetherness in sex.

"Move me where you like, darling," she offered.

"Are you sure?"

She was considerate of my needs, nearly obliging in bed.

"It's okay. I'll be okay for you."

Her eyes supported her words. We spooned, cuddling and penetration combined, allowing us to fashion a languorous coupling. A compelling intimacy engulfed me as I watched her ribs and doted on her steady breathing. My partner in the most relaxed of positions, side-on. Her stomach, neck, and earlobes were explored in turn. I cherished my wife.

Rhea became pregnant in 1987. We prepared for the arrival of our first child. I recall reading the Sunday paper when Rhea was seven months pregnant. I saw a black and white photograph of Ruby holding a baby on the double-page feature showing new mothers and their arrivals.

A boy named Michael. I didn't study the image. It generated surprise, not a string of questions. I processed it and moved to the next page, believing I hadn't given a second thought to Ruby, her partner, or her baby. My cunning memory did. It pictures the grainy news photo as clear as Ruby perched on a branch of the mulberry tree.

Miranda arrived in the world two months after Ruby's son. For us, a tough and resilient journey punctuated by an earlier, medical termed inevitable miscarriage. Babies do fall apart, and expectant parents are in confused disbelief. Though, together, we adsorbed and recovered.

Supposing the purpose of life is reproduction.

Tick the box, Luke and Rhea.

Tick the box, Ruby and partner.

Everyone, move on.

A life that simple, no, never!

Rhea and I rejoiced as proud parents. Yet something triggered me to drag out a shoebox tucked away at the bottom of my wardrobe. I opened it when I brought Rhea and Miranda home from the maternity hospital. I mulled over being respectful as a father and a husband.

How could I keep a box of love mementoes with a wife and child?

I decided to scrap my held onto physical connection to the past, Jenny's final letter and her travel postcards. The business card Arianna gave me, in neat flourished handwriting, with Ruby's Paris address. A notebook chock full of pixie escapades.

I cast out Jenny and Ruby, trashing the evidence of us ever being together.

No one will know. Jenny and Ruby would fade away inside me.

I reached my moral reason for throwing out the letters and the old notebook.

If I kept them — Jenny and Ruby signified something!

I contemplated — I love you, said to Rhea. I had to mean it in God-given sincerity if I meant it.

The material evidence of past love was bagged and disposed of in the weekly household trash.

Yet memory spurned, being dumped in the bin.

I retained captivating images of lovers' pasts because they are soul spirits.

I closed off yesteryears as best I could. My rational self pledged a vow of silence. A gag order was placed on my ego to leave behind the remarkable women of my youth. I believed I sealed off intimate and painful memories versus married life.

What an untruth!

Memory confronts and ripples when we least expect it.