Promises of Forever, page 30
The following day after work, I set out on a mission. An idea had struck in the middle of the night, and I was determined to make it happen. Koa had given me something, and I wanted to give him something in return.
It took a while to find what I wanted, but when I did, I was pleased and couldn’t wait to see him on the weekend.
33
Koa
An odd peace settled over me after getting Jersey’s text sometime in the night between Sunday and Monday morning, several hours after I handed him the key to my troubled heart. The contents of the box, of my whole dreadful life, were no longer a secret.
Jersey knew everything, and he was still texting.
Still there.
Still loving me.
The ground hadn’t cracked open, and the nightmares had stayed away. All week, with an emergency Xanax in my pocket, I waited for the annihilation of my mind, for the people in the white truck to show up and take me away. But things were calm upstairs, calmer than they’d been in a long time.
My doctor’s knowing smile from the other week appeared in my head over and over, and I finally understood what it meant. She had seen emotions in me for the first time. Instead of my usual passivity, she had witnessed fear, impatience, and frustration. I had opened up and given myself permission to feel and express things. It was the most progress we’d made in decades.
I’d spent the entirety of my life with the top button of my shirt too tight. Who knew that all I had to do to be comfortable was unbutton it?
Niles noticed the change on Thursday afternoon. He had band practice, ever rehearsing for one concert or another—this time, it was Christmas—and I lingered, accompanying the class on the piano, something I rarely did since I never felt skilled enough to join.
It made Niles smile, which made me smile—except when he treated me like a student and gave me a hard time about missing an entrance or flubbing the rhythm.
He waved his hands in the air more than once, stopping the class, and with a dramatic groan, said, “You’re all terrible. You most of all.” He glared playfully in my direction.
The students laughed, but we continued. Rehearsal ended up less serious than usual since I wasn’t skilled at sight-reading, and the band members had been playing these pieces for weeks. Determined to prove myself worthy, I swore to join them for every practice until Christmas.
When the rehearsal ended and the kids filed out, Niles pulled out a violin.
“Play with me?”
We tinkered with a few duets, familiar pieces we’d been toying with for years. Niles could pick up any instrument and any piece of music and master it in ten seconds. My skills were nothing in comparison, but I kept up, even when he insisted on combing through a filing cabinet and finding new music to try.
If I flubbed a part, Niles went off on his own, playing solo until I caught up. Mindlessly, he would count me back in. During difficult sections, when my fingers wouldn’t cooperate, Niles adjusted the tempo to suit my needs.
Regardless of my countless errors, I had no inclination to punish myself. My grandfather’s stern voice was a distant hum, no longer screaming in my ears. Perhaps it made me an evil person, but his death had brought peace to my life. The dark cloud of his existence no longer hung over me. The sun warmed my face.
After some Mozart, we played Schubert, then Debussy, before meandering into some favorites by Beethoven. When my fingers tripped over the keys for the five-millionth time, I laughed and gave up.
Niles finished the song alone, lowered the violin, and tipped his head to the side. “Something’s different with you.”
I stared at my best friend, recognizing the endless patience he’d had with me over the years. A surge of emotion raced through my veins. Without him, I would have had no one. I never would have called Jersey. I never would have fought this hard.
I loved Niles—valued him to the very depths of my soul—but it would never be the same love I had for Jersey.
“I’m taking your advice.”
“Oh? What advice was that? God knows I’m a wealth of information.”
“There is no god, and your ego has been far overworked today. Let it rest.”
Niles chuckled and placed the violin aside. “What advice?”
“I’m learning to be vulnerable. Learning to trust.”
“And?”
“And I’m… I’m ready to take down some walls.” I stared at the ivories, thinking about Jersey, my past, and my grandfather. “I want to learn how to be happy.”
Niles moved onto the bench beside me and ran a finger along the keys. He bumped our shoulders. “I think that’s valiant.”
“I told Jersey.”
I didn’t have to clarify the essence of what I’d revealed, and maybe it would hurt Niles to know I’d confided in someone else and not him, but such was life. Perhaps someday I would share with him too.
“Good for you. I think that’s great. Healing. It will help, Koa.”
“You’re not mad?”
“About being second best to your hockey star? Nah. So long as he treats you well.”
I smiled and rocked into him, bumping his shoulder back. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course I am.” Niles sobered. “I’ll always wonder why it couldn’t have been me.”
“You haven’t lost me.”
“I know. If anything, I have more of you now than I ever did before, and I have Jersey to thank for that, so…” He shrugged.
I tinkled a few keys, my stomach stirring with oily sludge. “I’ll tell you someday too, Niles. I promise, but I’m not ready yet.”
“And if you’re never ready, that’s okay.” He took my hand and kissed the top. “Play with me?”
“Always.”
So we played. Piano duets never worked for us. Niles was a bench hog and a showman, always invading my space. He tended to play his part and mine simultaneously, slinking a hand between my arms and shooing me away, but it was all in fun.
