The Universe is a Very Big Place

by APRIL ASHEIM

  You don’t have to go." Spring tried to convince Sarah as she packed all of her belongings into a box. "...You could transfer. Or appeal directly to Jane." Spring couldn’t lose Sarah. They had become close over the last few weeks.

  Sarah tossed a photo of her and her husband into a garbage pail by the desk and stopped to look at Spring. "You know, for someone as smart as you, sometimes you just don’t get it, do you?"

  Spring shook her head. "What don’t I get?"

  Sarah took Spring's hands and shook them. "Sometimes we have to stand up for ourselves even when we think we might lose everything." Sarah looked out over Spring’s shoulders to where the sun had cast a loose beam on the floor, illuminating a spot on the dirty carpet. "I need a change, and I need to make it now before I’m one of those women who watch the shopping channel twenty-four hours a day to compensate for all the emptiness." Sarah released her hands and looked out the door, down the empty corridor. "Besides, it’s not just for me anymore." Sarah’s face softened and she patted her tummy.

  "You’re going to have a baby!" The truth registered in Spring’s brain and she felt stupid for having missed the signs. "Albert’s?"

  "Unfortunately. Call me anytime. I love you."

  Sarah gave her a quick hug and Spring trembled as she realized this would be the last time they would be together at Teens in Trouble.

  Then Sarah gathered her half-empty box and walked out of the office, leaving Spring feeling very, very alone.

  Spring left the office early, claiming stomach pains. Kimberly, still speechless from Sarah’s departure, didn’t try and stop her. Spring drove randomly around the city, zigging and zagging across lanes, no destination in mind. It wasn’t until she was actually in the parking lot that she realized that she had been heading here all along. She looked up at where she guessed his window was and thought about her last meeting with Trevor. A pang of sadness shot through her. Without thinking she got out of the car and raced up to the third floor, her clunky heels tripping her on every other step. Taking a deep breath, she knocked, three times.

  "God, I’m happy to see you," she said, falling into his arms. His hair smelled like cheap shampoo and his breath like beer. He caressed her shoulders as he kissed her cheek.

  "I’m happy to see you too. Thank you for giving me another chance."

  Twenty-Two

  John’s first reaction was of disbelief. But when she fell onto him, letting her warm tears soak through the thin fabric of his Wal-Mart T-shirt, he put his arms around her and held her. All his misgivings about his feelings for her vanished the second she melted into his arms.

  "I’m so sorry," she said at last. Her nose was running and her eyes were small and red. He led her into his apartment and closed the door behind her, offering her a tissue.

  "You don’t see many bachelor guys who have a box of tissue handy," Spring laughed, blowing her nose. "You must be used to rescuing damsels in distress."

  John said something about her being the only damsel he wished to share his tissue with and she smiled. He directed her to sit down at his table. He had been painting chess pieces and he cleared them away for her.

  "You play?" she asked, picking up and examining some of the finished pieces. He normally did not like anyone touching his things. Even his brothers had called him 'Stingy Johnny' as a child when he refused to let them play with this toys, but he didn’t flinch as she looked over one figurine after another. The revelation pleasantly surprised him. He could share anything with her, he thought, and happily.

  "Yes. I’m not good, but I enjoy it."

  John watched as Spring fingered a knight, painted gold and purple, and twisted it around in her fingers. "I love the little horsies," she said. "The way they move about the board in their own unique way." Spring twisted the end of her hair and nibbled on it, staring at the board. For a moment she was Alice, lost in the looking glass.

  "Not me," said John, removing a castle from the board. "I like the straightforward manner of the rook. No scenic routes. No hidden agendas. Always knows where he is going."

  He handed the rook to Spring and watched as she rolled it over in her palm. Then she placed the two pieces side by side and smiled. "And yet, they both have the same goal. Good metaphor for life I suppose."

  Usurp the King, John thought, and decided not to share that thought with Spring. "Indeed."

  "I‘m sorry about coming here and disturbing you," she said. "I didn’t know where else to go."

  John pulled up a chair next to her and took one of her small hands. It took every ounce of strength he could muster not to press them to his lips, but he wasn’t about to do anything that might make her dash out. "I‘m just surprised. I kinda thought you hated me."

  Spring laughed. "Me? Hate you? I‘m sorry I gave you that impression." She tilted her head and her large blue eyes looked at him with such incredulousness John wondered if he had imagined their last few meetings. He might learn to love a woman but he doubted he would ever understand them.

  He continued watching her as she sat quietly, waiting for her to speak again. He watched as she looked away at an image that flitted outside of his window, and he took the opportunity to take her in completely. She was curvy and strong and for a brief moment he wondered if he could lift her up and carry her to his bed. He had never done that to a woman before.

  She caught him staring and he moved his eyes back up towards her face. "What are you thinking?"

  "I’m thinking I should probably work out." He smiled and she laughed. God, what a laugh.

  "This is going to sound really strange, but John, is there someplace I can lie down? I really need to sleep right now. It’s been that kind of life."

