Traditional Gravity

by Stephen Armstrong

  Chapter Ten

  My vibrating cell phone woke me up a little before seven Friday morning. It was Samantha.

  "Hello?"

  "Can you come to my house now? There's something I want to show you." Her voice sounded alert, as if she had been awake for some time.

  "Uh, yeah, just give me like ten minutes."

  We hung up and I scrambled to get dressed and out the door, though I was still only partially conscious. I might have protested or asked for more time, if not for the fact that I tossed and turned for hours the night before, worrying that she wouldn't call me again. No one was awake in my house, so I left a note on the counter, briefly explaining my absence.

  It was more like fifteen minutes later when I turned onto Elm Street. Samantha emerged from her front door immediately upon my arrival.

  "I'll drive," she said, walking to her car parked in the driveway. I stumbled over to her Civic, but not in time to open the door for her. It almost seemed as if she intentionally prevented my usual act of chivalry. Feeling slightly defeated, I sat down in the passenger seat.

  She stared straight ahead. Her face was rigid, devoid of smile or warmth.

  "Where are we going?"

  Samantha didn't seem to hear me, or if she did, completely ignored me. When she finally did say something, it had no relation to the question I posed.

  "I'm sorry about last night." Her sterile apology suggested, "I'm sorry you had to have such an experience last night, but that's just the way life is, so you better get used to dealing with it."

  "That's okay," I said, knowing she didn't care if I responded or not.

  We headed out of Oleout Plains on Route 8 and turned toward Interstate 88. She went west on 88, which could have led us toward a variety of different locations. Our course so far communicated little about our destination.

  "Where are we going?" I repeated, hoping she would answer this time.

  "Skaneateles." She still wouldn't look me in the eye.

  "Skaneateles?"

  "It's near Syracuse."

  That meant we had quite a drive in front of us. Syracuse was at least an hour and a half from Oleout Plains. Given the manner in which Samantha treated me, that time would seem interminable. I pondered if I should keep trying to converse with her, or just do my best to fall asleep. Channeling the few, small threads of optimism I found within myself, I tried talking. I didn't lead with small talk or playful banter. Perhaps being completely forthright with her might stimulate her to tell me what was going on.

  "So the woman last night yelling at you was the grandmother of your child?" This was simply a known fact at this juncture, but putting it out in the open might help.

  "Yes." I waited for elaboration, but it didn't come, so I proceeded onward.

  "Why did she say that you stole her grandson?"

  "Because she thinks I did."

  I poked further. "I already knew you had a kid before last night. My friend's wife thought that you got pregnant in high school. Alex also heard from a friend that you were pregnant too." I paused to let this revelation sink in. She said nothing. "Alex also said that her friend was afraid you were going to get an abortion. Did you?"

  The question hung in the car for a few tense moments. Samantha continued to stare straight forward. Eventually, she answered softly, "No."

  I was relieved, for me, for her and for the child.

  "Where is your child? Did you give it up for adoption?"

  She didn't reply. I switched to another topic; I didn't expect better results, but thought it better to try than to give up.

  "Who was the father?"

  "Greg Long."

  "Greg Long?" I hated Greg Long. A first class idiot, he harassed just about every single person he could. He openly mocked me when I walked past him in the hallways, even though I was two years older and substantially bigger than he was. How could Samantha ever hook-up with him? I wanted to ask that, but given Samantha's demeanor, I didn't dare.

  She seemed to have an inkling of what I was thinking. "I started going out with him Junior year. I don't know what I ever saw in him, but for some reason at the time I thought he was cute and funny."

  Perhaps he acted differently around girls he liked. Samantha was way out of his league, but I often bemoaned the fact that many pretty high school girls ended up with complete punks.

  "And he was someone who really went after me, so I guess that made me feel kind of good about myself, in a stupid high school girl kind of way."

  I actually interpreted this remark as a subtle swipe against me - I hadn't pursued her, despite my interest in her. This veiled accusation curtailed my questions for the time being. I did feel a little guilty, and my masculinity had been ever so slightly tweaked.