We laughed and played for another hour until he’d succeeded in shoving me off the end of the bench and went solo.
Niles insisted on taking me out to eat, and while we enjoyed sandwiches and soup at the bistro, a text from Jersey came through. No words. He’d attached a single photograph. A bonfire stared back at me. Lost in the flames was a familiar cardboard box.
I stared at it for a long time, my meal forgotten. Peace was real, and it bloomed in my chest, making it easier to breathe for the first time in almost forty years.
Niles leaned over the table to see what had captured my attention. “What is it?”
I set my phone down and smiled. “A new beginning.”
Naturally, I was nervous about Jersey’s arrival Friday evening. He knew every ugly detail about my past. Although our chats flowed as they typically did throughout the week, the foundation of our relationship had changed. He couldn’t help but look at me differently. What would he see? A victim? A murderer?
I wanted to be none of those things.
I wanted to be me.
Jersey texted when he left Toronto, and I busied myself making dinner. Cooking had always been a solid distraction from my runaway thoughts. The evening menu included rosemary pork roast, turnip au gratin, and twice-baked brussels sprouts. Soft music helped calm me, and I made myself a mojito, which Jersey would have called a pregame warmup. He could catch up when he arrived. The art of pairing drinks with food was not a skill in Jersey’s repertoire, but he drank whatever I placed in his hand without complaint. A food and drink connoisseur he was not.
While dinner cooked, I deposited myself at my desk, found my glasses, and opened a journal, scribbling random thoughts while my brain relaxed and woke up. My compositions had been tumultuous this past week. A direct reflection of my agitated brain. In the end, my head was too tangled to write, so I wandered my library instead, tracing a finger along familiar spines of books I’d read enough times to quote.
Words of long-dead authors had always riveted me. The problems of yesteryear weren’t any different than they were in our modern world. The questions people asked were the same. The soul, if one believed in such things, was unchanging.
Dostoyevsky had always been a personal favorite. I connected to his explorations of mortality and life. His insight and portrayal of humanity was powerful. In the famous chapter of The Brothers Karamazov, one I made my students read year after year, he was quoted as saying, The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
I’d studied, analyzed, and picked that chapter apart more times over the years than I could count. Maybe he was onto something. Had I finally found something to live for? Could I stop merely existing?
I moved on to my collection of Albert Camus, another author whose philosophies I’d studied to death, argued, and reworked into something more agreeable to my disagreeable system. Absurdism was… absurd. I loved its foundational essence, but I’d always fought Camus’s beliefs—enough that it drove Niles mad. One of Camus’s notorious sayings came to me. You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
The paradox he suggested had never been clearer. And for the first time in all the years I’d studied the man’s work, I agreed.
Had I stopped for five seconds and listened to my literary heroes, maybe I’d have solved the conundrum of my paltry existence long ago. But I’d stubbornly persisted in arguing my point, denying happiness, and refusing to apply any sort of meaning to life. I’d been content in my misery.
Had I been wrong?
Could I change my thinking and find peace for once?
A knock at the door announced Jersey’s arrival. I wandered to the front hall, cocktail hugged between hands, a nervous jitter racing through my veins, and met him as he entered. All it took was Jersey’s smile to know everything would be okay.
He removed my drink, set it aside, and engulfed me in his arms. We stayed like that for a long time, the unspoken words hanging in the air around us. I know, they said. I know, and it’s all right.
After a time, Jersey pulled back, still smiling behind his short beard. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I missed you.”
“Did you?”
“God yes.”
“There is no—”
He leaned in and kissed me before I could finish the sentence, and I laughed against his mouth.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” I said when we parted.
“It smells great.”
“Cocktail?” I picked up my discarded glass and displayed it.
“What are we drinking?”
“Mojitos for a starter and wine with dinner.”
“Sounds fabulous.”
A beer would have been equally fabulous for Jersey, but such was life. We had little in common, but our differences gave our relationship flavor. We were never short on conversation.
I made Jersey a drink, but instead of sitting, he hung near the counter and watched, his gaze stripping me bare—and not in the way I preferred. He was searching my soul, picking at the wound under my skin, deciding how to proceed. I wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for, but the analysis ended, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Since dinner needed more time, we sipped our drinks and shared about our week. Not a word was spoken about the box and all Jersey had learned about my life. I was glad, having feared he might bring it up or want to discuss it despite my request.
At one point, while sitting on the couch, he trailed a finger over the dingy bracelet on my wrist, reverently stroking the worn knots. He’d given it to me a lifetime ago, but its symbology meant everything.
We shared a smile.
“I called my son last night,” Jersey said when the conversation lulled.
“Oh wow. Really?”
