Chapter 20 #2
Well, he did tell me all. He started at the very beginning, how she had rushed out of a crowd of French people welcoming the Americans into Paris and kissed him.
Lots of women were doing that, rushing up to soldiers and kissing kissing kissing them, they were so joyful, so teary relieved, so grateful that Paris had been liberated and that the War in Europe was over.
He said he didn’t want to think much of her kiss, he and I so newly married and him so deep in love with me.
He said she didn’t want to think much of it, either.
But something happened for both of them, when they shared that kiss.
It hurt me bad, Ruthie, to hear him say “both of us” referring to him and another woman.
There I was waiting at home for him, minding my p’s and q’s, just dying for him to come back.
But he and Simone had that kiss and then he said they just stood there looking at each other and then she took his hand and led him away from the crowd.
He said he was sorry to tell me but in that moment after the kiss he felt alive after he had been feeling dead inside for so long.
What we had been through, Flo, he said, that awful war, what we had been through and—
I interrupted him then, I said I get the point, go on.
He told me out all the rest in a rush. How they went to her apartment where she said she had never felt something like this, what she had felt instantly for him, and she didn’t care that he was married.
He said he had wanted to say that he cared, but then one thing led to the other…
Tell me, I said, cold. Tell me what led to what. Tell me in detail.
Oh, Lord, the look he gave me, Ruthie. But he did tell me.
They went out onto her balcony with glasses of champagne.
They toasted. Then they came in and commenced kissing, she started it but he went along, he went right along.
They went to bed, it was late afternoon, and they didn’t get out of that bed until the next morning and then that night they were back in it.
This went on for three days and then Terrence was scheduled to come home.
He said he had very deep conversations with her and I guess he heard the silent question in my head which was what about our conversations and he said their conversations came from what they’d been through in the war and it was hard to explain.
But Simone said that they were soulmates.
She said that her name meant heard by God, and she truly believed that God had at last heard her entreaties for a love higher than any she had known or expected to know, and Terrence the American had been sent to her.
There he was. But he was married. And he was leaving.
On the day Terrence left, he took a dollar bill out of his wallet and he tore it in half and told her, Here, you keep this half and I’ll keep the other, it’s light, we can always carry it.
She said, This is the end, then, and Terrence said no he needed time, but he told her take this torn bill as a symbol of their togetherness.
By now my heart felt squeezed to death, but I had demanded the truth.
I asked Terrence, Did you think about divorcing me and marrying her instead?
He waited a while to answer and then he said, At first, I did.
But on the plane ride home I came back to you, Flo, to you and me together.
I vowed to forget about her. But the truth is I never did.
And once or twice a year I would call her. And…
Then came a silence so deep and I knew. I said, You have a child with her. He said, I do. A son.
I lost all my air inside. I couldn’t hardly move.
I believe both of us were hurting real bad at that moment.
But then I said, Let us go out on the porch and not talk any more just now.
I believe I need the open sky to hold all I’m feeling.
Terrence said, I’ll stop all communication with her, and I said all right but didn’t her sending you the half dollar mean she was stopping with you?
He said he supposed that was right. I asked did she marry someone else and he said yes. So at least I had that.
We went out on the porch and I near about rocked a hole in the floor.
But I had made that vow that if Terrence came back home to me after the war, nothing would ever make us part.
Nothing. So what I decided under the evening sky that turned velvet black with only the light of the stars coming out is that I would forgive him.
I knew it would take time, but I would forgive him.
And I’m so glad I did. He offered to throw that dollar bill away and I said no, I said it represented an important part of his life and he should not deny it.
Keep it, I said, only don’t put it somewhere where I might find it again.
He reached for my hand then, Ruthie, and I took it and it was warm and solid and it was Terrence’s hand, and he was there with me.
Now. I spect you think you know what I’m going to say here.
Stand by your man, and that awful thing in the movie Carousel where Julie Jordan tells her daughter that when her husband hit her, it didn’t hurt at all.
I bout threw my popcorn at the screen when I heard that.
No, if a man hits you, you got to go. But that’s not what your man did, Ruthie, I’m sure of it.
And all your complaints about your Jonathan that day we took a walk together?
I’m sorry, but they don’t add up to much.
They are things you can fix, seems like small things can assume such a great size in a marriage, it’s ridiculous.
Why, one time I got so mad about Terrence’s being late for dinner two nights in a row (he didn’t appreciate all I did for him, he thought I was his maid), anyway I got so mad I thought that’s it, I’m getting a divorce, and then I imagined being in front of the judge and saying well he was late for dinner two nights in a row and the judge smacking his forehead and saying go home, you two, get out of my courtroom.
Oh I am tired now, Ruthie, but I’m going to finish.
This is what I’m telling you. The things you get mad at about your husband, sometimes it’s not him you’re mad at, sometimes it’s you.
Sometimes you’re just about boiling over with a frustration you can’t quite put your finger on and there is your husband nearby and why not put it all on him.
But what you need to do is talk to him. Let him in. And come to forgiveness of him and you.
I believe that forgiveness is our holiest sacrament.
You know my friend Teresa told me the three most common things that people say to others on their deathbed.
They are I forgive you, I hope you forgive me, and I love you.
In the grandest scheme of things, what else matters more?
We need not to sanction bad behavior. Just forgive it.
And admit that Lord, we are all messes sometimes.
Let us strive for better. Let us strive for good.
I got more to say but I am going to have to lie down. Here is my prayer, to wake up one more time so that I can tell you out the rest. What I did besides forgive. What is buried by the roses.