Argosy Junction (30 page)

Unpremeditatedly, they kissed. Both of them knew it was foolish, but neither cared. In that kiss were all the words that neither could speak and both needed to say. For Matt, the kiss, much too short and yet seemingly never ending, was the first real hope that perhaps their relationship could resurrect. Lane, aware that she would both regret and cherish these moments, clung to the hope that it wouldn’t be their last.

“I’m sor—”

Matt hushed her with a brush of his finger against her lips. “Don’t be. Please. I couldn’t take it. I’m not.”

“You’re not?” Lane’s voice was laced with relief.

Matt’s finger entwined itself around her hair. “How could I be?”

They shivered for a moment before they both said, “We should go in—”

Matt chuckled. “Great minds and all of that. I have something for you.”

He slipped his arm from the jacket sleeve and pulled the letters from the pocket. “You asked for them. I almost didn’t bring them I—”

“Oh! Matt thank you—”

Matt shook his head. “Don’t. Not yet. You haven’t read them. I said in these letters everything that I wanted or needed to say to you, but couldn’t for whatever reason. If I was hurt, it is in there. If I was angry, you’ll see it. I just hope you can filter those things with the rest of my heart.”

“So don’t read them when Patience is around?”

He swept her hair from her face tucking it behind her ear. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

“Would you slip them into the zipper of my laptop case before we get on the plane? I don’t want her to see them. She’ll expect to read them and—”

He pulled her from their protected box into the frosty air. “Let’s go. I’ll take care of it.”

~*~*~*~

They spent two hours playing hide and seek in the airport terminal. Whoever was “it” had to hide or count with Patience, whichever she chose, for each round. They wandered in and out of gift shops, restaurants, behind baggage claims, and in phone booths. The rules were simple. No bathrooms, no going outside, no leaving Patience’s side for any reason.

Eventually, Tad found a Mrs. Pac-man game and challenged Patience to a competition. Lane and Matt wandered around the kiosks and shops, talking as though they hadn’t parted broken hearted over the death of a new relationship just three months earlier. This realization made their time together bittersweet. Lane would go through security in less than an hour and who knew when, if ever, they’d see each other again. At some point, one or both of them would have to admit that “just friends” would never work for them.

Lane glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to give them warning so they don’t start a new game. We have to check in soon.”

Matt stopped her. “Lane I—”

“Not now Matt. This was so nice I don’t want to ruin it.”

Matt shuffled his feet. “You know, you usually can read my mind and know exactly what I am going to say, but occasionally you’re as off as you can be. I just wanted to tell you how much it means to me that we could talk again.”

“Oh.”

He took her hand and turned back toward the arcade area. “If I had even a chance of some privacy—”

“I bet one of those doors—”

Matt jerked her toward the food court. “You’re shameless Laney! I love it, but you’re shameless!”

~*~*~*~

Late that night, Lane tossed and turned in her bed. They’d arrived at midnight. It was two in the morning, and Patience snored gently next to her. Across the room, Tad snored, making sleep impossible.

Lane slipped from the covers and dug through the zippered pocket on her laptop case, looking for the earplugs she sometimes used to sleep on planes. Her hands grabbed one plug and Matt’s letters simultaneously. She scrounged for another plug and then slid under the covers, the packet of letters under her pillow.

The next morning, Lane sent Tad and Patience off to eat breakfast alone. Tad saw her curled in a ball and assumed an unwelcome visitor was making Lane cranky and crampy and offered to take Patience to the amusement park so she could rest.

Lane smiled. “How about you bring me some donuts from the vending machine and a Coke? I’ll meet you at the entrance of the park at one o’clock, and we’ll have lunch. Sound fair?”

Loaded with enough sugar to drive her insulin levels through the roof, Lane settled herself comfortably in bed and opened the first letter. The writing was sloppy. Matt’s previous letters hadn’t exactly been elegant, but they had been written neatly—legibly. This letter was scrawled quickly as though in a rush.

