Chapter Twenty Three - Private Road - No Through Traffic
While Carissa and I were making ourselves breakfast and trying to get Corinna up and moving, Mom called on the CB, reminding me that I had a doctor's appointment with Dr. McGraths at 1:30 in the afternoon that day. Since we'd spent part of the morning in the exploration of our psyches, there wasn't much sense in going out fencing that day.
Over and above that, Corinna was still feeling pretty darn sick, but Carissa wasn't very sympathetic to her sister's plight. In her words, she felt Corinna was suffering from a self induced problem and the last thing she was going to do was waste time and sympathy on that sort of thing. I was reminded of Mom's attitude toward Dad if he complained of a hangover, or her reaction if either Wil or I had overindulged in any way.
I got a kick out of that reminder. I'd read a psychology book and remembered that guys often looked for similarities to their mother in the women they chose to be around, especially those they grew close to or eventually married. For some reason it delighted me enough that I couldn't keep it to myself and had to share that tidbit with Carissa. I think it surprised her at first, but then as I described the things that were similar between her and Mom, she saw what I meant. After that, while we ate our breakfast, we began to joke about it.
We were finished our breakfast and had gone out on the porch to think about what we wanted to do that day besides going to the doctor's when she turned to me.
"If I remind you of your Mom, who does Corinna remind you of?" She smiled, quizzically.
"Hmm?" I frowned. "Sort of like Aunt Alice, Tom's mom, but Corinna has an edge to her personality that I can't compare to anyone I know."
"Yeah, I can understand that. You may not have noticed it, but she's got a mean streak a mile wide." Carissa practically whispered and looked over her shoulder as if checking that Corinna couldn't hear her. "I don't know where she gets her temper from, but sometimes she gets very angry over trivial things. And you have to watch out if that happens. She gets vindictive too."
"I've never really noticed that, well, except for her sudden mood swing over Wil and her anger over that."
"It's not Wil that I'd really worried about." Carissa sighed. "Let's go for a walk to see the horses or something."
"Why not go down to the creek, then I can show you that den in the bank where I think the pup went?"
"Oh, yeah! Please!" She smiled. "I'd like that."
So we finished our coffee and left the mugs on the edge of the porch, then walked toward the creek, hand in hand. When we were about a hundred yards from the house, she squeezed my hand and when I glanced at her she was frowning.
"I'd like to convince Corinna to go back to town if I could, but I'm worried she'll argue against it. And, when she's in town, I'm wondering if she can hold her temper about Sandy. Like I said, she's vindictive. Even if Sandy and Wil didn't do anything, she's going to be convinced they did."
"Even with no proof?"
"Unh huh, sometimes I get the feeling that Corinna and I are perfectly alike." She sighed. "However at other times, it's almost as if a switch had been thrown and I have a witch for a sister. I get that feeling about her when she mentions Sandy's name now."
"That sounds weird." I commented, then held up my hand. "Let's not talk for a bit while we sneak close to the creek. Maybe we can see something going on at the den I saw."
She smiled and squeezed my hand to agree, and we crept forward, slowly and carefully, moving as quietly as we could. Getting down on our hands and knees, we crawled forward, using the bushes along the banks to hide ourselves. We were downstream and downwind as well, so we were fairly close when I noticed movement and grasped Carissa's hand gently to warn her.
Duke was laying on a trampled down area not far from the den and the little pup was crawling over him and chewing on his ear once in a while. The old dog seemed to take a lot and not react and I heard Carissa suppress a giggle at the pup's actions. I squeezed her hand once more because I saw more movement even closer to us but almost hidden by a clump of weeds. Shifting over slightly we could see a small tawny female dog who was chewing on part of the carcass of a dead rabbit.
One glance told me she wasn't a coyote. Instead, she looked like a standard Collie, very much like Lassie. The most noticeable thing to me was the fact that she was quite small and had very short hair for a Collie. Size wise, she looked to be about half way between a regular Collie and a Sheltie, but I'd never seen a Collie with hair as short as hers.
I studied her for a moment and although she had an obvious wound on her right rear hip, she was moving easily and wasn't limping. Since the wound wasn't bleeding and didn't appear to be bothering her, I felt a surge of relief. I certainly wouldn't want to have to try to find a way to catch her if she got an infection, but I knew it was too soon to tell since the wound looked so fresh.
