Seperation Anxiety
Redoubling her efforts, she ran as fast as she could, hoping to outrun the being that, in her mind, plagued her every step. Night, and the shadows that lurked within its vast cape, could make anyone believe that she was mere moments away from being obliterated at the hands of an unknown enemy. But for the sound of her feet hitting the pavement with each stride she took, there was silence. It was this silence that put a fear in her so primordial that her heart pounded as if to leap out of its confinement and her lungs swelled until she determined those, too, might very well burst. Or her legs, which were strong from her years spent running regularly, would simply give out. But none of this happened as she streamed around street corners, looking for some sort of sanctuary. And then it appeared. A back entrance to a shop that she knew only because she had traversed these alleyways in her younger years, a door cracked open in a miniscule way, a light source from inside the door, a ray of hope in the dark of night.
The duration of her flight was a mere fraction in time, though it had seemed like an eternity. Why did it have to be her, she wondered. And why on this night? Of all nights, this was supposed to be a special one. Just she and her mom, whom she had not seen in several years. She always had a soft spot for the underrepresented in the world and her country, in particular, always felt some kind of compassion for those who, in her mind, were forced to commit acts they normally would not have committed. But now, as she gasped for every bit of oxygen she could get that the atmosphere permitted, she realized that maybe, just maybe, she had erred in her thoughts and that she should have been more realistic to the ways of the world and those within it who have no regard for life, their own or others. The fear that would paralyze many kept her going.
She looked around the room. There was not anything out of the ordinary, she thought. It was just a pawn shop with all kinds of things one would expect to see, old trinkets, some guitars hanging from the walls, outdated televisions, jewelry, and even some board games she remembered having played with her parents as a child. Those years were long gone, however, and she did not have time to dwell, or even reflect, on the past. The air in the room was as damp and chill as it had been outside, which must have been a result of the door staying ajar for as long as it had. There had been a violent storm disrupting the calm earlier in the day. She wondered how long it had been that way and if anyone were even still here. Not knowing how close her pursuer was at present, she did not dare say a word for fear she would give away her location. Instead, she closed the door behind her, looked for a light switch, and a phone, and prayed to a God about whose existence she remained skeptical ever since she learned of the Holocaust as a young girl, that this cruel pursuer would not find her here, not ever.
She shut the door and made absolutely sure that it did not make any noise upon its meeting the frame. Only hinges in need of lubrication made any sound. A light switch could be seen about ten paces away, and she glided toward it and turned it off. She walked toward the counter and sat down behind it, hugging her knees to her chest, not even daring to find a phone, not even needing to since she had her cellular one, she realized. When she had to run, she did not even think about the fact that it was in her pants pocket. How easy it would have been to dial 911 while running, she thought. Easier than trying to find some kind of refuge, probably. Moments of profound irrationality were displayed, she knew, by those in extreme situations functioning under extreme duress.
Knowing that her mom would be worried about her and also knowing that her mom would know what to do, she decided to call, not concerning herself with who might be waiting outside the door for just the slightest sound that would alert him to her presence nearby. She was fairly certain she had created a good distance between them, but she remembered those wild eyes, the hair sticking out in all directions, white, long, and unkempt, though, surprisingly, face newly-shaven. Who could this person be? And why was he chasing her? Nothing about it made any sense, her being approached by someone claiming to be her father. Her dad had been dead for almost ten years now, and this person, whose face she remembered clearly, was not her dad. He must have had her confused with someone else, that or it was simply a ploy to get her to come with him, a rather flimsy one, though, given that most people knew the mortal status of their biological parents. But when he grasped her arm with such force, such strength for a man his age, she knew she had to run. A well-placed kick to one of his knees was enough to loosen his grip so she could get away, and she did not look back. There was no one else on the street to whom she could ask for help, as it was late, almost ten o'clock, and she was on the way to meet her mom at her house near the town's downtown district.
As she sat and waited for her mom to pick up, she swore she could hear the door beginning to move just slightly, but she did not know if it were just the wind increasing in intensity just a bit or if someone really were trying to get in.
"Hello," said the voice on the other end.
"Mom, it's me. I'm in trouble," she said with urgency.
"Trouble, Jill, what kind of trouble? Are you all right?" Her mom's voice turned to grave concern for her daughter.
"I don't know, really. I have to keep my voice down. Someone claiming he was Dad came up to me on the street as I was walking to your place from the hotel and then grabbed my arm when I refused to talk any longer." It used to be safe to walk the streets as a young girl even at this time of night.
"What! Dad's been gone for ten years. You and I both know that. He was killed in a plane crash. Where are you? How are you!" she asked, urgency in her voice.
"I'm fine, I think. I'm in a shop downtown. Jim's Pawn Shop," she said. "I remember this place from so many years ago. The back door was open and there was even a light left on, but I haven't seen any sign of anyone just yet."
"Have you called the police?" her mom asked.
"No, actually, you're the first one I called. I should have called the police, I know. I'm kind of not operating with all of my wits right now." A trace of light laughter escaped her voice box.
"Well, I'll come there right away, and I will call the police and let them know where you are. Baby, you hang tight and I will be right there, okay?"
"Okay, I'll be right here. Thanks, Mom for saving me. Again." There was a time she would never forget when, as a little girl, a man had trapped her inside of a bathroom in a department store when she was eight years old. The man had been following her throughout the store, waiting for his chance for mother and daughter to separate. When her mom, only a small distance away, heard her cry for help, she immediately burst into the bathroom, smashing the door right against the perpetrator's head and shoulder, knocking him back and allowing daughter to pass through the gap that was created between them. Little Jill would always remember that incident. Unfortunately, before her mom could get real help, the man had fled, but she had prevented something potentially awful from happening to her daughter that day.
"That's what moms are for, and besides, I can't let anything happen to my only daughter. Will see you soon." She hung up.
Just then, she heard a noise from above. It sounded as if something fell off the wall perhaps and onto the floor. Whatever it was, it sent goose bumps up and down her arms. She could then hear a door open and accompanying footsteps walking down a staircase and, she swore, a vague voice in the background. Someone was in here! There must have been stairs that she did not see as she came in. Peeking around the counter, she looked out the glass front door and window. There was nothing but night and the street lamps that illuminated the buildings. Who knew what lurked out there, watching her, waiting for her to make one wrong move? She was not confident that her pursuer had given up his chase, but someone else was going to find out soon that he had an intruder in his shop, that is, unless she could hide herself impeccably. That is, unless she could get out of this building before her mother showed up.
The night was spinning rapidly out of control, she decided.
He sits at the table eating his breakfast. Eggs, bacon and a glass of orange juice. He chews his food noisily enough that the others sitting close enough to him to hear are visibly disturbed. A periodic, pronounced cough into a handkerchief would have been annoying to most who have the good fortune to sit near him, but when he examines one of his projections, it is enough to make one of the small restaurant's patrons move to another seat, far away from this older gentleman.
He does not make eye contact with the lady who moves. Instead, he files it away in his mind as proof of others' dislike of him. Never one to be too self-critical, lest he really discover the truth, he is resigned to the credo of ‘it must be someone else's fault that I am unhappy.' All familiar ties are missing from his life, either by natural causes or by choosing to no longer associate with him because of his incorrigible behavior. If politics is largely about personality, it is no wonder that he has never won an election. He had tried in his younger years to attain important positions within his city's local government, but no one wanted to work alongside him, and word had already spread about how he liked to frequent adult establishments and drank from one end of twilight to the other. While public service is not his calling, he has no shortage of criticism for those in it.
As he eats his breakfast, he simultaneously stares out the window. The sun seems to shine right into his irises. His old-style, plastic, large-framed glasses, however, create a glossy shield before his eyes so that no one can begin to see into them. It is as if, for the moment, there are no eyes behind the lenses, so distorted by the sun's rays are they. But he does have eyes, and the ladies from his younger days attested that they were the kind of blue eyes a girl could find herself forgetting who she was if she looked into them for too long. But those days are over, and now the ladies who once used to laugh at his stories and fawn over him are only turned off by that cough and abrasive personality that has overtaken him.
"Miss," he says roughly as his waitress passes by. "I'm out of orange juice and have been so for over five goddamn minutes. When I was your age and if I would have so neglected a customer, I would have been fired," he says while laughing, as if to take away the sting from his criticism just a bit. Meanwhile, all eyes are focused upon this poor waitress, who is probably only working this job to pay for her college education.
"Sir," she says in a soothing southern voice, "I really am sorry about your wait. It's just that we've been rather busy this morning and one of our girls called in sick. I do apologize." He looks her up and down slowly, because he can, her sleek white, firm legs shining in the morning sun, her brown hair put up so perfectly, a portion of it falling over one shoulder so delicately, and her ample mouth separated just enough makes him long for the days when he could perform in ways that would have made her wild with ecstasy. Of this, he is certain.
"Well," he says, "I guess it's all right, it's just that things have changed these days. The South isn't the South anymore. People just don't care." His eyes met hers intensely.
"What do you think, young lady, of this president we have running our country?" he asks, expecting her response to be of equal measure to the opinion he holds.
"Oh, I think being a president must be hard. You never can make everybody happy. I like him a lot, though, for a lot of reasons," she explains.
"Name one," he says harshly, eyes down turned, stuffing his mouth with a fork full of scrambled eggs, several egg particles escaping as he chews.
"He was great after 911 and you could really tell he cared about those poor people in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Even though he's done some things some of us around here aren't too proud of, I like to think that he's a good guy overall."
"Ha ha! You know, there's probably someone out there who thought the same thing about Adolph Hitler, too."
Noticeably bothered by the man's insistence and arrogance, she decides to stop talking about this topic.
