Chapter Thirty-Five
Harrison
“So, she loved it?”
“Did she love it? Man, the girl was in tears when I walked into her office and trust me, those weren’t tears of sadness, man.”
I laughed as I sat in the front room talking to Brian. “Good. I got a lot of making up to do with her. I was such an asshole, man. A complete, utter asshole. I’ll never forgive myself for it.”
“Nah, man. It’s understandable, and that is another one of your problems. You are too hard on yourself. You have to have room to make a mistake here and there and not kill yourself for it. Hell, I’ve made so many mistakes as a husband and father, I should write a book. It’s life though, man. You live, and you learn.”
“I hear ya, Brian. I hear ya. Listen, thanks again for picking up the slack for me since I’ve been away. Here it is, three days have gone by and I haven’t stepped foot in the office other than to drop some flowers off for Caroline.”
“Boss, you can take as much time as you need. I’ve never even seen you take a vacation unless business was involved. You need it. If I were you, I’d take the rest of the week off. That’s just me, though.”
I propped my leg up on the couch. “The rest of the week?”
“Oh yeah. It’s just two measly days. Nothing major. I’ve got it from here. Oh,” he laughed, “before I forget, you may want to make this relationship with you and Caroline public. Word around the office is that one of the new guys hit on her. I mean, he didn’t know she was taken, but once he found out that you were the person she was dating, you should’ve seen the horror in his eyes. It was like he saw a ghost.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I may need to do something about that. But for now, we will keep it as is.”
“Your call, boss. Your call. Anyway, I’m gonna get out here. I gotta go on site to one of the buildings we are constructing. Some of the guys need a little help.”
“Are you sure you don’t need me to come in?”
“Boss, enjoy your time off. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Thanks, man.”
“You got it.”
It felt good knowing that I could step away from my job and not worry about a thing. Brian was as dependable as they came and he was an extension of me in the workplace. There wasn’t a difference from me to him when it came to the way things were being run, and I knew that whenever I decided to retire, he would be the perfect man to step up. I got up from the couch and walked to Sarah’s room. A few days had passed since I rearranged everything. After I dropped the flowers off at work, I took her clothing to Goodwill. There were four boxes full of items, and when I brought them in, the female worker was very appreciative.
“They are from a very special person,” I said, recollecting thoughts of Sarah.
She smiled. “I am sure they are.”
I walked to the empty closet in her room. The air was still. The silence was deafening. I took a deep breath and inhaled the silence, then blew it out softly. The only things that remained in her room were pictures, trophies, plaques, and the bedding on top of her mattress. Everything else had been taken out and placed in storage. I never thought I would be able to do anything like that, but as soon as I did, I felt a load lifting off my shoulders. Things weren’t easier, but I could feel them heading that way. I smiled, then closed the door and went back into the front room.
It was almost 12 pm when I closed my eyes for a nap. When I opened them again, it was just past 3. I pulled myself off the couch, then headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner for tonight. I thought of taking Caroline out for a night on the town, but I figured that I would make this evening intimate between the two of us. She had texted me a few times when I was asleep. She came off like a child who was excited to open her gifts on Christmas. It was cute to me, and it made me realize that she appreciated my gestures towards her.
After I had finished cooking, I got myself ready for her. I put on some slacks and a short-sleeved, button-up shirt. I knew she would be dressed up, so I didn’t want her to be the only one. My doorbell rang at 7:45 pm. I laughed as I looked out the window. She is early. When I opened the door, a bright smile shined from her countenance. She wore a white mini dress with 2-inch heels. Her hair was tied into a bun as she stood in front of me. The sunshine from behind illuminated her silhouette like an angel. I looked at my watch. “7:45?”
She laughed. “Whatever, Harrison. I just couldn’t wait to see you. I can come back if you’d like.”
I pulled her in closer and planted a kiss on her lips. “No, you are fine. I was just giving you a hard time.”
I closed the door behind her as she walked further into the house. “It smells good in here, Chef Harrison.”
I removed her jacket and hung it inside the closet, “Thank you, my dear. Are you hungry?” I noticed the earrings and bracelet adorning her earlobes and wrist as she stood in the middle of the front room.
“Yes, I am. Shall we?”
“Indeed.”
I led her into the kitchen. Our plates of steak and potatoes sat peacefully on top of the dinner mats. The candlelight on top of the table flickered as I pulled my chair out for her. Jazz music played low in the background. Rose petals were scattered around on the table and in her seat. “This is gorgeous, Harrison.”
