Scars

By the dim light of an overhead lamp I can just make out the words of that classic tale that graces the book's yellowed pages. Though the usual month of its telling has long since passed, an old copy of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" has become my nightly companion. My old friend Bob Cratchit is there, tending to his sickly son Tiny Tim while his wife prepares the Christmas dinner. Jacob Marley has made his appearance as well, dragging and rattling heavy chains that announce his presence as surely as the jingling coins within his purse must have done in former days. And of course Scrooge, the old miser whose personal failings are writ large against the shortcomings of each reader, to varying degrees and maladies of course. Some see themselves in his avarice, still others in his indifference, whereas a few (the most tragic I believe) have followed his example of neglecting matters of the heart, ignoring a fiery love that was slow to ignite but quick to extinguish.

Another page I turn to our place in the story where the Ghost of Christmas Past has taken Scrooge to look upon his youthful love Belle. His fiancé of many years, Belle is abandoning Scrooge to his base desires, the pursuit of wealth and security, that he might find happiness in a life apart from her. She spoke thus:

"I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were....May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"

She left him, and they parted.


Heartbroken, the elder Scrooge watches his true love depart and can only beg the Ghost of Christmas Past to show mercy upon his tortured soul.


'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?'

'One shadow more!' exclaimed the Ghost.

 
I set the book down, contemplating Scrooge's predicament when I hear a low voice from across my bedroom.


"One shadow more Bobby," it says with monotone inflection that raises the hairs on my neck.


I look up to see a hooded figure whose head nearly touches the ceiling, its black robes draped loose and free to conceal a face enveloped by shadow. Yet the shadow is not black, but instead emits a peculiar glow that bathes the unexpected visitor in a translucent haze so that the dents and scratches of the wall it stands against are perfectly visible. 


"What spirit are you?" I inquire with trembling voice, my curiosity not yet ready to succumb to fear.

"Come, I have much to show you," the spirit replies, and with outstretched arm it took hold of my hand as we passed through time and space to arrive in a wooded park, a park unknown to me, yet familiar all the same.

"Where are we spirit?" I ask. The spirit points its long arm to a sign that reads "Piedmont Park", Atlanta's largest park and one that I have visited many times. Countless afternoons and evenings have I spent walking its wooded trails and scarcely a single tree or blade of grass remains unknown to me. Yet everything is different. The walking trails twist and wind in new directions I do not remember while the trees seem larger, as if fifty years of growth has taken place in a single night. Young saplings that only days before had struggled to find sunlight beneath the canopy now appear full grown, with roots that push through the earth and split concrete walkways that I have never seen nor trodden.

"Nothing seems as it should," I say to the spirit. "I do not recognize the place I now stand. Why have you brought me here?"

Before the spirit replies I hear footsteps behind me. Two pairs of steps tread softly down a winding trail that is illuminated only by the moonlight above. As the strangers approach, I see the faces of each, a man and a woman whose skin hangs loose with age. Deep wrinkles line their faces, yet both are smiling as their hands intertwine together so tightly that even the moonlight reflecting off their wedding rings can barely escape. They walk past me, ignoring my presence as they seem concerned only with each other whilst making their way to a magnolia tree far in the distance that stands tall and strong, a hundred feet of night sky carved out for itself.

Upon reaching the tree, the old man took hold of his wife's hand and placed it on the tree's thick trunk, letting it linger for a moment before whispering words to her that I could not distinguish, yet somehow already knew. She looked again at the tree trunk, letting her fingers trace its peculiar surface, and began to weep. With unbridled passion she wrapped her arms around the man's neck like a young girl whose love had just blossomed at the sight of her first beloved. In that moment they were no longer old and grey, but instead a pair of young lovers whose journey together was as uncertain as it is magical. They love each other. They are in love with each other, and beneath the moon's silent gaze they skipped away together quick as rabbits.

I watched them. I watched them disappear together somewhere deep into the woods, neither hands nor longing stares ever separating. Only when I was certain that their departure was assured did I wander towards the magnolia tree that had stirred such emotions. Its imposing branches stretched far and wide, yet seemed comforting to me as if welcoming an old friend. With only the dim moonlight to guide my steps, the tree remained an unbroken shadow until finally I strayed close enough to see markings upon its trunk, the markings that had stirred such elation and love within the old woman's heart. For in the trunk of that old magnolia were carved two names, deep into the wood, that were separated only by a single heart. The carving was old, some fifty years perhaps, and had become a deep scar from which the old magnolia never recovered, or perhaps proudly bore. Two names formed the scar. Two names immortalized forever in this ancient wood...a carving that would forever proclaim their love.

As I drew nearer, the heart binding both names together became plainly visible, but only when my hand touched the carving itself could I distinguish the names of those two lovers. My fingers traced the familiar letters and I froze.

