In honor of the second half of Outlander's first TV season, airing this weekend. Contains spoilers, in case you haven't read the book or its sequels. Time travel! Romance! Lice!
Twenty years before, at his insistence, I had left Jamie and the tumult of rebellion in eighteenth-century Scotland. Now I was back, reunited with a husband whose secrets I didn’t know, whose life for the past two decades may have shaped him into a completely different man, and whose laundry had piled up at an alarming rate since I had seen him last.
My greatest fear was that he had found another love. At first, I was reassured that no other woman had won his heart, but seeing his single camp bed and stark bachelor’s quarters prompted me to inquire if he were gay. He assured me he was, now that he had seen me again. Without thinking the thing through, I took the statement as an insult, which led to a rather unpleasant argument resulting in my calling him a right nancy and his calling me an auld lang-nebbit bitch. Then we fell into each other’s arms and commenced biting and scratching in a way that I can describe only as heaven on earth.
I had taken back with me to eighteenth-century Scotland only the essentials, for I did not wish to be tried for witchcraft again. These items included, of course, photographs of our daughter, Brianna, penicillin tablets for me, should Jamie give me syphilis (twenty years is a long time for a man to go without a tumble), my cell phone and personal computer (I have not mentioned my side trip to the twenty-first century), my collection of Beatles and Stones CDs (remember I had launched myself from the swinging ’60s), and a waxing kit to deforest Jamie’s back.
I myself had returned with a Brazilian wax job, which confused Jamie no end. He rooted around my body in search of my honeypot like a handsome, red-haired pig searching for truffles and was quite agitated that I had razed the foliage in question.
“I dinna ken ye verra weel, after all, Sasquatch,” he said to me sadly. “Ye gang on so aboot the braw sheemach on your heid that you’d think a wee bittie patch o’ hair on your honeypot would nay be any bother to ye. At least ye still ha’ a fine, fat arse.” He sighed and nipped at my posterior; suddenly, I worried that I had not had a tetanus shot in the last five years.
“Awa’ wi’ ye, woman,” he said testily later that day, as we gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes. “Twenty years ago, ye wouldna let me kill Jack Randall, because he was to be the six-times greit-grandfather o’ your husband, Frank. Now ye tell me that I canna kill Hamish MacPherson, because his six-times greit-grandson will make such a brilliant pastrami sandwich at the West End Deli in London, and I canna kill Ploppy Dolittle because his progeny will run the Big and Tall Ladies’ Dress Shoppe in Notting Hill. But Little Neville Chamberlain, the umbrella salesman on Hootman Street in Edinburgh: him, I can kill, though he’s done nay harm, except perhaps for the ten-percent markup he slaps on his umbrellas on rainy days.”
Then we sparred euphorically on the camp bed. After we’d made love in all the positions we knew, I cooed and slipped my tongue into what I hoped was his mouth. Fortunately, it was. All that really mattered, however, was that I was reunited with the man who had whispered to me in my dreams for twenty years; my soul had found its mate again after far too long a separation; and, most important of all, somebody else was going to have to shoulder Brianna’s college tuition. My place was here, with Jamie.
Twenty years before, at his insistence, I had left Jamie and the tumult of rebellion in eighteenth-century Scotland. Now I was back, reunited with a husband whose secrets I didn’t know, whose life for the past two decades may have shaped him into a completely different man, and whose laundry had piled up at an alarming rate since I had seen him last.
My greatest fear was that he had found another love. At first, I was reassured that no other woman had won his heart, but seeing his single camp bed and stark bachelor’s quarters prompted me to inquire if he were gay. He assured me he was, now that he had seen me again. Without thinking the thing through, I took the statement as an insult, which led to a rather unpleasant argument resulting in my calling him a right nancy and his calling me an auld lang-nebbit bitch. Then we fell into each other’s arms and commenced biting and scratching in a way that I can describe only as heaven on earth.
I had taken back with me to eighteenth-century Scotland only the essentials, for I did not wish to be tried for witchcraft again. These items included, of course, photographs of our daughter, Brianna, penicillin tablets for me, should Jamie give me syphilis (twenty years is a long time for a man to go without a tumble), my cell phone and personal computer (I have not mentioned my side trip to the twenty-first century), my collection of Beatles and Stones CDs (remember I had launched myself from the swinging ’60s), and a waxing kit to deforest Jamie’s back.
I myself had returned with a Brazilian wax job, which confused Jamie no end. He rooted around my body in search of my honeypot like a handsome, red-haired pig searching for truffles and was quite agitated that I had razed the foliage in question.
“I dinna ken ye verra weel, after all, Sasquatch,” he said to me sadly. “Ye gang on so aboot the braw sheemach on your heid that you’d think a wee bittie patch o’ hair on your honeypot would nay be any bother to ye. At least ye still ha’ a fine, fat arse.” He sighed and nipped at my posterior; suddenly, I worried that I had not had a tetanus shot in the last five years.
“Awa’ wi’ ye, woman,” he said testily later that day, as we gazed lovingly into each other’s eyes. “Twenty years ago, ye wouldna let me kill Jack Randall, because he was to be the six-times greit-grandfather o’ your husband, Frank. Now ye tell me that I canna kill Hamish MacPherson, because his six-times greit-grandson will make such a brilliant pastrami sandwich at the West End Deli in London, and I canna kill Ploppy Dolittle because his progeny will run the Big and Tall Ladies’ Dress Shoppe in Notting Hill. But Little Neville Chamberlain, the umbrella salesman on Hootman Street in Edinburgh: him, I can kill, though he’s done nay harm, except perhaps for the ten-percent markup he slaps on his umbrellas on rainy days.”
Then we sparred euphorically on the camp bed. After we’d made love in all the positions we knew, I cooed and slipped my tongue into what I hoped was his mouth. Fortunately, it was. All that really mattered, however, was that I was reunited with the man who had whispered to me in my dreams for twenty years; my soul had found its mate again after far too long a separation; and, most important of all, somebody else was going to have to shoulder Brianna’s college tuition. My place was here, with Jamie.