Back To You (34 page)

When I got off the phone, I took a moment to speak to God.  "God, I have no idea what to say.  I am scared of losing a best friend.  He is the only one who could accept me, as broken as I am.  What should I do?  I
don’t know if I am strong enough to lose him.  Oh God, help me."

I called Mom and asked her if they would be willing to keep Rose for a few days so I could fly in to Chicago.  Someone needed to be by his side when, if, he woke up.  I got my flight arranged through Teresa, who made sure it was all paid for.  Ted had always spoken highly of her.  I could see why.  She was very efficient and very kind.

When I got to the hospital, he was still in a coma.  I was able to go in to see him.  I held his hand, talked to him, begged him to come back.  I was there beside him over the next couple of days.  He knew most of my past.  He knew how much I loved Jack.  He knew that I wasn't whole.  Ted accepted me for that.  He asked nothing more of me than I was willing to give.  He knew that he couldn't give everything he had either knowing the love of his life was never going to smile at him again.  We were two people who knew love and loss at the very core.  I guess that was what made our relationship work.  We could lean on each other.  We could even love each other the best way we knew how.  I begged him not to make me say goodbye again.

I caressed his face and brushed his hair.  I held his hand and read to him.  Anything to make him hear a voice of hope while he slept.  One night, as visiting hours were coming to an end, the nurse came in to see me. 

"You need to go get some real sleep.  Take a good shower.  Eat a decent meal.  You have been here for days."  I smiled hesitantly.  "Go.  We will take care of him and call you if anything changes."

I really could have used a good night's sleep.  And a meal that wasn't prepared in the hospital cafeteria.  I kissed Ted on his forehead when I left.  "Don't do anything stupid while I am gone."

When I got to the hospital the next morning, I was still reeling from an odd dream I had that night.  It was Ted.  He told me that it was time for me to stop hiding and get back to my dreams, to live again.  I needed to open my heart and tell my stories.  He smiled and kissed my forehead like I had kissed his the night before.  I woke up feeling strange.  A certain peace had settled over me.  And a sort of fear mixed with several emotions.  It was very confusing.  I almost expected to hear that Ted had passed in the night.

Instead, I walked in his room to find that in his sleep he smiled.  Had he actually reached out to me in his coma?  Doctors reported that he was stable.  His vitals looked good.  Maybe they could try to wake him in the next couple of days.

But he never woke up.  Later that day, while I had gone down to the cafeteria to stretch my legs, he had a massive stroke.  Because of his explicit instructions and the severity of the damage, there was no saving him.  He died before I even got back to the room.

I had no idea how to feel.  I had guarded myself against this over the past few days.  I felt loss.  And yet, that peace from my dream lingered.

I called my mom everyday so I could keep her updated and talk to Rose when she got home from school.  That day I called to let them know that Ted had passed away.  I felt a couple of tears threaten to fall several times that day, but I held myself together until I made it back to my hotel room.

The next day was full of arrangements to be made.  I was on the phone with Teresa making arrangements for his burial and how to get him back to his childhood home so he could be laid to rest with his parents.  And of course there was the matter of the attorneys and setting up time to meet with them.  According to Teresa, I was listed as next of kin AND executer of his will.  I also learned that at almost the exact time of his death, his wife had finally succumbed to death as well.  They had found each other again.  That thought made me smile, but there was a bitte
rsweet undertone.  I let myself think about Jack and how I wished someday we could find each other again.

After meeting with the attorneys and settling Ted's e
state, Rose and I stood to inherit quite a bit.  I had no idea how much property Ted owned.  It was going to take months to get everything settled, property liquidated and everything transferred to my name.  I was in shock for the better part of a week, at least.

The wo
rds Ted spoke to me in my dream haunted me now.  It was time that I stopped hiding.  I took a good long look at myself in the mirror.  I didn't like what was looking back at me. 

