The Matchmaker Meets Her Match

EIGHT.

While Sosha's business suffered, I found different ways to distract myself, mainly by finding other rich men, married or not, I didn't care. I cheated on him with so many men that even I lost count. He was no longer the man I loved; I loved many, different men. I had changed and he began to notice as well. He had done everything to keep me happy but in the end, it wasn't him who made me happy. It was his money. I was shameless enough to admit that when he consulted me about being unfaithful. I, my father's daughter, spat back at him about how he was also a cheater.

He had never cheated on me but I used his cheating on his wife against him, which was unfair. He became very depressed and no longer focused on his business. It had been recovering before he found out I was cheating but once again began to suffer. I was ruining him without any sympathy for him whatsoever. I cared only for my happiness. He started drinking heavily and smoked so much in a day that he coughed a lot.

I had moved out to live with another man, leaving him alone, just as he had left his wife years ago. He became ill and was losing his mind. He begged me to return to him and I turned him away without any consideration for what he had done to me or for his health. After so many rejections, he decided to take a break from the rest of the world and from the constant thoughts about me that tormented him. He checked himself into an asylum to recover and left his business to his trusted friends.

By the time I turned forty and was diagnosed with the incurable illness I had inherited from my father, he had regained control of his life and had found himself another woman. He had completely forgotten about me and his children had forgiven him. Their mother, however, never wanted to see him. He was living a different life and had restarted his business, which was once again booming.

On my way home from the park, I walked past a pharmacy. I thought to change my mind and go in with the prescription, but I didn't want to lengthen my already short life. I was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I cut out all the men in my life and wanted to live a peaceful one for the rest of my days. The pain I felt throughout my body was well deserved for what I had done to Sosha, his wife, his family, the wives of the other married men I was involved with and their families as well. I was a despicable woman who did not deserve happiness. All of my luck had run out.

When I reached my apartment, I let the tears I was holding back flow down my face. I threw my purse on my couch and changed into more comfortable clothes. My mind wonder to many places. I wished Sosha nothing but happiness for the rest of his life. I wondered if my mother was still alive somewhere. I had doubts that my grandfather was still in the world. I had never received a letter informing me of his passing. I assumed my mother thought I would want to attend the funeral and didn't bother to tell me about it.

I didn't manner the girls from the dormitory other than Hannah. I hoped they were all happy with loving husbands and many children. I wished to Mary again but I had lost contact with her so many years ago. I wondered how Anabel was living her life at forty. If Vince ever became the doctor he wanted to be. If Rachel was an old woman staying at home with her husband.

I wondered about Ambrose and the man he would grow up to be. He was obviously from a wealthy family and I hoped he wouldn't meet a selfish woman who was greedy and only interested in money just as I was. That he would find happiness and continue to be kind to others as he had been to me.

I went to bed feeling very weak that night. My body ached terribly, my head hurt so badly that I felt it throbbing under my skull. That was the pain my father felt and had hidden from me the years he lived with the illness. He never complained about it once. He was a selfless man who cared about his only child. I would've never been the parent that he was. I denied Sosha children until he promised to marry me. I was too selfish of a person to be anyone mother. I was my father's daughter I was actually not.

I closed my eyes after spending a few minutes looking up at the ceiling illuminated by the lights flowing in from outside, never to open them again. I couldn't take the pain anymore and I wanted it to go away. I wanted it all to end. And end it did.

I opened my eyes to see that I was surrounded by complete darkness. Was I in the afterlife? I asked myself, hearing my thoughts in my ears. It was very strange. It was like I was talking from a distance and I heard my thoughts as though someone else was talking to me. The headless voice echoed through the darkness. I had to have been in the afterlife. My body didn't ache anymore and my headache was gone. Correction, I couldn't feel anything anymore. I wasn't breathing at all as I noticed and I felt no heartbeat from inside me.

I closed my eyes and felt hot teats flowing down the sides of my face. A small smile formed on my lips as I waited to move on from the darkness, but I didn't. I waited and waited. For hours, for days, but nothing happened. If that was how I was to spend eternity, I wouldn't be able to bear it for long.