  "Don't worry Evan, you'll get the whole story. Just wait a little longer," she said, meeting my eyes for the first time. However, the way she looked at me reminded me more of the way she cautiously regarded me in the high school hallway, than the affectionate gazes she had given me the last few days.

  I abandoned conversation for the rest of the ride. I tried to sleep, but once awake, always struggled to fall back asleep. The Civic wasn't conducive to reclining anyway. I mentally drifted off, staring at Samantha intermittently. She never reacted to my glances as she drove us onward toward Skaneateles. My thoughts oscillated between hope and fear. If she wanted to break up with me (and granted, we weren't exactly a couple per se), she could have done it over the phone, or simply waited me out and done nothing. It seemed like a good sign that Samantha wanted to show me something.

  However, she was different now. She had closed herself off to me emotionally. She might have brought me to tell the entire story of what happened to her child, but she seemed like a detached narrator so far. I witnessed this demeanor before at the end of my romances. Steps taken were traced back to where they began, doors were shut, gates were latched, and the things that used to be shared once again became private property. Personal details became austere facts, merely points of information. Usually I closed myself off first. Samantha beat me to the punch, though I didn't understand why.

  To make matters worse, Samantha was acting a little crazy. She refused to tell me where we were going and answered only whatever questions she felt like answering. I guess this made me a little crazy too, because I consented to accompany her without any agreed upon itinerary, when she was clearly in a disturbed state of mind.

  The rest of the ride passed uncomfortably but it had to end sometime. After nearly two hours, we arrived in Skaneateles, a small town nestled on one of the finger lakes of central New York. We took the main drag into the heart of town, and then Samantha navigated us through a few side roads, finally stopping on a purely residential street. She put the car in park and turned off the ignition, but did not get out.

  "What are we waiting for?" I asked after a few minutes of suspended animation.

  Again, she didn't respond. She focused on a yellow Victorian House on the opposite side of the street. Nobody came out of the house, or went into it. For fifteen minutes no one passed by us, on car or by foot.

  "Samantha, what are we doing here?"

  She still refused to answer. More time passed. A few pedestrians walked by, but Samantha exhibited no interest in them. I didn't understand what we could possibly be doing there. I wasn't scared for my life, but Samantha's behavior concerned me. She just didn't seem stable.

  We waited thirty minutes. I could only go along with this undefined stakeout for so long, but I possessed few options.

  "Samantha, you need to tell me what we're doing here. You're starting to scare me," I said as sternly as I could.

  This time, Samantha undid her seat belt and slowly got out of the car. I moved to follow her. She crossed the street to the yellow Victorian, and stopped at its front steps. She never went further, though it looked like she wanted to. Some invisible force held her back. My patience had nearly run out.

  "What is this place? Why are we standing here?"
>
  "This is where my son lives," Samantha announced, her eyes fixated on one of the second floor windows.

  "So you did give him up for adoption."

  "Yes. I did."

  Someone looked at us through the front window. Suddenly, I became a little concerned what our presence there meant.

  "Is it okay for us to be here?"

  She didn't respond, which didn't comfort me. TV and movies seemed to suggest that kids didn't know they were adopted until later in life, and I didn't know if birth moms could just go and see their child on a whim. I imagined there would be rules about what was acceptable.

  A little boy with wavy, brown hair came to the living room window and watched us. Samantha put her right foot on the bottom step.

  "I think maybe we should get out of here," I suggested, tugging lightly on her arm.

  Samantha kept one foot on the step, poised to walk up the last four. A strange energy animated her features. Finally, her body relaxed and she put her foot back on the sidewalk.

  "He doesn't know who I am." She didn't sound sorrowful, just numb. "He looks like he's better off, right?"

  "I don't know - I don't think you can tell."

  The boy at the window turned his head away from us and appeared to call someone else. I firmly expected that his mom, dad or babysitter would appear at the window in another second.

  "Come on Samantha. We need to go. Now."