"Spirit," I said, quickly turning around. "These names...these names are..." But the spirit was gone, leaving me alone to stare only at a deeply carved name, the most beautiful of names, that now scarred both this tree and my heart.

My eyes flutter open as the first rays of morning sunlight reach through the window. On my lap rests "A Christmas Carol", still opened to the pages I last remember reading the night before. The pages rustle slightly from the twirling fan blades above and I begin to wonder if Scrooge's ghosts were really only a dream after all. 

An hour later I am walking through Piedmont Park, a casual morning stroll that starts so many of my days. The paths are familiar again, not at all like the night before, and as I round a paved trail I see a small tree, not much larger than a sapling, planted exactly where I remember the towering magnolia standing. Its roots are shallow, its branches modest, but its diminutive size cannot mask its true identity. I look for the lovers' names that the old man had carved into the trunk all those years ago, but the wood is bare and plain, as if waiting for the old man's hand to confess his love upon the blank canvas. I smile, reach into my pocket, and withdraw a small pocketknife that seems just right for the job at hand. Its blade saws deep into the wood, first writing your name, then mine, before binding the two together with a heart between them. I close my knife and wipe the sawdust away, admiring the handiwork that will last for some fifty years. The carving is fresh now, but I know that in time it will scar over, becoming fainter as the tree grows until it will be visible only to the man who put it there and the woman he has carved it for.

When you ask, I will show you these scars, the emotional scars that I now carry. They will never heal. I don't want them to. I want them to remain open wounds to remind me of what I have lost so that if you should ever offer me your love again I will never take it for granted. These wounds remind me to be the man you always wanted me to be, the man I have become, so that when at last our hearts are bound together I will never lose you again.

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Ornela,

Though we are a thousand miles apart, in this moment I am with you. When you read my words, I am sitting beside you, holding your hand as I tell you that I love you.  

Why are you here Ornela? Why are you still reading my stories? I want you to really think about what is drawing you back to my journal when you know that all of my stories are now love letters to you. Though we are not together, you are letting me tell you that I love you every time you read my words...and I know that hearing these words makes you happy. If you were happy with this other man you wouldn't be here right now, letting me say these things to you, knowing that I am going to keep telling you that I love you. You feel something when reading my words that he doesn't give you, something you felt only when we were together: Love, and when you read my journal now it can only be for one reason...you are still in love with me and you want to know that I love you too. If these are the words you want to hear then let me say them to you in person. Let me take you to the bridge overlooking the lake at Boston Common Park, just as I did all those months ago, and I will look into your eyes and tell you that I am in love with you. We can start our lives together at that moment, the moment when our hearts are finally bound together.

Ask me Ornela...ask me to see you. If you look into my eyes and feel nothing then we will know that it was never meant to be, but if our hearts are inflamed with the same passion that we felt for one another when last our gazes met then we will know that we are only for each other. It is the only way to know for sure. It is the only way to live our lives without the regret of spending a lifetime with the wrong person. One chance to look into your eyes again...that is all I am asking for.

A day, a month, a year...no matter how long I must wait for you, I know that one day we will be together again. I do not have faith in anything except you...except us. 

I think about you every day. I miss you more than anything.

We are two people who are in love with each other, and always have been...and always will be. That is the real reason you are here right now Ornela. Love is bringing us back together. If you are reading these words, please call me.

Requiem for Romance

My phone rings, showing a number I have not seen in ages and a name that sends my heart racing. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves, as this is the most important call of my life.

I pick up the phone and answer. "Hello?"

"Hi Bobby," she says, her voice already quivering. "How are you tonight?"

"Wonderful, now that I am talking to you," I reply without hesitation. I can barely conceal my exuberance that she has called, yet her nervous laughter tells me that she is uncomfortable by the unwelcomed compliment.

She has called at my request, a generosity only an angel could offer after everything that has transpired over the previous weeks. A dozen letters we have exchanged, a dozen letters marked by the outpouring of one heart and the dismissal by another. My letters have confessed everything to her in words too great to number, but as she waits for my voice to announce the reason for our call, I find that the tender words I once found so easy to confess to her in former days have become like a great millstone weighing down my tongue.   

"I have some things that I need to say to you," I say, unfolding the letter I hold in my left hand that I have spent hours preparing. The paper rustles in my shaking hand and I wonder if she can hear it over the sound of my trembling voice. The words that I speak pour out everything from my heart, all the feelings and sentiments that long months apart have kept hidden within. I ask for forgiveness, I ask for another chance to make everything right...I ask for something else too, something that will determine the rest of our lives.

"Ornela, will you be my girlfriend?"

Silence, but only for a moment.

"It's not that simple Bobby. I can't...it's just that...I just can't."

My head sinks low; tears well in my eyes. For two years I have waited to ask that question. For two years I have struggled with my feelings, wrestled with them without relief, until finally my angels conquered my demons and revealed to me the one woman with whom I am in love with, the only woman I have ever loved. Her...it was always her, and now she drifts away like wisps of smoke that my hand can neither touch nor hold.