"Let me get your juice. Hold on and I'll be right back." This poor young girl is a mere insect in a spider's web. There are those people in the world who make it their number one aspiration to suck everything that is good from others before they are finally done with their meal. He has become, perhaps has always been, one of these people. His is on the outside very gruff and abrupt, on the inside, cool, calm, and calculating. He enjoys toying with others, observing their reactions, knowing what kind of reactions he will elicit, waiting to continue the game with others along the way. Years spent without a companion have made him hard. Harder. More mean. It has been years since he felt the warm touch of a woman.
Almost as he is about to say something disparaging to this waitress who has been only so kind to him, he changes his focus. A face, a beautiful face at that, puts him in a stone-still position. It is the face of his only daughter whom he had lost to cancer only five years ago. The face of the only person who ever even called to see how he was doing or sent him a birthday card or even, when she could, traveled an almost thousand-mile distance to see him. Make no mistake about it, it is she.
His waitress returns with a full glass of orange juice.
"There you go, sir. Please, again, my apologies for your wait." She turns to go.
"Young lady," he said in a tone that most would have found offensive but one that she had grown accustomed to working at such a place, "if you have a minute, please have a seat. I'd like to tell you something."
This girl could not have possibly conceived in her wildest of imaginations what it is that he is going to lay before her. What will come out of his mouth. The way things are going, it will be another one of his projectiles. But though another strong cough does come, that is all there is. She sits down, slowly and reluctantly.
"I can't stay too long. Other customers will complain about their service," she laments politely, thinking he will gladly keep her from them while complaining about her own lack of service.
"Right now, I'm the only one in this place who is of any concern to you. Know that," he says, looking down upon her through his glasses, as an aristocrat surely regards a peasant.
She almost stands up but just wants to indulge the gentleman, a loose term at best, in hopes that he will leave soon so that she and her customers can go back to having a normal, relaxing, as relaxing as serving double the number of people to which you are accustomed can be, time. She feels badly for her customers and wonders where this man has come from, what planet, even.
"Do you see that girl outside? Right there?" he points, and her head turns. Her hair is a little shorter than he remembered his daughter having, the nape of her neck exposed, though she has the same walk, same build, the same kind of style even.
"Yes, I see her," she says. She is a very attractive lady, who must be in her middle thirties.
"That's my daughter," he says and reclines just a bit, folding his arms and smiling.
"Oh, really? Why don't you invite her in?" she asks, excitement in her voice.
"Are you crazy?!" he booms. As if there are not enough people already looking in their direction, his wild outburst commands more eyes to turn their way.
"It was not a question meant to be anything other than friendly. I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way," she profusely apologizes.
"You just don't understand," he says as he uncrosses his arms and reaches for his orange juice. "It's my daughter, all right, but she died several years ago. Cancer. God-awful disease. Pray you don't get it!" He drinks. "You know you people here should really serve alcohol. Now, I have to wait until lunch before I can get a real drink."
"Well, I'm sorry if I don't understand, but if your daughter is dead, then how can that be her?" she asks.
"She," he corrects her. "The schools don't even teach young people the right way to speak anymore. It's a shame." He shakes his head, strands of white hair moving freely.
The waitress becomes ever more curious, and those who can actually hear enough of the story to make out its details become more attuned to the pair close by.
His daughter about whom he speaks stops only briefly on the opposite side of the street to investigate one of the buildings. Upon looking at the sign on the door, she turns back toward the street so that he can make out her face clearly enough and then turns to walk out of his view.
"I don't really know, but there's no doubt in my mind that is she. God works in strange ways, doesn't He?" he asked the girl sitting next to him. "You can get back to work now. You go and make some boy jealous." It is his best attempt at a compliment. He leaves his payment on the table.
Everyone in the restaurant, that is, everyone except this older man it seems, feels compassion and sympathy—and dread, for they would not have wanted to be in her shoes—for this young girl. She has merely stumbled into the wrong situation at the wrong time, though she will probably remember every detail for the rest of her life.
"Before I go, sir, I would like to ask where you are from." You have a very pronounced, and, might I say, dignified southern accent, but I've never seen you around this area before."
He obliges with an abridged history of his life. "I grew up in the South, spent most of my boyhood days in rural Arkansas, moved to Tennessee when I was ten, and have spent the rest of my time in South Carolina, right on the coast. Lincoln, whom I will never forgive for terrorizing the Southern way of life," he says shaking his finger at the pretty waitress, "probably said it best when he told a biographer that his story was a tale from the annals of the poor. I had nothing when I was your age and younger, and now I feel as though I have nothing left, though I will never want for money, not another day so long as I live! I long to be close to the ocean so that I can look out at its great expanse during my last days, so I can know how big is God's world and how meaningless and empty it is all at the same time. Make your own meaning and fill your life up full with everything you can, darlin', everything you can." He coughs into his handkerchief.
The waitress, after spending more time than she knows she should have with this stranger, gets up and attends to her customers. Not one was upset with her, and that morning she made much more than normal in gratuities.
The door shutting behind him, the old man steps out into the brilliant light of the outside world and pulls his light jacket around him tightly. Though spring has just begun to settle in on this quiet, tucked-away southern town, it is still a bit chilly for his taste. He has been traveling in the northern United States for a couple of months, seeing places where he had extended family at one point in his life, some unknown relatives and some better known. He has traveled as far west as the Colorado River before it crosses into Utah (he could not ever compel himself to set foot in the state where Joseph Smith, Jr. founded Mormonism; as far as he was concerned, Smith got just what he deserved in his final days) and as far east as Ohio, taking in the wondrous sight of Lake Erie before finally turning his compass south for what might be his last return trip home. He is not getting any younger and he does not enjoy being far from home anymore. It will only be a matter of time, he thinks, before he will have to pay someone to take care of him, not because he is feeble and frail, but because he knows his mind is going, forgetting things he knows it should remember. And it frustrates him beyond belief.
He studies her for quite some time. How to approach her? He is unsure of himself. For what is the first time in quite a long time. He does not know how to act. He wants a drink. But a drink these days is at a dive on the road, typically. He will have to wait until he arrives home before he can go back to his morning gin and tonic. This orange juice nonsense is for a much younger man, one who cares about impressing a young lady. But then again, he does not want to make a negative impression on this one. He thinks about Will Rogers' saying, the sentiment of never getting a second chance to make a first impression. He will remain guarded and watch where she goes and will wait for the right time to approach her. What will he even say? He wonders.
"Jill Summerfield, is that you?!" a familiar voice from behind the counter exclaimed.
Almost before she could even look up, a great bear of a man came rushing up to her to give her a fierce embrace. Standing almost six-and-a-half-feet tall was Don, "Brickyard" as his friends so affectionately referred to him, Wallace, who had owned and operated a candle and stationary store—of all things—for the last thirty-odd years. Called ‘Candles and Calligraphy', a name chosen by Don himself, C ... C was the preeminent candle and stationary store for miles around. Some in the community poked fun at Don for, on the one hand, seeming so masculine because of his build and gait, but employed in "women's work." He was a family man but also a tough guy, worthy of starring or playing even a supporting role in any Martin Scorsese film. Don never seemed to mind much, and anyway, no one was going to tell him to his face that he thought he was playing for the other team because no one wanted to see just how far a punch from his long, stocky arms might launch him.
Wriggling out from his clutches, though certainly not as easily as a bar of soap slips between wet hands, Jill managed to regain her balance and breath.
"Yes, Donny, it's me. How have you been?"
"How have I been? That's a laugh. You know how I've been," he said while raising his arm and gesturing around the store. "How and where have you been?"
"Well, it wasn't easy leaving the South, but I stopped working for a law firm in Chattanooga a few years ago and moved to South Dakota. I had an offer I couldn't refuse. I wanted to feel as if I were actually helping the people I promised to serve, not just the ones who could afford the high-priced lawyer fees. I help represent Native Americans to make sure that they get a fair shake these days and that their culture and image is not merely used as a plaything for the rest of society." She thought she may have gone too far in her description, as she had been known to do throughout her entire life.
"Sounds pretty liberal," he said laughing.
She blushed and smiled a wide smile. "You know me. Always one for a cause."
"I remember you from years ago when your mom and you would come in here. She always talked a lot about you when you were gone to college. How you wanted to help those who couldn't help themselves. I remember that. And I remember when she finally came in after we had all found out that your dad passed. Mary was such a rock," he said in his kindest voice.
If only he could have seen the many nights she cried herself to sleep, she thought. That fateful night when she discovered her dad had been in a plane crash while traveling to Boston to visit a longtime college friend, how the inclement weather was just inclement enough to cause the pilot to misjudge his landing. A typical landing speed for a plane this size was 120 knots at an angle of two-and a-half to three degrees. His plane tried to make its landing at almost ten degrees and a speed close to 130 knots. He and two hundred and ninety nine others died aboard that jetliner. Pictures showed the aftermath of the fatal landing and proved, once again, that no one could outmaneuver the laws of physics. It was a tragedy that spread through the entire town, and people came together in ways that surprised, and humbled, Jill.
"I know, Don. There's not a day that doesn't go by that I don't think about my dad and about what he did for me and I wonder ‘what if?' all the time. It doesn't ever do any good, but I wonder. I wanted to be just like him, the kind of person he was. He would help anyone who needed it, in work, in life, in anything."
"Jill, sometimes, well, no I won't impose on you."
"No, go on," she said.
"Let me just say that we can't always know what good will come out of bad situations. I can tell you one thing, I'm thrilled that you stopped in today! How could I have known that I would have been graced by your presence?"