Reaching out and touching Carissa's arm, I signalled that we should pull back and move away. She frowned at me, but did as I asked.
When we were a short distance away, she turned to me. "Shouldn't we do something about her leg, after all, she's got a huge cut?"
"Well, I don't know how we could do anything." I sighed. "First we'd have to catch her, and I think that would be a real pain in the butt. Then what could we do, take her into town to the vet? Being penned up and put in a car for that long trip would be extremely upsetting for her, in fact she'd probably be in danger of having a heart attack from fear alone. I think all we can do is keep an eye on her and hope. Don't forget, it looks like she's gone completely wild, totally feral. Right now, that's a wild dog and by rights I should probably shoot her. As it is, she's more danger to the animals on the farm than the wolves or coyotes are."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, wolves run in packs, coyotes usually run in pairs and loose hunting groups. That way they can team up to hunt, She's injured and alone. She has a little pup to feed. On top of that, she doesn't have as much fear of humans as they do. Later on when it gets warmer and game gets more scarce, the chickens are going to be a huge temptation for her, then it won't be long before the sow farrows and has little piglets. Right now I really don't know what to do, especially since Old Duke seems to be friendly toward her. I'd hate to have him spoiled by being around and hunting with her because he's always been great old dog."
"Oh." She said quietly. "I never thought of the situation in that way."
"You're not a farmer, not yet." I chuckled, then laughed at the surprised look that came over her face.
Then I was really surprised because her face changed again. Suddenly she looked extremely determined.
"What's up?"
"Well, that comment about being a farmer reminded me why I came here and I just made up my mind about a couple of things." She said flatly. "Number one; Corinna is leaving. I just can't see her being much help to us and we don't need her here to add any extra problems or complications to our lives. So today, when we go to town, she's coming along and we're dropping her off at home. Number two; while you're at the doctor's office, I'm going to try to find a chance talk to the vet. Perhaps he has an idea about how we can handle the pup's mother. Number three; we're going to the hospital afterward to talk to Grampa Bender about dogs and horses, perhaps he has some ideas for us to help us out. Then if we have time, I think we should go talk to both Daddy and Uncle Frank. At one time both of them were really into buying and selling horses, so they know the ropes and might be able to help you establish a herd."
"Umm, what brought this all on?"
"Well, I came out here because I like you and I wanted to get to know you better while helping you look after this place. Then too, I'd like to know where you and I are going with everything, at least a little clearer than I do now and Corinna is screwing that up. With her here we're not able to relax because she's influencing both of us. All the rest is because of the dog and because of you and your dreams. "Then she smiled at me. "Besides, since I've been here, I've found out that I really do like animals, even chickens."
I grinned at that because I remembered how disgusted she had been about chickens and chicken manure after she'd helped to clean out the chicken coop at home. I teased her about that a little and we did have a short laugh over it, which was probably a good thing because it was the last laugh we had for several hours.
As soon as we were back at the cabin, she went in the bedroom to speak to Corinna. That's when the argument broke out. Carissa managed to keep her temper down and her voice low. Corinna did not. If I had ever felt they were identical before, then the short time during which that argument raged would have disabused me of that idea. Actually, since the bedroom door was closed and I was outside of the cabin on the front porch when it started, I didn't even hear what either one said clearly. I do know that Carissa's voice was quiet, while Corinna was screaming. Considering that she had been complaining about a hangover earlier, I was astounded that she could stand her own volume.
Somehow I was reminded of the rare clashes of will between Mom and Beth and I did the same thing as I would have done if they had been arguing. I headed for somewhere else to give the air a chance to clear.
I was down near the barn, adjusting the length of a latch wire loop on one of the gates, when I heard the horn of the jeep sound and knew Carissa wanted me back at the cabin. Even while I was walking back to the house, I saw her making trip after trip out of the cabin to the back of my car. I knew then that whether Corinna wanted to or not, she was going to town, or at least she wasn't going to be staying with us for the next while. I pitched in and helped Carissa store all of Corinna's boxes and bags in the trunk of my car, then both of us went inside to clean up for our trip to town.
