“His wife?” I ask.
“As she was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, she closed her eyes, said a prayer, and when she opened her eyes, to her surprise, she found herself standing at the altar of their church.”
“But she could’ve just gone home, right?”
“Obedience. She was being obedient to God.” Her response intrigues me. “He was testing her faith to see where her trust was.”
“Hers? But it’s his testimony.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because of all he went through.”
“What about the wife?” Dr. Jamison asks.
“What about her? She was rescued.”
“You think being still and trusting God to move is easy?”
It dawns on me; she’s right.
“If that were the case, frustration wouldn’t be. Being obedient when we’re told to be still is the single most hardest thing us Christians struggle with. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve not been still in my life when I was told to be. And it came back to damage me in the end, in the future. The gentleman going to the church that Sunday was him being submissive to his wife through God. The reason God kept coming to him in his heart was because of her prayers. God was answering her prayers, relaying her message from her heart to her husband’s heart. From hers to his. From hers to his. From hers…to his. That’s all he’s doing here. Wherever she’s at, here, there, or wherever. The sacrifices you’re making are nothing more than Him answering her prayers, relaying a message from her heart to yours. From her heart…to yours. Take care, Gabriel,” Dr. Jamison says, smiling, and rounds the foot of the bed to depart with a privacy clipboard in her hand for medical business elsewhere, I suppose.
I have a moment to ponder the insightful words she left me with. I raise the dorsum of a hand to wipe built moisture from my eyes. She’s right, approximately right.
It’s just been hard to manage, you know, knowing no matter what I say or do, there’s nothing I can do to help. I never felt more helpless, more emasculated. I never thought I’d contemplate suicide. Thankfully, a way was made for me to overcome it. I can’t stomach the thought of her opening her eyes to someone other than me being here, to someone handing her an obituary with my face, birth and death dates, as someone who failed at being strong for us.
I appreciate Dr. Jamison for her words.
I wish there were more like her. Humane, wholehearted in all she does, treats each patient with respect, making sure relatives see and understand that she’s placing her best efforts into doing her job. One can’t help but applaud her for that, and the fact she loves what she does. Her kind amongst selfish practitioners is rarer than a blue rose.
I stand from the armchair. I lean to set a delicate peck on Jen’s forehead, the feeling against my lips triggering a chill through my spine because of how much of a temperature drop she experienced since my last time touching her yesterday. I lay a hand on the side of her face and brush a thumb down to the lowest angle of her chin, admiring her still-flawless face. She looks as if she were dormant in a simple nap, how she looks when she sleeps next to me in bed, more beautiful than anything my eyes have seen. Symmetrical face, perfect nose, perfect eyebrows and cheekbones, perfect to me, perfect for me.
An attribute of hers that impresses me is the fact she doesn’t believe in cosmetics or superficial measures that hinder me from the chance to embrace her natural being. I respect her more for having given me a chance to prove my love is deeper than physical. I admire her character. I admire her strength. I admire her courage. I admire her determination. I admire more the attributes of her I cannot touch than I do the ones I can because she is that extraordinary – even if she purposely lips off or behaves in a way to irritate a nerve to make known the fact that she is in a crappy mood over something I may or mayn’t have done or for some unknown reason that has nothing to do with me. I embrace her imperfections, console her stresses from far-ago past occurrences with a relative who shouldn’t have molested her of her innocence.
I leave for a stroll alongside the river.
The ambiance of skyscrapers visible from the paved walk with occasional benches just left of the smooth pathway makes for an impressive view by the Chicago River, which flows alongside the small park with snippets of the darkening sky gleaming on its serene surface. Light poles stand alternately near the borders for what seems to be until the end of the walk. It’s nice. It’s an escape. It’s one of the places to which Jen and I come to rejuvenate our minds. It’s a setting from a movie, a romantic one, where the man takes the woman to just walk, holding her hand, letting good conversation come naturally. It’s my escape, too, when she and I experience misunderstandings that lead us apart for an hour or so, until I am calm and have had time to think, so I can return home with an open mind prepared to press through our difference together.
Half an hour later I head home. I steer into the designated parking space for the position I hold among the nineteenth level of the skyscraper; all of the chief executive officers have a personal space for their automobile that exists apart from the parking garage in which regular employees park Mitsubishis and Infinitis and Audis and Range Rovers. The outdoor lot holds vacancies all throughout its zone, except the space for the middle-aged gentleman who owns the marketing firm that sits three levels above Jen Juice. I exit the automobile, secure the locks, and head inside for a place to settle horizontally on the loveseat, having locked the office door behind making my entrance in for the night. I dig the remote control from underneath my back to power on the television to a movie network.
