Authors: Tom Winton
"What about you, Dean?" She sniffled. "Tell me where you are, where you've been.”
I lit another Carlton and searched my mind a few seconds. I wanted to get the chronology right. How do I start? Where do I start? Hell, I figured, I'll begin with now too.
"Like I said, Theresa, I've been married nineteen years, to a good woman … no, an exceptional woman. It's the first time around for both of us. We have a seventeen-year-old son and a daughter who's fifteen. Good kids, both of them." I took a swallow of beer and then a hit off my smoke. "I can't get next to my daughter, she won't let me. She's moody … and snippy. But still, like I said, she's a good kid and my wife insists she'll grow out of it." After saying that, I felt another well-deserved guilt-jolt, this time for intentionally avoiding Maddy France's name.
Some guy was on the bandstand now testing the sound equipment, a high pitched nails-to-the-chalkboard squeal, then, "testing, testing, testing."
"You know how it is," I continued, "you always expect your relationship with your kids to be better than it was with your own parents. When it doesn't quite turn out that way, you feel like you've failed. I could have … should have put in more time with my kids when they were small, given them more time and attention. But I was always caught up in my own problems. Don't get me wrong, the kids love me and all, but it's nothing like I thought it would be." I paused, looked down at my fingers, then my wedding band. "How about you Theresa, any kids?"
This question struck some kind of chord.
Her eyes saddened even more. Her chest rose as she filled it with a long breath, then, along with her words, she released it ever so slowly. "No … " she wavered her head, looking through my eyes into my mind, " … I don't have any children, Dean. And I feel so incomplete because of that. I would have loved to have children but there are two reasons why I didn't. Number one is because my career consumed most of my waking hours. And number two, the biggest reason, the real reason, is because I could never have a child with a man I didn't love."
Those last words hung in the air, suspended like promising white clouds. Sitting in silence beneath them, I wondered,
What did she mean by that last sentence?
I squirmed in my seat a little before breaking the uneasy quiet.
I went on to confess what a financial struggle my life had been. The unending string of nothing jobs, the constant stress of never having enough money even with two incomes. At first, Theresa listened intently, she was so interested in what had become of me. But about halfway through this second half of my life story, I began to feel as if I were talking to myself. Yeah, those beautiful eyes were still caressing me but her mind was somewhere else.
So, mid-spiel, I stopped short my biography. With a hint of agitation rising in my tone, I asked her, "Theresa, have I lost you? Have you been listening to what I've been saying the last few minutes?"
"Yes … " she said as if I'd awakened her from a funereal dream, as if she had been thinking of something far more important than what I was telling. " … I mean, no, Dean. I'm sorry. I was drifting off, thinking of something, something I've been carrying for a long, long time."
I was stunned at how somber she'd become, just like that. It was as if someone had thrown an emotional switch inside her. The only times I'd ever seen her look and sound even close to this sad were the night she introduced me to her mother, during the camera fiasco on prom night, and that night I broke her heart in an ice cream parlor. Sure we'd had a few drinks by this time, but only a few, it wasn't the wine that had made her eyes so watery and her heart so heavy. It was a force much stronger than that. Something deeply rooted in Theresa Wayman's psyche, something that had been forged into it over time. It was obvious she was about to unload something very heavy when she next said, "We need to back this conversation up a few minutes, Dean, to when I told you I didn't have any children."
"OKKK. Yeahhh?"
"Well … " she said, clearing her throat, straightening up in her chair, " … this isn't easy for me to say and it won't be any easier for you to hear either … but here goes. Dean … I was pregnant once … back in 1968."
"Ohhh, Jeeesus, Theresa." My heart bottomed out. I was absolutely blown away.
"Yes, Dean … the baby was yours. But relax … don't get yourself all upset … you don't have a child walking around somewhere that you've never seen, your life isn't about to become any more complicated than it already is."
Mechanically, without dropping my line of sight from her, I felt around the table for my cigarette pack.
"Talk to me, Theresa! What happened? What happened to the baby? You had an abortion, didn't you? Your mother forced you into it, didn't she?"
"No, no," she moaned wearily, dropping her head, shaking it. "I didn't have an abortion." She paused, gripped my hand tight as if she was trying to transmit the rest of her story without having to tell it. Her other hand was still wrapped around her wine glass and she began making pensive little circles with it on the tabletop. She watched the burgundy liquid oscillate beneath the glass's rim, but all she saw were visions of 1968. At the end of this short silence she started caressing my hand and she raised her eyes back to mine. They were so sad, so teary, all pink and glassy. When she finally spoke, she did it slowly, pacing herself, wanting to get it all just right. "It was born premature, Dean … He was, I should say. He was such a tiny little boy, just under two pounds. He never had a chance. It happened … the miscarriage … in Raleigh, North Carolina. That's where my mother had moved us to. God, I was so screwed up! It was just too much for me to handle at eighteen. And, Dean, all the while I was crazy from missing you. When we split up, my whole life stopped, no, it ended. I've never gotten over you since, and I never will."
There it was. She'd said it!
She had missed me as much as I'd missed her. I hadn't been living some foolish fantasy after all. Elbows to the table, we embraced each other's loving gaze, basked in it. Like I said before, neither of us were real high from the drinks, just relaxed, the slightest buzz, that heightened sense of awareness that so many writers strive for before sitting down to ply their trade. Once again, like so many years before, we were at the very center of this whole crazy universe. No, beyond that now! After travelling another twenty-odd years by ourselves to get here, this was even sweeter, deeper. Our own heavenly private cosmos and we were about to take refuge in it. We were Adam and Eve with the apple. Forbidden as it was, we were both thrilled to have it.