Sure I enjoyed my new career path.  There was som
ething so fulfilling about watching people enjoy my cooking.  But after years of hiding from my emotions, I stopped caring about myself.  I focused on making others happy.  Working hard to find perfection in recipes.  But I didn't care about my appearance at all.  I had gained weight.  I had lost sight of the beautiful, strong woman who graduated from Wesleyan prepared to take on the world.  Instead I was just an unemployed single mother tinkering with a hobby she loved.  Don't get me wrong, it was a decent job with not quite enough pay and no benefits (not that any of that mattered now after Ted's inheritance), but it was nowhere near the dream job I had planned when I graduated college.  Not even close.

My thirtieth birthday had come and gone.  I had tried keeping a journal in the past, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write about anything.  There just wasn’t much in my life that was worth writing about.  Occasionally my creativity would blossom in a spark while I was working.  I would take a few minutes to write down a thought, write a poem or lyrics, suggestions for
short stories, but I never did anything with them.  My heart was keeping a lifetime's worth of emotions locked away in a bulletproof safe, and I couldn't even write about it.  Pathetic.

D
oing small catering jobs here and there for extra cash gave me the chance to forget about the world when I could see the look of delight in someone’s eyes as they took a bite of one of my creations, but I knew finally, I had to take a good hard look at the woman I wanted to be.  The one I had let go of. 

I had made some awesome friends over the years since mo
ving to California, and I decided to have a party for them on New Year’s Eve that year.  Obviously my desperate attempt to avoid dating was a red flag for my friends, and they did everything they could to set me up on dates.  Perhaps ringing in the New Year with good food and great friends would be more successful.

Christmas with Ted had been pretty much non-existent.  He
wasn’t a fan, especially since his father died on Christmas Eve when he was a child.  So that Christmas was not all that different from the previous few.  My mom and her boyfriend joined Rose and I on Christmas morning to open gifts and see what goodies Santa had brought.  Santa spoiled us a little more that year than normal.  But when it was all over, Mom had gone home, and Rose was asleep holding on to her new doll, I curled up on the end of my couch, my Christmas music playing, and watched the tree lights twinkle off of the ornaments.  As I sat there, I began working on my plan to start the new year off with a bang.  And the party was only the beginning.

Leah and Rob had gotten married and had a family by this time.  I didn’t get to see them much because they were a
lways busy.  But we were still friends.  Rose made a friend in the neighborhood whose mother then became one the best friends I had ever had.  I met a great family at church with kids Rose’s age so it all worked out.  I had an amazing support system to start down my new path.

I continued working in the food industry as a caterer d
oing odd jobs here and there.  It really was a great job.  I began losing some weight, getting a little more confidence back and enjoying life.  I even got a small tattoo of a beautiful lavender rose on my back. 

Rose was growing up.  She was an awesome kid.  She was funny and creative.  Calling her a little princess would not be an overstatement.  She was mature for her age and loved to laugh.  Most importantly, she loved to LOVE.

Watching Rose grow up inspired me to write.  So I did.  It was slow at first, but gradually the words began to flow.  The internet made it possible to publish my work instead of fighting for the publishing companies to take a look at even the title page.  First came a cookbook with many of my family's recipes and others I had tweaked and created to make my own.  The idea started as a wedding gift for a friend who wanted to learn to cook.  It was a very good idea.  It sold moderately well.  Next came a compilation of short stories, humorous in nature, all about being a single mom to a princess.  After that I was picked up to do a monthly installment in a local magazine using humor to explain creative and craft oriented projects.  That led to my own column that covered lots of topics, not just crafting.  It took many years and a few nasty kicks in my rear for God to make me realize I was supposed to be using my true gift after all.  It wasn't just writing.  It was reaching out to people, making them laugh and cry and FEEL with my words.  I finally opened up that bulletproof safe and let the words pour out.  That resulted in the beginning of a successful career not only in writing, but also in public speaking when I was asked to give inspirational speeches.

