It Was You...

  They shared stories about their families and kids; they shared about their careers. They talked about what it had been like after that summer and what had happened in their lives.

  James talked about Sheila and the girls. He bragged about how beautiful his two little girls were and showed pictures from his cell phone.

  The conversation slowly turned serious when the topic of her divorce came up. Karen talked about her ex-husband and the way it just never seemed right between them.

  James could tell that it pained her to speak of her failed marriage.

  "We were young and thought we were in love" she stated.

  "We rushed into something we both thought we could make work. It was stupid and we never should have forced it. But the boys came along and it seemed like we had to make it work no matter what."

  James sat quietly and listened to her open her heart to a painful time in her life.

  "He was so busy with med school and when I first got pregnant we were both so excited."

  She wiped the corners of her mouth with her napkin and laid it next to her plate. Her eyes looked heavy with sorrow and sadness.

  "Did you know that Dave set us up?"

  "Dave who?" James asked, wondering what she was talking about.

  "Dave Yocum, you remember him, from Orion. He set me and Will up. Dave and I had stayed in touch after camp was over and he had invited me to a frat party. That is where I met Will. He was so young and handsome, he was so smart and clearly making something of himself…" she continued to talk, but James was still hung up on the name she had just said.

  Dave Yocum, not only one of the guys he had considered a friend that summer but also the guy, Tim had told him, who slipped right into his spot in Karen's arms when James had left camp.

  A mix of jealousy and anger started to brew inside of James.

  He felt ridiculous for letting something so far in the past bring his blood to a boil so quickly.

  He could not believe that she had stayed in touch with Dave but she had never once reached out to him, or tried to contact him.

  "… It wasn't long before we were living together, when he asked me to marry him" she continued.

  "It seemed like the right thing to do, you know, what we had shared was so magical, but I knew that it was not to be. I fell in love with Will and he made me so happy in the beginning."

  James could not help himself; his envious nature got the best of him.

  "Dave, really? You stayed in touch with Dave but you never once tried to contact me? Seems kinda weird to me. After all we went through, I thought there was more between us…" he tried to continue, but she abruptly cut him off.

  "It wasn't like that. Dave was a nice guy, we just clicked as friends and we lived near each other when he moved out this way for grad school in the city. And as for you, James I had wished ten thousand times a day that we would see each other again" she paused, her eyes started to mist over with tears.

  A small, simple smile came across her face.

  "From the day you left, I have hoped and prayed that I would get to see you again Jimmy, for the past ten years I have wished for that. I went on with my life, did the things I thought I was supposed to do. I fell in love, or what I thought was love and I got married and we had kids."

  She stopped talking and wiped the tears away from her cheeks.

  "I have never been able to stop thinking about you Jimmy" she continued.

  Her emotions were easy read on her face. She was still very hurt and confused by everything that had happened in her life.

  "You left a mark on me Jimmy, you and your sensitive eyes. Your caring touch and your intense presence. I have never been able to get over the way you made my heart sing or the way you made my soul yearn for more of you every day since we parted."

  James' mouth was bone dry; he could feel the sweat prickle on his skin.

  "Jimmy, you were the only man that I think I have ever loved. You are the reason I could never love Will the way I loved you. I am not blaming my failed marriage on you, please do not get the wrong impression. I am just..." with this she finally broke her gaze from his.

  "Jimmy, I was young and confused at that point in my life and was unable to see what it was that both of us had in each other. The time we spent together that summer and the moments we shared are ones I have never forgotten."

  James just looked at the beautiful woman in front of him and was speechless; his mind was spinning out of control.

  He could not believe his ears or his eyes.

  Here was the one woman in his life that had matched his heart beat for beat, the one woman who all others after her were compared, and she was telling him that she had the same thoughts and feelings that he did after all these years apart.

  He had so much he wanted to tell her, so much he wanted to ask her; so many questions left unanswered for too long.

  "Why did you never call?" he asked.

  "Why did you never reach out to me and tell me these things before?"

  Her eyes were filled with tears again and she looked visibly shaken by his words.

  She hesitated, weighing her words in an effort to better tell him what she was thinking.

  "James, what we had was something very special. I believe we connected on such a level that, being so young, we never knew how powerful it really was. I couldn't reach out to you. I was terrified to think that you did not feel the same way and that rejection would have killed me."

  James felt his heart beat quicken as he tried to explain himself and to also find out what she had been thinking for all these years.

  "But we have spent so much of our lives wondering about each other. And we spent so long yearning for what it was we had together and searching to replace that love we shared."

  "Look at us, you are divorced and my marriage is struggling."

  James just stared at Karen, her eyes filled with tears. He could not understand why it had come to this after so long.

