by Linda Seed
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sofia leaned toward Patrick and took his hand. He squeezed hers and nodded.
“Yes. I’m fine. I’m … yes.”
He clearly wasn’t, but there was nothing to do about it but wait for his turn on the stage. They drank and talked and listened to random people read their poetry, with mixed results.
Finally, about an hour after they arrived, it was Patrick’s turn. He got up, looking shaky, gathered the note cards he’d brought, and took the stage—actually, a wooden platform that had been set up at one side of the café with a microphone on a stand.
Sofia didn’t know what his poems were about, because he’d refused to tell her. She’d asked—had wanted to read them, in fact—but he had said they weren’t ready. She had imagined that one or two might have veiled references to her, but when he actually read the words, when the rhymes and metaphors and the imagery sank in, she was stunned senseless.
It was all about her.
Every word, every syllable.
“Oh, my God,” she said under her breath.
Bianca reached out and grabbed Sofia’s hand.
At first, he was so nervous that the words wouldn’t come. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. But he tried again and began to find his voice. He sounded shaky at first to his own ears, but as he read the lines he’d worked so hard on for the past months, he began to feel better, stronger. More steady.
As he read, the words he’d been so worried about, concerned that they were weak or wrong or somehow inadequate, began to feel exactly right. The truth in them pushed through his nerves, through his insecurity, and filled the room with his own pure feeling.
The first couple of poems were simple, with imagery about longing, loneliness, and the initial spark of desire that built into a consuming flame when they met.
Then, like the movements of a symphony, the mood changed. The words about love and destiny mingled with imagery about pain and loss and the torture of unfulfilled need.
It was everything he needed to say to her, and he hoped she was listening.
Was this how she’d made him feel? The surprise of that hit Sofia like a slap.
Of course she’d known that she’d hurt him when she’d run away at Christmas, and especially when she’d stayed away, holding him apart from her for so long. But knowing that was one thing. Feeling it the way his poetry made her feel it—that made her almost breathless with regret.
The final poem, titled “The World is Not Mine,” was what finally undid her. In it, he wove together bits of imagery about his feelings for Sofia and about grief: his own over his inability to fully connect with her, and hers over the loss of her parents. It began with the soaring emotion of love and commitment and the contentment of belonging, then crashed to earth with the devastation of irrevocable loss.
Halfway through, Sofia’s first tear fell.
She hadn’t known she was still capable of crying, because if she hadn’t managed it when she’d lost her parents, then what in her life could ever inspire such a thing again?
The sensation was so unfamiliar to her that she barely recognized it when it happened. A heat behind her eyes, a swell of emotion, then that first tear sliding down her cheek.
Once it began, there was no stopping it.
More tears came, then Sofia began to sniffle. Then, before she knew what was happening, she was heaving great, choking sobs. She felt someone’s hand on her shoulder—maybe Bianca’s—and she was aware that people were looking at her. She got up from the table and walked to the ladies’ room. It was an effort not to run.
The bathroom was a one-person affair with no stalls, so she locked the door behind her and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet, her shoulders heaving, tears racking her.
She wasn’t crying about one thing, but about everything. Her mother and father, and how much she missed them. Patrick, and how she’d hurt him. Her sisters, and how she’d shut them out when she should have been turning to them for comfort and support.
Those last, awful words she’d said to her father.
As she sat there and let all of her pent-up fears and sorrows and frustrations go, a surprising thing happened. The huge tide of her emotion should have drowned her, but instead, it began to wash her clean.
The relief was both immense and unexpected.
She felt as though some dark beast had been living silently inside her, and now it was leaving—with a fair amount of storm and noise, but leaving nonetheless.
She heard a knock on the door and worried that it might be some unfortunate café patron who needed to use the facilities. Then she heard Bianca calling to her.
“Sof? Are you okay? Let me in, all right?”
Before, her instinct would have been to ignore Bianca and continue to close her out. Instead, she got up on shaky legs and went to unlock the door.
“Well.” Sofia let Bianca in and wiped at her eyes, taking in a shaky breath. “He can really write, can’t he?”
“I guess so. And whoever he wrote all of that about, she’s a lucky woman,” Bianca said. “I just wish we knew who it was.”
Sofia let out a laugh and smacked her sister on the arm. “Shut up.”
Bianca grinned and pulled Sofia into a hug. For the first time in more than a year, Sofia let her do it.
“This is good, you know?” Bianca held onto Sofia fiercely. “You letting all of this out. It’s good.”
“I know.” Sofia pulled away, grabbed some tissue from the roll, and blew her nose noisily. “I know it is.”
“And, Sofia? Whatever you’ve been punishing yourself for, it’s time to let it go.”
“I know that, too. I just really hope it’s not too late. With Patrick, I mean.”