It took a while to load everything and then get ready, but even though I thought we were running a bit late, eventually we set off to go to town, Carissa and I were in the front seat and Corinna in the back. No one spoke much. I think the two of them were both still seething with anger at each other and I didn't want to take a chance on saying anything for fear that I'd set them off again. We were a bit late getting to town, so I drove directly to the doctor's office. I gave Carissa a quick kiss, arranged to meet her at the Chinese cafe across the street from the doctor's office, then stepped out of the car. She slid behind the wheel and drove off, not even giving me a chance to say 'So long' to Corinna.
I was surprised that after the long wait to get in to see Dr. McGraths I was out so fast. He really did very little. He asked me about pain, checked that the casts were standing up to the use I was giving them, warned me not to do too much because I might hurt myself, then told me to make an appointment with his receptionist to come back in three weeks. That was it. I was free to go.
When I stepped outside the doctor's office there was no sign of Carissa or my car, so I jaywalked over to the cafe. When I walked in, I noticed two of the local RCMP officers sitting quietly in a back booth. One of them must have remembered me from the incident at the school because he waved a hand, but I chose to sit at a booth near the front where I could look out at the street. Then I ordered a cup of coffee while I waited for Carissa. I was sitting there quietly, sipping my coffee and thinking about the happenings of the last day or two, when I heard someone else come in and speak to the waitress.
I suppose I wasn't really paying attention to whatever was going on because I'd heard male voices and knew it wasn't Carissa. Seconds later, someone snarled my first name and I looked up to see 'Slimy' Sid and 'Rotten' Raymond standing in the aisle next to the booth. I hadn't seen them approach and they'd taken me by surprise. Trying to ignore them, I just glanced their way, then turned back to look out the window hoping that Carissa would come by soon.
"Oh my, our local cowboy who can't stay on a horse is trying to ignore us, Ray." Sid said through a sneer.
"Oh, Mr White Knight is just in here stocking up on his courage again." Raymond responded snidely. "What are you ordering, Sir Galahad, a hero sandwich?"
"Actually if he saw you two coming, he probably ordered an antacid. That way he'd be able to stomach your stupidity, but, I suppose I should thank you. After all, I imagine you've been entertaining him with your dumb remarks while he was waiting for me." Carissa said loudly from near the door, completely surprising both the idiots and me. "However, we shouldn't waste a lot of time, Boss. Are you almost done your coffee? We've still got supplies to pick up and some fencing to do."
"Boss? Him, what the hell does he do, tell you how to spread your legs." Sid laughed raucously.
"Actually, no! Since he has a broken leg, he hired me to help him manage the crew on a five-thousand-acre ranch where we're both working this summer." Carissa snapped.
"Hah, who would hire a gimped up geek to look after anything?" Ray sneered. "I'll bet it's some imaginary job that your daddies' got for you and they're paying through the nose to keep the two of you out of trouble."
"Yeah, Bitch, just where is this fantastic fucking ranch, anyway? Maybe Ray and I will just drop around one evening and have a little party with you."
"As if I'd tell you anything like that. That would be pretty darn dumb! Especially after all the bragging you did a few months ago about trashing someone's house while they were away for the weekend." Carissa fired back, then turned to me. "Chris, could we please go? At least we could be working and accomplishing something, not hanging around here while these two idiots take turns waving the jawbone of an ass."
"Waving what?" Ray practically screamed, as if he guessed that he'd been insulted, but not really understanding how.
"The jawbone of an ass, but I guess you aren't really waving it are you? That would be rather hard to do, since it's still hanging on your ugly face."
"You fucking whore, I'll . . ." Ray brought his fist up and took a swing at Carissa.
She ducked that swing easily, but Ray was still going after her so tried to I move to stop him. Unfortunately Sid was in my way and shoved me back as I tried to get to my feet. However, he did grab Ray's arm before he could swing again and before either Carissa or I could react in any other way.
"Easy Ray, this isn't the time to lose your cool." He coaxed. "The chinks would be witnesses if you did anything here. Instead, we'll just follow these two geeks. When we find out where they're going, we'll wait for dark, then we can drop in on them and have that party I mentioned."
Just then I heard boots scrape at the back of the cafe and Carissa looked past Sid and Ray. Her eyes got huge.
"Uh oh. I don't think you should have said that." She said quietly.
At the same time one of the cops bellowed. "Hold it! That'll be enough!"