Dear Lane,

Can I call you that? Is it wrong? I don’t know. I don’t care. I almost chased you down today. I was half way to Rockland when I locked up the brakes and did a one-eighty. I think I snapped out of it when I got the ticket for speeding.

If I am honest, I’ll admit that I’m angry. You won’t even give it a chance; you won’t listen. You’ve made up your mind based upon a false premise and you don’t care.

That hurts, Lane-it hurts. You don’t care enough about me or us to even consider that you could be wrong.

Remember when you accused me of being a Christian, and I said that by your definition I wasn’t? Well it is true. By your definition, I am not a Christian. Either this is true and you should at least discover what my definition is, or you think I’m a liar.

Maybe that is why you can walk away. I know it hurt you too. I’m lashing out and angry and hurt and I want you to see that. I want my pain to matter to you as much as yours does to me. Do you care? I thought you did. I know you’re hurting, but why? Why are you hurting? Do you know why I’m hurting?

So I sit here and write all the things I couldn’t say to you. I write them because I love you too much to hurt you with my own pain, and I write them because I don’t know how to love someone as I love you. I know how to love a teacher or a mother or a friend. I don’t know how to love a woman. That’s probably why this happened. This is probably my fault. I didn’t know how to love you and show it. I didn’t know how to demonstrate the love of the Lord to someone I feel so passionate about. My past rises to the surface and tries to pull you into it. I want what I can’t have, I don’t want what I know is wrong, but I desire it to be right more than I care to confess.

I write ambiguously. I’d explain myself, but though you’ve read the last letters I never expected to share, I don’t even know if you’ll speak to me again much less have a chance to read these. Why am I writing this? It’s as though I can’t stop writing so I keep adding unnecessary words to these pages hoping they’ll be a balm on my heart.

I love you, miss you, and I’ll never forget you. I pray I don’t have to try.

Broken,

Matt

Lane’s tears flowed freely. That day in early July flooded her memory. She remembered realizing that she couldn’t pretend to accept that which she hated. The certainty that Matt would reject her the minute he knew she wouldn’t play the game she was tempted to try reverberated through her thoughts.

He hadn’t given up on her. She had felt like the victim that day. She knew Matt was hurting, but in her mind, it was his own doing. He caused his pain. He caused her pain. His demands for her to yield to the call of the Lord were the reason for their separation. It wasn’t her fault! She hadn’t expected anything of him—

But she had, and now she realized it. He had only asked her to consider. To listen. She’d refused. It was her way or no way—the exact thing she’d mentally accused him of demanding.

Brushing aside her tears, she opened the next letter. Uncertain what she’d find, she gulped down half of her Coke and took a deep breath. “He said they weren’t all bad,” she muttered to herself.

Dear Lane,

You haven’t answered my emails, but I’m not surprised. Every day I come home, connect to the Internet, and watch my inbox flood with offers of credit, for pornography of every description, a date with my true soul mate, and prescription offers for cholesterol, impotence, insomnia, and birth control medications. Somehow, the combinations amuse me. I’ve been assured that I am a Nigerian widow’s only hope to save her husband’s fortune, and I have won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes four times a day for the past two weeks.

              Everyone, including strangers, writes me except you. I’m terrified that you will never write again. If I could see you, right now, I’d never ask for anything again. I’d hold you, twirl my hands in your hair, and never let you go. I’d pray for your heart to be softened, but I wouldn’t say a word to you. I’d memorize every one of your features imprinting them on my heart until there was no chance of forgetting the slightest detail of you.

I can still see our hands as we walked behind Patience, and I want to feel that comfort and confidence again.

I want to swear. I want to curse Mrs. Hayward for teaching me to spill my heart onto paper. I want to do foolish and unspeakable things in order to try to numb the pain and drown out your memory all while I desire nothing more than more memories of you. It is insanity.

I guess that’s why they say some of the things that they do about love. How can anyone be “in love with love?” It is too painful.

