Paul Jones - Towards Yesterday

Jim started to interrupt, to say that he hadn’t left her, how could she say such a thing.

“Don’t say you didn’t. You know goddamn well you did. You were barely home when Lark was alive and then, when she died, you might as well have been living on Mars. You never spoke to me. You… withered away, and you took any chance for us with you.”

He knew she was telling the truth, and he let her continue with the tirade because he also recognized he deserved it.

“I loved you so much,” she said, her finger punctuating the air as hot tears streamed down her face, emotional nitroglycerin born of an explosive mixture of fury and sadness. “All I wanted was to be with you, to share your pain, carry some of it for you. We still had a chance back then but you wouldn’t let me in.” Her voice dipped and rose as she fired the words at him, a lifetime of bottled resentment finally let loose. “Sometimes, I wish it had been me who killed her, Jim, because then you would have had an excuse to hate me, and it all would have made sense.”

“I don’t hate you. I never did,” Jim said softly.

“Then why did you leave me all alone?” she sobbed.

“I had no choice, Simone.” His own voice crackled with the emotion of the moment. “I killed our child. All because of a stupid argument—because I felt misunderstood and underappreciated. That was something I had to deal with and it took me years. Years !”

Simone used the arm of her dressing gown to wipe the tears from her face, the sodden tissue too wet to be of any further use. “What’s important now is that she is alive, and I intend to give her the best life she can get. She has a second chance Jim… we all do.”

“And you think she will get that from a mother who’s a part of the Second Redemption?”

A subtle blur of emotion moved over Simone’s face It was there for only a second, barely discernable, but still Jim was surprised that even after all the time that had passed between them, he was still able to pick up the delicate emotional changes in this woman.

“I’m not a part of the Church,” she insisted. “I just work for them, that’s all.”

“Then why did you run to them instead of your family? We were all waiting for you. My God, your parents were worried stiff about you.”

She let out a slow sigh of exasperation. “How many ways can I tell you, Jim? I was confused. I’d just found myself standing next to a daughter who’d been dead for over eighteen years. I’d witnessed a plane crash and killed a man with my car. I doubted my own sanity, for God’s sake.”

“You could have contacted us, let us know.”

She paused, assessing whether she was ready to tell him the next part. “I did.”

Jim’s look of confusion was saddening to see. “Well I never got the—”

“I didn’t try to contact you ,” she interrupted. “I contacted my parents. About five months after the S lip, once the phones were back up and running again and I knew that I was not imagining all of this.”

“What?” Jim’s voice took on a tone of indignation. “They didn’t even mention it to me.”

“They wanted to,” said Simone, laying her hand on his now, “but I made them promise me they wouldn’t.”

“Jesus Christ, Simone,” said Jim leaping to his feet.

“I’m sorry, okay? They told me you’d changed and that you were looking for us, but I didn’t want to be found. Lark and I both needed time to adjust, I needed to make sure she was…,” she searched for the right words, “…still whole. The last time Lark had seen us we were still married, we were a family. I had to ensure she wasn’t damaged irrevocably by everything that was happening.”

“We could have done that together. We could have been a family again,” he cried.

“No, Jim, we couldn’t. It’s been over twenty-five years for you and me, but for Lark, it never happened. I needed to make sure she was okay with that, I needed to let her down gently. I convinced Mom and Dad not to tell you because I couldn’t trust that you weren’t just like you were when we split up. Dad was the hardest, he respects you so much and he wanted to tell you we were okay, but I knew that if he did, you would find us. I had to make the right decision for her , not for you or for me. For Lark.”

“Were you ever going to let me know?”

“Of course I was. I just needed time.” Now it was Simone’s turn to sound defensive.

“So where did you go? If you didn’t come home and you didn’t go to your parents?”

“For the first couple of days we spent the night in the car.” She saw the shocked look in his eyes at her statement. “Don’t look so worried. I think it was probably the safest place for us both to be. We parked up in some of big store’s parking lot. You’d be surprised how many vehicles were just abandoned at these places.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, remembering his own experience on the first day back.

“So, anyway, once the chaos had subsided somewhat, I made for San Diego. I had a friend out there—no one you knew—who I knew would take us in and not ask too many questions. We stayed with her for a couple of months before moving back to LA.”

“How did you end up a convert to the church,” Jim asked, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“I’m not a convert,” she replied pointedly. “I just work for them. One of their outreach programs helped us when we needed a place and they offered me a job. As the church began to grow, they needed somebody with television background to handle their ads and TV shows, they offered me the position and I accepted. The Church has been very good to us.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “It’s just, the shock. I’m still getting used to the fact that you are both still alive. I searched for you both for months. Now I don’t know whether I should be angry or singing from the rooftops.”

“I understand. Really I do. And I’m sorry it had to be this way, but I hope you can understand. That you can put yourself in my shoes and appreciate that I had no choice. Lark had to come first.”

Jim nodded his understanding and then in a boyish voice he asked, “It’s going to take a while, I know, but when this is all over, maybe… I could…”

“Yes,” she said with a gentle nod, “you can see Lark.”

That night Jim sat with Rebecca and recounted his conversation with Simone. A single candle sat on the living room coffee table, the glow of its flame creating long flickering shadows in the apartment. In its comforting glow, Jim relaxed for what felt like the first time in his life.

In his cramped little kitchen, they cooked a meal together from what items they could scrounge from the cafeteria staff: spaghetti-carbonara with a bottle of Vin de Crois Bergerac Jim had cajoled out of Horatio Mabry’s dwindling private wine stash.

They danced their first slow—dance together, shared their first kiss, and finally, with the wine buzzing gently through their heads, Becky stood, took Jim by the hand and led him into the bedroom.

The next morning Jim awoke to the smell of fried bacon wafting into the bedroom. Throwing back the comforter he searched for his boxers, found them hanging over the back of a chair by the door and pulled them quickly on. Walking out into the kitchen, he slipped his arms around Rebecca’s waist as she stood at the stove. A frying pan held bacon and a couple of eggs.

He gently caressed the back of her neck with his lips.

“Hope you don’t mind but I borrowed your shirt,” she said nonchalantly. “How do you like your eggs?”

“Over easy,” Jim whispered into her ear.