I untie the shoes I matched with jeans and a slim tee and assume a more comfortable, recumbent position on the loveseat for the tube of the high definition screen to sharpen to…what a coincidence, one of the funniest movies, Dumb and Dumber, and before a hilarious line from the road-buddy comedy film can draw a laugh from me, I doze into a slumber that slips deep into the sleep that bridges the night across to the next sunrise.
When I wake the following morning, an hour before the expected arrival of the receptionist for the nineteenth level, three hours until the remainder of staff begins trickling in for the day, I have a bath out of a sink in the restroom down the hall from my office.
As many times as I’ve come here to use the restroom, I never once thought it’d wind up my only source of water. Then again, I wouldn’t have ever predicted any of this. The seizure with Jen, selling our home to handle steep medical bills, me living out of my office. Even if I would have been able to land an accurate forecast of things to come, I’d make the same choices and sacrifices all over again, because her worth holds more value than any home, automobile, materialistic object, or amount of money in an account. I could’ve sold the automobiles but the sum of their Blue Book values fell way short of the amount we needed.
I head back to the office. I fasten the door. I have a seat on the loveseat to the fish the cased engagement ring from the duffle bag. I can only imagine how deeply moved she would have been had I had the chance to lower to a knee, ask for her hand and marriage, which I’d received the blessing for months prior to her father having died from a malignant glioma.
*
“Good morning,” Charlotte, an earnest teller for the bank we account with, primed in business professional attire, acknowledges me before I can step to have a stand at her station.
I greet her a good morning back, straight-faced serious.
“How can I assist you?” Her smile shines like pearls.
“Need to put a restriction on my account.”
“I’ll be happy to take care of that for you. What kind of restriction?”
“One that prevents anyone, including me, from transferring, withdrawing, or spending money, you know, where all possible transactions decline right away.”
“Okay, just so we’re clear. You want all access to the account shut off?”
“Correct.” I place identification on the counter.
Arranging it
closer to acquire a look at the name and compare the face with mine, on account of the cameras surveillancing her moves, she aligns her fingers with the keyboard of the computer. She plugs the restriction into their database. “Will that be all for you this morning?”
“I would also like to set up auto-pay for two hundred and forty thousand dollars to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for the first of each month, which is to be the only exception for money leaving the account,” I add, her typing continuing past my instructional wants.
She hits enter with a finger. She places attention on me. “There anything else I can help you with this morning, Mr. Clevenger?”
“That’ll be it.” I gather my identification to return it to its compartment inside my wallet.
“Great. Thanks for stopping by to see us this morning. Enjoy the day.”
I step from the institution to climb behind the wheel of my automobile parked in a legal parking space near the entrance. I have a minute to ponder life. I go inside the armrest compartment to obtain the jewelry box. I flip it open and take a moment to admire the premiere-cut diamond of the engagement ring, the band embedded within a suede platform. Its potential to mesmerize a mind is still intact from the afternoon in which I first saw it. Appreciating the kind of life it represents, I hinge the jewelry box shut to give it back to the armrest compartment between the driver and front passenger seats. I crank the engine and cruise to inform Dr. Jamison of the auto payment structure I established with the bank.
I head into the room to sit and spend time with Jen, to just sit and think in silence about a remembrance that gives our relationship, our camaraderie, and our love depth.
She was there when all we had was a vision – organic fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and a refurbished state-of-the-art blender, never-ending days and nights of experiments until I discovered the most delectable combinations. In fact, one in particular took months to hone into what later became the most-craved of all blends available. And although she, for the most part, was settled someplace else in our then-one bedroom house tuning in to her favorite television show, she catered me meals when I was starved, a glass of filtered water when I was parched, temporal, neck, and back massages when I became frustrated with not being able to progress within means. Therefore, it is reasonable to claim she was as important as I was in establishing the corporation I named in her honor.
After embracing Jen for hours at the hospital, I lay a careful kiss on her forehead. I return to the office to sit and handle the paperwork my assistant emailed about her having slid underneath the locked door for me to tend to. While getting ahead in my work, I happen to raise my eyes for a brief look in time to catch Romulus on his way through the open door to speak – only to see him be struck by the sight of the pair of jeans and slim tee I hand-washed in the sink this morning up on hangers, out in the open, air-drying.
“Rome, my main man. What’s the news?”
“Just finished faxing paperwork to that global distributor. Was heading out when I saw the door open; thought I’d drop in for a quick sec to speak.”
“Which one?” I ask, indicating interest in knowing which distribution firm.
“Zohar,” he says, making his way to have a stand behind the guest seat from my desk.
