Eleven (11 page)

We unloaded my bags. It was a quick
goodbye. He had a lot to take care of before flying out tomorrow.
We were both ready for it to be over with so we could get on with
the business of planning our wedding—and the rest of our
lives.

Chapter 16

Rain

He called me Wednesday afternoon to
inform me that he was on his way home. He was scheduled to arrive
at 7:30, as long as the weather didn’t interfere with his flight.
Not unusual for our area of Texas, it had been unseasonably warm
the past couple of days and thunderstorms were moving across the
area.

“I’ll come over as soon as my plane
lands. We need to talk,” I heard him say on the other end of the
line.

He sounded different. There was an odd
distance in his voice. I’m sure he was stressed out from the
divorce hearing. But all that mattered was; he was on his way home
to me—and he was all mine!

I saw his pick-up pull up in front of
my house. A cold rain was pouring outside. He pulled his jacket up
over his hat as he ran to my front porch. I had already opened the
door to welcome him home. I was smiling from ear to ear and
couldn’t wait to take him in my arms.

He stepped in and shook the rain off
his hat and removed his jacket. Then he looked at me.

Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t
smiling. His eyes were red and blood-shot.

His words trembled as he looked down at
the floor, gestured to the couch, and said, “Come over here. Sit
down with me. I have to tell you something.”

I started to feel a sense of panic
creeping over me. I had the sudden urge to cover my ears—or run. I
knew this feeling. He was about to tell me something I didn’t want
to hear.

I nervously asked, “What is it, Mister?
Is everything okay?”

“No—no it’s not,” he began. “I don’t
know how to tell you this. How can I tell you this? God, I love you
so much. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He was shaking his head and tears were
streaming down his face.

I began to cry, as well, and pleaded,
“What? What is it? Tell me!”

He tried to compose himself and
continued, “I showed up for the hearing and she was there. I found
out something I didn’t know—something she had kept from me. I
hadn’t seen her in a couple of months. I had no idea.”

He was grabbing and squeezing both of
my hands as I urged him to go on, “What? What had she kept from
you? What is it? Tell me.”

A loud bang of thunder rumbled across
the sky.

I watched his mouth as the words
spilled from them, “We didn’t go through with the divorce. We
didn’t sign the papers. I can’t leave her. She’s pregnant. She
couldn’t hide it anymore. The baby is due next month. It’s a
girl—and the baby is mine.”

I felt as if someone had just
sucker-punched me in the gut. The breath left my body as I fell
into the floor on my knees, doubled over, jerking with sobs. He
covered me with his body, wrapping his arms around me in an attempt
to provide some sort of comfort.

My face was buried in my hands, in
disbelief while I screamed over and over again, “No! No! No! This
can’t be happening! Tell me it’s a lie! Tell me this isn’t
real!”

He was crying, as well. He kept
repeating how sorry he was and how he never meant to hurt
me.

He carried me to my bed that night and
held me tightly as I cried myself to sleep. He stroked my hair and
told me how much he loved me again and again.

When I awoke the next morning, he was
gone. We never said goodbye.

I was broken and raw. The pain was
visceral; as if someone had severed a part of me and left it to
bleed.

In anger I looked up and screamed out
to God, “How could you let me lose him? How could you let me go
through this? After all I had already been through! Why did you
send him into my life just to rip him away from me? Why?
Why?”

Destroyed, I fell to the floor retching
with sobs. Then it came to me. I realized my fatal mistake. I had
asked God to help me find him—or for him to find me. My prayers had
been answered. I had forgotten the most important part. I had
forgotten to ask God to let me keep him for the rest of my
life.

Down on my knees, I looked up again in
regret and wailed, “I forgot to ask you to let it last forever!
Dear God, don’t let this be happening! Don’t let me lose him! Don’t
let him be another lesson. I can’t bear this, God! I can’t live
through this! Please give him back to me! I can’t live without
him.”

None of it mattered. It was over. Once
again, I was all alone. I would have to pick myself up from the
boot-straps and dust myself off. But this time, it would take time.
Nothing about my life would ever be the same.

My girlfriends surrounded me. They
consoled me and cried with me. They understood the toll this loss
would take on me. They knew this one was unbearable.

One would call in to work for me.
Another brought soup and stayed to make sure I ate it. My sweetest
friend held my hands in hers, placing her head against mine, while
she prayed to her sweet Jesus to comfort me.

They took turns checking on me, sitting
with me, making sure I didn’t do anything I would regret. As
always, their presence was constant. This time, it ensured my
survival.