So very alone,

Matt

She wiped away a tear and tried to take another swig of her Coke, but it was empty. She flipped through several more letters and gave up trying to concentrate. Swallowing her tears always made her thirsty. She slipped on her moccasins and wandered down the hall to the vending machines. One thing life on the road had taught her was to keep a fist full of coins at all times.

“Bit early for that?”

Lane jumped as a man in a western suit gave her a once-over. She shrugged and tried to pass, but he didn’t move. A more timid personality might have felt threatened, but no one had ever considered Lane timid. She glared at him for a minute and then shook her head saying, “Honestly, the further south I get the more I expect gentlemanly behavior and the less of it I see. With that accent, I would have expected your ‘mama to have taught you bettah mannahs.’”

“Spirit. I like that.” The man stepped aside, but Lane said nothing until she rounded the corner and had a straight shot to her room.

“Too bad I don’t care what you like,” she quipped walking slowly and deliberately when she wanted nothing more to run back and kick him into a professional soprano.

As she opened the next envelope, she wondered what Matt would say to her behavior. She mentally heard the warnings and saw the amused light in his eyes as she pictured him lecturing her. Tad would just kick her bum and tell her to behave herself, but Matt always seemed to respect her spunk.

As she neared the end of the pile, the letters grew more intimate and angrier. Matt’s frustration spilled onto the pages and whirled into terrible storms. Lane found it amusing to see him show on paper a side of him that rarely surfaced. The closest he’d come to true anger around her was over the prostitute and with Franco.

Lane,

It is nice to correspond again. I enjoy getting your emails even as they tear me up inside. I miss the envelopes amid my bills, pleas for financial help for various charities, and promises of riches in the next sweepstakes. Honestly, why don’t they just quit giving away the money and drop the price of the magazines, that way, everyone wins. I like it myself.

Your father says you refuse to acknowledge his repentance. Who do you think you are? Are you God that you could deny a person forgiveness? He apologized for leading your family down the very path that you resent so much, yet you ignore a plea of forgiveness for that. Grow up, Lane; this isn’t all about you. Others have been hurt by this whole thing; lives have been crushed. Families are ripped apart because of a faulty system of theology.

Be the better person, Lane. Go to your father, acknowledge his pain, and forgive him. He didn’t create the Brethren alone, I grant you. But the Brethren didn’t evolve without his input and sanction. He was behind them 100%. Don’t you get that? Or are you unwilling to get it?

Sometimes when I think of your stubbornness I grow so angry that it scares me. You are willing to toss aside a lifetime of happiness for both of us because you won’t even listen to what we have to say. Don’t confuse you with the facts; your mind is made up!

Don’t get me wrong, I know you could be happy with someone else, and that you will probably lead a rich and wonderful life without me. I know that. I know that it is even possible, as hard as it is to admit, that I could find someone else as well. But, you won’t even give it a shot and there is a good chance that this is it for one or both of us. Anything is possible, both good and bad.

Now I feel like one of those caricatures of the French. I rail at you and let out all of my angst only to want to hold you and never let you go in the next second. You’re a good fit for me, Lane. I’m not much taller than you, but you seem to belong with me—like an extension somehow. But you’re gone, and who knows if or when you’ll ever be back.

Oh if I only had the nerve to actually send this letter. If only I wasn’t such a coward and could share what is truly on my heart. Do you wonder if I write you letters that I don’t send? Do you wonder what is in them? Are you wonder-full in another way that I don’t know?

I wonder,

Matt

His silliness at the end of the letter told her he’d come to grips with the situation. He’d railed, he’d forgiven, and he’d sent his thoughts in another direction. Exactly the things he accused her of not doing. The irony wrung her heart.

The final letter made her heart pound, her eyes shine, and put a smile on her face that her family hadn’t seen in months. Once finished, she read it again. Then, just in case she’d missed something or maybe because she wanted to absorb each word once more, she read it a third time.