  "Karen, you were the one. It was you that made me the man that I am today. It was your love that made me feel whole and complete. I know we were young and I know we were naïve to what really mattered that summer, but you have also never left my mind. Yes, you may have become a distant memory for several years but it didn't take but a song or a memory to bring you clawing back to the surface real and vibrant as ever."

  James swallowed hard; he could see that she felt the same and that what they were sharing under the shade of that maple tree was more than what either of them expected out of this meeting.

  "Karen you need to know one thing, you need to know that I have never stopped loving you, I have never stopped thinking about you and the way things might have been. You…"

  James was cut short by his cell phone chirping.

  "Excuse me, I'm sorry, but it looks like the camp number where the girls are."

  James answered the call and the nice woman on the other end told him that Miranda had fallen and her knee was pretty banged up.

  The nurse recommended that James come get her and take her to the ER. She was worried that the cut may need stitches. James told her he would be right there and ended the call.

  He turned to Karen, but she had cleared their plates and was back inside rinsing the dishes in the sink.

  "I am so sorry, but I have to go get Miranda. She fell and the nurse says she may need stitches in her knee."

  Karen just looked at him and smiled.

  James had so much more he needed to say, so much more he wanted to tell her.

  "That's fine, go get her and take care of her. We will finish our conversation another time."

  James wanted so badly to hold her close and tell her how much she meant to him after all these years, but the moment had passed and he thanked her for the delicious brunch.

  She showed him to the door and kissed him lightly on the cheek as he left.

  "Why were we so stupid back then Jimmy? You are such a good man and I envy your wife for all that she has
in you."

  Other than the words she had written him in her letter she wrote that afternoon and mailed to him, those were the last words Karen ever spoke to James.

  She was killed two days later, an innocent bystander stuck down by a senseless criminal.

  James had found out that she had been caught in the crossfire between a gas station clerk and the gunman that tried to hold up his corner station for twenty-two dollars and some cigarettes. Karen had been grazed by a bullet that hit her in the neck. The wound was severe enough that it sliced her carotid and she bled out on the cold, oil stained concrete next to her car.

  Her life was cut short in an instant, her children left motherless and James left to forever wonder what may have been.

  ****

  James shaded his eyes from the harsh glow of the large SUV's headlights as he walked out to the edge of the garage.

  The rain was still falling but only in a light drizzle.

  It appeared that Mother Nature was not quite finished with the rain and there was still some moisture left in that big old sponge she wrung out over this part of the world.

  As James reached the end of the garage, he stopped just under the overhang and stayed under the roof out of the rain.

  The driver of the SUV extinguished the lights but left the vehicle running.

  The windshield wipers beat out a slow, rhythmic pace across the glass.

  James looked out into the night and at Will, who was seated in the driver's seat. He stared at James but did not move.

  James' head was beyond throbbing now, the pain was debilitating, almost paralyzing. He stood there in the garage and shrugged his shoulders to Will, as if to question why he was here.

  Will exited the car, but left the driver's side door open. He rounded the door and faced James as he stood in the driveway.

  That is when James saw the gun in Will's hand.

  Will had a look of sheer terror and anguish on his face. He looked like a man possessed.

  Will was always very nicely dressed. His pants always creased and his shirts starched and ironed.

  But now he looked disheveled and dirty.

  His pants had a stain that James did not remember seeing earlier in the evening and his shirt was un-tucked on the one side. His hair stood in different directions on his head and his eyes were crazed.

  James could not take his eyes off the gun in Will's right hand, and as the wind carried the smell of liquor to James' nose, he knew that Will was drunk.

  "You son-of-a-bitch" Will slurred, "Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Do you know exactly what kind of lucky man you are?"

  "Will, you are drunk" James stated the obvious.

  "Put the gun down and we can talk."

  "No. No I will not put the gun down. I came here to shoot you and that is what I intend to… to do."

  James' tried to clear some of the pain so he could think.

  "What are you talking about Will? What have I done to you?"

  James paused; his anger for Will seemed to rise from deep within.

  "You were the one who had an affair with my wife."

  Will stared at him blankly.

  "I am going to shoot you because you ruined my life."

  ****

  The letter from Karen had come on the morning before his scheduled CT scan. Sheila was already off to work and James had just come back from dropping the girls off at camp. The letter was addressed to Mr. James Matheson and he recognized her looping, swirling handwriting instantly.

