I Will Always Love You

by Evans, Annette

  Brigitte shook her head. “No one said that I was getting married.”

  “Maybe not, but I know that you and Rolf will get married soon.”

  Brigitte raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”

  “I’ve seen the way you and Rolf look at each other. It’s obvious to everyone that you are in love with each other.”

  “He is a great man!” she exclaimed as the two cousins giggled and fought over the last slice of toast.

  Chapter 6

  On her last night in Germany, Karl and Inge gave a small party in their home for Melissa. In attendance were Brigitte and Rolf, Stefan and his parents, Helmut and Ursula, and a few close friends. They dined on snitzel, potato salad, assorted cakes, beer, and wine. Everyone was having a wonderful time, yet Melissa could not shake the feeling of dismay at leaving

  the next day.

  “Melissa, liebschen, are you feeling all right?” Inge asked her niece.

  Melissa turned to look at her aunt who was the spitting image of her older sister, Greta. “Yes, Tante Inge. I’m fine. But I am going to miss everyone so much when I leave tomorrow. I’ve had such a wonderful time here this summer. Thank you for everything.” She gave her aunt a hug.

  “You do not have to thank me. We are family. We have enjoyed having you here this summer. And you are welcome back here at any time.”

  “Thank you,” Melissa said to her aunt with a genuine smile. She watched her aunt walk over to her other guests.

  “Are you okay?” a deep voice said from behind her.

  Smiling, Melissa turned to Stefan. She looked up into his dreamy blue eyes and felt like she was on cloud nine. “I am now.”

  Stefan put his arm around Melissa’s shoulder and drew her closer to him. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Do you think we have been here long enough? I want to spend some time alone with you tonight.”

  Melissa was startled. She couldn’t believe that he would even suggest something like that. She looked up at Stefan. “Leave? We can’t leave. This party is for me.”

  Stefan looked down at Melissa with a grin on his face. “We are going to leave.” He turned his attention to the other guests. “Everyone, Melissa and I are going for a drive now so that we can have some time alone before she leaves tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Stefan, but make sure that Melissa gets home at a decent hour,” Karl said.

  “Yes sir.” He smiled at Melissa, grabbed her hand and led her out the door to his car.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe that you just told them we were leaving like that,” Melissa said a short time later while she and Stefan were parked in his car on top of a hill in Knauppshausen.

  “Well, I had to if I wanted to spend some time alone with you.”

  Melissa giggled. “I’m glad you did.” She leaned back in the front passenger seat and turned on her side to look at Stefan. “I wanted to spend some time alone with you, too.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Stefan leaned back in his seat and slid closer to Melissa. Taking her in his arms, he began to stroke her hair as a Beatles song came on the radio.

  “Oh, not them,” he groaned.

  “Don’t you like the Beatles?”

  “No.”

  Melissa leaned on her elbow and gave him a look of disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “All of their songs are so mundane and syrupy.”

  “The Beatles is one of the, if not the, greatest bands of all time.”

  “Melissa, you must be joking.”

  She sat up, looked at Stefan and slowly began to shake her head. “No, I’m not joking. And just what band do you think is the greatest of all time?”

  “Pink Floyd.”

  “Oh my God,” Melissa groaned as she rolled her eyes.

  “What is wrong with Pink Floyd?”

  “What isn’t wrong with Pink Floyd? Compared to the Beatles, they’re a garage band.”

  “Maybe we should just change the subject,” Stefan said as he pulled her back into his arms.

  “Okay,” she agreed as she gave up the cause of the Beatles. She snuggled closer into his arms. “So, you said before that you want to have kids with me. How many kids do you want?”

  “Oh, about twenty.”

  Melissa bolted up again and exclaimed, “Twenty!”

  “At least.”

  “Stefan, I am not having twenty kids.” There was sheer panic in her voice.

  Stefan grinned at the woman he was in love with. “Okay. How many kids do you want?”

  “Two kids, maybe three.”

  “I see that we will have to negotiate on this. What about ten kids?”

  She shook her head. “That’s too many. What about three kids?”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I give up. Three kids it is.”

  Stefan pulled Melissa back down in his arms and gave her a long, deep kiss. The kiss seemed to last forever and finally she had to come up for air.

  “You are a wonderful kisser,” he said. “Your kisses are stormy.”

  “What do you mean by ‘stormy’?”

  “They are full of passion,” Stefan said before he kissed Melissa again. Caressing her shoulder and moving his hands down her back, Stefan deepened the kiss. She moaned and moved her body closer to the man she loved so fully and so completely. Several minutes later, Stefan grabbed Melissa by the shoulders and gently, but forcefully, moved her away from

  him.

  “You need to give me a few minutes.”

  Breathlessly, Melissa asked, “What? Why?” She glanced down and saw that Stefan was completely aroused. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She turned her head as she tried to hide a smile.

  “This is not funny, Melissa,” he groaned. “I want to make love to you so much. But I will honor our agreement to wait. Besides, I do not want our first time to be in the front seat of a car.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. And thank you for respecting our decision to wait,” Melissa said as she sat back in the passenger seat.