"Why am I still here?" I asked myself after days of waiting. It felt like I waited forever, unable to sleep or to move.

"Because you don't belong anywhere else," a booming, deep voice echoed throughout the darkness. It came from above me, below me, over my head and under my feet. It came from all around me. A bodiless voice that just floated in nothingness.

"What do you mean?" I asked next, waiting for a response that came minutes later.

"You aren't allowed into heaven," the booming voice said. I was confused and didn't quite understand what the voice meant.

"Who have done despicable things and aren't allowed to move on. There's no place for you other than in this darkness," it said. I felt myself begin to panic. I couldn't spend another day in that place with nothing to do and with nobody with me. It felt like hell and my patience was long gone.

"I can't... spend eternity here," I muttered, attempting to see if I could move. I couldn't. I wasn't sure if I still had a body anymore.

"No, you can't. If you do, you'll vanish into this nothingness. You'll never move on," the voice responded. I didn't like the idea of my existence vanishing to become nothing. I didn't want to spend forever there either. I wanted to move on or to do something that didn't involve me being still for to long.

"Isn't there something you can do? I don't want to be here anymore," I called out in desperation. The voice remained silent for some more minutes. My patience was already waning as it was and a new pain of fear was overcoming me.

"I could give you two options," the voice said.

"Anything," and I replied. What sounded like a sigh filled the atmosphere.

"You could be lost in this nothingness for eternity... or you can relive your life and right your sins," it finished off. I didn't need to think for even five seconds to know the answer that I would choose. More hot tears streamed down my face and I frantically looked around the area in desperation.

"I want to right my sins! I want to make Sosha happy as he made me! I want to see Mary again! And Hannah, and Anabel! Vince and Rachel! The girls at the dormitory! I want to see my old self again! The girl I was before I became this wretched woman! Please! Let me live again!" I yelled out at the top of my non-existent lungs. I was desperate to do everything I had said. If it meant I could live and do everything I did wrong in the right way, I was willing to do anything for it.

"Most of you desires won't be possible," the voice said, causing me to be filled with despair.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You'll have to live your new life differently. Not for yourself but to everyone else," he said. As I said earlier, I held on to my words. I would do anything to be able to live again.

"You caused too many people pain and sadness. You'll have to change that by doing the opposite. Live your life to bring happiness to other people through the love you stripped from them," the voice explained. I didn't see a problem with anything he said. I wanted to do it. I wanted to make people happy. I wanted to help them.

"There is one problem on your side," he paused, my anticipation growing with each second, "... You'll begin your life at a time before you caused any pain. Before your unforgivable sins began. You'll take a different path at life. Your memories from that point will be erased. You won't remember many people and you won't remember any of your mistakes either."

I was baffled. I did not understand how I was to correct my life if I didn't remember what I did wrong.

"How will I repent if I don't know what mistakes to avoid? Won't I run a risk of making the same mistakes again?" I asked.

"That is a risk you'll have to take. If you fail in this second chance, you'll be back here again and will be given the same two options. It will be endless cycle until you get everything right," the voice explained. I was confused and afraid at the same time. I thought I would continue on with my life and correct my mistakes; not restart it all over without any memories of what I am not to do. Depending on what point I would start over, I would be the same person and would make the same life choices.

"Don't worry about that part. Your new self will remember your mission. You'll know what to do for your forgiveness but you won't remember the mistakes you made. That is the choice you have chosen. It's not too late to change." At hearing what the voice said next, I looked around at the darkness. I could choose to become that: the darkness. Or I could choose the second option that would lead me to light at the end of my life.

I didn't think too hard about it the second time and chose to live again. I would bring people together to be happy in matrimony; to find love, and to give it instead of taking it as I had done from Sosha, and as I had taken it away from his family. However, there was no guarantee that I wouldn't repeat my mistake with Sosha with anyone else. It was a great risk I had to take. Unless I wanted to fade away into nothingness, I had to risk hurting someone to save myself and to make others happy.