  This time she gave in. She backpedaled for the first few steps and then turned to cross the street back to her car. I didn't dare look to see if an adult had joined Samantha's birth child at the window. Once in the car, Samantha rested her head on the steering wheel. I reached for her hand to console her. She didn't resist, but she didn't give in either. Her hand remained limp, merely dead weight in mine.

  "What's his name?"

  "Aidan."

  "Have you met him? You know, since he was adopted?"

  "No."

  "Do you come here often?"

  She shook her head. "No. Only a few times. I'm not really supposed to, but sometimes I can't help it. Sharon, his real mom, sends me updates and pictures when she can."

  "Does he know he's adopted?"

  "Not yet. Sharon and Rob want to wait until he's older, so he can understand better."

  "What happens then? Will you get a chance to meet him?"

  She shrugged. "Maybe. He might not want to meet me. I'm just the person who abandoned him anyway. Sharon and Rob are his real mother and father now."

  Samantha wrestled her hand out of my grasp and started the car. She maneuvered a K turn and we headed out of Skaneateles. I gave Samantha at least ten minutes to gather herself after seeing Aidan, before asking any more questions.

  "What's the deal with the grandmother? She didn't want you to put Aidan up for adoption?"

  "At first, she didn't care. When I told Greg that I was pregnant, both Greg and his mom started spreading the rumor that Greg wasn't really the father. He made up this story about me cheating on him, and having sex with a bunch of guys. Greg basically dumped me from the start, and told me to get an abortion, because he was never paying a dime for the kid."

  That seemed a little extreme, but Greg never impressed me with his maturity.

  "What changed then? Why is the grandma saying you stole her grandson?"

  "She changed her mind because Greg died in a car crash the same year."

  "What? Greg is dead?" I would've been in college at the time, but was surprised my mom wouldn't have mentioned this. Any high school kid dying would have been a big deal in a town like Oleout Plains. Then again, when it came to relaying news items, my mom was somewhat scatterbrained.

  "After Greg died, she thought of the baby as her last link to him, I guess. When I told her that I was putting the baby up for adoption, she pleaded with me to change my mind. She even offered to raise the baby as her own. I felt bad for her, but I didn't trust her. So I said no."

  "What did she do?"

  "Harassed me, threatened me. I had to get a restraining order against her. Eventually, she drank herself into oblivion, and I didn't hear from her for a while."

  "Was last night the first time she tried to confront you?"

  "No, there were a few other times. It was getting so I might see her around town, and she would just glare at me, then walk away, as if she were being the bigger person."

  "Then why she did get so mad last night?"

  "I guess because she saw me with you, so she thought I was moving on, and it made her angry."

  Samantha, while much more responsive on the way back, still wouldn't look at me. I felt a great chasm between the driver's and passenger side seats.

  "What'd your family think of all of this?"

  "My mom and dad were already divorced and he was out in Seattle at the time. It was my mom who really pushed me to put the baby up for adoption. She told me there was no way I was going to be able to raise the baby on my own, and that I should give the baby to someone who could really give him a life. She said it was the right thing to do. Only my aunt encouraged me to keep him. She told me I might always regret giving Aidan away."

  "Did you want to keep him?"

  "I don't know - I was so scared. I even thought about having an abortion early on. I thought that would make it like it never happened. But I couldn't do that - not after I saw Aidan on the Ultrasound. I was still scared though. I felt like I was destined to become white trash in a trailer park, or something like that."

  She narrated the story freely now; I didn't even need to prompt her for information anymore.

  "I made arrangements with an adoption agency, and eventually chose Rob and Sharon. They seemed like really nice people. Rob was a doctor and Sharon was an artist. I thought he would have a really great life with them. But when I gave birth, and actually looked at him..." She paused as her voice started to crack. She gathered herself for a second before she finished. "I felt in my heart that he was mine. And I loved him. I didn't want to give him up. So I told my mom that I was going to change my mind, but she wouldn't accept that. She just kept telling me I needed to be brave and let go, for his sake and mine." She shook her head. "I did what she told me to do. I gave him away. She told me I would be sad for a while, but then I would be able to feel good about myself and feel good for him - because I did the right thing."