Bianca scoffed. “He’s in it so deep, I doubt there’s any such thing as too late.”
Sofia hoped she was right.
36
Patrick had gotten so caught up in his reading that he didn’t notice the effect it was having on Sofia until she fled the room in tears.
Now, he wondered if he’d miscalculated. He’d known that some of what he’d written—especially the parts about his own pain and fear regarding their relationship—might hurt her. But his intention had been to let her into his heart, for better or worse. He hadn’t intended to make her break down.
The last poem—the one about grief—had been a step too far, he could see it now. He should have known it was too much. He should have left that one out. He should have—
“You’ve got some skills there, son,” Ramon said as Patrick, stunned, came back to the table.
“If she doesn’t want you, I sure as hell do,” Lucy said.
“Hey!” Ramon protested.
“I’m just saying.” Lucy shrugged.
“That last poem might have been too much,” Patrick said. Sofia’s sisters had all gathered at the ladies’ room—Benny and Martina just outside the door, and Bianca in with Sofia—so it was just the three of them.
“No, it wasn’t,” Lucy said.
“But—”
“It wasn’t too much, Patrick,” Lucy insisted. “It was exactly enough.”
As he considered it, he knew that he agreed with Lucy. If he lost Sofia over this, it would be a tragedy, one he wouldn’t get past quickly. He would miss her so much he’d feel it like an injury, like a lost limb or a serious illness. But he wanted her to love him, all of him, and that included his true feelings. He wanted her to love who he really was, not who he presented himself to be. There were things worse than loneliness, and being inauthentic was one of them.
“I should go in there,” he said.
“Dude, it’s the ladies’ room,” Ramon pointed out.
Still. This seemed like a pivotal moment, and one got so few of those. He had to handle it correctly.
He went into the hallway where the bathrooms were, squeezed in outside the ladies’ room door next to Benny and Martina, and knocked.
“Sofia? Let me in.”
&n
bsp; When the door unlocked and cracked open, Bianca was there, not Sofia. She pushed the door open a little farther to let him in and put a hand on his arm. “Good luck,” she said, and went out into the hallway with her sisters.
He didn’t want to have this conversation in a café bathroom, but one had to adapt to circumstances.
“Are you all right?” It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize for upsetting her, but he didn’t. Honesty wasn’t something a person should regret.
“Yeah.” She let in a shaky breath and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. “Yeah, I am.” She went to him, and he held her.
“I thought people might be bored.” He stroked her hair and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “At least that didn’t happen.”
He’d wondered if she might not want to come home with him after the way he had upset her. He’d wondered, in fact, if she might not want to be with him ever again. But, to his delight, she took his hand and led him out the door of the café and toward his car.
“Take me home,” she said.
“Okay. Your home or mine?”
“Yours. Definitely yours.”
That was as positive a sign as he could have hoped for. But that wasn’t the only thing that gave him optimism. Sofia seemed different, more relaxed, as though the tension between them had drained out of her with her tears.
“You’re an amazing writer,” she told him as he drove. She held his free hand while he used the other to navigate the curving roads of Leimert.
He supposed his writing must have been better than fair if it had this effect on her.
Creativity had its rewards.
Sofia had a lot to say to Patrick, and for the first time, she believed she would be able to say it. Something had been released in her, and somehow, she was no longer afraid.
But that was for later. Now, she just wanted to be with him.
He parked in front of his house, and she led him by the hand up the front walk, into the cottage, and to his bedroom.
This time, there was no rush, no frenzy of desire and need. This time, she moved slowly and carefully. She savored him.
She turned on the bedside light—she wanted to see him—and began to unbutton his shirt, one button and then another, taking her time. He didn’t try to take over, didn’t try to rush her or take the lead. He simply stood there watching her, his breath slow and even, his arms relaxed at his sides.
“I worked on those poems for months,” he said. “If I’d known they would be so effective, I’d have written faster.”
“Ssh.” She hushed him with a kiss, then returned to her work. She slid his shirt off of his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She kissed his chest, savoring the taste of him.
Then she went to work on his belt, sliding it slowly out of the buckle.
They made love as though they had to make it last forever, as though this would be their last night, their last moments. But Sofia knew that wasn’t true. They would have time. Because she was ready now, ready to let him in completely. She was ready to give him everything he’d been waiting for.
And she was starting here, now.
She would tell him everything, but that would be later. Now, she wanted to show him everything he meant to her. And she had all night—and then a lifetime—to do it.
Afterward, when they were lying under his comforter, relaxed and relieved at having found each other again, she told him everything. She told him how hard it had been for her after her parents’ deaths; the guilt she’d felt over her father and the way she’d blamed herself; her feeling that she didn’t deserve to move on and be happy when they couldn’t; and the reason she’d fled when she’d thought he was giving her a ring.