Something snaps within. My passion overtakes me as two years of anguish and regret spew forth in a torrent of raw emotions. "Are you in love with me, because I am in love with you!" I shout, startling even myself with such an outburst.

She says nothing for several seconds before meekly replying, "Yes, I am in love with you Bobby."

Finally she has listened to her heart. Finally she has acknowledged that which she always felt, yet never wanted to admit: that she is in love with me, that she has always been in love with me. Two years apart could not break our love, nor could her relationship with another. She knows that she is not supposed to have these feelings, not after so much time apart, yet they are there, binding our hearts together in a knot that neither time nor distance can break. With those simple words from her mouth I am happier than I have been in years.

"But you are with another man," I remind her. "Do you even love him?"

"No, I don't love him," she admits.

"Then why are you with him? Are you going to marry this man? Are you going to marry a man you don't even love?" 

She starts to cry.

"After you left," she begins, but before another word is uttered she breaks down in tears, struggling to maintain her composure against the torrent of emotions now washing over her. After several moments she gathers herself and continues. "After you left, I was miserable for a very long time. You just left me Bobby, you just left me all alone."

My eyes water while my throat clenches shut and renders me mute. The thought of her sitting in her room alone, crying because I abandoned her is more than I can bear. I realize now, for the first time, just how badly I hurt her when I said goodbye. Badly enough for her to flee from me. Badly enough for her to run to the arms of another man she does not love. She is afraid of being hurt again, and I am the reason for that. This is why she is with a man she does not love. He feels safe, and I don't anymore.

"Why are you making me choose between you and him?" she asks. "I am going to regret my decision either way. I wouldn't do this to you."

"I know you wouldn't," I concede without protest. "Because you are a better person than me." She is right. She wouldn't do this to me. She would have let me go a long time ago. No, that is not it...because her decisions are ruled by love instead of fear, she never would have let me go at all. I wipe away the tears from my eyes and struggle to say, "But you agreed to talk to me tonight. Does that not show you where your heart truly lies?"

"I agreed to talk to you tonight because...," she pauses, unsure of whether to admit her reason. "Because I can't say no to you Bobby." Her confession both lifts and breaks my heart. I can't say no to her either. In this moment, there is nothing that she could ask of me that I would refuse, for in my eyes she can do no wrong.

I sigh, wishing that she was beside me that I might hold her hand and look into her eyes as I make my confession.

"Every day," I tell her. "Every day for two years I have thought about you."

"I didn't know Bobby. I thought you had forgotten me."

"Your memory was always there...always. I wrote about you all the time in my journal."

"I know, I read it."

"You kept reading my journal?"

"I have read your entire journal, every word."

"Did you read the story about..."

"Bobby, I have read them all."

"Then you must know then...you must know that everything I write is about you. It is always about you. Everything my pen touches is a love letter to you...everything in my journal, everything in my novel."

"Maybe you don't really love me then. Maybe you are just in love with a character you created in your novel."

"No!" I scream, unwilling to hear such accusations.

"But maybe..."

"No!"

"It's just that..."

"No, no, no! This isn't about the damn novel!"

"Let me talk!" she demands, frustrated and upset that I will not listen to her.

We are fighting. We have never fought before. I offered her my love, but when she refused I unsheathed my sword and cut her down with my words. I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt her, but every word from my lips draws another tear from her eyes.

As I am yelling at her she starts crying. Why is this happening now? At the time I need to be gentlest with her I am violently forcing myself upon her. I am scared. I am so scared right now, of saying the wrong thing, of losing her forever. Does she hear the trembling in my voice? Does she hear the fear? I am afraid of losing her all over again and letting the long years slip away as I spend a lifetime apart from my one true love. Everything within me is trying desperately to show her that the man who gave her up is not the same man who now asks for her love.

"I'm sorry," I eventually say. "I didn't mean to make you cry. I did not want to have this conversation over the phone. We have to see each other. Ask me to see you again. Ask me to see you in Boston."

She will not ask. She knows that if she sees my face her emotions will overwhelm her and all semblance of restraint will be tossed away forever as we fall into each other's arms. She has already admitted this to me before. Our love for one another will overtake us if we but look into each other's eyes...that is how I know we are supposed to.

"Ask me," I say again. "Please, just ask me to see you in Boston."

"I have to go Bobby."

Over the phone I can almost hear his car pulling into the driveway. She has called me when he was gone, a secret phone call that she has hidden from him. I imagine her sitting by the window, staring out the blinds while she waits for him to come back home. When she sees his car pull into the driveway she abruptly ends our call, fearing that he might catch her talking to the man she truly loves.

"Please don't go Ornela," I plead. Still she is silent. "Please don't go. I love y..."