I did my best to numb the pain and get
through the torment of each passing day without him. My routine
life became my only solace. I was back where I had begun. But I was
lesser. Part of me was gone—lost.

Had it been any other woman, I would
have fought for him to the death. But I lost him to the one woman I
couldn’t compete with—his daughter.

I hardened the shell around my heart. I
vowed to never go through this again. He had set the bar too high.
If I couldn’t have him, then I would have to find someone who loved
me more than I loved them. I knew I would never love anyone the way
I loved him.

And my heart would never be broken
again. It couldn’t be—it no longer existed.

Chapter 17

Consolation

I married again nine years ago. My
husband is an attractive man of character. He loves me deeply and
has been very good to me. I am the mother of two beautiful
children. Our son just turned eight. My daughter is
eleven.

My husband adopted her the week after
we married. He is the only father she has ever known. I never told
her biological father about her. I discovered I was pregnant a few
weeks after he left. I loved him too much. I couldn’t put him in
the position of having to make another excruciating choice. We had
already been through enough pain to last a lifetime. I decided to
bear the burden alone.

With the beginning of her life, I moved
away and began a new life of my own. He would never
know.

She is my consolation. Every time I
look at my precious girl, I see him through her eyes—those same
gorgeous, deep blue, beautiful eyes.

Our little family has made a good life
together. My husband runs a successful insurance business which
allows me to stay home to raise our children. We go to church each
Sunday and enjoy an active social life in our community. I
transport my kids to dance and soccer in a Cadillac Escalade in
which the posh interior always smells faintly of Chanel No. 5. The
kids are entertained en route by Pixar & Dreamworks selections
playing on the back seat DVD player. I drop the Pomeranians off to
be groomed each Friday afternoon while I go to the salon for a
manicure and pedicure. I’m often complimented on the stunning opal,
bejeweled diamond ring I wear on my right hand. We meet our friends
at 5:00 o’clock for cocktails each second Friday of the
month.

I finally have the impeccably decorated
five bedroom-four bathroom house situated in a gated
sub-division—complete with the dishwasher, central heat and air, a
large laundry room utilized by the housekeeper on Tuesdays and
Fridays, and a large soaking tub. The wine cellar is always stocked
with Indigo Hills Merlot. There is a large cedar swing underneath
one of the oak trees in the perfectly manicured, landscaped back
yard. The gardens are peppered with lavender, tulips, and Texas
sage. I got the life I wished for, for so long.

By all standards, my life is perfect.
But I have learned—not everything is as it appears. There is a vast
difference between the love we experience in this life and the ones
we imagined could have been. One takes your heart. The other takes
your soul.

I hear he is happily married, as
well—and by all standards, his life is perfect. I have been told
they have a beautiful daughter.

There are times I stand at my kitchen
sink window; rinsing dishes at the end of another busy day of being
a housewife and mother. All of a sudden, I feel the rush of time
and distance separating me from him. I attempt to push his memory
out of my mind. Logic reminds me why we are not together. I know
things always happen for a reason. I was never meant to understand
God’s plan.

I tell myself that had we ended up
together, things would have become mundane. The familiar routine of
marriage would have dulled the passion we once felt. The burdens of
everyday life would have caused the magic to fade into reality. I
have to tell myself that every time I think of him. I can’t bear to
think of it any other way.

Seemingly occupied with the warm water
running over my hands onto the dishes, I stare out into the night
sky. A gentle rain is falling outside. That familiar ache stirs in
me. I close my eyes, trying to find the strength to stop the
thought of him from invading my mind. My breath is caught in my
throat as I feel a tingling pain sear all the way through the tips
of my fingers as I hold back the tears welling up inside of
me.

I wonder—is he going through this, too?
Does he ever think of me? Do pangs of my memory hit him and leave
him breathless and empty? Are we somewhere in that other universe;
where the gossamer threads of our desire intertwine and we lose
ourselves to one another in an eternal kiss?

So many years have already gone by
without our paths ever crossing again. How many more will I endure
with only the memory of those eleven rare, precious days with him
to spare me from an existence without the truest passion known? He
once knocked upon the door of my soul with his kiss. I answered.
Long since shackled and hidden is that door. But his memory, my
most tortuous comfort, remains secure in the depths of that most
secret place.

© Karen S. Rodgers

Karen S. Rodgers Publishing

Meadow, Texas 79345

Thursday, February 21, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from the author and publisher, Karen S. Rodgers,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
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