"You could not have." She smiled.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the aromatic fragrances in the store. Candles of all scents and hues lined the shelves along the walls. These were the best-smelling candles to which she had ever put her nose. In all of the indoor malls she had been to all across the country, there were no candles that compared to the ones that Don Wallace sold in his shop. The vanillas were so good and strong that they made one truly believe she had a vanilla sundae in her hand. The mulberry had such a syrupy-sweet smell that someone could easily have substituted it for a glaze on his pancakes. They were that good. The back of his shop contained all of the stationary she and her mom used to buy for her to write thank you notes for birthday and Christmas gifts. Many years had passed—many, many—she thought, since those days, and she looked back on that time of her life with the utmost fondness, the one exception the loss of her father at such an early age. He passed just before her tenth birthday, leaving a void that would probably never be filled.
"So, are you married?" he asked, walking back to the other side of his counter.
She leaned up against the top of the counter with her hip, her proximity so close now that she could clearly see the label of the candle burning brightly. The label displayed clearly what she knew would have been just as magnificent to the senses as if it were right in front of her. Peach Cobbler.
"What has Mom told you?"
"Your mom, shame on her," he said in an affected deeper-than-usual voice, "has not been in for ages. I see her from time to time, but we never seem to have the time to stop and swap stories. That's how life goes. Once I asked how you were, and she said you were good and that you were betrothed. But I don't see a ring." He pointed to her left hand.
Again, she blushed.
"No, I can't seem to keep men in my life for more than five years, apparently." She had no problem being candid around Don. He was just one of those people that so many found so easy to talk to that he probably had the pleasure of hearing almost everyone's sob story who visited his store.
"I was engaged last year, but we just had too many differences. He decided to tell me, during the planning stages of our wedding, that he really didn't see himself having kids. That he thought at one point he wanted to and then all of a sudden realized it would impede his goals."
"Which were?" asked Don, elbows resting on the high counter.
"That's the thing! He didn't even really have any!" She laughed and shook her head.
"But that's the honest-to-God's truth. I wish it weren't, but I lived it. It is! It was. At some point, I felt as if I were more of his mother than his partner."
"Oh, boy," said Don. "That's quite a doozy of a tale. What did he do, anyway?"
"He was a salesman for a cell phone company who dreamed of being a famous musician."
"Let me guess. He was a drummer."
"How did you know?" she asked, incredulous.
"Oh, I used to be in a band myself when I was a lot younger. Let me just tell you I had a feeling. Are you up for a joke?"
"Of course, Don, always."
"What do you call the drummer without a girlfriend?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"I don't know. Screwed?"
"Ha. Close! Homeless."*
"That's a good one!"
"So how long are you in town?" he asked.
"Just long enough to visit with my mom and maybe see some sights while I'm here. You know, parks where Dad and I used to play. I'm kind of in a nostalgic stage in my life, where I am not sure how exactly to keep it moving forward. Professionally, yes, I will always be able to do that, but I am thirty-eight, have no children, want them, of course, but have no viable candidate for a Mrs. Jill Summerfield."
Leaning as close to her as possible, while at the same time still giving her a sense of personal space, Don whispered, "There's your problem right there. You expect someone to take your name. A guy's not gonna do that, especially not one down around here, not that you are looking for one from around our neck of the woods, but—" Suddenly, the door chime sounded, alerting the owner and his visitor to another presence. It was an older gentleman and his wife, regular customers come to see what, if any, new scents awaited their eyes, noses, truly. Don waved to them.
"I tell you what, Don," Jill said in a confident tone, "we can continue this conversation later, since, after all, you have a business to run and I will be here for a few days, but let me ask, just for argument's sake—I am a lawyer, after all—what would it hurt for a man to give up his last name for a woman's in its place? We do it without thinking sometimes and then no one can ever find us afterwards. ‘Well, I don't know what happened to her; I knew her when she used to be.'"
"Yes," he said, "but then you get to form new friends who will remember you always, or at least until you get divorced and remarried and can do it all again." Don's grin spread from cheek to cheek.
"Never lose that sense of humor," Jill said.
"I don't plan to," he replied. "Say, I'll go ahead and leave you alone for a while so you can actually look around the store and perhaps add to my coffers just a bit." He leaned in close so only she could hear, "Who knows, I may cut you a discount."
She patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for his kindness, if not for his chauvinistic attitude, and walked away from the counter. The couple who had recently entered now approached the counter, seeing that the opportunity was ripe for their own chance to visit.
The smells of the candles as she held them in her hands brought back so many memories of her life as a young girl in these parts. Mornings just like these. Some things had remained the same in all the years she had been away; some things had obviously changed. Their were more traffic lights, for example, but not many. If she could have somehow traveled back in time, she would have, would have changed the fate of her father, would have kept turning back time to make sure that that event never happened, would have always remained a little girl because everyone likes little girls and there is nothing quite like being hugged by your daddy. But she did not have a time machine and she knew that it was time to wake up and face life's realities. Things only get more difficult as you get older. More difficult and more complicated, she realized. Would she ever find someone to replace her ex-fiance, whom she invested so much time and energy and love and, well, money even? She remembered her dad being the optimist in the family, her mom the realist-sometimes-bordering-on-pessimist. Right then, she knew, she only wanted to make her dad proud. She wished he could see her.
"Don," she said after she opened her eyes, "you have a good day and I hope to see you before I leave. I'll buy one of these before I head back, I promise," she said, holding a butternut creme candle.
"I sure hope so." He winked and then looked as if he had remembered something all of a sudden. "Have you seen your mom yet?"
"No, she's working all day today at the hospital, but we're meeting later tonight."
"You be sure to tell her I said ‘hi', won't ya?"
"I'll do it," she said and gave a quick nod for emphasis.
With that, Jill turned to open the door and exited. She did not, however, notice the older man walking down the sidewalk away from her, his hair sticking out in all directions, his jacket torn on one elbow, and a cough coming from somewhere deep in his chest could be heard from many yards away. She turned right, as he continued to walk left, she east, he west, and she failed to notice him stop, turn, and study whom he believed to be his daughter.
Lunch. What to do for lunch, she thought. She definitely did not want to return to her hotel just yet. She figured she would be spending enough time there as it were already later in the day. She had high hopes of a nap and then another shower before it was all said and done.
As she walked away from Don Wallace's shop, her stomach turned over one time, groaning its song for food. Italian sounded good to her, so she walked three blocks, a light breeze blowing her amber hair back, sunglasses protecting her eyes from some debris that had been kicked up because of it. Malzone's. She had not eaten there for years, but somehow it called to her from beyond time. It was the hangout when she was in high school and she was hopeful it would still be there when she arrived.
Crossing the street and rounding the corner, she could see it now not far off. With its Italian flag proudly displayed in the window, there Malzone's sat on display for all the world to see, for those to discover authentic Italian food or for those whom had already reached enlightenment and would return for more. Again, she thought, some things just do not ever change. She wondered if she would run into anyone she knew from her younger days. It was Wednesday, after all, and she surmised that the chance of seeing someone she recognized was slim. But the way the day was going, who could tell?
Stepping into Malzone's, she was immediately taken back to a place of yesteryear. The sweet smell of the sauce and also the fresh scent of newly-baked French bread wafted through the entire place. Certain scents instantly trigger memories; and while we cannot remember each and every situation in which those scents were present, we do stop to wonder where in our past we encountered a particular odor. She was no different. She froze, remembering times on Friday nights with her friends after football games. She missed all of them, though she had lost touch with almost every one of them. The only time she ran into anyone from her high school days was when she would visit her mom and they would go to the town's hamburger and French fry joint, where a girl with whom she did not fraternize too much in school, though each was aware of the other and liked one another well enough, had been working ever since high school. She was the manager, yes, but Jill wondered if she ever regretted not going to college or, in her opinion, making something of her life.
The girl at the counter had her back turned, talking to someone Jill could not see. There was some commotion in the back, and she swore that she knew that voice that she could not see.
The girl turned, her long black hair swirling to catch up with the rest of her face. She looked frustrated, but she was pleasant toward her. These days, she thought, it was so difficult to find good people who worked customer service roles. But this young, twenty-something girl looked promising.
"Hello," she said. "What can I get you?"
There were very few people in the Italian restaurant, as she got there before the noon rush, apparently.
"I'd like the personal-sized Italian sausage and mushroom. Easy cheese and extra marinara, please. Crust as close to burned, if you can." Jill smiled.
"Of course. Would you like something to drink?"
"Oh, yes, sorry. Small soft drink. You still do free refills, right?"
"Absolutely, ma'am," the girl replied politely.
How she did not like to hear that designation! On the one hand, it was a sign of respect from someone significantly younger than you, usually; on the other, it was a sure sign that you were old.
Before the girl could get her cup, however, a voice exploded from the back. This time Jill heard a loud bang and then something else that sounded like something fell off a wall or shelf and reverberated loudly on the floor. She wondered what on earth was going on in the back. And if it would delay her lunch. She had worked up an appetite during the course of the morning. Probably all of the walking that she had done. She did not like to drive unless necessary and did everything in her power to stay physically fit. But everyone, she rationalized, had to splurge sometimes and there was no way she was going to pass up an opportunity to eat at Malzone's after traveling all this way to see her mom. Before the day was over, she thought, she might even pay her a visit at the hospital. She decided, though, that she did not want to disrupt her work, but still reserved a visit as an option later in the day.
Storming out of the a door about three paces to the right of the counter came a woman wearing a pearl necklace, thin, green designer sweater and black slacks, with sharp-looking Jimmy Choo Roman-style sandals. The woman's head was shaking back and forth in disgust and she was looking at the floor, cigarette dangling from her left hand, ashes ready to fall to the floor in a millisecond. Jill had noted earlier that there was a bit of taint to the pleasing smell of marinara and fresh bread, though it was just a trace. And now it was more than a trace.
