Blue Heart Blessed

by Susan Meissner

  Lord, Lord, Lord. Now what do I do?

  I raise my head. “What do I do?” I yell to the ceiling where God dwells.

  And I hear no answer.

  Daniel called me.

  Daniel wants to see me.

  Daniel wants to talk to me.

  Face-to-face.

  He sounded contrite. He sounded hopeful.

  He sounded like a man who has changed his mind.

  I lay my head back on my knees.

  This can’t be happening. Not after everything I’ve been through. Not after sending back all the wedding gifts. Not after canceling the church, the flowers, the photographer, the caterer. Not after having to explain a million times why I wasn’t getting married after all. Not after all those tears. Not after opening Something Blue and putting a sales tag on my own wedding dress and placing it on a mannequin with no head. Not after weeks and months of trying to piece my world back together.

  This can’t be happening.

  Daniel wants to see me.

  He wants to talk to me.

  How long I sit like this, dazed and confused, I don’t know. I just know that at some point the landline rings and I can’t seem to move.

  It’s him. It’s him calling me back on my landline. My heart is pounding madly in my chest.

  I can’t answer it.

  It rings four times and the answering machine kicks in.

  I hold my breath, waiting to hear his voice again.

  “Daisy. It’s Rosalina. Jus’ wondering if you’re coming. It’s all ready and…”

  I scramble to my feet as relief floods across me. I grab the phone, interrupting her message. “Rosalina, I’m here. I’m coming. I’ll be right up.”

  “Oh, bueno. Can you knock on Father Laurent’s door, too, and tell him?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  We hang up.

  I’m actually not very hungry anymore. But I don’t want to be home tonight. I need time to think.

  I need to pray.

  I need to chat with Harriet.

  No, I need to talk to Father Laurent.

  I head to my bedroom and change into a clean shirt and denim shorts.

  I’m out the door again in five minutes.

  A few seconds later, I am tapping lightly on Father Laurent’s door. From inside I hear him call out, “Come in.”

  I open his door and step inside. His apartment is just like mine; all the apartments at The Finland are pretty much the same. But his living room is full of bookshelves and books; comfy, fat, brown chairs; and piles of newspapers and magazines. The fragrance of fruity pipe tobacco hangs in the air. My apartment is a minimal sea of pale blue, linen white and creamy yellow and no knick-knacks or bookshelves or piles of magazines. I like my apartment, but Father Laurent’s feels more welcoming, in spite of its clutter.

  He is sitting at his computer desk by a window that looks out onto the street below. He waves me over.

  “There are actually quite a few shipwrecks up there, Liam. Even tales of ghost ships.” Father Laurent is speaking to his computer screen. I make my way over there and I can see that he’s talking to Liam using a webcam. Liam appears to be sitting at a computer desk, too. His face looks remarkably clear on Father Laurent’s screen. “You can learn all about the Edmund Fitzgerald when you get up there.”

  Father Laurent looks up at me. “Hey, Liam. I have Daisy here with me. Want to say hi?” Without waiting a second, Father Laurent moves aside. I lean over to catch the lens of Father Laurent’s webcam.

  “Hey, Liam. How’s it going?”

  “Okay.”

  “I hear you’re going camping on Lake Superior. You’ll have a great time.”

  “Yeah. I want to see the shipwrecks.”

  How like a boy to want see destruction up close and personal.

  “Most of those are all under water, I think.”

  “My dad says there’s one in Two Harbors that people can dive to. It’s a schooner called The Ely. It sank in 1896.”

  “So you dive?”

  The boy shakes his head. “No. But someday I want to.”

  Then he turns his head away from the camera to talk to someone else. Ramsey, probably.

  Liam swings his head back around. “Dad’s grilling and it’s time to eat.”

  “Well, let me give you back to your grandpa, then. Bye, Liam.”

  “Bye.”

  I move away from the desk so Father Laurent can say goodbye. He clicks off the website he and Liam were using to talk to each other.