“It’s hard to think about getting married when I know they won’t be there to see it,” she told him. “Not that you were actually giving me a ring, of course. I didn’t mean …”
“I’d have given you one if I’d thought you were ready for it.” As loaded as the conversation was, he said it as though he were telling her what he planned to have for dinner.
She turned in his arms and propped herself up on her forearms to look at him. “Really? You would have?”
“Sure.” He reached out and caressed her hair.
“It’s just a lot, you know? My mother used to talk about what kinds of weddings the four of us would have. She was excited about it. Said it was one of the best parts about having girls. And she never got to see even one of us get married.” A tear slid down Sofia’s face. Now that she’d learned how to cry again, it was hard to turn it off.
“Well, that leaves us with an issue,” he said. “Because I do want to marry you—eventually—and it’s true that your parents won’t be there to see it. I wish they could be, but they can’t. So, what will we do?”
“Let me think about it.” She kissed him and lay back in his arms.
Patrick had known that there were many and varied rewards to being a writer. But when he’d imagined those rewards—possible fame and fortune, professional recognition, the joy of personal expression—he’d never thought it would lead to this.
Sex? Well … what male writer didn’t think that a well-turned phrase might bring him attention from women? But Patrick had never dreamed his words might save the love of his life from the painful emotions that had ensnared her.
It would be naïve to think that Sofia’s grief was over just because she’d talked about it and she’d cried. And Patrick wasn’t naïve. But this was a step, there was no denying it.
In the morning, he sang in the shower, got dressed, drove Sofia to work, then kissed her goodbye before heading to the college.
He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, but to hell with sleep. It was going to be a great day.
37
The day after the reading, Sofia arrived at work smiling. Naturally, Bianca noticed—it had been a long time since that sort of thing had happened.
“I’m guessing you had a good night.” Bianca watched as Sofia settled in behind the reception desk. “Either that or you snapped last night in the ladies’ room, and you’ve completely lost your mind.”
“I haven’t lost my mind.”
“Oh, good.” Bianca rubbed her hands together in excitement. “Then dish.”
“A lady doesn’t tell what happens between herself and her man in private,” Sofia said.
“Since when are you a lady?”
Sofia just smiled.
“Oh, come on.” Bianca planted her fists on her hips. “Give me something. I haven’t had a date in five months, and I need to live vicariously through you.”
Sofia thought to brush her sister off, but she reconsidered in the interests of openness. “Okay. He wants to marry me.”
“No shit.” Bianca’s delivery was deadpan.
“Bianca …”
“I mean, really, no shit. I knew that. Benny and Martina knew that. You knew that. The cat who lives next door knew that.”
“I suppose.” Sofia turned on the computer and logged in, preparing to organize Bianca’s schedule for the day.
“He actually said it in those words?” Bianca prompted her.
“Yes.”
“But the last time the issue came up, you freaked, fled more than two thousand miles, and nearly broke up with him just to avoid it.”
“I did.” Sofia turned to look at Bianca. “It’s different now.”
Bianca’s eyebrows rose. “Is it?”
Sofia considered her words carefully before she spoke. “I’m still scared. And I’m still … I still have issues. Obviously. But I want this. I want it to work, and I want to deal with things.”
“Oh, Sof.” Bianca bent over to hug her. “That’s so great. I’m so happy for you. I’ve been worried.”
“I know you have been. I was, too.”
“So you want to marry him?”
“I do want that,” Sofia said. “The thing is … I couldn’t think about doing it without Mom and Dad there, you know?” Here were th
ose damned tears again. She wiped them away. “And that’s not going to change.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Bianca squeezed Sofia’s shoulder.
Sofia still had a lot of crying and thinking and talking to do to make up for more than a year of refusing to do any of those things. Starting was the hardest part, it turned out, so the words and the tears—and acknowledging the feelings—came easier now.
She kept going to the grief support group, and she stood up and talked for the first time. She continued meeting with Debra, who was rapidly becoming a friend she could rely on. She talked to her sisters when things got hard. And she talked to Patrick.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she hadn’t talked to him before because she hadn’t wanted him to think badly of her. If he thought she was damaged—or, even worse, if he thought she’d caused her father’s death—how could he want her?
She was coming to realize that everyone was damaged in some way, and her personal brand of disrepair was no worse than anyone else’s.
She was progressing nicely, she thought, but there was still a big, black void in her thoughts whenever she considered the subject of marriage—or, more specifically, a wedding. The idea of marrying Patrick was an appealing one, and she wanted that. But picturing it actually happening—Sofia walking down an aisle in a church and taking vows before God? She simply couldn’t imagine it without her parents.
Sofia was about to conclude that she and Patrick should scrap the ceremony and sign some papers at the county government office when Bianca brought up the subject one morning at work.
“I have an idea,” she said.
“About what?”
“About your Patrick problem.”