The woman's head was framed with the most wild, puffed up, and out, hairdo Jill had ever seen. It bordered on the ridiculous. Truthfully, it crossed the border of ridiculous and made straightaway for the absurd. But the instant she saw the woman's face, a mask of animal fats and various dusts that constitute makeups, and the crimson red lipstick that lined her ultra-thick lips, she knew it was none other than Sally Rae. Sally Rae Dalbo, to be precise.
Many years ago, Sally Rae had married Anthony Dalbo, a hotheaded young man with a reputation for braggadocio, in some ways reaffirming the stereotype of the fighting Italian. He was a tough guy, though there was also a soft side to him, one that many girls found charming. In fact, he could talk his way out of tricky situations just as easily as he could fight his way out of tight ones. In high school, Jill remembered him as a jock, muscles very well-defined. He had moved to their town while a junior in high school and had come all the way with his family from upstate New York. She wondered what he looked like these days; it had been a long time ago since she last saw him. As she looked at Sally, waiting for her to make eye contact, she could not help but feel sorry for her, knowing in some small way that the stress emanating from her face was a result of her marriage to Anthony. One other significant fact she remembered was that he never could stay with one girl for too long a time, and somehow the girls with whom he palled around never seemed to mind one iota.
The woman's eyes looked up into hers. The ashes fell to the floor, like stardust falling down through the heavens, softly and silently exploding upon hitting the floor.
Jill looked at her and smiled, unsure of what exactly to say. She knew from her mom's stories that Sally and Anthony's marriage was not one that most people would want to find themselves in and certainly far from happy. What do you say to someone you know is in a bad place in her life?
"Hello," she said. "Sally, how have you been?"
"Well look who is back from the Wild West," Sally said, rearing her head back and laughing, eyes locked on Jill.
"Oh, there's nothing too wild about South Dakota, Sally. Nothing too wild at all, trust me." At least my part in it, she thought.
"It was just a joke, dear. I get to hear about you sometimes when your mom comes in. It's rare these days, and it's usually only for our spaghetti, but we all want to know how you're doing." Sally spoke with a definitively southern accent, like the southern belles out of old movies, but her smoking habit markedly took away from the allure and mystique of her vernacular style.
"I'm doing great, actually. The career is going well. We just won a huge case not long before I came down here. Actually, we settled, but sometimes that's as much of a win as having a verdict go your way."
"Do tell," Sally said, something else obviously on her mind. Her eyes were breaking contact with Jill's now. "Why don't you get your drink and we can talk for a bit?"
"Sounds great," Jill said, taking her cup from the counter. Walking over to the fountain drink dispenser, she could not help but think that all she wanted was a peaceful lunch, time to collect her thoughts, take in the town in which she grew up, without distractions from anyone in her past. Apparently, she decided, that this was just too much to ask. And, in any event, talking to Sally must have been like talking to a tabloid reporter, for she was the one who was always good, masterful even, at acquiring the juicy gossip in the town. Jill's mom had once told her, on a tip from Sally, that Judge Murtaugh had been having sexual relations with a college boy from another town and had been doing so for the better part of a year before anyone was wise to it. It caused quite a shock in the town when it made front-page news, but Sally knew about it months before it broke. How and why, Jill did not ask her mom, but she was not at all surprised at the source.
"Great," she said. "Let me go grab another cancer stick; that's what I call them these days. Honey, I can't afford to quit smoking. It's about the only thing that keeps me sane. That goddamn, excuse my language, dear, that goddamned husband of mine causes me so much stress, I tell you that I would leave him if I could." Jill wondered what was stopping her; she did not see a leash and collar attached to her neck. A very nice diamond necklace, yes. A collar, no.
Jill pressed the button on the dispenser and subsequently heard the ‘whoosh' of the syrup and carbonated water stream down into her cup.
Sally walked to the back room quickly and returned more quickly than she had left. "But I shouldn't bother you with my troubles. I want to hear about how you've been. How is life treating you?"
Jill would have rather she continued to discuss her own woes so as to be spared the fate of talking about her own. "Oh," she said nonchalantly, "life has a way of moving forward. I was engaged and then not engaged. And I'm doing okay right now. Happy to be independent, really. I can come and go as I please and no one asks me for any explanation. I like that. I miss the companionship sometimes, but you just know when it's right to move on."
"Girl, you have got that right. I should have moved my ass on years ago, pardon my language." She took a puff on her cigarette and blew the smoke upward and away from Jill.
"I'm kind of a goal-oriented type of individual and he, well, he was not that interested in a career." She realized that she had a tendency to couch his life in these terms. "Well, maybe that's not altogether true, but in my opinion he wasn't interested in a realistic career. But I know we all have dreams, and I may have been too hard on him, but I think we both made the best move." Jill sipped from the straw in her lemon-lime soda. Her eyes moved to the window over Sally's shoulder and she could see trees, leaves just beginning to take shape, moving in the light breeze. What little grass she could see across the street was deep green, as if it had just taken in more than its share of water and sunlight and wanted to reflect to the world it was healthy and verdant. The blue of the sky reminded her of oceans she once visited when she and her parents would go on trips in the summertime. Before the plane crash.
"Jill?" Sally asked.
"Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, did you say something?" She had allowed herself to become hypnotized by the beautiful day beyond the confines of Malzone's walls.
"What brings you home?" Sally asked again.
"I'm visiting my mom. It's been a while since I've seen her. About a couple of years now. The last time I saw her she came out to see me."
"We don't get to see your mom in here as much," Sally said.
"Ever since she decided to try one of my contemporary diets, she's cut out a lot of the foods that she used to eat," Jill admitted. "Especially pizza." She laughed.
"Your model form of exercise and diet routine must have rubbed off on her. The last time I saw her, she looked as if she had lost a lot of weight. She looked great. I wish I could stop these things," she said looking at her smokes, "but I decided many years ago that this was what I liked to do and if it aggravates my husband just a little bit, then by God, I'm going to keep on doing it!" The volume of her voice increased to such a level that it drew a look from the girl running the counter. How many off-colored remarks that young girl must have heard in her time here, thought Jill.
"So, that's basically my story," Jill laughed. "My life really isn't that interesting."
"Ma'am," said the girl behind the counter. "Your pizza is ready."
Jill got up, leaving a smoking Sally behind momentarily. The pizza looked just as she had remembered them looking the last time she ordered one. It was perfect. Her stomach rumbled again, as if exclaiming that it needed food and needed food right that moment.
"Honey, I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now," Sally said, watching Jill sit back down with her food. "Would you mind if I told you a little bit about my own situation with Anthony just to get a girl's perspective on it? I just got off the phone with him, and I know that he's with someone else right now. I mean, it's not a secret. He leaves the daily running of the business these days to his wife while he meets his secret admirer, she said while using her fingers to denote quotation marks, "at our home. I even heard her this time. She had the audacity to talk while she knew he was talking to me!"
Jill was unsure of whether or not she should bite into her pizza or just leave it alone, risking that it would grow cold and then become inedible. She never was one for cold pizza. Something did not seem right, however, about eating while someone was unloading such jarring information on you. She folded her arms on the edge of the table and sat closer, in spite of the stink of the smoke, to listen to Sally's tale.
Sally Rae Brown had been courting Anthony Dalbo ever since her high school days. His parents owned and operated Malzone's. They still owned but left the operations to their son and daughter-in-law. Jill was well aware of their relationship, he three years older than they. Sally was never one of Jill's favorite pals or anything, but they did know each other enough to say hello and were always on good terms with one another. Oddly enough, even her good friends would be ones with whom she would lose contact over the years; her best friend from high school was now an expatriate living in Paris. Jill always felt as if she gave Sally the cold shoulder too many times, largely because she was not interested in running with her and her crowd, but Sally never seemed to acknowledge it. Had the roles been reversed, Jill knew how she herself would have behaved toward such a person.
When word of Anthony and Sally's wedding reached Jill after she had long left her hometown, she was not surprised and was very happy for them. She thought that they would end up together, so it was good to see the formal announcement, or at least hear of it by way of her mom. But Jill also remembered Anthony being a lady's man in high school and she, too, remembered many a fight between the young lovers. It would stand to reason, obviously, that life should carry on this way post-marriage.
"She has wrecked our marriage, Jill! Wrecked it!" She said ‘wrecked' in that way that only a southern female can say such a word. It was soft and smooth and harsh all at once.
Jill maintained her focus on Sally, though her mind and stomach said to take a bite.
"He says he's getting bored. We've been married eighteen years! I mean, I know I'm not the same person I was that many years ago, physically and emotionally. We differ on so many things that I never thought we would differ on, ever. Politics and religion. Those are the obvious ones. He's turned more conservative Republican; I've become more liberal. I'm interested in attending church services; he wants nothing to do with it. Jill, even our taste in dogs has changed. I know it's silly, but I wanted a Yorkie, and he will only have a dog that weighs over seventy-five pounds, something like a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler. But you know, but I still love him." She puckered her lips tightly around the cigarette and inhaled.
"It sounds to me like you were meant to be together, maybe. Have you tried counseling?" she asked.
Jill mustered enough courage to take a bite of the pizza.
"He screwed the therapist," she replied, her face expressionless, save the frown and the knitted eyebrows.
Almost choking on her portion, Jill suddenly reached for her beverage and took a long drink, coughing after it had all gone down.
"I'm sorry, honey, I shouldn't have told you about that. I wasn't trying to kill you with the knowledge, trust me." Sally sat back in her chair and blew another puff up and away. The smoke disappeared in the air, but its heavy scent remained.
"Wow. I don't know what to say," Jill said, knowing that she should have said something comforting at that moment but what could one say? Sorry? That's too bad? Nothing seemed to be enough. It was awful news.
Sally looked at her intently. "But that's not all," she said.
"Not all? Isn't that enough?" She had to laugh. In spite of herself, she had to laugh.