  Her words had escalated in emotional intensity, but now they slowed and softened.

  "She was wrong. I still feel it now, like a part of me is missing, and always will be. That no matter what I do, or whom I'm with-" she looked directly at me - "I'm going through the rest of my life incomplete. And it's never going to change. Last night reminded me of that."

  I finally understood. "So that's why you drove me up here? To show me that we can never be together?"

  She stared at me impassively.

  I shook my head. "You could have told me over the phone and saved me the trip!"

  "Actually, bringing you here was more of a test Evan."

  "A test of what?"

  "To see if maybe standing next to you while I walked away from Aidan, I could find some hope - even just a little bit."

  "Hope in what?"

  She shrugged. "That things could be different. That being with you would make me feel even just a little less empty."

  Samantha's hollow countenance assured me my presence offered no such consolation to her.

  "This doesn't really seem like a fair test. You've only known me for a few days so far. How do you expect me to make you feel better about giving up your child?"

  Samantha seemed unmoved by this argument. "Would you rather find out now or later?"

  "I'd rather have a chance."

  "Evan, I've done this before. For a while, I would just hook-up with random guys. But it didn't help. Then I met a guy that I really liked - at least before he went psycho on me. Remember the relationship I told you about yesterday - the one that stopped working? This was why. Even when I was him, I felt empty. I couldn't forget a
bout the fact that I was missing something and he couldn't fill it. It just didn't seem fair to him - to have him, or anyone else - be in a relationship with someone who feels empty."

  I wanted to say that it could be different, but couldn't think of any good reasons why it would be. Who was I to tell her that we could work? I was just an obscure high school acquaintance who only four days ago had wandered back into her life. Those four days were the only evidence I possessed. My life didn't even fulfill me. I looked at her sadly, more focused on my own growing heartache than I was on her plight.

  "Then why didn't you just say no when I asked you out if you knew it was going to end up this way?"

  She sighed. "I'm sorry for this. I'm sorry if I misled you-"

  "Mislead me? Now I know I initiated a lot of the time we spent together, but you showed up at my grandfather's funeral. You met my family. If you knew it wasn't going to work out, why'd you do that?"

  The word mislead out of the mouth of a woman always made me angry. The infamous apology by women for misleading men was right up there with the 'let's just be friends' speech.

  "Evan, I'm sorry. You caught me off guard. You showed up out of nowhere at the high school and then all of a sudden, you were calling me to do stuff. And I liked the way you made me feel."

  She trailed off and shook her head slightly, as if the entire situation had spiraled out of her control.

  "When I was with you, I was living in an alternate reality. It was like being in high school again, when I was just a sophomore. It felt like you were asking me out back then, and everything would have been different. No Greg, no baby, no more emptiness. All we had was the week and after that, you'd go home and I would go back to my real life. Whatever happened, this week was just going to be an illusion."

  Her expression turned remorseful. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I wanted us to have a few more good days before you left. But last night, I lost the illusion."

  I didn't know what to say. Four days ago she hadn't even been a glint in my eye. Now she was telling me we couldn't see each other anymore and I felt devastated. Everything she said seemed so final, as if there was nothing more up for discussion.

  When we reached her Aunt and Uncle's house on Elm Street, I quietly got out of the car. Samantha immediately started walking away, but stopped halfway to her house and turned back to me.

  "Evan, you should go back to Harrisburg. Call Wendy and tell her you're sorry. Tell her you love her and you've missed her. I think that would be the truth. She has so much more to offer you."

  I dismissed Samantha's advice as an attempt to exculpate herself from hurting my feelings.

  "Evan, you deserve better than me. I know you've made your mistakes before, but I think you're a good guy."

  With that final declaration, she resumed walking the short path to her house and disappeared beyond the front door. She never even gave me a final chance for a rebuttal. I wanted to argue with her, to tell her about the memory of being in my grandparents' church. It would've sounded crazy using words like 'destiny' and 'purpose', but I would've risked her judgment in order to put any seed of optimism back in her mind.

