Saturday, July 14, 2012

Scrap Paper Hearts: Part Two

Hello again, my beloved readers! Here's the second (and last) installment of my short story, Scrap Paper Hearts. I hope you've loved reading it as much as I loved writing it. Enjoy!


“I see Sophie drinks coffee,” a vaguely familiar voice said.  
     
Sophie was sitting in the corner of the Starbucks near her apartment, curled up with her legs pulled under her as she read the book she’d picked out at the library that morning. So far, she wasn’t impressed with either the writing or the plot line, but she wasn’t quite ready to give up on it. It was a Saturday, early afternoon, but she’d already been there long enough to amass a collection of crumpled napkins along with her empty porcelain coffee cup and French press.
     
She looked up from her book to see Charlie, the man she’d met at the park. It had been more than a month since that day, but she still recognized him, and he obviously remembered her. Then again, who would be able to forget a strange young woman they’d  pushed on a swing set?
     
Sophie felt herself smile uncertainly, not sure whether she was glad to see him again or if she should be humiliated at how unstable he’d seen her. He probably thought she was insane.  
     
“Yes, Sophie drinks coffee. And, obviously, you do as well,” she replied, nodding to indicate the paper cup he held in his hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Charlie.” He didn’t need to know that she wasn’t sure she meant it.  
     
“You remember my name,” Charlie said, obviously pleased. “Do you mind if I sit?”
     
“No, no. Not at all.” Sophie closed her book and uncurled herself, straightening in the overstuffed chair so that her feet reached the floor.
      
Charlie crossed in front of her to take a seat in the next chair, adjusting the legs of his pants as he sat.  The man certainly knew how to dress.  He was wearing well-cut jeans and a French blue button down, the sleeves rolled up on his forearms and the tails un-tucked.  A white tee-shirt peeked out from the neck, which was unbuttoned to the second button.  Noticeably absent was the baseball cap he’d been wearing the last time Sophie had seen him, and she now noticed that he had light brown hair cut clean and close to his scalp.  Charlie may have been staring down the barrel at 40, but he wore it well.
     “So what are you reading?” he asked, noting the book that now lay, face down, on the arm of Sophie’s chair.
     It was a casual question between two ordinary people, a man and a woman who could have been meeting for the first time, purely by chance. It was a question that held no indication of any awkwardness or judgement by its presenter, merely interest in this small aspect of her life. To Sophie, it was an outstretched hand, a gentle offer of friendship from someone who seemed to understand a need she had never expressed. She smiled sweetly and reached for the hand, wondering where it might lead her.


*******
Charlie and Sophie had been dating for two months before she told him all the details of her mother’s death. He’d listened quietly as she recounted the ordeal––the arrangements and decisions she’d had to make, the loneliness she’d felt. The anger and hatred she’d struggled with. Her mother––so lovely and generous and vibrant––was gone, while the man who’d been involved in the accident walked around unscathed.  
     
He’d asked her what she knew about the man––if she knew who he was or where he was. If she’d tried to contact him since her mother’s death. Sophie shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes and stinging the back of her throat.
     
“I don’t know anything, really. They told me afterwards––what happened, how it happened. But I still feel like I don’t know anything. I know his name, and I met him. I met him long enough for everything official to be taken care of and reports to be filed. Officially, it wasn’t his fault. Officially, it was no one’s fault.” She swallowed the lump that seemed to be closing her airways, the bitterness that was building. “But she’s still gone, and he’s still here.” Sophie shook her head again and looked down at her hands, resting limply in her lap. Hands with long fingers like her mother’s.
     
Charlie swallowed thickly and reached out a hand, crooking his index finger just under her chin. He tilted her face up so that her eyes met his––eyes that were moist and glistening with the sheen of tears. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and husky with emotion.  
     
“What would you do, if you met him again? What would you say to him?” 
     
They were questions Sophie had asked herself thousands of times, questions that seemed to have different answers every time she asked them. She’d constructed scenarios and encounters and speeches, but even now, she still wasn’t sure of the true answer. Maybe she would never know.  
     
Was that such a bad thing? People talked about closure until she was tired of the word, but she wasn’t convinced that meeting with the man would actually bring her “closure.”
     
Sophie searched Charlie’s eyes, wondering what he saw when he looked at her. He had become, in the past two months, a best friend. A confidante. More than that, she felt a connection to him that went deeper than mere friendship. Friendship and respect had grown into love, the kind of love she knew she could depend on.
     
