Moments in Time

Chapter 8-1

It’s the middle of the night and I’ve been lying in bed for the last hour looking at the ceiling. Buying that necklace was my first major screw-up since landing here. I think of how disappointed Tommy would’ve been if we had to cancel the trip to Disney World. I may not feel like Tommy’s father, but in this world, I am, and I have to get on board with that. What’s more, I ruined what was supposed to be a wonderful night for Monica. (Not to mention what she had planned for me when we got home. Yeah, I’m selfish that way.) She may not be mad at me, but she’s disappointed, and I could see it in her eyes whenever she looked at me on the way home.

Finally, I get out of bed, throw my robe on, and walk to the darkened kitchen. There’s a spray of pale light coming through the sliding glass doors. It’s a full moon tonight and the stars are out. Sliding the door back, I go out onto the deck and stand by the railing, looking up. How many times had I wished I could go back in my old life and have a do-over? If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve taken all those wishes back and been a better father and worked harder at my marriage instead of my job and all the meaningless material things I surrounded myself with.

“Well, I asked for this, didn’t I?” I mutter into the night.

There’s no answer. Then again, I didn’t expect one or need one, for that matter. I already know the answer. So what now?

Behind me, I hear the sliding glass door swoosh back, then shut. “Alan, what’re you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night,” Monica says. Her tone is kind and concerned. I wonder how she can switch from being angry one minute and soothing the next. Then again, she’s an Italian and aren’t they famous for that?

“Just thinking,” I say. (Which for once is the truth.)

A moment later, she’s beside me with her hand wrapped around my waist. “If it’s about tonight, I’m over it, Baby. I know you were only trying to make my birthday perfect.”

I turn to her and look her in the eye, seeing the love I’m so undeserving of. “I f****d up. I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. “I just don’t understand why you would do that. I worry about you, Baby. You’re not yourself the last few days.”

(Ya think?) I gaze off into the night over the moonlit frosted trees in the backyard. “I’m scared.” The minute it’s out of my mouth, I want to take it back, because I know I won’t be able to tell her why. I’ll have to make something up, and I’m not comfortable doing that—that is, if I can’t think of anything that makes sense.

A moment later, she says, “Of what?”

“Things like the future. There’s so much out of my control, like what if I can’t cut it? I don’t want to live off your money.”

“Our money,” she says. “And I know you’ll cut it. You’re brill. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Our “Yeah, it is, but I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like suddenly I don’t know who I am.”

“Like the other night?”

“Something like that.”

She’s quiet a moment, then says, “I know who you are.”

I turn to her. “You do?”

She snuggles up close to me. “Yes. You have no idea of the man you are. You’re so thoughtful and loving. It’s the reason I love you so much.”

If she only knew how far she is from the truth. I don’t want to be the man I was before, but I don’t know how to rewire myself, to be what I’m supposed to be here in this world. Who was I before I got here? What drew us together? I don’t know, but I better figure it out. I pause, thinking of how I can put this. “Remember when we met?”

She giggles, then falls silent for a minute. When she looks up at me, there’s a dreamy gaze in her eyes. “Yeah, you were so out of it.”

Whatever that means. “Yeah, I was,” I say, playing along, hoping she’ll fill in the blanks.

Whatever that means. She tilts her head and looks off. “I remember it like it was yesterday. We’d just had a blizzard and you were brought in with a case of bacterial pneumonia. You were pretty sick, remember?”

“Right.”

“But not so sick that you didn’t notice me. I’ll never forget how you reached out as I was putting the oxygen tent around you. There was this otherworldly look in your eyes. I can’t explain it, and you said, “Are you an angel?” She pauses, then goes on, “I’ve heard lines like that before from guys, but never from a guy in a hospital bed gasping for his last breath. I chalked it up to you being delirious, but as the night went on, I couldn’t get the adorable look you gave me out of my head. It was like something clicked. The next day, I was assigned to another floor and then I was off a couple of days, so I didn’t see you. When I came back to my floor, you were gone, so I didn’t think any more about it, or I tried not to, anyway.”

I chuckle. “That’s me, unforgettable.” Yeah, right.

Yeah, right.“Yeah, you were,” she answers, but when she looks back at me, the smile I expect to see is replaced with a soulful gaze.

Ahh, I think I know how this ends. “Then I came looking for you after I recovered.”

Ahh, I think I know how this ends. She tilts her head and there’s a questioning look on her face. “You did?”