  I leaned against my car, wishing Samantha back out of her house. I didn't have the strength to knock on the door and tell her everything on my mind, but couldn't bring myself to leave either. Driving off now would mean conceding Samantha's termination of our relationship, which I couldn't quite do yet. If I did, I would lose Samantha, as well as the reemergence of the purpose and meaning that seemingly accompanied her.

  I took a backwards glance at the abandoned school house. Throughout the week, the decaying artifice vacillated between curiosity and harbinger of doom. Now, I found myself drawn to the ancient building. Seeing nothing else to do besides giving up and going home - which I wasn't prepared to do yet - I crossed the street and sat down on the steps leading to the front door.

  While I sat on the steps I realized something intriguing - the door was open. Just a crack, but enough to enter. Would it be considered trespassing if I went into the school if the door was open? Probably so, though at least it wouldn't count as breaking and entering. My inquisitiveness got the better of me and I pushed the door gently and slipped in.

  "Hello?" I called out, stepping into an entryway with high ceilings, directly facing a staircase. No one answered.

  As soon as the door closed behind me, taking the last of the light with it, venturing inside the old building felt like a bad idea. I pulled out a small LED flashlight attached to my key chain.

  "Hello?" I called again, shining the small light across the first floor. If someone was inside, he or she was sitting in the dark. I wasn't afraid of being alone in the vacant structure, though did fear that someone would emerge from the copious darkness and surprise me.

  Despite that trepidation, I pressed forward. My curiosity was too strong to turn back. In front of me, a stairway led to the second floor, and cut the first floor into two symmetrical halves. Two hallways were formed by the stairs, one of each side. I took the corridor on the right.

  I poked my head into the first room, which was very large and virtually empty. Immediately, I was struck by how clean the room was. None of the rumored fecal matter smeared the floor, and very little debris obstructed my path. Someone must have been working on the building recently.

  I was also struck by the emptiness of the school. The plaster walls had been stripped back to the studs and only the sub-floor remained. The copper wiring and pipes were absent as well. Save for its facade, nothing indicated the structure had been a school at all. Judging by the outside of the building, I half-expected the desks to still be there, arranged in rows around the chalkboard. Instead, everything was gone.

  All six rooms on the ground floor were in the same shape. I made quick work of each one, because there was nothing to occupy my attention. Within ten minutes, I began to make my way up the staircase.

  Though the school's condition exceeded my expectations, I struggled to believe that this building could ever be a viable space again. If someone was going to restore it, they would have done so many years ago. Too many seasons had passed since then, bringing too many storms and too many winters. Somehow, this distinctive building slipped through the cracks for too long, devoid of purpose and meaning.

  The second story mirrored the first floor in its layout and general condition. A little more light came into this floor, because a few of the windows weren't boarded up completely. Without anything new to attract my attention, I was ready to move onto the third story.

  I no longer felt alone. While surveying the second floor, I developed the acute feeling that someone was behind me, or sometimes ahead of me. I didn't hear anything, but felt a presence. Yet whenever I looked ahead, or turned around to where the presence emanated from, nothing was there. I ascended the stairs to the third story with a growing sense of dread.

  A door at the top of the stairs restricted admission into the top floor. I turned the knob, but it was locked. Perhaps the third floor, being the closest to the roof sustained the most water damage over the years and was unsafe to walk on. This development relieved me, as it gave me just cause to go back the way I came in.

  I descended the staircase to the second floor. A creaking sound like footsteps originated from the corridor behind me. Again I looked back. This time I caught a shadow moving through the hallway on the second floor. I spun around and swiftly moved to the top of the steps. The hallway was empty. Of course, if someone was there, they could have gone into one of the rooms. Part of me wanted to check, though mostly I just wanted to get out of there.

  Quickly, I turned back to the steps. Just as I reached the bottom of the staircase, the front door opened slowly. I froze in my tracks. A man of medium height and build, dressed in business casual clothes walked through. When he saw me, he jumped.