  John placed one hand on her back and the other on her hand and helped her up, leading her to his bedroom. Wishing he had picked his clothing up from the floor, he managed to kick his underwear beneath the bed before she noticed them. "You can rest here. I won’t let anyone, or anything, bother you. I promise."

  He watched her stumble to the bed and crawl in, like a little girl who had been kept up too late. She lay curled up on her side and he pulled the sheets and blanket up to her chin. Kissing her forehead he whispered, "I will be right out here if you need me."

  She nodded and he left as quietly as he could, leaving the door cracked open in case he needed to go to her.

  He sat on his recliner and muted the volume on the television. He could hear her breathing, strong and steady, slowly replaced by a quiet snoring. He had never known that girls snored and the thought made him smile.

  No one had to tell John Smith that he was in love. Though he had never been in love before, he was as certain of the feeling as he was his own name. As he leaned back in his recliner he thought his life might be perfect if she stayed tucked into his bed for the rest of her life. Even if she never left the bed, and he was never allowed to go to her in the way he ached for, life would still be pretty damned good. He looked back over at the knight and the rook and smiled before falling into a hazy sleep.

  "Hey, Beautiful. You awake?"

  Spring blinked slowly and paused to feel her heart beat. It was so loud she could hear it in her ears. She turned slowly towards the voice, her face red, her eyes apologetic. He was lying next to her on the bed, his face inches from her own.

  "Hi," she said, smiling weakly. For a moment she remembered what she must look like, her hair wild and uncombed, her mascara smeared across her cheeks, her eyes red and swollen from crying, and panic took over. But when he smiled back she knew she was okay.

  "It's late. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to wake you, but I thought I should."

  Spring shot up. It’s late? She was sure she had slept no more than an hour. As she looked at the clock on the bedside table, she knew that she was in trouble. It was after eleven and she had not been home.

  "I gotta go. Sam is probably worried sick. And Lanie, too. Oh, God." Spring jerked herself out of the bed, letting the blankets fall to the floor. "Where’s my shoe
s? I lost my shoes."

  John pointed to her shoes by the bedroom door, neatly arranged by an invisible hand.

  "Thank you," she said, slipping into them. "You’ve been a great friend to me. I really needed this."

  "You going to be alright? I can drive you home."

  "No. I’m okay. I need to make up a story. Sarah’s last day at work party. That will work."

  Spring felt John study her as she straightened out her clothes. “You could tell him the truth. It was innocent."

  "Tell Sam the truth?" Spring almost choked on this. "Obviously, you don’t know Sam." Spring patted down her hair, grabbed her purse, and was about to leave the room when she noticed something. A framed picture by the bed. It wasn’t a photograph. It was a drawing done in charcoals. A drawing of her.

  She walked towards it, not quite believing what she was seeing. When she got to it, she picked it up. Sure enough, it was her face. But more beautiful. "You do this?" She turned to see John. He had his hands shoved into his pockets and he was looking at the floor. He nodded but wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  "John." She put the picture down and walked around the bed to him. "John, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself into him, as tightly as she could. She could hear his heartbeat.

  "I worked on it while you were sleeping. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen," he said simply, looking down at her. "It’s all you, Spring. Not me."

  Spring wasn’t quite sure how it happened but without warning their lips met. His were warm, and firm, and strong. "Oh, God," she moaned as he pulled her close. "You’re a good kisser. God, you feel good."

  "So do you," he said back, between the urgent meetings of their mouths.

  His passion surprised her. She felt a need she hadn’t known she possessed wash over her. It was stronger than she had ever felt for Jason, or even Trevor. The desire to meld with this man. The more she kissed him, the closer she needed to be to him. It was never close enough.

  "I want you," John whispered, his hands finding their way under the back of her shirt. She felt him tug on the hooks of her bra. Her body warmed, responding. One of his hands found her breast and she moaned again, louder. A primal moan that startled her. And it broke the spell.

  Spring stepped back, out of his arms. "No. No, John. God. What just happened? I shouldn’t be here. I have to go." She grabbed her things and ran out of the building. Sam was right. She was acting like a Jezebel. How could she explain this to him? John stared after her, looking confused, but he didn’t try and stop her as she made her way to the door.

  As Spring drove home, she knew that she would be in more trouble than she could handle. Sam would be up, waiting for her, and might possibly give her another round on the lie detector. But this time she had done something. She had kissed John Smith. Worse, she had liked it. She was an engaged woman and she was running around town like a common harlot.

  It was my last fling, she told herself, as her neighborhood came into view. Before I marry Sam. Those four words came back at her like a punch in the stomach.

  Before I marry Sam.

  Sam was indeed waiting for her. He sat on the rocking chair on the front porch, rocking like a man who had been keeping accurate time of how long his fiancée had been missing. She could see the whites of his eyes against the darkness of the night and she shuddered. She braced herself for what would come next, but as she made her way towards Sam, she realized that he was not going to confront her. He sat quietly looking at her, like a wounded child, and a wave of compassion fell over her.

  "I’m sorry I was gone," she said, sitting down on a concrete step. She leaned over to pluck a blade of dry grass from the lawn and bit on the tip, crunching it between her teeth. "The marriage thing. And work. I needed a break from life. I should have called you."