Sally smiled. She could not get too upset, given that anyone would have thought she should have left such a debilitating situation long ago.
"I probably shouldn't tell you. I should just leave you to your lunch and let you enjoy your time back home. Besides, it's going to be the mad rush in here pretty soon, and I need to help MacKenzie get the salad bar ready. She's good, but one person can't do it all. Anthony has had his sights on her ever since she applied for a job. Oh, how he loved interviewing her in his office with his door shut. He hasn't done anything, probably because he knows that her parents would kill him. Her dad is a police officer in town, so that helps to block his overflowing testosterone just a bit." She got up to leave.
"No, no, you can tell me. You've told me this much already," Jill said. Besides, she wanted to hear the story now. There was a rule somewhere, though with whom it originated is unknown, but the rule clearly stated that once someone said he was going to tell you something, he must follow through—anything short of that was unacceptable. Jill was operating by this rule.
Sally sat back down, slowly, and extinguished her cigarette in the flimsy gold ashtray on the tabletop.
"He wants to have a threesome," she said, leaning in close, her voice hushed.
"Really?" Jill was shocked, but that was all that came out of her mouth.
"Really. And I'll tell you something, I'm tempted to just do it so that maybe he can get past this little boy phase of his where he's got to have everything in sight. Maybe it will fulfill a fantasy and then he can get on with his life."
"Or he will want to add to the marriage by one," Jill said, trying to instill her sense of humor in the discussion. Her lawyerly mind reacted to the fact that this was the kind of thing that brought disgruntled women large sums of money from a divorce settlement. But Sally was different in that she truly did love this man, in spite of, what she considered, grave character flaws. A threesome, she thought. She had thought of this concept before, of what it might mean for her—not that she would ever admit it, at least—but she never truly fantasized about it. The talk of it, however, triggered something in her that she wanted to keep to herself for fear of total embarrassment.
"He's told me how he wants to do it and when and where. I could tell you, if you'd like."
Jill wondered what kind of cosmic joke she had stepped into by coming to Malzone's. This should have been just a routine lunch. Just an enjoying time spent alone, reminiscing about old times and indulging in a guilty pleasure.
"Well, I've heard this much already," Jill said uncomfortably. "It's up to you what you want to tell me. I wish I had some good advice for you."
"What do you do when you love someone and want to be with them? I've thought about it many times, about how I should maintain my self-respect and get out, but you know, Jill, he treats me like gold. He buys me everything I want and need. He takes me out to dinner frequently. He never raises his voice at me. He's so mild mannered, it's disturbing."
Jill thought to herself she knew the reason why his stress levels were so low.
"Just once, I wish he would raise his voice or hand to me. That way, I could hate him. Anyway, I'll tell you what I was going to, and then I'll let you get on with your meal."
The door opened and a chime sounded just above it. It was a group of workmen on their lunch hour.
Not wanting them to hear the juicy details of her story, Sally leaned in close to Jill and whispered in her ear her husband's designs for her and the girl with whom Sally knew was at their house this very moment.
Had there been a mirror into which Jill could view her reflection, she would have seen her face had turned as cherry red as her glass that contained her drink. She had no idea that what Sally described were even possible, let alone desirable. It was definitely past time for this conversation to end.
"Sally," she said, pulling back a bit. "That's probably the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life. Whatever you decide, I wish you the very best."
"Thank you for listening. I don't have anyone to talk to much these days. You remember Marilyn, I'm sure? She's at Syracuse studying to be an entomologist. Of all things, she wants to understand bugs. I don't get it, but then again, I know I'm not perfect. I've talked to her about some of these things, not what I just told you, of course, and she tells me that I should just do whatever makes me happy."
"You know," said Jill, "that sounds like good advice to me. Go with that."
"You and your mom have a good visit and don't be a stranger," Sally said, shaking her finger at her. "Also, you don't need to mention the details of our conversation to her."
"I won't. Trust me. Lips sealed."
"Tell her ‘hi' for me," Sally said, then walked away.
"I will."
Turning back to her plate, Jill looked down at the remains on her plate. She knew it would be cold when she resumed eating it. Sally Rae Dalbo's story alone could have probably reheated it.
The weather changes its mood. Widespread gray clouds begin to form in the west. The wind increases in speed. Tree branches with newly-formed growth, as a result, begin to bend more animatedly. The temperature noticeably drops by what feels like ten degrees within almost a ten-minute timeframe. The sun soon loses its shape behind the cloud cover that moves in over the town at a rapid pace, pushed along all the more by Nature's great exhalations.
A white-haired older man, hands tucked snugly in his jacket pocket, watches the young woman walk out of the dining establishment. He takes precautions so that she does not see him, looking out from a window from a pawn shop across the street, pretending to be interested in all of the various products for sale on the shelves. He allows her to maintain a good head start and then exits the shop. Its owner thanks him for stopping by, but he pays him no mind other than a raised arm with a curt wave goodbye, his back turned to him the entire time. He is not in the mood and time is something he cannot afford to lose.
Oh great, she thought, as she stepped outside to find that the sky behind her had begun to change colors, deep grays overtaking rich blues, signaling what would certainly be an onslaught of rain. Spring had not been around long, and the magnolias had yet to flower the way that only they can. She took a moment to examine two of them outside of Malzone's, knowing how beautiful they would become in only a couple months' time. Their existence was a magnificent display of Mother Nature at her best.
Any stickiness from earlier in the day had, for the moment, disappeared. People were beginning to file out of buildings for lunch, faces fraught with displeasure at the sudden change in weather, however. Some returned inside almost immediately. Jill speculated that they were going back inside in order to secure their umbrellas. For her own part, she needed to pick up the pace to get back to her hotel before those clouds really did let loose what they held inside of them. She had a mile-and-a-half-walk, but she was used to running far greater distances every day, so that was not going to be a difficult feat for her. Getting back to her room dry, however, might prove a bit more of a challenge.
The path she took was one that she used to walk as a child, before there were any stoplights. It led away from the town's market square and off toward the main road, but there was a sidewalk, fortunately, for most of the route. The wind blew her hair back so that her ears were exposed for the majority of her walk, and she regretted not wearing something warmer than her short-sleeve collared shirt, which had a tendency to blow open, revealing to anyone who got close enough areas of her body she would just as soon have kept covered. She had just bought this shirt and wanted to wear something "springy" for her visit. This particular shirt, with its pastel greens and pinks, was just the look she had in mind. Her khaki slacks, she noted, were also a bit on the lightweight side.
Her sound judgment, usually, and essentially, employed for her kind of work, was perhaps a bit lacking this morning. She thought to herself how she should have anticipated a change in temperature, given that she knew a front would be moving through sometime later in the day, but she thought she could get all of her loose itinerary in before any of that happened. Even an attorney can be wrong, she admitted to herself. She thought back to the time when even the great Matlock, while seemingly using his own apparent good judgment, unexpectedly argued on behalf of a guilty defendant. Though many in her profession did not think much of such a show, she had always enjoyed it no matter how far-fetched it was. She wanted to maintain the integrity of the main character while not necessarily living in the fantasy world that the show created where everyone who was charged with a crime was innocent by the end of the hour. Walking down memory lane triggered those fond memories as well, when she was completing her coursework in law and training for the bar and taking some time to unwind and watch a magician-attorney from Atlanta cast his spells to uphold truth and justice.
Several cars zoomed by now, even though the speed limit was a mere thirty miles per hour. Some must have been going forty or faster, she guessed. She saw an all-black Lexus sport utility vehicle that made her long for a new mode of transportation herself. Perhaps an elegant champagne color would be in order, she thought. Something to replace the ladybug-red Corolla she had owned since her days as a law student. It was a miracle the thing even started after fifteen plus years. She had spent many a pretty penny on maintenance, but she had difficulty selling it because of her attachment to it. It was the car her mom had bought for her, scraping together all of her extra income she could so that her daughter would have a means of getting around town and knowing that she would not be dependent upon public transportation and all of the interesting people who take advantage of that service.
In recent times, however, her mom had reproached her regularly for not trading in her car, especially with that generous salary she was now earning. But something in her said to drive it until the fuel injector could no longer breathe life into it, until the engine's heartbeat was finally gone, until the last axel atrophied due to the rust underneath, but she had held onto it, mainly out of sentimental value. It was becoming increasingly difficult not to want something nice, especially when one of the partners in her law firm drove a luxury European car. Like most things in her life, she did not dwell on not having what others had. She made do and that was enough, in her mind. Besides, not having a car payment extricated her finances so that she could have a nice domicile and retain some extra money as well. She was one of those people who would gladly sacrifice driving something nice and put the money toward living somewhere she liked. She rationalized that unless she were planning on living in her car, she only needed something that would get her from point ‘a' to ‘b.' It also did not hurt that she listened to a financial advisor echo those same sentiments.
The closer she got to her hotel, the likelihood the chance of rain increased. The sky was darkening rapidly, and she started to break into a stride reminiscent of her morning runs earlier in the week. One thing she was happy about regarding her wardrobe was that she was wearing her new green and white running shoes. She tended to buy two pairs of running shoes she liked, one for running and one for walking. It was far easier to keep the shoes she wore for casual purposes closer to pristine than it was to constantly try to clean up the shoes that she happened to step into a mud puddle while running in the early morning when the light is not the best for seeing everything that could possibly be on the path in front of her. Puddles, dog waste, which was always the worst, gum, random oil slicks as a result of cutting through parking lots, and mud. Those were the main hazards for your shoes. She thought she should make time for a run sometime during her visit, but this would have to do. She could see the hotel, with its signage light on now that the sky was dark enough about a half-mile away. She maintained her pace until she reached the parking lot and then resumed a normal walking pace.