  “Well. That was fun. Ramsey set me up with the little computer camera. I won’t see as much of Liam now that Ramsey’s back and Liam’s spending the summer in Duluth. So this will help.”

  “Yeah. It’s a great idea.” My mind quickly returns to the befuddled state it was in when I knocked on his door. “Um, Father, Rosalina wanted me to tell you dinner’s ready. And—”

  But Father interrupts me. “You go on ahead. I think I’ll just have some tomato soup tonight.”

  “Oh. Okay.” But I really want his opinion on what I should do. “Father?”

  “Yes?”

  “When I got home today from my walk, there was a message from Daniel on my cell phone.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said he’d really like to talk to me. He didn’t ask me to call him back. He just said he’d try again. He wants to see me.”

  Father says nothing for a moment. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Well, he said he’d understand if I didn’t want to see him and that he hoped it was okay that he called. Father, he sounded sorry. Apologetic.”

  Father breathes in deeply. “I see.”

  “Do you? Do you see? ’Cause I don’t. I don’t see at all.” My voice sounds a little shrill in my ears.

  “So what to do you want to do?”

  “What should I do?”

  “Well, Daisy, there may not be a right or wrong here. I mean, I don’t know if it’s a matter of what you should do as much as what you’d like to do. I don’t know how you left things a year ago, but if you’ve never forgiven him and he’s asking for forgiveness, well, then I’m inclined to tell you to seize the opportunity to talk with him. Not so much for him but for you.”

  I really can’t decide right now if I’ve forgiven Daniel. He actually didn’t do anything bad to me. He just hurt me without wanting to. And I suppose I should forgive him for that. But that’s not what’s consuming my thoughts at the moment. “What if he wants to get back together again?”

  Father Laurent blinks. “What if he does?”

  “What should I do?” I know it even as I say it that no one can answer that for me except me.

  “What do you think God is telling you to do?”

  I don’t know. I haven’t asked him. I opted for panic. “I’m not sure.”

  Father Laurent smiles. “In all the years I have known God, I’ve never known him to withhold wisdom from someone who asked for it.”

  “What if I don’t hear God’s answers very well?” I squeak.

  “Well, then obviously you need to hush up and listen better.”

  Now I am the one who is mutely blinking. Father Laurent has never sounded more frank.

  As I am contemplating all this, Father Laurent reaches for my hand and says a quick prayer for me, interceding for me, beseeching God to lay a little wisdom on me. The prayer is over before I know it. He squeezes my hand and lets go.

  “Sure you don’t want to come to dinner at Rosalina’s and Mario’s?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I’m a little tired tonight. Next Sunday I will, though.”

  “Want me to open up that can of soup and get it going for you?”

  “That’s very kind. But you just go on ahead.”

  “All right.” I turn to start to walk away. “Thanks, Father.”

  His smile is wide as he sits there in his chair.

  Twenty-one

  Dear Harriet,

  I hardly know where to begin.
<
br />   I guess I can start by telling you that I don’t need to worry about becoming Daisy Dacey because it’s never going to happen. Max isn’t in love with me. And yes, I know I’m not in love with him, either. But I’ve wondered over the years if maybe he has romantic feelings for me. I can assure you he doesn’t. Not since he was seventeen, anyway.

  He says loving someone so much that you commit to spending the rest of your life with them is like becoming a prisoner. It’s like the ultimate surrender. You cease to be your own. It sounds medieval when I write it. It didn’t sound like a life sentence you’d want to get out of when Max said it. It sounded like a life sentence you hope will never end.

  I don’t know why I told you that first. That is not the most unsettling thing that happened to me today.

  Daniel called me. While I was out. He left a message saying he wants to see me. Can you believe it? He actually sounded like he’s sorry for what he did to me. Yeah, I know he apologized back then but today he sounded like he truly regretted what he did. That’s different. Before he was just sorry he had hurt me. Now he sounds like he wishes he could take it all back. Like he wishes he hadn’t broken off our engagement.