  "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Without giving me time to answer, he spat another accusation at me. "Did you break in?"

  "No, th
e door was open," I explained quickly. "I was just curious what it looked like inside."

  His face never softened and he just ordered me off of the premises. "This is private property. Get out of here before I call the cops."

  I nodded nervously and stole one more glance up the staircase to see if anything was there. Nothing. Maybe there had been another person up there, or an animal. But the shadow I saw wasn't like an animal's. If it was a person, why didn't they answer or confront me? My brain refused to accept either of these explanations, but didn't buy the third, more supernatural possibility either - maybe I had seen a ghost.

  Before the angry man could make good on his threat, I retreated out the front door. It was raining now. The fresh air felt much better than the thick, musty air of the old school house. I gazed at Samantha's house. I wanted her to be watching the entire time, and even hoped that she would join me in the ruins of the school. That hadn't happened, so unless I wanted to wait in the rain or sit in my car until she emerged from her house, I needed to leave. After her previous relationship, Samantha wouldn't welcome the prospect of another stalker ex-boyfriend. Reluctantly, I drove home, with only a passing optimism that if Samantha really was my destiny, somehow this situation could be reversed.

  I didn't feel like talking when I got home. Jordan was in the kitchen when I walked upstairs. He took one look at me, then said, "Not good news, huh?"

  I shook my head.

  "What did she tell you?"

  That was complicated. I did my best to summarize it succinctly.

  "She can't continue our relationship because she gave up her baby for adoption and has felt empty ever since. Apparently, she doesn't think I'm enough to fill what's missing in her life now."

  "Those were her words?"

  "Mostly."

  Jordan shook his head. "Hmm. So I guess adoption explains why the baby's grandma was cursing Samantha out."

  "Well, there's more. Turns out the baby's father died in a car accident before he was born."

  "Seriously?" Jordan looked at me in disbelief. When I nodded, he shook his head again - more emphatically this time. "That's horrible."

  It was awful. However, at that moment I chose to focus more on my own pain and suffering.

  "I just don't understand why she hasn't moved on yet. It's been five years. The kid is healthy and in a good situation. She did a good thing. Why can't she just accept that?"

  I knew that sounded selfish. Jordan probably thought it did too, but he didn't call me on it.

  "I don't know. I've never been in that situation."

  Jordan's diplomacy and understanding did nothing to make me feel better. I didn't care to empathize with Samantha at the moment.

  "So is that it?" Jordan asked after a few silent minutes. "It's over?"

  "I guess so." I didn't bother to tell Jordan about Samantha being the fulfillment of a seemingly random memory. He wouldn't have considered this a plausible reason to reserve any hope that things could work out with her, since it had nothing to do with Jesus.

  My mom emerged from her bedroom. From my note she would have known that I was with Samantha. I hated the prospect of having to address my family one by one.

  "How was your morning with Samantha?" she asked, probably expecting that it was another great time.

  "I don't think it's going to work out."

  Mom searched my face, trying to read the entire story from my expression. After half a moment, she said gently, "That's too bad." She meant it, I could tell. Since she feared intruding on grounds I was hesitant to disclose, she did the next best thing she could think of. "Are you hungry? Would you like some lunch?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good."

  "What would you like? I could make a sandwich for you. How about tuna fish?"

  "Yeah, that would be fine."

  My mom busied herself preparing my sandwich. She could have offered me advice, or generic proverbs designed to make me feel better - but feeding me meant more than any of those things would have.

  While I ate my sandwich, my mom sat at the little desk in the corner of the kitchen, sifting through mail from previous days that had gone unopened. "Mostly junk mail and bills," she muttered to herself. Finally, she came across something important enough that she reached for her glasses. "Hmm, that's nice," she said aloud. Then she handed me what she was looking at. "Remember her?"

