by Paul Cwalina
I got out of the car and raced up the steps of the front porch. I rang the doorbell and knocked hard on the door. “Walter!” I yelled. “Open up!” I waited only a couple of seconds before hopping over the railing on the edge of the porch and onto the walkway that lead to the back of the house. I sprinted to the backyard and up the steps of the back door. I turned the knob and it was open. I walked quickly through a small mud room and into the kitchen. “Walter! It’s me!” I yelled before continuing through the kitchen and into the living room. As I entered the living room, I saw his deep brown high-back chair, as well as the top of his bald head, and a little bit of his feet.
“Walter!” I said and put my hand on his shoulder. His skin was gray. He was motionless. “No, no, no no…Walter” I said desperately as I put my fingers on his throat to try to find a pulse. He was cold and there was no pulse. I tried more time at his wrist, but there was no life to be found.
I ran my hand through my hair and exhaled hard. I noticed he was holding something in his other hand, which was resting now on his lap. It was a framed photo of Walter and Emily on their wedding day. I looked at it and then placed it upright on the table next to his chair. “I don’t know what’s on the other side, Walter, but I sure hope you're with Emily again. Say hello to her for us and tell her I said thank you for the painting.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone and called 911. I waited until they arrived to officially pronounce him dead before calling Walter’s son and then Jennifer. After they took Walter’s body, I sat in his chair. The television wasn’t on, so he must have simply been thinking about Emily when he died. I was still sitting there when Jennifer arrived. She walked into the room from behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly. “How are you doing, sweetheart?”
I took her hand and kissed it and then looked up at her. “I’m all right.”
She caressed my cheek as she made her way around and then sat down in what I was sure was Emily’s chair. It was the same high back style as Walter’s, but hers was a slightly less worn mauve-colored version. I handed Jennifer the photo and said, “He was holding this when he died.”
“Wow, look how beautiful Emily was. No wonder he was so smitten with her,” she said. I responded with just a smile and stared at Jennifer for moment before looking around the living room at the photos and the modest furnishings of the simple and full life that a postal worker and a high school librarian put together and enjoyed.
I rested my head against the side of the chair, and brought my eyes back to Jennifer. When she returned my gaze I said, “Marry me.”
She choked up and couldn’t respond, so she just nodded and then smiled.
“Today,” I said. “I don’t want to wait.”
She let out a nervous giggle. “No,” she said. “There’s a certain way I want to do it. Give me a couple weeks to make the arrangements.”
“I don’t want to waste a single second. You are the love of my life and I don’t want a single tick of the clock to pass without you by my side.”
She choked up, again, and then got up from the chair. She leaned over me and put my face in her hands and said, “I love you and I will be honored to be your wife.” She kissed my forehead and said. “Are you going to be okay?” I nodded and she left.
Jennifer made arrangements for a simple private ceremony on the deck of her home two Saturdays from that day at Walter’s. I assumed she had asked the pastor from her church to officiate, but when I walked into her house that Saturday morning, I saw the back of a man’s head who was seated on the couch. His skin was black as coal and the hair circling his bald spot was steel gray. I couldn’t believe it. He got up from the sofa as I made my way around it.
“Pastor Zee?” I said in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, my friend. So good to see you,” he said and shook my extended hand. He then immediately pulled me in for a hug.
“I can’t believe this. What are you doing here?” I asked again.
“I understand dat d’ere is a wedding today, yes?”
I smiled at hearing ‘yes’. “There certainly is, and you came here all the way from St. Croix? Are you going to marry us?”
“Yes, I am,” he said. I turned to Jennifer, who was wearing a broad smile, and mouthed, “Thank you.”
“Not so fast,” Pastor Zee insisted. “First, let me see your hands.”
“My hands?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied and grabbed my hands. He looked thoroughly at the palms of my hands and then turned them over, before turning them over again. “No stones?”
I chuckled. “No. No stones, pastor.”
“Good. Can’t get married with stones in your hands, either,” he said through a smile.
I looked at Jennifer and said, “How did you know?”
“What? You don’t think I’m going to do a little research on the father of my children? You talked about Pastor Zee so much, I had no other choice but to ask him,” Jennifer said. “Edmond will be here, shortly, too, to be a witness.”
Jennifer then walked me into the kitchen where a woman who looked to be in her late fifties stood arranging a bouquet of flowers in a tall, clear vase. “Sweetheart, this is my mom, Mary,” Jennifer said proudly.
