I Am Me

by Kai Strand

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by Kai Strand

  About the author

  I Am Me

  by

  Kai Strand

  I Am Me

  Copyright ©2018 Kai Strand

  www.kaistrand.com

  Cover Artist: Hector McClean

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, photocopying, mechanical, or otherwise—without prior permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  On a cold winter day two very special people donned their cold weather gear to help me make this book finally come to life. Thanks, Jen and Ken, for putting a face to this tale. And Heck, thank you for applying your amazing skills and creating such a stunning image. You provide me with endless proud mom moments!

  Chapter 1

  “Lola, I hear the McKinley boy is interested in law, too.”

  I misstep. Sometimes my mom is like a ninja. A tall, elegant, snobby ninja. Anxious to escape this topic and this house, I continue across the foyer. “I’m not interested in law, Mom.”

  “Are you at least interested in the McKinley boy?” Mom pats the hair pulled tight against her scalp and twirled into a bun at the back of her head, even though there isn’t a hair out of place. Her rings glint in the soft yellow glow of the chandelier.

  “No, Mom. Roger McKinley is a chauvinistic jerk.” I swing the front door open. The crisp late afternoon breeze flutters Mom’s silk pants. “Gotta go. I’m gonna be late.”

  “Your friends will forgive you a few minutes. Have you filled out any college applications yet? I sent you those links.”

  “I’m still waiting for a couple reference letters.” So not true. I haven’t even asked any of my teachers for references yet. “And I’m not meeting friends. I’m volunteering tonight.”

  “Again?”

  I ignore the curled lip. “Yes. At the community kitchen, so there’s a pretty tight schedule. They need all the servers in place when they open the doors.”

  Mom sighs and stretches her neck like she’s relieving pressure. Probably from the headache I’ve given her. “You really need to get those applications in. Lord knows you can’t rely on your grades alone to earn your acceptance. I would hate for you to miss a deadline because you’re busy playing Mother Teresa.”

  My hand tightens on the doorknob. “I gotta go.”

  I hear her call after me just before the door slams. “Don’t forget the fashion show is coming. Meeting next week.”

  My temper has cooled by the time I pull into the tiny parking lot behind the community center where I volunteer one Wednesday a month. The kitchen serves, on average, one hundred and fifty people each night. I rush inside, toss my coat and purse into a locker and stop at the hand-washing sink.

  “I’m here! I’m here!”

  Victor smiles at me from his spot in the service line. “You’re down here at the end.”

  I scurry to my place, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You’re not late. The first person hasn’t reached us yet.”

  It’s generous of him, since he’s already adding a fistful of salad to that person’s plate. I smile at the man and give him a dinner roll. “Enjoy your meal.”

  I scan the line, which snakes out the front doors. A cross section of the community take advantage of the meals, anywhere from homeless people to the impoverished. Familiar faces mix in with new ones. The shamed expressions on so many of the faces forces my smile brighter, trying to make them feel welcome – among friends – even if only for an hour or so.

  Tonight’s meal is stew, which is good because it’s supposed to get pretty cold overnight. As I hand out the rolls I also make sure people know about the overnight shelters if they don’t have a roof to sleep under.

  “Looks like you’re needed, Lola.” Victor juts his chin to the right as he plops a handful of salad onto a middle-aged woman’s plate. “I’ll cover your station.”

  I grin at the gap in the line, because when there’s a gap it’s almost always followed by one person. Mr. Whitman.

  “Thanks.” I race around the table to snatch Mr. Whitman’s plate out of his age curled hands before the contents fall to the floor. Not that it would be the first time. “Why didn’t you come and get me, sir?”

  The old man squints and scowls until his rheumy vision finally focuses enough to recognize me. “Lola, I didn’t know you were here.”

  Mr. Whitman is the definition of crotchety old man. That’s pretty much why I adore him. There are only a handful of volunteers he accepts help from and I’m honored to be one of them. When we first met, it took some persistence on my part to break through his gruff exterior, but as I suspected, it protected a gooey soft inside.

  He shuffles along next to me as I work my way through the remainder of the line. I don’t even have to ask what he wants because I’ve done it so often. I assure Victor I’ll be right back, then Mr. Whitman and I search for a place for him to sit.

  Because he’s so cantankerous, we can’t seat him near children or people who speak too loudly. He can’t be near a door because the draft will make his thin frame shiver. The lighting must be good, so his dim eyesight can see his tablemates. There are so many considerations, sometimes it takes up to a half an hour before the right place frees up. I’m in luck tonight because there’s a seat available at a table in a good location, with a few regulars that I know won’t bother him.

  Sliding Mr. Whitman’s plate onto the table, I say, “Here you go, sir.”

  With an exaggerated gesture, I pull his chair out. He sits in the one next to it. I smile, knowing it’s how Mr. Whitman maintains control, and slip his plate to the spot he chose. “Do you need anything else?”