Stepping through the automatic front doors, a bit out of breath, she was glad she had arrived before a drop of rain could touch her. Taking the steps up to the second floor, she almost tripped on one, but recovered in time to prevent any injury. There was no time for that, she thought. Better be more careful, Jill, she thought. No need to see my mom while a patient at the hospital.
Walking down the narrow hall, its dark blue and light purplish carpet with diamond patterns produced a hypnotic effect on anyone who dared look for too long a time. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead and walked to her room door. Taking the flat plastic keycard from her pocket, she slid it down the card reader. A red light was the only response she got from it. She slid it again. Red. Again. Red. Okay, she thought, this should not be that much trouble. Instead of sliding it down, she tried sliding it up and, to her surprise, the light blinked green and there was a clicking sound. She opened the door.
Her room was clean and she thought it smelled as if the attendants had sprayed some kind of perfume in it. It was better that the smell at Malzone's, for the most part. Walking to the bathroom sink, she ran some warm water and washed off her face and hands. Sliding off her shoes, she walked toward the hand towel and dried off. Exiting the bathroom, she walked to the window looking west from where she had come. The sky was not quite as dark as night, but there was definitely something looming in those clouds and she was elated to know that she was safe from anything that might, or would, pour out of them.
She turned on a lamp. Click, click. It was too bright, even with the shade on, so she the lamp off completely. She turned the switch just once this time for the bulb's lowest brightness so that she could read a brochure on the table in the room. She took it and walked in front of the window again, heading to her bed. She lay down, more than ready for a nice, long nap. The kind best taken on overcast days, where you feel as if you could sleep forever. She gave the brochure a cursory examination, then discarded it. Resting her head on one of the pillows, she looked up at the ceiling.
What a day it had been already. Don Wallace, Sally Rae Dalbo. Thinking of them brought back memories. These people's lives never changed. They would probably still be here in spirit form even after their corporal shells had exhausted themselves. She was thankful that she had the opportunity to attend college, thanks in large part to her dad allocating monies when she was younger just for such a purpose, and her mom's willingness to sometimes work two jobs to bring in more money when things looked bleak. A long time ago she realized that she was meant to help people and determined to take her skills and personality and values and throw the mixture of them together into the law profession. She had been acutely aware of the slick-talking, glad-handing, lawyer stereotype and refused to capitulate to it. If the world needed remaking, and she believed it did, she would have a hand as a chief architect in that grand design. She remembered her ex-fiancé poking fun at her, what he claimed, obsession with justice to the point of becoming, as he put it so eloquently, as much of a tyrant as those whom she opposed. There were periods where she would grant him his points, but there were also times when his criticisms were simply annoying, and simply not true. She challenged him on many of his arguments, and while the battle of wills usually agreed to a truce, she could not help but think, now that it was over, that it was a relationship destined to fail. But thank goodness that she was not in Sally Rae's shoes.
She closed her eyes. The images of all she had done and seen from earlier in the day passed through her vision and she was on the verge of sleep. Seemingly out of nowhere, a tornado siren blared away, causing her eyes to open wide. The decibel level must have been near a hundred, the siren's motor and fan working overtime to produce sounds that would warn anyone within the town. Postponing sleep, she got up to once again look out of the large window. The wind had increased its velocity even more and she could see paper and other small trash items blowing around down below. A family was rushing to get out of their car and into the building, the man holding the passenger's door open for his wife, their young daughter waving quickly to them both to get moving. An older man, whose back was turned to her, was fighting to even get to the front doors of the hotel, his white hair swirling wildly about him. It was a comic scene, she thought, but felt sorry for those caught out in the storm.
She turned on the television for the weather update. Someone must have sighted a twister in a neighboring town. Jill decided that she was safe in this place and that there was not much she could do right now anyway. Besides, surely someone from the hotel staff would alert its patrons in the event that they would need to seek shelter elsewhere. She decided to return to the queen-sized bed, with its outdated patterned bedspread and relax.
Pulling the sheets back, she could hear the barrage of raindrops against the window. The downpour was coming hard and fast and almost sideways. She turned up the volume on the television and switched channels to one reporting about the war. Not a supporter of the President's strategy, she did feel in her heart that it was wrong what some people were saying about him, how he was creating more chaos than religious fanatics determined to destroy a democratic way of life. Jill Summerfield would not deny that she harbored prejudices; she did not, however, allow those judgments to impede her reason when determining truth. After watching the program briefly, she turned off the television.
She crawled under the covers, got as cozy as she was used to doing at home, turned on her side and held her pillow as a child holds a doll and watched the rain come down. The siren had ceased going off, and now all that she had to contend with were the sounds of the rain hammering the glass. But she loved these kinds of days as long as she did not have to be out in them. The sound of the rain was the only sound she heard before sleep overtook her.
His heart is beating rapidly. Too rapidly, he thinks. This storm came out of nowhere, almost as a way of God telling him that he should not be taking his course of action. But he has stopped caring about God's desires for and designs on him long ago and thinks to himself he will do as he damned well pleases. If God did not want him to find this girl, he would have already struck him down with a thunderbolt already or some other preternatural means.
He seeks the shelter of the hotel lobby, looking for a warm drink, maybe a coffee pot still left on from the morning's continental breakfast. Alas, there is no drink that he can find, save a water fountain, so he passes on the opportunity to warm himself with thermal waters. At least it is warm inside, he thinks. The girl behind the front desk politely asks, "Can I help you, sir?" He thinks of the waitress whom he treated not so fairly earlier.
"Why, yes, miss you can as a matter of fact," he exclaims. "Where can a fellow find a cup of coffee?"
"I'm sorry, sir. They put all of that away a few hours ago. But I would be happy to see if we have a pot on in the back. Some of us like to drink it all day long. Not myself," she says protesting, "but I do know some who get a little bit nervous if they don't have theirs. We do sometimes have decaf."
"No decaf," he says grumpily and waves his arm. "But see what you can do, young lady. I'll be right here," he says.
"Oh, I should have asked you, do you need to check in?" she asks, concerned for overlooking that initially and also concerned from his appearance. His hair is just plain out of control. "It's a little windy out there isn't it?" she asks.
"Miss, it is. Now what about that coffee?" he asks harshly, losing patience.
"Sure," she says, her eyes narrowing as if she intends to let him know that she does not appreciate his attitude and that her generosity is hanging by a thread.
He sits in one of the comfortable black leather reclining chairs directly in front of the widescreen television that broadcasts the national news. The attractive female journalist reports that the United States Senate has just agreed on a bill to bolster support for troops stationed in Iraq, provided the President agrees to a timetable for withdrawal of those same troops. His blood starts to simmer. He loathes the President and loathes the way the government handled, and continues to handle, the treatment of the war from its inception.
The receptionist returns, unaware that her guest is now in an even less amicable mood. She returns empty-handed.
"Sir, we don't have any coffee." She lies. There is a fresh pot brewing in the back, but given this person's rudeness toward her, there is not a chance she will be bringing him anything. "I'm sorry." She lies again.
He pulls out his handkerchief and coughs loudly. Three times he coughs, creating an unpleasant air about the room. "You mind if I look around?" he asks after his episode is finished.
"As long as you stay in the main area, that's fine with me," she says. The phone rings, and she reaches for it, keeping her eyes on this man. She knows she should not allow him to go beyond her sight, but she still does not have quite the heart to send him back out into the torrential downpour that continues to bend branches wildly, in spite of his sour demeanor. Evergreens sway to and fro in the gusts and deep puddles begin to form. Even as far back as she was from the main double doors, she could still feel the chill that accompanied him upon his entrance.
"I'll just take a quick look around, if you don't mind and go once the rain stops."
He keeps his word, anxious to see whether or not this is the right time to confront the one who resembles his daughter, who, in his mind, knows is his daughter. Two people cannot look so much alike to not come from the same womb. It is simply not possible, he thinks. He knows that there are moments in life when someone sees you and thinks that you must be someone he knows from somewhere, or you look just like someone else, but always those people of whom he is reminded are not related the way only identical twins can be related.
He walks by an exercise room and spots a woman who must be in her thirties using one of the treadmills. She is hot and sticky from exertion, but the sweat rolling down her body stops him in his tracks. He stares, she not noticing, focusing instead on her music coming from her portable media device and piped through tiny speakers fittingly snugly in her ears.
Something ignites within him, and he has the urge to find a solitary place. Instead, he watches. The receptionist leans over her counter while still on the phone and witnesses this stranger ogling the female engaged in her exercise routine. She shakes her head and resumes her conversation.
So entranced is he that he fails to recognize when the woman spots him and does not, at first, see her scowl. When his mind registers it, he backs away and walks back to the main sitting room with the impeccably soft leather furniture, feeling neither shame nor embarrassment. He sits down to rest his legs and again resumes watching the television. Not hearing as well as he used to, he can only make out traces of what is being said, but knows enough to know that he does not want to hear it anyway.
He closes his eyes, convincing himself that he will get up shortly, just as soon as the rain abates.
She fell asleep to the rain bombarding the windows. For much of the afternoon the rain would behave in such a manner, intermittently, but she was oblivious to it, sleeping soundly. Much later, however, her oneiric realm was one tormented with memories of her dad, a glimpse of his picking her up and spinning her around in his arms here, a glimpse of a walk in a park there, the two of them watching a jet pass above, he pointing to its white smoke-tail left behind, she waving as if the pilot could see her as clearly as a hawk targets a mouse from such a great distance above. Peaceful scenes were replaced quickly with turbulent ones. A dark and stormy night, lightning flashing wildly and thunder booming what seemed incessantly. She did not know exactly where the dream took place, but she was conscious of it all the same. Would she bear witness to her dad's final moments? She turned over on her other side and continued to dream.