“So nice to finally meet you,” Mary said.
“It’s an honor to finally meet you, ma’am,” I said reverently and shook her hand. That didn’t suffice for Mary, though, as she pulled me in for a long, tight, warm hug.
Edmond arrived. I hadn’t seen him since he dropped me off at the airport in St. Croix all those months ago. He, too, didn’t settle for a handshake. As always, though, Edmond’s hugs bordered on dangerous, as he patted my back and nearly knocked the wind out of me. All I found myself saying to him was ‘I’m sorry’. Over and over again I apologized and he dismissed each one with a warm smile and a plea to me to forget the past.
Apparently, Jennifer and Edmond hadn’t met yet before that day. She introduced herself and Edmond greeted her as if they had known each other all their lives.
“I had planned to pay for Pastor’s Zee’s flight and any other expenses, but Edmond wouldn’t let me. He insisted on paying for everything,” Jennifer said.
Edmond took her hands and spread her arms apart about as far as they would go and looked at me. “See, I told you dat you will do great tings.”
We all laughed. “Edmond, if all great things are that easy to accomplish, then maybe I will believe you now.”
We all shared another laugh and made our way out onto the large deck. As we did, though, I thought about Pastor Zee’s asking me about the stones. Seeing Edmond made me realize that I still had a stone tucked away in my pocket. I should have gotten rid of it before marrying Jennifer, but I vowed to myself that I would do so as soon as I could. The last person I wanted to think about on my wedding day was Sarah, but I managed to keep it contained to putting a reminder in my phone to call her. I didn’t want that to remain unresolved as I began my life with Jennifer. I focused everything I had on my bride for the rest of the day.
The weather toward the end of May could be unpredictable, but we couldn’t have asked for a better day or reason to be gathered. The sky was cloudless, the air warm, and the breeze gentle as Pastor Zee talked about love being patient and kind and not boastful. He also talked about a man leaving his parents to cling to his wife and a woman leaving her parents’ home to become one with a man. Jennifer wore a simple cream-colored dress and smiled incessantly throughout the ceremony. I picked up my favorite suit at the dry cleaner’s that morning and ironed my best shirt.
Edmond had arranged catering from his hotel for a lunch after the ceremony. Everything arrived as we came back into the air-conditioned house. As the three young black-and-white clad hospitality workers set up the chafing dishes and utensils on the kitchen island, Jennifer asked me to get a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. I opened the door, but all I could see were gallons of water. How much water does
this woman drink?
“Babe, I don’t see any wine,” I said while still searching.
Jennifer walked over, reached up and moved one of the jugs of water and pulled the wine from behind it. “Is this how it’s going to be every time I ask you to get something?” she said through a smile.
I felt my face turn red. I smiled and said, “I’m sorry.”
Edmond proposed a brief toast and everyone took a sip of the wine, even Jennifer who allowed herself the smallest of tastes. I looked around the room and suddenly realized that I was in the company of the people whom I cared for the most in this world and the only ones I could say truly cared for me.
Pastor Zee got me alone and we talked briefly. He pulled from his pocket a small gift box complete with a bow. “Dis is for you, my friend,” he said and encouraged me to open it.
I did. It was a small shaker of garlic salt. I looked at him and smiled.
“Now is da time for jokes, yes?” he said and we both laughed heartily.
We all spent the next nine hours simply talking, laughing and sharing our pasts. As dinner time approached, Edmond called his hotel and told them to bring more food. “Da best,” he demanded. “You bring da very best of every-ting we have. We are celebrating.”
And celebrate we did, until I caught Jennifer struggling to stay awake. Together, we wrapped up the gathering, thanked our guests and said ‘good night’ to them all. It was one of the most beautiful days of my life and I did my very best to savor it.
Chapter Nineteen
I finally had invited Sarah to meet me at my office so we could talk face to face and finally flush my system of the nagging guilt and gnawing anger. I poured two coffees and we sat at the small table I used for conference calls. She seemed stiff and looked disinterested, as if she was enduring the get-together just to be polite. I was determined to achieve some sort of breakthrough and truly put her behind me, so I pushed through it.
“So, what’s this all about?” she asked, very businesslike.
“Well, I ...um...well, I just really needed to talk to you and tell you something...something that I really need to say...well, two things, actually I guess,” I said through my nervousness.
Her cell phone rang. The ringtone was the INXS song Devil Inside and it struck me as odd because I had never that from her phone. “Since when is that your ringtone?” I asked her.