  She handed me a photo of a young man and woman holding hands, with the words "Julie Ackerly and Thomas Lynch" at the top and "save the date" written in big words at the bottom. Julie Ackerly - I did remember her. She was the first girl I held hands with, though we were only in second grade at the time, so there was nothing romantic or sexual about it. Julie attended my grandmother's church. One summer, my mom shipped Jordan and me out to the Summer Bible school Grandma's church hosted. Julie and I hit it off and became inseparable the entire week.

  "I always secretly hoped that maybe you and Julie would get together when you got older," my mom said wistfully.

  There had been nothing secret about my mom's desire for Julie and I to one day fall in love. She made that known whenever Julie's family came up in discussion at our own family get-togethers. Julie's mom was a childhood friend of hers, so that ratcheted up the collective interest in our relationship even more. My grandmother openly lobbied for our eventual nuptials as well. Thus, when Julie or her family were mentioned over the years, both my grandma and mom would replay our childhood romance again.

  Though I was always somewhat embarrassed by the talk, I did entertain the idea of being with Julie. She was pretty, in her own right. I was never as attracted to Julie as I was to Samantha, but what Julie lacked in beauty, she made up for by being interested in me - or at the very least, acknowledging my existence. Besides that week during Bible School when we were seven, we occasionally saw each other at track meets in high school when our schools ran against each other. She always waved to me and said things like, "Hi Evan" or "Nice race, Evan". She might have just been trying to be nice. Since girls in high school weren't beating down my door, that interest from her was enough to catch my attention. Whenever I ended up going to Hadenburg - whether for some athletic contest or to visit my grandparents - I imagined running into her. I actually came to relish when my mom and grandma brought her up.

  I felt a sudden surge of unrest; something about remembering Julie bothered me.

  "I guess it was a little silly to think you guys would end up together. You did go to different schools. But then so did your father and I, and we started dating anyway. I thought maybe if I brought you to your grandmother's church once in a while, you guys would hit it off again."

  The final pieces of the memory of my grandma's church fell into place. It hadn't been Samantha I was looking for that day - it was Julie. That Easter occurred during my sophomore year, when I didn't even know Samantha existed. My heart sank. The random memory from high school was just that - random.

  "I guess things worked out okay though. Julie's parents tell me her fiancé is a real sweetheart of a guy."

  My mom probably didn't mean this statement as a comparison between Thomas Lynch and myself, though I partly took it that way. Surely, he was a fine Christian man. However, after losing the tenuous structure of meaning constructed from believing Samantha was my destiny, I had more important emotions to juggle.

  I finished the sandwich and bussed my own plate. After finishing in the kitchen, I retreated to my bedroom, succumbing to my despair by watching afternoon TV.

  I usually hated afternoon television, which consisted mainly of soap operas, inane talk shows, insipid reality shows, and reruns of crime procedurals. None of these shows possessed any deeper meaning. Thus afternoon TV was the perfect backdrop for me to consider all that transpired with Samantha and how it ultimately meant nothing. It was for the best that Samantha and I didn't work out. Not because I was only in Oleout Plains for the week - that could have been overcome. No, it was good that it didn't work out because it just didn't matter. T
he same thing that happened with Wendy would've happened with Samantha. How long it would have taken, I didn't know. Maybe we would've lasted longer - maybe we would've walked down the aisle and even had children together. In the end, by death or division our union would have ended, the world would be the same and our love would soon be forgotten.

  After knocking down a Cold Case and CSI rerun, and television programming transitioned into network news shows, a knock on my door threatened my motionlessness. I didn't answer. Perhaps if I was quiet enough the intruder would give up. A louder rap sounded against the barricade I had made to the world. I remained unresponsive. The knob turned, the door pushed open, and Jordan peeked into my sanctuary.

  "Are you awake?"

  He could see for himself that I was, so I didn't reply.

  "We're going to the Good Friday service - do you want to come?"

  I contemplated not going. As an adult, I could make my own decision. After a few moments though, I relented. Going would mean answering fewer questions, and though I didn't mind wallowing in despair, I didn't want to be an object of pity. Besides, Good Friday services were intended to depress their audiences with the awful suffering of Christ. In a way, I would be right at home.