He actually made me jump, but the effect on the two smart ass twerps was a lot more extreme and it was instantaneous. They tried to get away. Since Carissa was standing between them and the door, they tried to shove her out of their road and run, but as she fell backward onto the seat of another booth, her legs kicked out in front of them. The dopes tripped over her. Sid just floundered to his hands and knees, but Ray took quite a fall. He went up and over Sid's back, grinding him into the floor, then lost his footing and landed face first on the tiles.
I heard a dull crack and I thought perhaps Carissa had been hurt, but I couldn't get to her. Sid was gone, but suddenly I had two cops in my way. By the time I got to Carissa, each of the cops had taken charge of one of idiots. Then as one cop kept an eye on the two cretins who stood with their hands against a wall and their feet back and spread, the other cop came back to us.
"Are you okay, Miss Coulter?"
"I think so, Officer." She nodded. "Maybe a bruise or two, but I think that's all that seems to be wrong."
"I suppose you'd be the best judge if you're injured or not, but I think you might sit here for a while to be sure. Unfortunately, we're going to have to over to the doctor's office with this pair. It looks like young Mr. Smithies may have broken his nose and young Parker was walked on rather rudely by his partner, so who knows what could be wrong with him. That means we'll be tying up Dr. McGraths for a short while. It would be a shame to have the victim of an assault forced to stand by while the perp. was treated though."
"Well, we have to go to the hospital to visit someone. While I'm there, could I have one of the staff there check me out?" Carissa smiled weakly.
"I imagine that would be all right. Now, I have to ask, do you want to file assault charges on these two? We overheard the conversation and the slightly veiled threat about following you and retaliating for whatever imagined injury you've done them. We'll be charging them for that, but the assault and battery charge is up to you."
"Assault and battery?" I asked in surprise, probably the first words I'd said since the conversation with Sid and Ray had started.
"Why yes." The cop looked at me in surprise. "After all, they forced her aside as they tried to push past. Just threatening to touch someone is an assault, let alone shove anyone around like they did, that's battery. They can't act like animals and not expect to be treated accordingly, not when they do it in front of witnesses and, in this case, police officers."
"Oh." A slow smile appeared on Carissa's face and she turned her head to look at Sid and Raymond. "I think that's yes, but I'd better consult with my lawyer and my father first, before I lay a charge. I wouldn't want to do anything that might interfere with the pending civil lawsuit we have against these fools. Besides, I was involved with a bit of banter prior to the actual attack."
I was left staring at her because she sounded so different than usual. Heck, right then she sounded like a lawyer and it astonished me. I don't think I'd ever heard her sound quite that perceptive of the whole situation before. I was almost stunned by that on top of everything else that had happened. For the next while I watched everything around me, but didn't feel that I was part of it. Somehow, everything was almost dreamlike, as if I wasn't part of the action. I'm not certain why, but for the next hour or so I felt as if I was back to watching my life unfold before me from outside of myself. It was as if I was watching a movie of someone else. I seemed to have no control of any part of the happenings.
The two officers escorted the two punks outside and across the street to the doctor's office and I finally noticed that old Fong, the owner of the cafe, had moved to the cash register while all the ruckus had been going on. I probably wouldn't have noticed that except that Carissa asked him if she could use the telephone to call her dad before we left for the hospital. I was astonished when Fong led her back to the phone in the kitchen himself. As he left, I noticed he scooped up a cleaver to carry with him. Damn, he'd really expected trouble and I hadn't even seen him move out of the kitchen. Even more surprising, he was letting Carissa use his phone. That was absolutely astonishing. For anyone else, he'd have pointed to the pay phone and just shaken his head. I heard her voice as she started talking to her father, but just then Mrs. Fong came around and offered me a refill of my coffee. It was as if she was trying to get things back to normal, but by then I was no longer in the mood for a coffee or anything else. In fact I was still feeling out of my depth.
When Carissa came out of the kitchen and wanted to go to the hospital, I simply stood, paid for my coffee by leaving some money on the table, then walked out to the car. In the car, she explained that after our visit to the hospital her dad wanted us to drop around his office. At the hospital, Carissa insisted that I should go upstairs to visit Grampa Bender while she went off to find someone to check out her bumps and bruises to see if she was seriously hurt.
Grampa Bender seemed lethargic and muddled too. When I mentioned the Collie bitch and her pup, he nodded and smiled, but had no advice on what to do about her. Instead he began to talk about a distant neighbour, a woman called Leila MacArthur, who had a small ranch further back in the hills. By the time Carissa came in from being checked over, he was falling asleep.