  James took the letter to the breakfast table in the kitchen and sat down. He opened the letter. It read:

  Dear Jimmy,

  As I sit here on my porch after having spent the morning with you, I have come to several conclusions. My life has been the way it has because of you. I have made good decisions and I have made mistakes, but always there was you through it all. I have spent so long wishing that there could have been something different between us. If only we had made another choice that day in August. If only I had stopped you from leaving, if only I had told you how I truly felt about you. My mind lets me wander some days to what it would have been like if you had come back to me on the day, if you had decided to choose me over her. I still wish that I had been strong enough to tell you the truth. I am sure that things would have been different, and I would not be where I am today. Do not get me wrong, I love my kids, more than life itself, but the pain of never knowing what we could have shared still stings to this very day. Your wife is a very lucky woman, a woman that I am jealous of and will always wish I could be.

  I feel like I am rambling, just writing my thoughts without really knowing what I am trying to say. I need you to know certain things now; I need to tell you things that I was never able to say before. I never had the strength to tell you that I loved you back then. I was young and confused, but I knew even then that what we shared under all of those stars that summer was more powerful than either of us could have imagined. My heart fell for you James. My soul entwined with yours on a level I would not understand for years to come. I married and had children. I moved on with my life, but the memory of you and the memory of what you made me feel has never left me. I can say without a doubt that you are my soul mate James. You are the perfect match to my heart and the one true love of my life. It has been a long journey to come full circle like this and running into you and seeing you again has been the best thing to happen to me in a while. It made my heart soar to see you and touch you again. It made my heart leap at the thought of you being in my life again. It brings a smile to my face just to think about holding you again and sharing quiet moments again.

  I wanted you to know these things, I wanted you to know how I felt after all these years. Part of me wishes that you would choose me over her this time, but I know you have a family and that is way too important to shove away for me. But know that I will be here and there is nothing more I could want in my life right now than to be able to once and for all show you my true and undying love for you everyday for the rest of my life. I know that it is unrealistic and we will move past this. My life is good. My kids are wonderful and my new job is just the change I need to move forward. Our lives can mesh in some way hopefully. My life has room for you always. My heart has never forgotten you. I want only the best for you and want you to know that my life and the way it is are for me to deal with and not your problem. My life is good, and will continue to be that way now that you are back in my life. And yours can and will be the same... You will look back on this in five years and smile. I will be a distant memory, that happy thought that makes you remember that you are still alive and that will make your heart race for just a second. I will be that love poem that makes you think about feeling something and really liking it. We will get past "us" and only be able to remember the chance we gave each other to feel like we still had it and that we were able to share that experience together. You will have a long happy life, you will raise those beautiful girls and try to teach them right. And when your daughters come to you and tell you they found a new guy that makes their heart flutter, but what should they do about their other boyfriend, you may have better insight into what they are feeling.

  James, you are a wonderful and compassionate man. Your wife and family are lucky to have you and they are blessed to share their lives with you.

  I wanted to tell you that I will always love you and I firmly believe, that will never change. I am so happy that you are in my life again.

  All my heart and love,

  Karen

  James was not shocked by her words.

  He was not surprised by her honesty.

  He delighted in the fact that after all these years he now knew that she felt the same way for him.

  He had not been crazy to think that what they had shared was more than just a lustful summer romance. He had touched her heart as deeply as she had touched his.

  Thoughts of long conversations with Tim by the fire c
ame rushing back to him.

  "You gotta tell her how you feel. You need to be honest with yourself."

  His best friend's voice echoed in his head as he sat in the late morning sun looking over the delicately written letter in his hands.

  She had loved him in return, and Tim had been right. It was never going to be settled between them until they both knew the truth, whatever that may have been.

  James' heart seemed at ease.

  His mind, although plagued with the constant pain, seemed at peace for once in a long time.

  He took a deep breath and held it. He slowly let the air out as he felt his troubled soul come to some sort of tranquil state.

  This letter in front of him explained so much and helped him see that he was not wrong to have felt the things he felt and to have held on to such a powerful sensation for so long.

  He knew his marriage was rocky, but they had been working thru it all. They were making progress together, for themselves and for the girls.

  James knew that this letter would help him to come to terms with his feelings for Karen, but also his feelings for Sheila and how important she really was to him.

  It was at that moment in his kitchen that James made the decision to change his ways.

  He was going to be a new man.

  He would come to terms with all that he felt for Karen and be able to lock those feelings away and be able to remember them as something he would never be able to experience again but also for him to cherish.

  Karen had played such a big role in his life for so long, but that role was marred with doubt and questions. He knew the truth now and that seemed to release the bounds. He felt renewed by her honesty and made a decision to tell her how he felt for her in return.

  He owed that to her, the truth.

  He went for a pen and paper, but as he searched for a pen in the desk drawer, he noticed the time and remembered his appointment.

  He took the letter to his sock drawer and placed on top, closing it away and hiding it from Sheila. He knew she would not understand and it would just start a fight or worse.

  Mentally making a note to himself to write his feelings back to Karen, James grabbed his keys on his way out and headed to his CT scan at the imagining center.