  He said he would try calling me again later.

  I went to Rosalina’s and Mario’s hoping he’d call while I was gone and he didn’t. So when I came back from dinner I was a mess waiting for him to call, and he didn’t. Finally at nine-thirty, I called Shelby and we talked for an hour and I kept waiting to hear that “call-waiting” sound and I didn’t hear it.

  Shelby thinks I shouldn’t give him a second chance. I asked her what if he’s changed? What if he’s a different guy? And she said Daniel needs to prove it first. Shelby asked me if I still loved him and I told her I’ve been trying so hard this last year to convince myself that I don’t love him that I really don’t know what I feel. I can tell she wants me to keep my distance with Daniel. Easy for her to say. She’s got his great new boyfriend who’s already taken her to meet his family and who buys her flowers all the time and who puts little notes in her desk in her classroom.

  Father Laurent says I should wait on God for direction.

  Max says I should I wait until my socks get knocked off.

  Shelby says I should wait for someone who deserves me.

  And I just see myself as an old woman sitting on the curb with ugly socks on her feet waiting for something to happen.

  What does Harriet say?

  I’m trying to watch The Sound of Music. But I keep listening for the stupid phone even though it’s after eleven. Did you know when Fraulein Maria is walking down the aisle in that beautiful Salzburg cathedral with a mile-long train on her wedding dress and that beautiful stately music that gives me goose bumps, the nuns are singing, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” I mean, the score sounds as lovely as Pachelbel’s Canon and she looks radiant in that wedding dress and the nuns are singing about what a problem she is.

  But no one is listening to the words.

  It’s all about the beautiful dress, the cathedral, her march down the aisle, the orchestration that accompanies her, and the look on Maria’s smiling, veiled face.

  No one is thinking what a problem she is.

  Dear Daisy,

  Regarding your current dilemma: Max is a good friend. Someone you can trust to be perfectly honest with you. Shelby is a good friend, too. She is not being cautious because she’s happily in love and you’re not. She’s cautious because she cares about you. And Father Laurent is the consummate friend—perceptive and compassionate.

  And then of course there’s me. Your Voice of Reason. I tell you what deep down you already know.

  You’re really very lucky to have four such devoted comrades at your side.

  You know what I will tell you.

  I’ll tell you that if Daniel calls back and you refuse to see him, you will always wonder what it was he would’ve said. Always.

  I know you well enough to know you won’t want to live with that hanging over you. Especially while you wander about the planet waiting for your socks to be blown off your feet.

  Should you start seeing him again?

  My dear, he hasn’t asked you yet.

  You are always trying to hop your way across bridges before you get to them. Wait until you come to the point when you have to choose. And even then, you don’t have to make up your mind until you’re ready to take a step forward.

  Yes, no one is paying much attention to the words when Maria walks down the aisle. It’s indeed the music we hear. The way the notes are being played. In that one, perfect way they were meant to be played.

  Harriet

  Twenty-two

  Mom, L’Raine and I are standing in front of a dress form bearing my latest acquisition; a 1920s gown I bought on approval from a woman on the East Coast who phoned me and told me about it.

  The three of us are trying to decide if we like it.

  Actually, it’s Mom and L’Raine who are contemplating its virtues. I am half in and half out of the conversation. More out than in.

  I didn’t sleep well last night.

  I kept hearing “The Lonely Goatherd” song in my head, a mind-numbing effect from watching The Sound of Music late at night when I should’ve been in bed.

  And then of course, I couldn’t get Daniel’s call out of my mind. I even got up once and listened to the phone message again, just to hear his voice. Not just the sound of his voice, but the sound of regret in his voice.

  He really wants to see me.

  He sounds remorseful.

  Okay, so why didn’t he call back then?

  He said he’d call back later. Doesn’t that usually mean the same day?