The line goes dead. My breath is cut short. She is gone.

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The night has become my enemy. That moment when I turn off the lights and climb into bed, staring up at the dark ceiling above...I sigh. I stretch out my arm, almost expecting it to wrap around your body before remembering that you are not there. You are in another bed right now, with another arm wrapped tightly around your body, while I remain here alone....exhausted, but unable to sleep.

When we laid together on my bed in Birmingham I asked you what you want from me. "To be your girlfriend," you replied. Everything I would give to hear those words again. But they are not forthcoming, nor are they even tentatively offered. Instead, I am the one asking for a relationship...I am the one being rejected...I am the one crying alone. The greatest tragedy is knowing that we could be married right now, happy and together, but I let it all slip away. I let you go and everything that we have both gone through, all the needless pain and suffering, is my fault. It is all my fault.

You told me in one of your letters that you wish you could undo something that has already been done. Ornela, it is never too late to undo whatever you have done. You don't have to keep going down a path with a man you know is not right for you. It is never too late for us to be together...you always have a choice. No matter what you have done, no matter what decisions you have made, no matter what changes have taken place in your life...I still love you. I still want to spend the rest of my life with you and that will never change. My love for you is unconditional.

We write our own stories Ornela, I with my pen and you with our lives, and I don't believe that our story is over. You told me during our phone call that if we are meant for each other our love will find a way to bring us back together, so I have opened my hand and released you, hoping that one day you will come back into my arms. 

I don't know if you are still reading my words or not. If I knew that you were I would write you a new story every day just to tell you that I love you, with the hope that you still love me too. I have to believe...I have to believe that you love me enough to keep reading my journal, as this is the only way I know to keep talking to you. I am writing these stories because it is the only thing I have left that makes me feel close to you...I hope that when you read my words you feel close to me too. All of my stories, from my novel to this one, every word...is written only for you.

You make everything beautiful.

Moon Rabbit

Her hand feels so frail and weak within my own. I gently toy with the wedding ring that once fit snugly around her finger but now slides freely and seems ready to fall off at any moment. I placed it there myself, ages ago, before all of our friends and family on that happiest of days, and never once has it left her finger. But now, looking at my wife as she lays in this hospital bed and peacefully rests, I hold her hand and make sure the ring never slips off, as she is too weak to keep it there herself.

"Mr. Martin, visiting hours are over in five..." The nurse pauses, looking away as she has intruded upon a broken man shedding tears over his unconscious wife. "Take as long as you need," she says and closes the door behind her.

For two years now my wife has been like this. After the accident she lapsed into a coma and has not recovered. A hundred tubes and wires cover her body, all connected to various machines that monitor her heart rate, breathing, or some other vital function. These machines tell the doctors everything they need to know about what is happening to her body, but none of them can tell me what is going on in her mind.

"The chances of her ever waking up are low," the doctors have told me. "Even if she does, she likely won't remember you or the life you shared together," they insist.

A life we shared together...and the doctors say that my wife will not remember any of it. They tell me that she won't remember the long walks we took along the white sand beaches of Panama City or the night we spent at Compass Lake as we laid beside each other on the dock and stared up at the starry night above. They tell me that she has forgotten the first kiss we shared together in Charleston and the last time we passionately embraced in Boston. They say she has forgotten it all...but they are wrong. She remembers, she remembers everything...only she cannot wake up to tell me so.

On the table next to my wife's bed rests a copy of her favorite book, Moon Rabbit, a love story written by some unknown author. She used to read the book all the time, imagining herself to be one of the characters and relishing in the love story told within its pages. I pick up the book and begin reading, exactly where I left off the day before. Every day I read to her, hoping that my voice and the story will help her wake up and bring my wife back to me. I read a chapter to her, occasionally glancing up to see if my words cause her eyes to twitch or her lips to smile, but she remains asleep, frozen beyond the reach of my words and my love.

After I finish reading, I set the book down and hold her hand. Her skin feels cold so I rub her fingers to warm them up. For the next several hours I will repeat this routine many times, for I have a long, restless night ahead of me, just like all of the others before it, but I will wait right here...I will wait for her to wake up. I will remain in this hospital room every day, holding her hand until she awakens, so that when she finally opens her eyes my face will be the first thing she sees, smiling and whispering, "I always knew that we would be together again Ornela...I love you."

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You told me goodbye, yet even now you read my words and let me speak to you through my stories. No one is forcing you to do this Ornela...ask yourself why your heart has brought you back here. You are reading my words because despite everything, despite the pain and the heartbreak, you still want to be close to me. You still want to be close to the man you love. I know that you still love me...why else would you be here? The feelings that brought you here, the feelings that you are fighting so hard to ignore, are the same feelings that will one day bring us together again.

When you are ready, I am here. I will always be here waiting for you. I love you Ornela.