  “Stay and talk for a bit.” He pats the chair I’d offered him.

  “I can’t, Mr. Whitman. I’m serving and it’s still really busy.”

  “Yes, I think I got here early tonight. That darned bus.”

  I place my hand on the back of the chair we’ve now offered to each other. “Save me a spot and I’ll come visit when the line dies down, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Lola. I’ll eat slow.”

  I laugh as I return to my serving station. Not only will Mr. Whitman not have a problem saving the spot for me because no one dares sit next to him, but he always eats slow.

  “Do you have a line of eager old men waiting for you at the retirement home too?” Victor asks, as I toss my disposable gloves and pull on a fresh pair.

  “I do.” I nod confidently. “The old ladies hate Thursday afternoons because of it.”

  Victor laughs and then greets a woman and her son as he places the allot
ted handful of salad greens on their plates.

  I set a roll on the lady’s plate. With the boy’s I draw back my arm like I’m going to throw it and I say to him, “Go long.”

  His eyes pop wide for a second and when he sees my wink he laughs. I perch the roll on his plate and tell them to enjoy their meal.

  It turns out to be a very busy night, probably due to the weather forecast, and I worry that Mr. Whitman might finish before me and leave. He probably doesn’t even remember I’m here and therefore won’t be disappointed, but I would be. Victor must recognize my anxiety because when the traffic finally wanes he tells me he’ll finish up on both stations and shoos me away.

  I grab a cup of decaf coffee and a sugar, relieved to find Mr. Whitman mopping up the dregs of his stew with the last few bites of his roll. I place the coffee in front of him and tear open the sugar to dump inside.

  “Why, Lola! I didn’t know you were here.”

  It doesn’t matter how many times he does that, my heart squeezes tight with sadness every time.

  “Is this for me?” He reaches for the foam cup.

  “In exchange for a story.” I settle on the still empty chair. “Tell me about Mrs. Whitman. How did you two meet?”

  It was perhaps my favorite of all his stories.

  Mr. Whitman smiles and his cloudy eyes manage to glaze over further as his memories reach into the past. Suddenly the other empty chairs around the table are filled. Everybody loves Mr. Whitman’s stories, and while he’s telling them it’s the only time he isn’t barking at everyone around him.

  “Did you know I was engaged before I married Gladys?” he asks.

  I sit up straighter. “No, I didn’t. Why have you never told me that before?”

  “Because now is the best time to tell you.”

  I scoot my chair closer to the table and slide my rear forward so that I can extend my legs and cross them at the ankles. My ponytail gets trapped between my back and the seat, so I sweep it forward over my shoulder and it trails to my waist. “Then I’m glad you waited until now to tell me.”

  Mr. Whitman stares at my ponytail for so long I worry that he might forget he’s going to tell a new story. Just as I open my mouth to jog his memory, he begins.

  “My second year in college. I was studying to be an Electrical Engineer. Literally studying. In the library.”

  Soft chuckles filter around the table. Mr. Whitman had been a cartoonist by trade, so the admission of studying to become an Electrical Engineer has me completely captivated. I had no idea he was once on such a straight and proper career path.

  He continues. “It was very late at night, past ten, and the library was practically deserted. My eyes were blurry from reading the tiny print in those god-awful textbooks, and I was starting to worry I’d fail the big test the next day. I slapped the book closed and tossed it aside to pick up another, but it slid across the table and tumbled onto the floor. The librarian glared at me from behind her big desk, so I got up and trudged around the table to pick it up and that’s when I heard these strange little sounds. Like a hiccupping mouse, but a really big one.” He held his shaky hands out to indicate width and height.

  Again, we all laugh.

  “I tossed the book back onto the table before following the noise. That’s when I first saw her. My beautiful Maribel. She was standing between two tall shelves, hunched forward and hanging onto the shelving like she’d drown if she let go. I approached cautiously, wondering if she’d taken drugs and was on a bad trip or something. She finally heard me and looked up—and that was it. I fell hard, and fast, and instantly.”

  “What?” My outburst startles everyone, including me. “But you loved Gladys.” I say of his wife of fifty-two years. “Are you making this up?”

  When Mr. Whitman looks at me I suck in a breath. His eyes are the clearest, the sharpest I’ve ever seen them. “Of course I loved Gladys. But girl, it’s pretty rare that a person goes through life only having fallen in love once.”

  “Oh.” I slump in my chair feeling bad for having interrupted. “I’m sorry, please continue.”

  Mr. Whitman’s eyes immediately lose focus and I can all but see him enter that library again.

  “Maribel was tall and shapely, with dark hair and big brown eyes. That first time she looked at me, they were swimming in tears and I was young enough to believe that I could save her from whatever had hurt her. She was young enough to believe me.”

  “Oh, this sounds tragic,” says the frowning woman sitting across the table.

  “It was. Yes.” Mr. Whitman wraps his craggy old hands around the foam cup and chuckles. “At least for me. Anyway, Maribel and I started dating. She was fresh from a break up, but within months we both forgot what brought us together in the first place.”