Carissa and I decided that rather than bother him, we might as well let him rest. We left instead, driving directly over to her dad's real estate and insurance business from the hospital and were shown right into his office. It seemed that the police had phoned him only minutes after Carissa had. They were almost insistent that Carissa should lay charges against the dopey duo. They had even asked him if he thought I could be convinced to lay a charge of assault and batter against them as well. I'd completely forgotten that Sid had pushed me back when he'd moved to stop Ray from hitting Carissa, but they'd noticed.
"But he just shoved me back into the booth." I protested.
"Ah, but why were you trying to get up?" Mr. Coulter smiled at me.
"Well, Ray was trying to hit Carissa and . . ."
"And you were going to try to protect her." He smiled. "I have to admire your courage, but you were going to protect her with one broken arm and one broken leg?"
"I'd have done my best. If my sister could put them out of commission with one kick each, I could do something the same with two casts." I grinned at the stupidity of even trying to tackle the two of them in the shape that I was in. "When my adrenaline starts to flow, I just react."
"Oh, sure! And when have you ever done something without thinking about it." Carissa came back at me. "By the way, how come you weren't saying anything to those assholes? Oh! Did you know the cops were in the back booth?"
"Well, I did see the cops when I came in, but I was just being quiet, hoping Sid and Ray would get tired of chewing me out and leave."
"Oh, yeah, as if they've ever shut up about anything." She snapped. "But if you knew the cops were there, why didn't you say something to me? I'd have handled it a lot differently if I knew that."
"With you three yowling at each other like tomcats on a fence, when did I get a chance to say anything?"
"Whoa you two, don't get into a fight over it. I've already got one daughter who says she needs her Daddy because she broke up with her guy."
"Oh Daddy, Corinna's in one of her moods again." Carissa sighed. "She managed to get drunk last night and she was a handful. I'm sorry, but I had to bring her back home. She's just too much for me when she's like this. I just can't take it when she goes off the deep end like this. It drives me nuts. I think after a couple of days of her, both Chris and I would have been crawling up the walls."
"Is it bad?" Mr. Coulter frowned.
Carissa simply nodded. "I told Mom that it's the worst that I've ever seen her. Last night she was influencing me and at first I didn't even know it. It wasn't until she fell asleep that I even realised what had happened. Then this morning, when I told her I wanted her to come to town for help, her temper simply blew out of this world. She just let it go and screamed at me like a banshee. Luckily, on the way into town she quit yelling. I don't know how we'd have managed to drive nearly thirty miles, locked in a car, with her screaming her head off."
"Damn." Mr. Coulter growled.
I realised then that Carissa had started to tell me about the trouble Corinna had, but we'd broken off the conversation before she'd finished. At that time I'd assumed it was a temporary problem, however now that the subject had come up again, I realised it might be chronic condition. Up until then I hadn't thought about either of the two's tempers much, but now I realised that even while we'd been going to school I had seen examples of Corinna's occasional irrational behaviour. I had to wonder if it wasn't a medical problem of some sort, but at the moment, I didn't feel I should pry.
Although the topic seemed to be preying on both of their minds, they set it aside and we had a short discussion about whether or not to lay charges against Sid and Ray. I was willing, but Carissa felt that she shouldn't. She thought that she might have egged them on by trading insults with the two of them. In the long run, she decided to take a suggestion that I made, she'd talk to the cops about what had been said and ask their advice.
So Carissa and I drove to the police station. When we went inside, I spoke to the police first, then made up my mind what charge I wanted Sid to face when he went to court. I signed a complaint of assault, but not battery. I felt that Sid had pushed me back to protect me from Raymond more than to hurt me. Even though the police argued for the stiffer charge, I felt I was being fair and told them my reasoning. I thought Ray led Sid into almost any of the problems they had with the law.
Carissa talked to the officers for at least fifteen or twenty minutes longer than I had. During that time they managed to convince her that before Ray lost his temper, the verbal byplay had been rough, but she'd been far less insulting than either Sid or Ray had been. In actual fact they complimented us both on maintaining our tempers while we'd been insulted by the two guys. Of course the matter of the use of vile language in public was brought up. Both cops had laughed and said Carissa hadn't use one swear word. I thought she had, but they insisted she hadn't. That's when one officer told Carissa and me where her misquote about the jawbone of an ass came from. I think that was the point of their argument that convinced her to sign another complaint but like mine, it was just for assault.