  Maybe he’s afraid I really don’t want to see him and he’s putting off calling me back because he really had to work up the courage to call me the first time. It’s possible he might think I don’t want to see him. We parted on kind of a harsh note.

  I don’t know if “harsh” is the right word.

  Less-than-amicable terms?

  See, the trouble with breaking an engagement ten days before the wedding is you have to conduct so much of the break-up together. Laugh if you will, but it’s true. You have to break up together. You have to coordinate who’s going to cancel what. Who’s going to give back what. It’s like a divorce with no lawyers, no court, no papers, no façade to hide behind. All you have is the evidence of your shared dream now shattered. And you have to jointly sweep away the shards. I hated it.

  I’m going to put that in my Rules of Disengagement. That’s going in the first chapter. That there’s more to calling off a wedding than just not showing up at the church. Canceling a wedding just days before it’s supposed to happen is as labor-intensive as deciding to throw one together at the last minute. And it takes an emotional toll you wouldn’t believe, especially if you’re the one who was walked out on.

  So, yes, I was a bit unstable around Daniel the days of our highly orchestrated break-up. And then I went out of my way to avoid him at the place where we both worked until I got out of there and into The Finland and Something Blue. Oh, and I did cry like a child on his mother’s shoulder when she came over to my apartment to “say goodbye.”

  The one time he called me afterward, to see how I was doing, I could barely speak to him. Not because I was angry but because I was so taken by emotion. He surely thought I was being curt with him because I was mad. I wasn’t being curt. I was just mute with throat-closing numbness; the kind you get when words just simply fail you.

  So, I guess I can see where Daniel might wonder if I really don’t want to see him.

  Still, he should’ve called me back last night.

  You don’t set out to win someone back by saying you’re going to call back later and then not call back…

  “Daisy!”

  I yank myself out of my mental somersaults. Mom is staring at me. So is L’Raine. “What?”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Mom’s eyes
are locked on mine.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. What did you say?”

  “I said, maybe Rosalina could add some champagne-colored lace to make it truly an off-white dress. We’re never going to be able to convince anyone this is white.”

  “Sure.”

  “Daisy, what is it?”

  For a second I just stand there, looking at the dress but not really looking at it. Then I open my mouth and a flood of words spills out. “Daniel called me last night. He wants to see me. And I don’t know what I want to do. I didn’t actually talk to him. I didn’t have my cell phone with me when he called and he left a message. He said he’d call back. And he hasn’t.”

  “Oh my!” L’Raine whispers.

  “What does he want to see you about?” Mom’s eyes are wide with speculation and concern.

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say. He sounded . . . he sounded apologetic.”

  “Oh my, oh my.” L’Raine is shaking her head.

  Mom’s brow is creased with consternation. “Daisy, I don’t know.”

  “You suppose he’s had a change of heart?” L’Raine’s eyes are glassy with ready tears.

  Mom shoots her a look of caution. “Well, he shouldn’t expect just like that that Daisy wants him back. He ought to have to fight for her.”

  Mom turns her head back to me. “Make him fight for you. Play hard to get.”

  “Mom!”

  “I’m serious. You make him woo you back. He has to make up for all the trouble and heartache he’s caused you!”

  “I knew of a man who once sent the woman he loved and had hurt a dozen roses every day until she agreed to marry him,” L’Raine says dreamily.

  “L’Raine.” Mom’s voice is stern. “Flowers don’t compensate for wrongs suffered.”

  L’Raine shrugs. “They don’t hurt, either.”

  I should’ve kept my mouth shut about the whole thing. “Let me just take this one step at a time, okay?”

  “Just be careful, Daisy.”

  “I will, Mom, I promise.”

  I leave them to haggle over the color of the vintage dress and Daniel’s true intentions. A customer has walked in the door. I can tell she’s a woman engaged to be married and is looking for the perfect dress. I can see it in her eyes.