  Mr. Whitman tips his head back and smiles up to the sky. “Ah, Maribel was amazing. Full of life. Eager to live it fully. She taught me how to step outside my stodgy self and truly have fun.”

  I can’t reconcile the Mr. Whitman in the story with the man I’ve known for almost two years. My Mr. Whitman is dependable, reliable, staunch. This story Whitman is fun loving and…young. I sigh.

  “One night—we’d been dating for a year and a half—I stole her out of her bed, with a little assistance from her roommates, and took her on a midnight adventure. We climbed a water tower. I carried a backpack filled with cheese and crackers, chocolate and champagne. We sat up on the catwalk that surrounds the fattest part of the tower and shared our dreams under a blanket of stars. Then I asked her to marry me.”

  “Oh, that’s sweet.” I sigh at the romantic image in my mind.

  “Well, not quite, because before she answered, I pulled the little box out of my pack, opened it to show her the ring inside, then slapped it closed and tossed it over the edge.”

  A collective gasp from the circle of listeners.

  Mr. Whitman cackles at the memory, takes a slow sip of coffee, and then chuckles some more.

  “I told her that if she found it, I’d marry her.”

  Victor, who had joined the circle shortly after Mr. Whitman started his story, asks, “Did she?”

  Mr. Whitman nods, a sly grin on his face. “Took her until six that morning, but she refused to give up. Luckily for me, the box hadn’t popped open and the ring was still inside.”

  I gnaw on my lower lip knowing that something had to have gone really wrong for this very happy couple to not end up married. I find I almost don’t want to know what it was. Despite my reservations, I ask. “What happened? Why didn’t you and Maribel marry?”

  Mr. Whitman purses his lips, the deep creases white from the pressure. “Two months later I stumbled into my dorm room after a chilly run across campus, and found my parents sitting side by side on my bed. Even all these decades later, I still remember how chilled I was from the winter air, but how much colder I became when I found them in my room. I knew…I knew immediately something had to be very wrong.”

  All of us gathered around the table are quiet with dreaded anticipation.

  “My brother had been killed in Vietnam. Sniper.”

  I see understanding dawn in the eyes of the older listeners. Even a few younger folks, who might have loved ones in the Middle East, nod. It’s a type of knowledge I don’t quite comprehend, only because I’ve never been faced with that same kind of worry, the endless days of wondering, the relief of having a loved one return, or the sorrow when they don’t.

  “Of course, I left school for the funeral, but when it came time to return…well, I just couldn’t. The education system seemed so inane to me. The idea of sitting in classes for hours on end while kids my age were shot at and killed—I couldn’t do it. I enlisted.”

  I gasp. He’d never talked about that either.

  “Maribel and I fought about it. We spent hours on the phone arguing. She was still at school. I never went back. I never saw her again.”

  Again, the table is quiet. I’m too stunned to speak. I want to know why. I w
ant to tell him how mad Maribel makes me. How mad his actions make me. But I can’t speak.

  Mr. Whitman pats my hand. “Anyway, you wanted to hear the story of when Gladys and I met.”

  I look at him, but my mind is slow to catch up. It’s too busy replaying the imagined phone calls between Mr. Whitman and Maribel, and marveling at how difficult that final call must have been. Finally, I nod.

  “You know why I chose to tell you this one?” he asks.

  I blink my watery eyes dry. “To shatter my heart into pieces?”

  Chuckles rumble around us and I see a couple heads bob.

  “No.” Mr. Whitman reaches into the oversized pocket of his baggy sweater and pulls out a photo I’ve seen a million times. It’s of him and Gladys, posing in a typical studio pose with him standing behind her. They’re at an angle to the camera, looking just over the photographer’s shoulder. Their hairstyles, clothing, and Gladys’ glasses date the picture from before my lifetime. “Things could have been very different for me. There were so many paths in my life that I could have followed, but Maribel was the biggest, broadest, and most distracting path of all. I don’t necessarily like what I went through—losing my brother, leaving school, going to war—but I know if that hadn’t happened I would have finished school, become an Electrical Engineer, and married Maribel. Even then, I don’t know if that would have been good or bad. What I do know is what did happen for me. Meeting Gladys, having her for fifty-two years as the mother of my children, the muse to my cartoons, the keeper of my heart. That made what I went through to get to her worth it. Every bit of it.”

  Though I’m staring at it, I can’t see the photo through the sheen of my tears.

  “Darn you, Mr. Whitman.” I give him an awkward sideways hug from my chair. “You always make me cry.”

  He stares at the photo as if I hadn’t even spoken.

  “That’s a nice story Todd,” the lady across the table says.

  His eyes snap up to meet hers and his caustic expression is back. “Who asked you anyway?”

  She just smiles and gets up, gathering her plate and cup to take to the trash. The crowd disperses slowly.