“Yep. He didn’t want to talk to me, but I made Christine put him on the phone. It was horribly one-sided at first, but he came around. We talked for over an hour. He’s been playing hockey, I guess. At school. I had no idea.” Jersey’s smile was strained. “I offered to take him to a game, and he was all over it. Then I couldn’t shut him up. We’re having lunch next week, and I’m gonna call a buddy of mine and get tickets to something local.”
I recognized the mixture of joy and relief on Jersey’s face. His relationship with his son, Derby, was a sore spot he rarely talked about.
“I’m happy for you.”
“You did this.”
“Me?”
He nodded and stared into his tumbler. “Life’s too short. We can either let the past stain our lives or forge ahead and make a brighter future.” He took my hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I was the man who had let the past sink him like a stone in the lake. But Jersey saw past all those toils and troubles and recognized my small effort to find the surface again.
We ate dinner, drank wine, and chatted. It was easy. Comfortable. Peaceful.
After, Jersey insisted on sitting outside. The back fence had become our spot. We’d spent endless evenings watching the sun go down and enjoying each other’s company. Fall was slowly taking over, and the nights were cooler. Soon, the leaves would change color and blanket the earth. Winter would settle, bringing with it a quietness I had always treasured.
The sun had gone down ages ago, but regardless, we sat on the wooden fence in the yard overlooking the cemetery. Under the canopy of trees, the headstones and church were nothing more than silhouettes. Stars filled the sky. A crescent moon climbed to its apex.
I closed my eyes and breathed serenity into my lungs until Jersey’s words drew me back to the present.
“I have something for you.”
He handed me a small, gift-wrapped box.
“What is this?” My birthday was long past, and Christmas was still a way off.
“Open it.”
His expression gave no clue as to what was inside. I undid the wrapping and found a plain rectangular box underneath. Wedging the lid off, I uncovered a tri-wrap leather bracelet. Three layers: one braided, one beaded, and one with a punched design on the smooth surface. All three joined together at a black matted clasp.
I stared at it, then at Jersey. “I don’t understand.”
He didn’t respond. Shifting on the fence, he took my wrist and unclasped the pin holding the worn and knotted bracelet he’d made for me decades ago on my arm. He set it aside. From the box, he withdrew the new one and put it on.
“It’s not a friendship bracelet this time, but a promise bracelet. A little sturdier and a lot more grown up. It fits better too, and this one is more binding.” He took my hand and weaved our fingers together.
“Jersey—”
“Listen. This one doesn’t represent the promises of a child. It represents the promises of a grown man. I will always stand by your side in whatever capacity you need me. I love you, Koa. I think I always have, but I’m not walking away this time.”
I cradled his face between my palms. “I may not always know how to express it. I may shelter myself from the world or pull back at times for self-preservation, but I do love you, Jersey, and I’ll work hard to ensure you always know that. Please be patient with me.”
“Always.” He kissed me, and I felt whole and complete for the first time in my life.
Epilogue
Jersey
Fall turned to winter, and life drastically changed. I sold my parents’ house in November. After watching Koa sign his grandfather’s house over to a young family, I found the courage to let go as well. Enjoying a final beer in the backyard where I’d grown up, I cried for the years lost to anger and drug addiction. I cried for my parents, wishing I’d had one more day to apologize for the mess I’d become. To tell them I loved them.
On a positive note, I’d developed a relationship with my son. We’d bonded over hockey, and he’d invited me to a few of his high school games. However, any advice I tried to impart earned me a teenage-worthy eye roll I was only now getting used to. Derby had opened up and accepted his father back into his life. He talked about video games and girls he was crushing on. He told me about the bands he liked and the movies he’d watched at the theater. We laughed, shared, and joked like father and son should, which warmed me inside and out.
Christine was happy to hear I was dating again and had said as much one evening when I dropped Derby off. She wanted to know about Koa and invited me in for coffee. We’d talked for over an hour, and I made strides in repairing that relationship too.
But the biggest change was my living arrangements. In mid-November, I gave my notice at the apartment and moved to Peterborough to live with Koa. Three days a week, I commuted to the city and the clinic, where I’d reduced my hours to part-time. To make up the difference, I’d taken a coaching position with the Peterborough minor hockey team after their coach had up and quit at the beginning of the season. The phone call from the team manager, offering me a job had thrown me for a loop. The pay wasn’t great, but it was enough compensation for my missed hours at the clinic, and I was thrilled to get back into the game.
Koa’s and my relationship had blossomed. Although there were plenty of times when he seemed untouchable and distant, lost in the past, he smiled more, and I never doubted his love. He might never fully heal from the trauma of his youth, but he’d come a long way. The sun shone down on him, and he did all he could to soak up its light and shed the darkness.
He made a point of finding the precious moments in life that brought him joy. Niles had even convinced him to accompany the band for the annual Christmas concert, which was where I was headed that evening.
Leaving the clinic at five, I had enough time to drive home, change, and race to the school for their seven-thirty concert.