  Stefan groaned again as he looked at Melissa. “Sometimes I am sorry we made that agreement.”

  She gave him a shy smile. “Me, too,” she sighed.

  “I suppose that I should get you back to your aunt’s house.”

  “Yes, it is getting late.”

  They both put their seats upright as Stefan started the car. A short drive later, Stefan pulled the car into the driveway of Karl’s home. He turned the car off and turned to Melissa who had tears in her eyes.

  “Please, do not cry, Melissa.”

  “I can’t help it. I don’t want to leave. I will miss you too much.”

  “I know. I will miss you, also. But we both have things that we need to do so that two years from now we can be together forever.”

  Melissa hung her head. “I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier for me.”

  “It is not easy for me either,” Stefan said as he took her in his arms. “I will miss you so much.”

  Melissa laid her head on Stefan’s shoulder and let go of her tears.

  “Now, please do not cry. We will write to each other all the time and talk on the phone, too. The time will swim by.”

  Melissa lifted her head and with tears still in her eyes she asked, “Swim by?”

  “Is that not the correct American expression?”

  Melissa could not help but laugh at the man she loved. “No, I think you mean ‘the time will fly by’.”

  “Yes, that is what I mean. It is a good thing that you are willing to come back to Germany to live. I might embarrass you with my English.”

  “You could never embarrass me,” Melissa said with a solemn expression.

  “Well, at least I got you to stop crying.” Stefan kissed her on her forehead. “You should go and get some sleep now.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

  “I know. Neither will I. But you need to try to get some rest. You have a long flight tomorrow.”
/>   Tears welled up in her eyes once more.

  “No more tears. Please, Melissa. I do not want us to part this way. I will see you tomorrow at the airport.”

  Melissa sat back up in her seat. “No,” she said emphatically as she shook her head. “Saying goodbye to you at the airport would be even worse.”

  “Okay, if you are sure.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Let’s say goodbye here.”

  “Not goodbye, Melissa. Tschuess.”

  “Yes, Tschuess,” she agreed.

  Stefan leaned over, took Melissa’s face in his hands and gave her a long, soft yet passionate kiss. “Ich liebe dich,” Stefan said.

  “I love you, too. I’ll see you in twenty-eight months.”

  “Yes, twenty-eight months.”

  With her heart in her throat, Melissa got out of Stefan’s car. She walked to the door of her aunt’s house and turned to wave good-bye to Stefan. She watched as he drove away and felt as if she lost a special part of herself.

  Chapter 7

  The next day, Melissa and Brigitte sat in the airport in Frankfurt waiting for her flight to be called.

  “What are you looking for?” Brigitte asked as she watched Melissa look around the airport.

  “What? Oh nothing,” she said distractedly. She looked at her cousin and gave her a weak smile.

  “I thought you told Stefan not to see you off at the airport.”

  “I did.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But I thought he might show up anyway.”

  Brigitte nodded. “Do you still plan to come back in two years?”

  “Yes! I love Stefan so much. I can’t imagine living my life without him. These next two years are going to be so hard,” she answered with a sigh.

  “I know. But you can do it.” Brigitte squeezed her cousin’s hand. “That is your flight they just called.”

  “Okay.” Melissa stood up and grabbed her carry-on bag. She gave Brigitte a long hug. “Thank you so much for everything, especially for introducing me to Stefan.”

  Smiling, Brigitte said, “Bitteschon.”

  “I’ll see you in two years.” Melissa walked over to the gate. Turning back to her cousin, she gave a quick look around the airport and spotted Stefan walking toward her. Melissa dropped her carry-on bag and ran into his waiting arms.

  “I know that you said you did not want to say good bye in an airport, but I needed to see you one more time,” he explained.

  “I’m so glad you did.” Stefan leaned down and gave Melissa a long smoldering kiss.

  “I hate to interrupt, but that was the last call for your flight, Melissa,” Brigitte said.

  Pulling away from Stefan, Melissa breathlessly said, “Okay, I’m leaving.” She gave her cousin a quick hug.

  Stefan walked with Melissa as close to the gate as he was allowed. Holding her hand, he said, “I will be here in twenty-eight months to pick you up when you return to Germany for good.”

  That statement made Melissa smile. “You better be!” she said with mock anger.

  Stefan gave her one last kiss and a hug. He watched as she crossed through the metal detector onto the other side of the gate. Melissa turned and waved good-bye to Stefan and Brigitte before she turned and walked onto the plane.

  When the plane took off a few minutes later, Melissa had tears in her eyes and could not help but feel that the next twenty-eight months were going to be the longest time of her life.

  Chapter 8

  Chicago, May 1991

  “And that’s how I met Stefan, and how he came to mean so much to me.” She gave Dr. Foster a despondent look.

  “What happened when you returned to your home and told your family about Stefan and the plans you made to return to Germany for good?”

  Melissa shook her head and looked away. “It was terrible,” she said with a tremble in her voice. “My father wanted to know about Stefan and his family. I remember him saying that it sounded like Stefan came from a good family. My father was more concerned if Stefan would be able to provide for me than how we felt about each other.”