It was rare that I slept through the night, even with occasio
nal sleeping medication, but one night in a blissful moment of dreams, I heard his voice calling to me.  I could see him reaching for me, laughter in his green gold eyes.  It had been so long since I had let myself actually think of him, dream of him.  In my dream he touched my arm, caressed my face with his thumb, kissed my lips.  It was heaven.  When I woke up the next morning, I realized that it was his birthday.  It had been so long since I had felt that connection, the electricity of his touch. 

I had no idea where he was or what he was doing.  I wondered if he was married with children.  If he still played m
usic.  If he ever thought of me.  I looked up his parent’s phone number that night and picked up the phone.  I just wanted to hear his voice.

*****

Jack was the head chef at a prominent restaurant in New Orleans.  He and Carole were still friends, but their romantic relationship had faded years ago.  He loved his work, but was getting tired and bored of the same thing day after day.  He came home from work, fixed himself something for dinner, played with his guitar a little bit before settling in to watch a game or movie.  He had friends he could hang out with, but a lot of them had families, kids, obligations.  His only obligation was to make sure the cat that roamed the apartment complex was well fed.

Maybe I need to plan a road trip
, he thought. 
But who would I take with me?  The damn apartment cat?

Jack accepted his life.  He enjoyed going to concerts alone.  At least that is what he told himself.  His first love would always be his music.  Most women didn’t get that.  Eventually they gave up trying to make him choose them over the music.  It would always be music.  Only when he found someone who could appreciate the fact that his creative and moody side was as important for him to create his food and music as it was to have oxygen to breathe would he even consider putting a woman before the music
. Most women couldn’t understand.  He just preferred being alone.

One night after he got home from work and realized that there weren’t any football games on, he grumbled
, ate his dinner and popped open a cold beer in his recliner.  There wasn’t anything good on TV, so he decided to get out his guitar and fiddle around with a new tune.  When his pick broke, he dug around in his guitar case to find another one.

“I know I have one around here somewhere,” he mu
ttered.  He got up and checked the “junk drawer” in the kitchen.  Nothing.  Pockets of his favorite jacket.  Nada.

“Well, shit.”  He stomped into the bedroom and started searching his closet.  This was not going well, he thought.  And then he remembered he had bought a few of them right before he moved into the apartment, packed them and never got them out.

“Must be in one of these boxes,” he said out loud to no one.  He opened the first box, it just had some of his summer clothes and old shirts.  The second box was some of the useless stuff his mother gave to him that he would never need.  The last box was a little bit smaller than the others.  As he opened the box, he saw some old birthday cards and letters.  He shuffled those aside and caught a glimpse of the box of picks.  He tried to dig it out, but the box opened and the picks fell further into his box of memories.  He started taking things out of the box and saw the picture of Randy, Suzy and him at high school graduation.  He lifted it out and sat back to look at it.  He smiled. 
That was when I had hair
, he smirked, rubbing his shaved head.  What happened to those young fools in the picture?  He hadn’t spoken to Randy in ages.  And Suzy.  She never would let him explain everything that happened with Alexis. 
That was one fucked up mess.

His interest was piqued now and he started looking though all of the things in the box.  Letters from friends, birthday
cards from his family.  And then he saw it.  The sterling rose he had carefully preserved so long ago.  He had put it in a plastic box to keep it from getting crushed.  Still one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. 
But never as beautiful as she was
.

Jack wondered what had become of her.  Did she ever write?  Was she married?  Did she ever find a man who would apprec
iate her for all she was, even with her idiosyncrasies?  She had a way of smiling at him just right so that he knew what she was thinking before she said a word.  Her laugh was loud and obnoxious sometimes, but he couldn’t resist laughing when he heard it.  She never cried except in movies or at songs that touched her.  And even then she tried to hide it.  He thought about the day she bumped into him in the hallway with her wild hair sticking out from the humidity.  The night he kissed her for the first time.  How she had lit all of those candles the night they gave up their virginity to each other.  How beautiful she looked when she had snuck his red shirt to run to the bathroom and how the light from the hallway shone around her.  The memories came flooding in.  Everything he had tried to forget rushed back to him.