“It pales in comparison to your beauty.”
She blushed, then took her seat at the table. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, then removed two longneck wine glasses from the counter. “You are pulling out all the stops, huh?”
“Well, I have a lot of making up to do.”
I sat down at the table as she continued. “Harrison, please. I’ve already forgiven you for that. We both had a lot that we needed forgiveness for, so we can move past it now. You know this is one of your issues. Holding onto things. You have to let that go. If you keep beating yourself up for it, you’re going to mess around and hurt your hand again. I don’t want that to happen.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. This ‘letting go’ thing. It is much easier said than done. How do you do it?”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have a formula for it or anything. I think that as women, we are more emotional and because of that, we are prone to talk things out. Cry. Yell. Scream. Whatever we need to get out, we get it out. I guess that is what you should do instead of holding it in. Like now,” she took a napkin and spread it onto her lap. “Why are you holding on to what you said to me last Sunday?”
I looked away from her, trying to find a reason as to why I still held onto it. “I don’t know. I guess because, in my mind, nothing I do will be able to remove how I made you feel. Like, it will always be in the back of my mind, you know? As much as I want to shake it, it will remain. Taunting me, sort of.”
She grabbed her knife and cut into the steak. The juicy morsel clung to her fork as she dipped it into the steak sauce on the side of her plate. “Well, see, that is the problem. When I told you that I forgave you, I meant it. Since that moment, you can forget about it. Forget about how it made me feel. Forget about what you said. Because if I saw I forgive you, then should be your closure. You should move on from it because I will treat you as if nothing ever happened.” She looked at the table, the reached for the wine glass. Suddenly, she stopped. “No, you grab the wine glass. Grab it and then hand it to me.”
I did what she asked and handed her the wine glass. “Now, imagine that the glass is what you said to me. You spoke those words, and now I have them. I am hurting. But guess what? As soon as you say you are sorry, watch what happens.” She took the wine glass and placed it on the floor, then brought her hands back to my line of sight. “It is gone. You see how that works? Now, you don’t have it because you gave it to me, but when you asked for forgiveness, I no longer have it either. Now, nothing is there. That is how you have to look at things.”
“What about Sarah? How do I let that go?”
“That, Harrison, should’ve never been there. That is not your fault, but somehow, you made it your fault. Sarah doesn’t blame you for that, Harrison, trust me. I’ve known her for the majority of my life, and I know she wouldn’t have blamed you for what happened. You created that blame as a means to cope. That’s it. It doesn’t exist.”
I looked at her as she slid the piece of steak into her mouth. The way she spoke with such assurance. It was as though she demanded I make sense of what she was saying, and I did. Everything was as clear as day. I raised one eyebrow to the middle of my forehead. “Are you sure you are in the right business? Accounting? Maybe you should have been a psychologist.”
She laughed. “That is funny because I switched majors my second year in college. Psychology was my first choice, but then I realized how much I loved numbers, so I switched it. I still remember a lot of what they taught, though, because I am interested in the study of human behavior.”
“I see.”
After we finished our meal, I led her into the front room. While we sat on the couch, I pulled a small notebook from beneath the cushion. “Now,” I said, holding it in my hands, “this is what I had to show you.” I handed her the notebook and she stared at it for a second.
“What is this?”
I leaned back on the couch. “Just open it.”
She flipped open the notebook. There were pictures drawn and colored on different pages of the book. “What is this, Harrison?” she asked, flipping through the pages.
“That is Sarah’s notebook.” I exhaled, knowing that I was headed for an emotional time. “When she was younger, she used to draw all these pictures of her mother.”
“The woman that came by a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah. Anyways, she drew all these pictures, and I knew who they were of, but when I asked her, she said, ‘No, Daddy, these are pictures of the woman you are going to marry.' I thought it was cute, you know? But at the time, I wasn’t worried about marriage or anything else. I was focused on creating a good life for me and my daughter. She drew all these pictures up until about fifth grade. I told her I would hold on to them until I met that woman. She made me promise, so, that is what I did.”
“Why are you showing these to me, Harrison?”
Her eyes glimmered as the moonlight shot through the window. “Because… I believe I have found that woman.”
She sat quietly, and moments later, I gently touched the back of her neck and pulled her lips closer to mine. She placed the notebook on the ground as her tongue slithered into my mouth. I loved her more than any woman I’d ever known, and I didn’t want her to have a doubt in her mind that she was who I wanted to be with for eternity.