  Sam sighed letting his shoulders sag deeply into his back.

  Spring noticed a gold shopping back sitting primly on his lap. "What’s that?" she asked.

  "I got you a little something." He handed her the bag, which was surprisingly light. Spring reached in and pulled out the gift. It was silky soft and smelled good, like lavender. She held it out to study it under the porch light. A burgundy-colored nightgown, about four sizes too large for her.

  "The salesgirl helped me pick it out," he said. "I told her that my fiancée was about the same build as she was, and she thought this would be perfect."

  Spring imagined the salesgirl was the size of a small duplex.

  "Go in the house and try it on sweetie. I bet you will look beautiful in it."

  Spring bit her tongue to avoid saying anything hurtful about her gift. This was her penance for her shenanigans. She took off her shirt and pulled the nightgown over her head as Sam’s jaw dropped in protest. As he frantically checked to make sure none of the neighbors were watching, Spring checked her reflection in the windowpane. She was reminded of old cowboy cartoons where the bad guys walked around in barrels to conceal their nudity.

  "Oh, Pookie. You look beautiful," Sam beamed. "You can wear that on our honeymoon. It’s perfect."

  Spring smiled, offered him a peck on the cheek, and went inside.

  In the next room, Lanie couldn’t sleep. She rummaged through her vials, bags, and drawers looking for some of Jason‘s magic sleeping herbs. Despite what Spring had said, Lanie had no objections to natural remedies. If it came from Mother Earth it had to be okay.

  She puckered her lips thoughtfully when she realized she was out. She'd finished the last of it off during her last lovemaking session with Bob. The thought of the two of them snuggled up together made her smile and she entertained the idea of walking to his house for a midnight session.

  "No," she said to herself. "The poor boy needs his rest." She grinned wickedly as she thought about how he had begged her to take it easy on him.

  Lanie slipped quietly down the hall and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. "Hmmm," she said, turning the bottle of the twin’s Ritadate over in her hands. "...May cause drowsiness."

  Lanie took a few, followed by a swallow of water from the sink, and headed back to her room. Once inside, with the door safely locked, she went to her closet and groped around on the top shelf with her hands until she found the shoebox, hidden quietly behind the collection of Frank Sinatra and Burl Ives albums that she'd never found the heart to part with. She had lost so much in her life. She couldn’t lose Frank and Burl, too.

  She hadn’t opened the shoebox in years, and sifting through it for the first time in over a decade made her feel like she was reaching into another dimension––another life she scarcely had memory of anymore. One hundred and fifty-six letters from her ex-husband sent from his twenty years in prison. No one knew about the letters. Not even her daughters. Why she had kept them, she never knew. Maybe she liked the idea that someone out there loved her, even if that someone was a sorry son of a bitch who walked out on wives and children.

  Lanie puffed on her cigarette and held the smoke inside her lungs as she read the one on top of the pile.

  My Dearest Elaine,

  I think about you every night and day. I will never be able to tell you how sorry I am for leaving you and the girls. It is the biggest regret of my life. But I will come back to you when I am worthy. I promise.

  Ernest

  "Mother fucker,” she said during an exhale and crumpled the letter, tossing it back into the box with perfect precision. "Bastard liar." She kicked the shoebox, sending it sprawling across the room, dumping its contents in a path across the floor. She remembered a story told to her by an old Indian woman who ran the corn dog machine. The Trail of Tears. Lanie couldn’t recall what the trail referred to, but as she looked at her line of letters, she understood...something.

  Lanie had waited for him. For days. For weeks. For months. For years. Each letter promised his return, but he never made it. She had been holding onto a box of empty promises.

  There was a hollowness in
her chest and it was associated with an emotion she couldn’t identify. She snapped her fingers, trying to name the feeling. Loneliness? No. She was not lonely. Loss? Getting closer. Regret?

  Yes, that’s right. She was feeling regret.

  Lanie had never had a moment’s regret for anything she had ever done, but she was feeling it now. Regret for the lost time she had spent mourning a man who couldn’t make it back to her and who hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her in the first place. She crawled alongside the letter trail until she straddled the empty shoebox. She peered inside and saw Ernie’s face. Or what she thought it looked like. She could hardly remember any more. Time had taken his eyes, his smile, his hair. Time had taken the crinkles she thought she remembered forming around his eyes. Time had distorted him into a menagerie of images, some real, some made up. She was a crypto-zoologist, chasing Bigfoot. What was she holding onto again?

  Standing was difficult. She heard things creak in her body that probably shouldn’t be creaking, and wondered if she was doing the right thing. She could keep the letters. These were more than ink and paper; they were a testament that someone had once loved her and that she had loved them back, however misguidedly.

  She had loved. She had been loved. Could she do it again?

  If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you would see that anything is possible. The words came to her and she wracked her brain to remember who had quoted this. Big Bird? It didn’t matter. It was true.

  She gathered the letters and went into Sam’s work area. One by one, she began to shred them. Suddenly she stopped. A white envelope with a Cinderella sticker caught her eye. The one Ernie had written to Spring that Lanie had never given her.

  "Oh well," Lanie said. "Time for her to face the truth, too."