“It always has been, but just for a certain person,” she responded.
“Who?”
“Don’t worry about it. You don’t even know her. Just a friend of mine,” she said dismissively.
“All right, all right. I’ll let it go.”
“Okay, so go ahead whatever you need to tell me. I don’t have much time. Ryan is expecting me,” she said. I wondered if she added the comment about Ryan just to incite some jealousy or anger in me. While it failed to do that, I was disappointed in myself that I still felt a twinge hearing the name.
“Oh, okay,” I said and raised my left hand to my face to scratch an itch that didn’t exist. I was pridefully and shamefully showing off my wedding ring. Maybe I’m really not ready to forgive after all. “Look, not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about that day in my office. I um...I was way out of line and I never should have done what I did. I am so sorry and I want to ask your forgiveness. But I also need to ask your forgiveness for, well, for taking you for granted. You deserved better than how I treated you. So, please forgive me for that, as well.”
Sarah sat perfectly still, her mouth opening as her jaw slowly dropped. She clearly wasn’t expecting me to say what I said. It left her speechless. She just stared into my eyes, judging my sincerity.
“Well, it’s about time,” she said softly.
I smiled a guilty half-smile. “One more thing,” I said before taking a deep breath and exhaling. I looked into her eyes. “I forgive you. Those rumors I never wanted to believe...I um...I guess they were true...” She turned away and her eyes began to moisten. “I can’t forget them and I can’t excuse them, but...I forgive you. That’s...I guess that’s all I really have to say.”
Sarah turned her face toward me. Her look was different, though. She seemed contrite. A tear tumbled out of her eye and ran down her cheek. She remained silent, though. I wasn’t sure how to react.
I stood up and said, “Well, I don’t want to keep you.” I put out my hand to help her up from her chair. She put her phone in her purse, took my hand and stood up. When she did, our faces were dangerously close to one another’s. “I had no idea you felt that way,” she said.
“Well, we need to move on. I need to move on from this.”
In one motion she kissed and pushed me gently up against the wall. I immediately tried to stop her. “Sarah, no,” I said, but as soon as I parted my lips, she slipped her tongue into my mouth. I was trapped against the wall and trapped by the memory of that day in my office when I grabbed her by the throat. I couldn’t allow anything close to that happen again. I put my open palms on her shoulders and ever so gently tried to push her away, but she was forcing herself on me with all she had.
She broke the kiss and started on my neck. “Come on, baby, you know you want to as much as I do.”
“Sarah. I’m married and you’re engaged.”
“That’s not a ‘no’,” she said. “Besides, who cares? Nobody is going to know.” She moved her hand down to my waist and began unbuckling my belt. “You were forced into this marriage. Deep down, you really still want me.”
“You’re wrong. You are dead wrong,” I said, as I tried to gently push her away.
I heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked and saw Jennifer walk through the open door. I put my hands up in a desperate attempt to show that this wasn’t my idea or fault. Jennifer’s face scrunched up in anger as she walked angrily right for us.
Sarah must not have heard Jennifer’s sneakered feet because she didn’t stop what she was doing until Jennifer had a fistful of her hair. Sarah grunted as Jennifer yanked her hair and head back. In one smooth, martial-arts style move, Jennifer had Sarah flat on her stomach on the floor. She grabbed Sarah’s hand and put her foot across Sarah’s face and head. Then she pulled up on her arm with all her strength.
“Stay away from my family! Do you hear me?”
Sarah only screamed in anger and pain. “Get off me!” She started kicking her legs in an effort to free herself.
“Did you hear me?” Jennifer said louder. She pulled harder on Sarah’s arm. I thought she was going to pull it completely out of its socket.
“Get off me, you freak!”
“Jennifer, the babies,” I said, grabbing her by the arm.
“I’m not letting go until I hear you say it. Are you going to stay away from my family?” Jennifer yelled.
Sarah stalled by screaming in pain, but then finally relented. “Fine!” she yelled. “I’m done. Now get off me, you freak!”
As Jennifer began to relax, a gush of water burst from beneath her dress. Some of it ran down Sarah’s arm and some landed on her neck and face.
“My water just broke,” she said.
“Oh, that’s gross! Get away from me!” Sarah yelled and she began to come unhinged. I wanted nothing more than to get Jennifer out of there.
“Jennifer, let’s go,” I said walking toward the door. She grabbed my arm and we walked together. When we got to the doorway, she bent over in pain.