Uh-oh. Regroup. There’s only one answer here. I shake my head. “Cross my heart.”

Uh-oh. Regroup. There’s only one answer here. “Oh…you never told me that before,” she says, and her smile returns. “Why doesn’t that surprise me, though? It’s so like you.” She leans over and gives me a quick kiss. “And all this time, I thought I’d found you.”

I shrug. Where do I go from here? Maybe just drop it.

Where do I go from here? Maybe just drop it.“How did you know I’d be at Frankie’s that night?”

“I didn’t,” I say. Careful! Keep your mouth shut.

Careful! Keep your mouth shut.“So it was just chance we ran into each other?”

“I think so,” I answer, then avert my gaze so she won’t detect how nervous I am right now. One wrong word and this can all blow up in my face.

“Hmm…I guess it was a good idea I went out to listen to the band after dinner then.”

“Yes, it was,” I answer. “Otherwise….”

“We would have passed each other and never known it. Huh. Well, it all worked out, didn’t it, Baby?”

I turn back to her because the moment demands it. “It did, and I couldn’t be happier.” I put my arm around her shoulder and hold her tight against me so she can’t see the lie in my eye.

“Do you remember what you said to me that night?” she says, looking up at me.

Oh, s**t. What do I say to this? I scramble, looking for a way out of this trap closing in around me. Finally, I blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind. “Not the exact words, no.”

Oh, s**t. What do I say to this? She holds me with a searching gaze that’s breaking my heart. “You said, ‘I can’t believe you’re real! I thought you were an angel.’ Coming from anyone else, I would’ve called bullshit. But you had that look in your eye again when you said it and before I knew it, we we’re talking as if we’d known each other all our lives.” She bites her lip, then smiles. “I have a secret, I never told you.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I am an angel,” she says and widens her smile. “I clipped my wings and came to Earth so I could be with this handsome stud.”

I roll my eyes, but the truth is, my throat is tightening.

“You making fun of me?” she says.

“No, no,” I answer. “Never crossed my mind.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she says, swatting my shoulder. We both chuckle at that. Finally, she takes my hand. “Let’s go back to bed.”

She leads me inside to our room and we crawl under the covers. As she cuddles up to me, I muse on our conversation. Maybe it’s the intimacy of what we shared on the deck that’s shifted something in me. I don’t know. What I do know, is that for the first time since I got here, I’m seeing her as more than a goddess that I landed in bed with.

* * *

Three hours later, I’m up and going about my morning routine, which I’m getting used to. I have Tommy dressed for school as Monica takes her shower. As he eats his Lucky Charms cereal: a must, I pack his lunch into his Star Wars lunchbox: a PB&J, a pear, and a couple of chocolate-chip cookies. For Monie—I blink—did I just call her Monie? it’s a coffee, extra cream and sugar, and a toasted plain bagel with cream cheese to go. I’ll catch an egg and cheese breakfast sandwich with black coffee at Burger King on my way to class.

a mustdid I just call her Monie?As the toaster pops with Monie’s bagel—there I go again, thinking of her as Monie—I hear her come down the stairs. She sweeps into the kitchen, gives Tommy a kiss on the cheek, and joins me at the counter. As I pull a paper towel off the roll for her bagel, she says, “Don’t forget I have a double shift tonight, so you and Tommy are on your own for dinner.”

there I go again, thinking of her as Monie“I’m on it,” I answer. “Where am I getting him after class?”

“Debbie’s, like always,” she says, as if I should know this without asking.

I wrap her bagel in the paper towel and push it toward her along with her coffee. “Just checking he wasn’t going over to Brianna’s again.”

“That’s on Tuesdays, you know that,” she says, flinging a hand up in the air and c*****g a brow at me.

“Oh right. Don’t mind me, late night last night.”

I get a knowing look from her. She gives me a quick kiss. “Okay, I’m off. Have a good day, guys,” she says, laying another kiss on Tommy. “Bedtime’s at 8:30, young man.”

“I know, I know,” Tommy answers with a huff as he watches her rush out. “Bye, Madre.”

After Tommy finishes breakfast, we’re out the door. I walk him to the bus stop and we wait under the bright September sunshine. Growing up, I loved autumn. My grandfather would rake leaves into a huge pile in our driveway, and my best friend Joey and I would go out and dive into them. And then there were pick-up football games at the end of the street and of course carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, and Thanksgiving. It was a magical time. Maybe tonight I’ll rake up a pile of leaves in the backyard and Tommy and I’ll go out and play in them.