“How’d you do it? Been pitching to ’em for years, failing to interest their chairman of operations in a distribution deal that’d be profitable for both sides of the fence.” I’m wholeheartedly interested in knowing, because Zohar, the third leading merchandise-distribution firm on the globe, had been neglecting our invitation of partnership from the beginning. But then came my main man, Romulus, tackling the barrier that hindered us from branching into certain territories around the globe.
“Actualized a one-hundred-and-nine-page proposal of recommendations from the chief executive officers of the leading two merchandise execution firms, exact documentation of sales from our founding date to now as well as a convincing prediction of sales to come. Familiarized myself with Ms. Auer’s forty-page biography, and in doing so, was able to learn her likes, her dislikes, the names of her Teacup Pomeranians Chance, Bella, and Riley, everything, from the time she was born until this exact moment. After reading and researching, I began brainstorming, and while browsing the internet I came across pictures of her and her beloved dogs. That’s when the perfect idea came. A customized painting of her and them – or as she calls them, her children. Phoned a former Harvard colleague of mine, who just so happened to owe me a favor for me helping write his thesis for graduate school, who happens to be one of the top ten painters, worldwide, and he handled it from there – including shipping and handling.”
I want to part my lips to commend Romulus. But I can’t. It’s astonishing how the book knowledge he acquired at Harvard assimilates with the common sense he possesses, because most I know either possess one or the other. Not both.
“Boss, don’t mean to cut short, but I best get on out of here before the wife starts calling. Have a little something planned that I don’t want to mess up, if you know what I mean.”
I laugh quietly at his implication.
“See you in the morning.”
“See you, Rome.”
The instant Romulus leaves the evening flies, then days, then weeks, and then months; and I find myself seated in the exact same seat behind the desk, anguishing and pondering, not having slept in days – three I think. The month is three days from its end, and I have yet to come up with the remaining one hundred and sixty thousand dollars to put it with the eighty thousand I have, in order to deposit it into the account for the upcoming month’s hospital installment. Troubled by what failure would cause, I stand. I step from behind the desk to go stand and pucker my brows at the evening view of Chicago, the buildings, the people walking the sidewalks alongside the streets, congested traffic. I take an audible breath.
The startling fact about the predicament I’m in is that most look at it and wonder how a remarkably successful businessman of a booming corporation could be nearly broke at a time like this. It’s simple: give more than you receive. I wouldn’t consider it broke, though. I consider donating to those less fortunate than myself, flourishing richly at heart, because when you give, you not only grace children with opportunities they wouldn’t have had, but you share a contagious hope. I’d rather bless someone else, in particular little ones and elders, than let millions of dollars sit untouched in an account, knowing there’s someone out there who can use it. I want invisibly rich years for me and her, which is the reason we remain anonymous in our giving, without looking for loophole write-offs at the end of each tax year. It’s a shame how one man flaunts millions of dollars, purchasing nine, ten, eleven, and twelve automobiles, and three, four, and five homes, when there are innocent children and elders somewhere with no room. It’s a shame, a walk-in closet with hundreds of pairs of shoes when there are people who have no shoes. It’s heartless. But it’s not my place to be speaking on how another man should handle his earned money. I can just manage and dictate what’s done with mine.
“You needed to speak with me about something?” Romulus says on his entrance through the door to lower himself into the guest chair, me remaining behind the desk in mine.
I heave a sigh. “I’m not gonna waste time beating around the bush. Remember a while back, you came in here and said, ‘If I’m fortunate to found and be the head of my own corporation, I’ve a chamber of natures to pull from’?”
He thinks with a slight wrinkle on his forehead. “What about it?”
“Still interested in being fortunate?”
“Who?” he says, taking a gander behind himself, raising a thumb to point at the chest of his fitted business casual shirt. “Me?”
“See that loveseat over there?”
“That one?”
“That’s where I sleep. Been living out of this office the past few months because I had to sell the home in order to come up with the money to take care of hospital bills, the reason you oftentimes enter to s
ee clothes hanging all over the place in here. Matter of fact, have a pair of jeans hanging over there, in the closet, air-drying now as we speak. Yes, I, your boss, have been living out of this office. Taking baths in the bathroom sink down the hall, eating food out of the lounge, afraid of wasting money because I don’t know how long she’ll be like that. Tell me you’ll take it. It’s yours, yours for free. That’s if you’re still interested. It’s the only way for me to have immediate access to the money I need to help me continue taking care of medical bills. My retirement.”
He lowers his face, in thought. “With due respect, sir, I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I can’t do that. This is your corporation; the name itself exemplifies the admiration you have for it. I’d be intruding if I did. That’s like stealing.”
“If not for me, do it for her – Jen.” I want him to have it. He’d be an awesome fit.
He breaks eye contact to let his thinking mind ponder without conscious direction, raising a threesome of fingertips to tamper with his slight chin hairs.
My Bridge To Forever Page 5