Boom! The thunder exploded outside, but that was not enough of a disturbance to wake her. In her mind, however, thunder was exploding all around as well, and she was almost flying through the night sky, rain falling as rapidly and forcefully in her dream state as much as it was in the tangible world outside of it. Sometimes, she dreamed in this way, where she had no corporal form, almost as if she were behind herself somehow, a first-person perspective eve. She could not control this dream as she had others, could not control it to its denouement. The sky, lit white at times because of the brightness of the lightning, made her eyes ache, made her feel pain in the waking world. She wanted the pain to stop.
Suddenly, there was a brilliant orange-red explosion from below, though there was no ground she could clearly make out. Nothing but the vastness of a midnight sky. She knew what the explosion was but could not stop her descent. She, too, would perish along with the others. It was only a matter of time.
Her heartbeat increased as she fell. At that moment, it would have been preferable for her mind to have switched gears and gone back to its visions of her with her dad when she, and he, were younger. If she could only find a way, like the great Time Traveler himself, she would have traveled back over and over again to those moments when everything made sense, when everything was right there in front of you, when everything was provided to you. There were no worries save some stupid kid at school poking fun at you because you did not look exactly like either one of your parents. There were some rough times, but nothing so rough as losing your dad and then dreaming about his death still some twenty odd years later.
She felt herself crying in the dream. Were real tears swelling in her eyes in the waking world? It sure felt real.
She was descending faster now, truly pushing the limits of how much longer she could fall, pushing her luck past the point of good sense. She could not discern people's physical characteristics, only black shapes illuminated by a blazing fire that the sky's tears could not extinguish. None of the shapes were moving. One looked to be holding another, perhaps comforting his or her partner in the time of tragedy and despair. She wanted to think that, at least. But this was a dream, or nightmare depending on one's perspective, and she was unable to distill truth from untruth, fact from fiction, real from unreal. In the dream, it just was.
Feeling as if her face, a face she knew was there but just could not see, would collide with the wreckage at any moment, she braced herself for what would surely be her final move in the game that this had become. But just before imminent destruction, she woke. Something primeval and instinctual forced her eyes open. How long had she been asleep? The clock on the small table next to the bed read 5:35. It was still light outside, and the sky was beginning to clear, making way for the hiding sun. The last drop of rain had fallen for the time being. It had been some time since she last dreamed of her dad so vividly, and she never remembered ever seeing his face in the crash. Of that, she was always thankful.
She yawned and stretched her muscles. Her hair n the back was sticking up and out a bit, but she did not worry about it just then; she could simply tell that it had a disheveled quality to it. Propping herself up on her elbows, she then tucked both of the pillows behind her head and rested comfortably on the bed a little while longer, reflecting on the dream. The occurrence had yet to happen that she observe up close her dad's face whenever she would dream about the crash. The only parts in the dreams where she saw his facial characteristics were where they were together in some manner. And many of those images resembled how he looked in pictures and not always how he looked when the events themselves actually happened. She did not have the necessary time or skill, she thought, to interpret her dreams, but in the time spent between waking and full awareness, it was always interesting to think back on how details could have played out in dream, but did not.
She again flipped on the television. An anchorwoman was looking back at her, reporting on a topic about which she was not interested, and she promptly turned shut it off. She made a mental note to turn it on again when the local news aired because she was interested in knowing if there had been any damage caused as a result of the storm and to know where, exactly, a tornado had been sighted. She began to wonder if she would have heard someone knock. Then again, housekeeping surely would have intervened and unlocked their patrons' doors if they were truly in danger.
What to do in the time remaining? The hunger pangs had begun to hit, as she had not finished her cold pizza once Sally Rae had left her company. But, she thought, when she was ready for supper, she would just order in and watch a movie via the hotel's cable service. She got up and walked to the window again. Scanning the landscape below, she saw green grass, dark green from the nourishment the elements had been providing it throughout the week. She saw wet, red earth, and deep puddles that had formed in spots. Scattered seeds from trees dotted automobiles. Other than the occasional bird she saw flit by the window, there were no signs of human activity below. It were as if a peace of some sort had descended on just one small part of the town, the small part in which she inhabited at present.
"Sir," the receptionist says as politely as she can, "I'm afraid that if you're not planning on staying with us, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
His eyes open and he begins to focus on her oval face and curly light brown hair that frames it.
"I would have left you alone," she explains, "but my manager would like you to leave."
"What does he have against senior citizens?" he asks, wriggling his way to an upright position in the comfortable chair.
"Nothing, as far as I know, but we have paying guests who would also like to use our amenities. I'm sorry," she says genuinely.
"I'll be on my way soon enough. Just tell me where I can find a men's room," he says and gets up slowly out of the chair.
She points him in the direction of the restrooms, and studies him as he walks away. She wonders if he has anyone in his life who cares about him. Maybe he did at one point, she thinks, but given his personality, she cannot understand who would want to be around such an individual. She notices a peculiar odor that remains in the chair even after he passes out of sight.
Moments pass and she resumes her work once again at her desk, checking to see what rooms have been cleaned and those in need before new guests arrive. Immersed in her work, she fails to notice that the older gentleman has returned from the restroom and is standing right in front of the counter.
"I think I've decided to stay for a little while longer," he says.
She jumps, startled by his voice and presence. He laughs.
"Oh?" she asks. "I don't believe we have any rooms left, but let me check. There's a big softball tournament this week that has kept us full."
He reaches for his wallet and pulls out two one hundred dollar bills and places them on the counter.
"Sir, I appreciate that, but if we don't have the rooms, there's not a lot I can do," she says, becoming frustrated with him and thinks back to his staring at the woman exercising.
"Just see what you can do," he says, becoming a bit anxious. Not knowing his other daughter's name, he knows he cannot ask what room she occupies. And besides, he is not ready for her to see him just yet.
"Looks as if you're in luck. We do have a room available. It's not cleaned up yet, but it's yours if you want it," she says.
He pushes the cash toward her and she takes it, giving him the change and room key.
He walks away and toward the elevator and gets in. It lifts him to the second floor, where he finds his room and determines his next course of action. If anything, he decides, his next course of action will be to imbibe a good Scotch whiskey at the hotel's bar.
He was fairly confident that he had left the light on downstairs. As he descended the steps with a box full of items that he wanted to put on display before tomorrow morning, he puzzled over the fact that there had been illumination showing his way moments earlier, where now there was only darkness. He would just have to be careful, he decided. As he reached the bottom of the steps, he noticed that the door he had left open slightly so that he could pass easily to and from the alleyway was closed. There were many things Jim McSutton would admit to being—crazy was not one of them.
He placed the box on the floor and looked around, making out only silhouettes of the used products within the store, as the street lamps outside provided just enough light by which to see. He flipped on the light switch. Nothing seemed too terribly out of the ordinary, though he thought perhaps he should have had his firearm with him in the event that someone was in the shop and was planning to rob him when the moment was right, but he could have seen anyone who might have been in the store.
He stood for about twenty seconds, scanning the entire store. Convincing himself that maybe he was, in fact, losing some of his mental faculties, he turned back to look at the door that he thought was open earlier. Probably just the wind, he thought. But what about the light? Maybe he had shut it off for a reason that escaped him entirely. No, he was certain he had left it on. He walked toward the front door and remembered the last time that someone tried to rob him. They were a couple of young black boys, probably in their late teens, who had their faces covered save the space between their eyes and the bridge of their noses. He did not feel at all bad, himself one who also happened to be of a dark complexion, reaching for his handgun he kept under the counter and pointing it back and forth at both of them. They had decided that several hundreds of dollars in jewelry was not worth the risk of getting shot or killed, and they promptly fled. He did not even bother calling the police because his philosophy was to stay as far away from them as possible. A man could protect himself and his family better than any police officer; that was his opinion, at least.
Deciding that it must have been just a fluke of nature, for he did not know how else to describe it, he turned to walk back toward the stairway, but out of the corner of his eye, outside on the street, he saw an old man with long, white hair staring back at him. The look in his eyes caused his heartbeat to spike and he shrugged his shoulders, while wrinkling his brow, as if to ask the man what he wanted. To say he was closed. To, in effect, convey he could not help him. He reminded him of some of the beggars he had seen when he went to the larger cities in the South to do business.
The old man pointed to the light emanating from the pawn shop. McSutton just shook his head. True, the light created the illusion that his store was open, but anyone with any degree of common sense would have realized that a shop in this part of town would not be open after ten o'clock. Most, in fact, had closed hours ago. Maybe he was a visitor who did not know the way these things worked, but even so, that was still not a good enough excuse for McSutton.
"I'm closed!" he yelled toward the man.
He continued to stare at him and then said, begrudgingly, "I need your help."
"I don't have any money! I deposit it daily!" he said so the man could hear him.
He smiled and shook his head. "I don't want your goddamned money!" he exclaimed, waving his arms wildly. "I am looking for someone!"
McSutton walked toward the door and, feeling no particular threat from this person other than an assault on his eardrums, pushed it open just enough to feel a bit more of the cool air from outside his shop. While his actual person was not threatened, his senses were accosted by the smell of liquor.
The man, trying to force his way into the shop, stepped right up to McSutton's face. Any observance of the rule of allowing someone a good foot or two of personal space was thrown out the window. Jim McSutton was at least a head taller than this stranger and was in quite good physical shape for his age of fifty. A son with whom he still enjoyed competing on the basketball court required that he maintain some of his athletic physique.
"Looks as if you could use a bed to sleep off your intoxication," McSutton said, pointing his index finger at him.
"I'm not in the mood for jokes," the old man replied. "I am looking for someone, someone who I think, who I know, is my daughter."
"Well, I ain't seen anyone here that fits that description. Just me and the guy on the radio upstairs. You'll need to look elsewhere, I'm afraid." McSutton pulled the handle of the door to him and the older gentleman stuck his arm in the space that remained, apparently not caring if it were severed in the process.