It was the kind of love her parents had shared, once upon a time. Not that Sophie remembered it firsthand. Sophie’s father had died of leukemia before her fifth birthday, but she had vague recollections of happy trips to the zoo, falling asleep in her father’s arms as she listened to the rumble of his voice rising from his chest while he sang in church, the security she felt when he held her tiny hand in his. Her mother had been his steadfast companion through his illness, nursing him as he worsened, keeping his spirits up even when things were bleak. Family time never suffered, and story books were read every night to both the ailing man in the bed and the little girl curled up beside him, while Rosemary Watson’s heart swelled with love and pain.
     
Sophie’s mother had raised her alone, never tiring of telling her stories about her father and what a wonderful man he’d been. Rosemary seemed to draw her own strength from the stories, reminders of times with a man who had loved her passionately even when his body failed him. As the years passed and Sophie grew into an adult, the woman who had been her mother also became her friend––her best friend, really. An irreplaceable part of her life.
     
The accident had taken both her mother and her best friend, leaving her with a deeper hole than she would have ever imagined.  A hole that she feared would never be filled.


*******
Charlie’s questions replayed in Sophie’s mind over the next few days, a constant loop of words and question marks. And finally, finally, she felt she knew the answer.
     
The knock on her front door bore Charlie’s signature rhythm––two raps and a ring. Sophie opened the door, expecting only to see the man she loved, dressed and ready to take her to dinner at their favorite restaurant. She smiled widely at the sight of him, his mere presence still something that gave her great delight.  
     
But the smile disappeared as suddenly as it had come, stolen from her face just as the air was stolen from her lungs. An indefinable wave of emotions crashed over her, a confusing jumble of thoughts and feelings and memories that once would have been her undoing.
     
As she looked past Charlie, she found herself standing face to face with the man who’d changed her life forever.  
     
What would you do? What would you say? The questions she thought she’d resolved now came as a test. A test to her heart, a test of what her mother had taught her.


Don’t forget I love you!  


     
Her mother had taught her love and forgiveness. That neither of those things showed weakness, but immeasurable strength.
     
As she looked into the eyes of the man she thought she would never forgive, her confusion was stilled by an unexpected calm. Sophie felt no more hatred. She felt only mercy. She felt her heart and her lungs fill with love, like blood and air. It was the love her mother had taught her.
     
“Sophie, this is my brother, Peter.” Charlie’s voice broke the spell, and finally she understood. Peter stood on her doorstep, both a gift and a curse. He had taken her mother, but he had given her Charlie. Here was her chance to give him something back––something his sorrow-filled eyes were obviously longing to see.
     
Forgiveness.
     
“Peter,” she said softly. Sophie offered him her hand, both a lifeline and an olive branch. “It’s nice to meet you.”  
     
The man she had once considered an enemy took her hand, holding it tightly. A wordless understanding passed between them, an unspoken exchange of supplication and mercy.   
     
Peter’s face broke, relief obvious in the grey-blue eyes that mirrored his brother’s. They were mere seconds in time, seconds that passed with the weight of years.
     
“I don’t know about either of you guys, but I’m feeling like a trip to the swings,” Sophie said, her voice gathering strength as she spoke. She let go of Peter’s hand and reached for Charlie’s, closing the door behind her. She smiled and looked ahead at the road, the evening sky around them painted in pinks and reds and yellows.  
     
Charlie squeezed her hand, a reassuring reminder that he was there, that he loved her and was proud of her. A reminder that her life was good.
     
Don’t forget I love you!  
     
The began to walk down the street, down the narrow sidewalk that ended at a small neighborhood park not unlike the one where she’d met Charlie. Sophie walked between the two brothers, three people whose lives had been ripped apart and united by circumstances that could have destroyed them. Three people who were finding life together.
     
Don’t forget I love you! 
     
Sophie looked at Charlie, feeling a peace that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She squeezed his hand in return, a smile crossing her lips as she shifted her gaze back to the deepening sunset.  
     
Staring straight ahead, Sophie slipped her free hand into Peter’s––a reminder that she was there, that he was forgiven. The three of them walked, now linked by hands, a reminder that love and forgiveness were stronger than hate. 

No comments:

Post a Comment