Our faces gravitated toward each other until our lips met over the candle. We could feel its warmth on our faces but it was nothing compared to the heat in our lips. She tasted delicious. I couldn't believe this was happening. We were home again. Finally! I smelled the lovely familiar scent of her flesh, of my youth. It wasn't a long kiss, just a brief meeting of lips, but it was drenched with passion and longing, passion and longing that had been pent up inside us both for more than half our lives, oh so powerful emotions that I can't here, with paper and ink, possibly describe.
When our lips parted, our eyes fondled each other’s tenderly as Theresa went on with her story.
"My being pregnant was why we left College Point so suddenly. I made the mistake of telling my mother and she went absolutely ballistic. I was so messed up emotionally I didn't know which end was up. I was broken-hearted about you … the affair you had. Dean, we were sooo close. We had something special. We were very fortunate. We shared something most people in their entire lives never experience. And then … that night in Jahn's … poof, just like that, it all ended. I lost my soul that night. It left my body and never returned. "
"Theresa, that was one irresponsible, disastrous mistake, I have no excuse, other than I was a kid and…"
She waved me off. "I know that now. I've known that for a long time. But then I was mad. I wanted to punish you, just for awhile, not talk to you, not see you, but I truly planned to go back to you. But, when I found out I was pregnant, well, then I couldn't even think straight. The weight became too much for me to carry. I had to unload some of my fear. That's why I told my mother. But then she started laying all these guilt trips on me and I became even more confused, no, worse than that, I became unsure. Unsure about you, about us. I started doubting the legitimacy of what I thought we'd had together."
She reached across the table and once again laid her fine, delicate hand over mine. It no longer mattered that her rock and wedding band were in full view. They meant nothing at this precious moment. We felt like we had never been apart, like the past twenty-four years never happened. The two of us were together again, at long last, like we were always meant to be. All the old karma was still there, and then some. Her touch--that kiss--had set off an exchange of emotions, an energy so powerful that I'm sure we literally glowed inside that dusky bar.
I know it sounds cold, but to this point in the evening I'd only thought about Maddy Frances a couple of times. And they'd been just transient thoughts at that, brief concerns of her at home waiting for me and my crossing forbidden lines. But, as I said, both these considerations had been fleeting at best, both of them quickly, easily, and totally eclipsed by Theresa's intoxicating presence. As I looked deeply into the haven of her oh-so-familiar intriguing eyes, all I saw were the irreplaceable wonderful times we'd shared at a time when the task of living was much simpler.
I wanted to take Theresa in my arms, carry her away, off to a mountain, her mountain, any mountain, to the woods, a warm uninhabited island, her place in the keys, anywhere. I wanted to stay with her, never leave. Never go home.
Now knowing that I had impregnated her, that there had been a child, a love child, only fortified our already rock-solid communion of our souls. This revelation, in my eyes, legitimized our reunion, made it OK, appropriate, necessary. Our intimate connection felt so right it was like I was married to Theresa, not Maddy Frances. Knowing now that Theresa had once carried my child, our child, made anything destined to happen between us this night just that, destiny. Anything we might do would be natural and, in our hearts, justifiable.
All of a sudden the band cranked up. Talk about bad timing! I don't remember what they played but it was something loud, funky, fast and, to us, rambunctious, raunchy crap that trespassed, no, ravished this most intimate moment, this most significant conversation of both our lives. Theresa glowered over my shoulder at them, then shook her head and said, "I don't believe this." Nevertheless, competing with this music, she went on to tell me some of her life's longest-hidden, most heart-rending secrets. That she had to damn near shout such things seemed nothing short of blasphemous. But she did.
"After we got to Raleigh, my mother started taking me to a psychologist. He made me quit smoking, drinking coffee, alcohol, all stimulants, including you. He said that was most important, that I got over you, and that he could help me do that. With all my problems, if you'll excuse my French, that bastard actually made advances toward me, right in his office. Then, when I told my mother what he'd done, she wouldn't believe me. I had to keep seeing that sleaze. Dean, it was horrible."
The lounge had become crowded by now. Couples paraded by our table on their way to the dance floor, waitresses hustled this way and that, and the volume of other conversations around us also rose in competition with the blaring music. I could see that Theresa had had enough, and so had I. Ever so naturally, her voice devoid of any pretensions, she asked me, "Can we get out of here, Dean? I can't compete with all this. We've got so much to talk about. There's so much I want to tell you." Then in the form of a question, "Maybe … maybe we can go to your room."
"Sure. Let's go," I said, uncertain of where we were headed, not caring as long as I was with Theresa.
I stood up, then chugged down what was left of my fourth beer … or was it my fifth?
Chapter 31
It only seemed right that I should put an arm around Theresa's trim waist, a hand on her hip, guide her to the two glass doors that opened out to the motel lobby. But it didn't seem so right, more like taboo, that with each step she took, the sensuous rock of her solid hip beneath my palm delighted me so. Then, when we stepped out into the lobby, to make matters worse, or better depending on how you look at it, Theresa slid her arm around my waist. Arm-in-arm now, had it not been for the sound of our footsteps on the marble floor to remind me, I would have sworn we were floating toward that bank of elevators. Listening to our steps echoing across the expansive, tile floor, I rationalized that holding each other like this was just an innocent gesture of fondness, and that the kiss in the lounge had been justifiable too.