"You crazy?!" McSutton asked.
"Maybe I am, but I have to find her! For most of the day I could not bring myself to approach her, and it's only with this damned drink that I can bring myself to do it, to tell her that she is mine and to tell her that I know I messed up a long time ago and will pay for it for the rest of my time left and to try to make amends, God give me the strength to try. I didn't know there was another. I didn't know!" he shouted and McSutton could now see that tears had formed in the corners of his eyes and spilled down and over his cheeks. A swift motion of his arm cleared his face of them and he remained resolute.
"Why don't you file a police report?" McSutton asked.
"I don't want the authorities involved in this," he said, looking at the sidewalk, still standing, waiting and hoping this pawn shop owner can help him.
"I really do wish I could help you," he said, "but I haven't seen anyone since I've closed, which was hours ago. If you can give me a description of her and where I can reach you if I see her, then maybe I can help. Otherwise, I'm sorry. You'll have to be going."
The old man let out a roar that surely would have been heard by anyone three blocks away. It were as if something had been ripped from his body, a vital organ, a limb, something that could never be replaced, like one's soul.
A car turned the corner and the two men were practically blinded by what could only have been the headlights turned to their brightest setting. The car stopped parallel to the front of the store, and a woman wearing a colorful nurse's scrub outfit got out quickly, leaving the car running, its lights creating an almost stage-like setting.
Jim McSutton truly felt like a character in a play, unable to control his own fate, placed in a surreal world where everything was hitting him from all sides at once. He recognized the woman from somewhere, he thought, but it was not from his store. She said one word almost at the top of her lungs as she ran in front of the car and to the sidewalk. "Jill!"
Both men looked at her, puzzled, McSutton in his green and beige striped flannel shirt with a green undershirt bearing a logo beneath, the older man in his torn jacket, wild hair and intense eyes, now made all the more brilliant because of the brightness of the high beams. But for the moment, at least, she was a distraction from the conflict they were having.
"Where's my daughter?!" she asked, insistent and with labored breath.
"Whoa, ma'am, hold on a second," McSutton said, still trying to shut the door the remainder of the way, only to have it ripped open by this woman as she squeezed past the old man who seemed somehow distracted—and tormented—in his own way.
McSutton looked back in shock to see a female stand up from behind his counter and run to greet her mother. He thought she must have been tucked under the counter pretty tightly for him to not have seen her.
"Mom!" she shouted back to her. "Oh, Mom!" she said and embraced her more fiercely than she could have ever remembered. She saw the old man staring back at her over her mom's shoulder and her eyes went wide. Pulling away from her mom, she made ready to burst out of the door that led to the back alley.
"What on earth is going on here?!" McSutton demanded. "Who are all of you and why in God's name have you descended on my shop tonight?"
"I'm her father," said the old man, now not as brash as he had been moments ago.
Jill looked at him and anger, not fear any longer, began to well up from deep within her. "That's what you said to me earlier! I know my father! He died when I was almost ten! There's no way in this world that you are my father!" But as she said this, she noticed that his facial features did bear a resemblance to her very own; and as much as she might try to deny that this person could have in any way been responsible for genetically contributing to her being here right at this moment, there was a face that resembled hers staring back at her.
"I now know why you never knew me," he said, now standing within McSutton's shop. "I have thought about it all day since the first time I saw you from the restaurant this morning. She gave you up. She didn't even tell me there was another. That cold, cruel woman just gave you up!" His fists were clenched, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mary Summerfield knew exactly who he was. It was Anson Thomas, someone she never thought she would ever have to see as long as she lived. But there he was, in the flesh. It shocked her every bit as it shocked McSutton to see all of these strangers, intruders, at once in his shop. She could not believe it, but what her eyes told her must have been true. He was still alive after all this time, and through some kind of weird chance or fate he was standing in front of the person who was truly his daughter, but to whom Jill owed no love or loyalty, certainly. He was the one whom Mary and her husband had terminated from having anything to do with the baby because he chose to abandon Jill's mother when she was three months' pregnant. It was their call to drop him from the official adoption records in accordance with the law that specified if a parent abandoned an infant for more than thirty days, that parent was unfit to care for a child. The court proceeding only took three months, and the county newspaper published once a week for three weeks so that Anson Thomas could have an opportunity to claim his child. Those weeks turned into months without any reply to the notification.
Jill's biological mother sought out her adoptive parents because she did not want, in her words, "that bastard, born of spit and hellfire, to be the one who destroyed two precious souls." Mary remembered her, in a meeting they had before the adoption, telling her that "in the way Abraham would have sacrificed his only son to God, I, too, will sacrifice my other daughter for the chance that she will not have to endure the hardship of him as her father." She knew Mary and her husband were not able to conceive, had discovered their names from a friend of hers who knew of such a couple in another town two hundred miles away from where she lived. She gave that couple the chance to have one of their very own, to raise and nurture and love and protect it in ways that she knew her other baby would not have. She could not have given them both, otherwise Anson would have grown suspicious and his wrath would have been terrible. When he left, for another woman, he knew she was pregnant but did not have the knowledge that she would have twins. She would not divorce him, and a visceral feeling told her that he would return, that it would only be a matter of time. Her real mother had passed long ago, Mary knew, and the only mother Jill had ever known was the one she was holding onto now.
"Mom. What is he saying? He's nuts!" she exclaimed. "Tell me, he's just a lunatic who has me confused with someone else!"
McSutton interrupted. "Why don't we all relax just a little bit? Let's everybody cool our heads. Look, I have every right to call the police if y'all ain't outta here pretty soon, so..."
Mary was about to say something, but a squad car pulled up in front of the building right behind her car she left running. The officer rushed in and asked if everything were all right, that he received a call, wondered if she were the one who placed it, and was responding to it. After some time, Mary convinced him that it was all a misunderstanding and that his services were not needed any longer. He told them all that he did not know what was going on, but that he did not appreciate being called out for no good reason, that in the future, to reserve an emergency number for just that, an emergency.
For the moment, Jill knew she was safe, but she did not know if she would be all right. McSutton wanted to find out the details of this strange story that had somehow manifested itself in his pawn shop, which was the paramount reason he did not follow through with his promise to have the authorities intervene and haul them all away.
"So why aren't you telling me he's a lunatic, mom?" she asked, tears in her eyes. "Dad is gone."
"Yes, honey, Dad is gone. He's not your dad, but he is your father. I never could have imagined having to tell you this way, but he is that. I just didn't ever want to tell you, but I can't deny it. Believe me, dear, I wish I could," she said as she hugged her, hoping not to lose the daughter she had loved all these years.
Jill did not know what this newfound knowledge would mean for living her life from here on out. Was she supposed to have any good feelings for this person who had just walked into her life, almost scaring her to death in the process? It was all too confusing, even for one with a lawyerly mind as fine-tuned as hers.
McSutton looked at Mary and Jill and then back to Anson Thomas. "I tell you what," he said, "I have a few chairs upstairs. Why don't we all go up and have a seat and discuss these matters in a more relaxed setting? God help me I don't know why in the world I'm indulging you people, but this has to be the strangest thing that has happened to me up until this point in my life, and believe me, I have seen some strange things over the years."
Jill actually smiled in spite of her situation. She remained close to her mom while McSutton separated biological father from adoptive mother, from daughter.
They talked until it was twilight, and then they decided they all needed to sleep. McSutton offered to drive Anson to his hotel, while Jill climbed into her mom's car. She had been almost a good half an hour into their conversation before it dawned on her that she had left her car running. Rather than leave Jill without her mother's company, McSutton offered to run down and shut it off. Being alone with just Anson for the two women was very awkward, but even though he had done a fairly good job of garnering people's irritation and even hostility toward him earlier in the day, his demeanor had remarkably changed, as if he once again had a goal, a reason, for which to live and acted in accordance with that reason.
Jill wondered how he was able to find her, and he described the times he followed her and when, at the hotel bar, he saw her walk out and after a few drinks followed her, knowing he was not in the best of shape to do such a thing. He even apologized for frightening her and for leaving her mother when they needed him most. He did return and was proud of his daughter, even though he and his wife were unable to make the marriage work, largely because of his own shortcomings. It were as if he had a new life, but did not have the time required to spend it the way he should have with her. It was not a perfect apology, but it was more than he had done in years, if ever. There was a chance, if only he were willing to seize the moment, to work to restore and rebuild his life while in the process learning about a person whom he had no contact for the past thirty-eight years of his life.
She woke up in her old room. She turned over in a queen-size bed from her college days that her mom kept in a guest room expressly for her. The light was penetrating through the blinds, and she could tell that it was a much different day today than the night prior. It was after noon, and she remembered that she agreed to call Anson at his hotel when she got up and about. She thought about how truly inchoate was this relationship and questioned how she could even begin to form a bond with someone so totally unknown to her, but thought that somehow something greater than she intervened, even though she was unsure how or why. A circumstance like this was just too impossible, she rationalized.
Her mom had told her just before they went to bed something from a William Faulkner novel about a black character named Shreve who told his roommate at Harvard, Quentin Compson, that the South was better than the theater, was better than Ben Hur and that, sometimes, one had to get away from it in order to maintain their sanity.
One decision she reached while talking with her mom just before going to sleep was that she was going to stop running away from problems and start running toward solutions, instead. If life demanded one thing of the individual, it was to make it as meaningful and fulfilling as humanly possible. She planned to devote her days to creating a new meaning for her life, never forgetting her dad's role in it, and give this man a chance to prove to her that he was truly interested in becoming a part of that new life.
It would not be long now before the magnolias were in full bloom.
*The author would like to credit Ben Folds for this joke in his performance with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra, March 2005.