  Dr. Foster nodded as she made a note in Melissa’s file. “That doesn’t sound too bad. What about your mother and sister?”

  Melissa frowned and looked back at her psychiatrist. “They were another story. My mother was adamant about me being too young to understand what love is. When I reminded her that she was only seventeen when she met and fell in love with my father, she told me that was a different time and that she came from a small town to a big city. She went on to say that it would be terribly hard for me to go from a big city to a small town.”

  “Do you agree with that statement?”

  “Maybe,” she answered with a shrug of her shoulders. “But I think that I would have worked through whatever problems that may have come up. I mean, I wasn’t going to move to an alien town not knowing anyone. My aunt, uncle, cousin, and Stefan and his parents live there. And I made other friends, too.”

  “Okay. So what happened next?” Dr. Foster asked.

  “My mother reminded me of all the things I would miss if I moved to Germany. She told me that she missed out on the last years of her parents’ lives before they died. My mother became very upset and, as usual, my father took her side. He actually tried to pass off my relationship with Stefan as a ‘summer fling’.”

  “Is it possible that it was just a summer fling?” Dr. Foster looked intently at Melissa waiting for her reaction to that question.

  “Absolutely not!” she shouted. “Stefan and I were in love. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Foster said as she wrote something down on her pad. “So then what happened?”

  “Well, after the conversation about Stefan, my father was curt with me and I knew that he was very unhappy with me. My mother cried a lot and when she looked at me she cried even more. My sister gave me accusatory looks and told me that I was breaking our parents’ hearts. And in the meantime, I was getting wonderful letters from Stefan telling me how much he missed me and loved me and that he couldn’t wait until I came back to Germany.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “I felt torn. I mean, I love my parents and my sister.” Tears sprang to Melissa’s eyes. She took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes. “But I love Stefan like I’ve never loved anyone else. I didn’t want to live without him, but my family didn’t care about that.”

  Dr. Foster made another note on her pad with that particular statement. “So what did you end up doing?”

  “I wrote a letter to Stefan and told him that I was not coming back to Germany. I wrote that he needs to forget about me and move on. It broke my heart to send him that letter,” she answered tearfully.

  “Why did you send it?”

  “I sent it because I didn’t want to hurt or disappoint my parents. All I’ve ever wanted was to make them proud that I was their daughter.”

  “So you pushed your own needs and desires aside for the desires and needs of your parents?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. She looked down at her hands lying in her lap and began twisting the tissue around her fingers.

  “And how does that make you feel, Melissa?”

  Melissa crossed and uncrossed her legs as she tried to put all of her emotions into words. “I feel angry and hurt and as if I am all alone.”

  “And those are the feelings that we need to work through,” Dr. Foster stated as she looked at the clock on her desk. “I see that our time is just about up for today. I think that we should schedule appointments for twice a week to start out with.”

  Melissa nodded her head. “Okay, Dr. Foster.” She put the tissue back into her purse and turned her attention back to the doctor.

  “I want to give you an assignment to do before our next appointment. Did you happen to keep a journal while you were in Germany?”

  “Yes, I did. But I don’t have it anymore,” Melissa replied unhappily. “But I do have the few letters that Stefan wrote to
me.”

  “Good. I want you to go home and re-read those letters and write down any new emotions they invoke in you and bring that to our next appointment.”

  “Okay.”

  Dr. Foster stood and handed Melissa a card along with a prescription. “We’ll meet in three days at the same time. I also want you to get that prescription for Prozac filled and begin taking it immediately.”

  “Why do I need Prozac? Am I that crazy?”

  “No, Melissa, you are not crazy,” Dr. Foster said gently. “But I do believe that you are clinically depressed. And that medication, along with intense therapy, will help you to work through that depression.”

  “Okay, but my father won’t like this. He thinks that psychiatry is a bunch of bull.”

  Dr. Foster smiled. “Your father can think whatever he wants to think, Melissa. Just as long as you come to every appointment with an open mind and are ready to do some hard work.”

  “I’m ready to work to get better, Dr. Foster.” She stood and gave the psychiatrist a half smile. “At least, I think I am.”

  “Good. Keeping a positive attitude is always helpful. I’ll see you in three days.”

  They shook hands and Dr. Foster watched Melissa walk out of her office before she turned her attention back to Melissa’s file on the desk.

  During the elevator ride down to the lobby, Melissa thought about Dr. Foster and what she said. Hard work, she thought. I’ve had six long years of hard work just trying to hold it together for my family. I’m not really sure if I can do any more.

  Chapter 9

  Later that evening, Melissa was having dinner with her parents and her daughter.

  “Melissa, how was your session with Dr. Foster?” Greta asked.

  Melissa hesitated as she looked at her father. Seeing that he was not going to interrupt, Melissa turned to her mother. “It was fine, Mom. I go back in three days. Dr. Foster said that she wants to see me twice a week for the time being.”

  “Twice a week,” Peter exclaimed. “Why does she want to see you that often?”