Now they had a signed complaint of assault against both of the twits. On top of that they had written out several other accusations including offering threats in front of a witness, causing a disturbance in a public place, along with three or four other charges. I thought at that point that we'd be able to leave, but they'd heard something else mentioned that they were interested in, the break-ins of temporarily vacant houses on outlying farms. Both Carissa and I had to admit that we'd heard both Ray and Sid mention things that implied they had been there and we'd heard lots of rumours about it, but neither of us could give them any proof. In other words we weren't good witnesses for those crimes. We were able to suggest other people they might ask about them though.
We finally left the police station at almost four in the afternoon. After that we still had to visit the grocery store and I wanted to be sure to stop at the lumber yard for some lime and some fly spray to use in the outhouse. It was almost five when we drove out of town and I'd only gone a couple of miles when I almost turned back. It was only after looking at my wrist watch and seeing that his office would be closed that I gave up on the idea of visiting the veterinarian about that darn stray dog and her wounded leg. I wasn't about to pay extra charges for a stray dog and after five I would have been charge evening rates.
Even at that, by the time we got back to the cabin, unloaded the groceries and did a few chores, it was almost seven o'clock. Of course by then, we'd changed our clothes and I'd fed the animals, then shut the chickens and the young stock inside, while Carissa had packed away the groceries and made a quick meal. We'd cleaned up after supper, made coffee and were sitting out on the front porch before either of us felt like talking about our day and even then we both agreed that we were tired, very tired.
We were sitting on the old bench and I had one arm around her shoulder when I looked at her and grinned. "Do you have any ear plugs?"
"Ear plugs?" She turned and stared at me with a quizzical look on her face.
"Unh huh. If I kept you awake the other night, tonight might be worse. Mom always said that when I was extra tired I snored the most. Wil used to say that I sounded like a chain saw in a fir forest used by a logger working on a deadline for extra footage."
"Well, perhaps I'll just poke you in the ribs, but if you snore too loud, I can always go sleep in the back porch." She laughed, but her laughter died out quickly.
I looked at her and knew instantly that she was thinking about Corinna. She confirmed that thought a moment later.
"Damn, I feel responsible for Corinna in a way." She sighed. "I wish we knew what her problem is."
"Well, I don't know why you feel responsible. In fact, I didn't even know she had a problem, but now I can understand some of the things that I've seen over the years."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, like some of the times at school when she was touchy or the times when she'd get angry. I used to think it was both of you, but after realising that you're so close, I can see how it would affect you too."
"And you still tried to be our friend all those years?"
"Yeah. Well, sort of. I think really I'd given up, but I suppose giving up was a halfway measure too. I mean I still hadn't written you off, not the way I did some of those idiots."
"Like Sid and Ray?"
"Oh, those dumb assholes? I gave up on them ten minutes after I met them. Do you know that each one of them tried to beat up on me at one time or other? One time the two of them tackled me at once, but luckily it was at recess and Tom was around."
"What happened?"
"We whupped 'em." I grinned, "Do you know they're the same age as Wil? He came along just after they'd given up and cried 'uncle.' He laughed at them and teased them about getting their butts kicked by two kids who were two or three years younger than them. I think his teasing was worse for them to take than being beat up was."
"I never knew you had any fights at school." She stared at me.
"I don't think you paid much attention to me." I grinned wryly. "I think everyone in our class thought I was just a brain and the teacher's pet."
"Oh, don't be so sure." She snickered. "I always thought you were the brain all right, but on top of that I thought you were a little gentleman, almost prissy."
"What?"
"Well, I did." She giggled. "I think if any of the girls knew that you had a habit of beating up on those two idiots you'd have been darn popular. I know I'd sure have reacted differently."
"Darn." I grinned at her. "Just think of all the things I missed out on."
"Well, why don't I try to make up for that, right now." She laughed and stood up, grabbing my hand.
I just grinned, and stood up to follow her lead.
Even as tired as we were when we went to bed, she left me thoroughly convinced that I'd missed a lot by being shy, but it didn't really bother me. Instead, Carissa made me realise that I was extremely satisfied that was she with me at that moment.