Each case involves males gravely mistreating females. But not this one. It’s distinct. It’s deep. It’s unconditional. It’s the kind of love you seldom see – let alone experience – in actual life, the kind motion pictures have us women yearning for. I have never seen a gentleman more committed to a woman than Gabriel. I have never seen a gentleman sacrifice as much with no complaints as the person Ms. Haden cannot seem to make out. I am not familiar with her enough to call her by her first name, but from all the sacrifices I have witnessed Gabriel make, she must be amazing, as well as quite privileged to have a person in her life that jumps at the chance to make known his love and support her through misfortunate circumstances. There isn’t another male on earth who would have responded like that. Most would have responded with infidelities or substance abuse or, perchance, suicide. With due respect, I hope she understands how fortunate she is because not all women can truthfully speak that the men in their lives have been as devoted to them as Gabriel has to her.
“April Jamison, your doctor.” I introduce myself with an abbreviated smile.
Concentration glued on the gentleman in front of her inquisitive face, she speaks her name through a brief look at me, engrossed in determining his appearance.
“Recognize him?”
“My cousin-in-law Brendan?”
“Gabriel.”
She presses north the natural arches that form the upper part of the orbit of her eyes. She leans her slender face and neck forward – her natural complexion returning slowly, evenly – for a more detailed look. Upon reaching the realization that the gentleman is in fact him, she depresses her look, breaks into tears, drawing me in like a dart to wrap my arms around her, clasp her tightly with embrace, to let her tears soak into the chest of my buttoned coat.
I am perplexed about her tears. I’m not certain, but they seem to be out of commiseration over the effect her absence has caused. Although I sense peculiarity about her and the source of her breaking into tears, I cannot blame her for responding this way in response to his name. It’s not my business to try to analyze through to her source – it’s not ethical; it’s not my place to overstep boundaries to put at risk the tender relationship I take pride in maintaining with patients. I would rather that they come to me, not the other way around. I would rather be approached and spoken to about the particulars of a circumstance than be the medical practitioner known for infiltrating matters that’re not mine to handle, unless a patient of mine brings something to me. I wholeheartedly care for helping people maintain wholesome standards of living. I would rather be impoverished and appreciated for a job well done than gross three hundred thousand dollars per year and be resented for the reasons why I enjoy doing what I do, patients who make my job feel like a love.
“What happened?” She breaks silence with a polite push away from me.
“He sacrificed everything,” I tell her. “So you could have a chance to come back.”
“From where?”
“The coma you were in.”
“Coma?”
I give a bob of my head.
“For how long?”
“Ten years.”
Her chin falls to the chest of her adaptive gown. “Ten years! You’re kidding, right?”
I acquire a second or few to hope for her. I wish I could say I am kidding, but if I feign to her, not only will I not be able to fathom the sight of her potentially becoming a lonely mirror reflection of me, I will cause her heart to be irreversibly shattered for the remainder of her life and mine. “I’m afraid not. It’s amazing how time flew since the afternoon you were brought here. I remember paramedics rushing you in. I remember the desperate sound of Gabriel’s voice, begging to be let through so he could be near you, the grave tone in his breath when I’d emerged from the restricted doors en route for the lobby. He was devastated. He was overwhelmed by fear I could tell he’d never before experienced over anyone but you. He loves you. That being said and done – ” I speak with a bittersweet smile, moisture building in my eyes, “ – welcome back, Ms. Haden. It’s been a pleasure investing my time in you.” I bend at the waist with a forward lean to hug her neck, wishing her and Gabriel love, peace, happiness, and unconditional devotion, her matching my embracement of her with a reciprocal hug back for me not losing hope in her.
I anticipate the moment in time in which a gentleman discovers the translucent magnitude of devotion and understanding that exists in me. Being divorced from Grant put things that were in need of fixing into perspective for me, and I now am enhanced because of the rearrangements made regarding my priorities. I stand here with a better understanding of marriage and the boundaries that needn’t be overstepped – in particular, putting faith first, whomever I am fortunate to have as a partner second, and then my career third, rather than my career, my career, my career, my career, my career, my career, and then my partner, expecting a partner not to have an issue with being the slightest priority in my life. I’m not saying me having it together before would’ve guaranteed an ever-after outcome because nothing you do can keep a person from extramarital affairs if being unfaithful is the darkness he wants. I’m not blaming him; it takes two. There’re things I could’ve done better regarding him. I should’ve, but I let naivety dupe me into concentrating the most attention here and not at home where my priorities should’ve been. There isn’t a married man on earth who likes the feeling of not being a priority. There isn’t a man who wouldn’t be angered about arriving from disastrous workdays to frozen dinners and a lonesome home. There isn’t a man who would rather be part of a marriage in which he has to make appointments to speak with or treat out his wife, when there’re women who would leap at the chance to let him be romantic. Not to be mistaken, I’m not making justifications for him stepping out on our marriage – not coming home on several nights because that and him having sex with other women in our bed were wrong. I’m just being accountable for my share. It’s important to be accountable when, evidently, wrong was done on my half. That way I can progress forward in life with a sharper understanding for how to be better accommodating as a wife, whenever God thinks more than enough of me to put me in the righteous path of a righteous man. Until then, my love lies within sharpening myself to be an extension to Him who strengthens me to do all things.
Twelve
Infrequent opening and closing of the lids responsible for protecting my sight from foreign objects and sunlight, I wake with myself propped up in a hospital bed that resembles the one my girlfriend Jennifer lay in for years, unable to remember why or how I ended up here. But I am able to establish that the situation is grim due to the stable beeps of the electrocardiogram attached to me. I look left – and there exists an arrangement of space like I remember hers being: a broad window that gives a look out at downtown from one of the median floors of the towering hospital building, a modish couch with its backside pressed into a wall. I look right. And there stands Jen at the side of the bed with her beautiful complexion glowing at me. Her sound appearance refreshes me like an iced glass of water would someone stranded in a desert. Her open-toed shoes compliment her polished nails. A conservative spring dress clothes her figure. Her full lips are without a curve, her face a perfect depiction of Heaven.
I’m unsure if I should believe what I see or pinch my flesh. The person I have admired since the afternoon we met standing near me is a dream come true. It prompts a return of the indescribable warmth I receive in my heart when I look at her – a phenomenal someone God created with me in mind, a treasure, a grace, a blessing, a light, my everlasting light. And now with reality staring me in the face, my appearance which must’ve been groomed back to my normal buzzed haircut and trimmed facial hair by a medical practitioner or nurse when I was in a state I hadn’t an excerpt of knowledge about, I’m not sure how to behave. Happiness has me so full that I can just gesture a simple smile, as if a perfect peace occupies the space meant for my heart. I’m able to retire my nerves now that she’s safe.
“You f
ell asleep, wouldn’t wake up. Tried shaking you. Me, Dr. Jamison, and the nurse.”
I remember having a seat in the armchair. But that’s it. “How long’ve I been out?”
“Three months.”
My brows hike. “Three months?”
“Sleep. Exhaustion scared your neurological system into shutdown.”
Not certain on how to bring together a response, I lower my face with a bombardment of assumptive ponderings hammering my mind to a baffled pulp.
If the billing department expensed me until I was no longer in possession of the funds to handle medical bills, the driving force behind Dr. Jamison pulling the plug to her ventilator, where on earth did Jen scuffle up the money to be able to handle three months’ worth of payments? It makes not a bit of sense, unless there’s an undisclosed account in her name. I believe so much in her not to believe she would withhold information from me. I will not let some rudimentary assumption for the worst manipulate this moment – our moment – into a verbal altercation. Understanding her, I know well enough to know she either got a loan from a bank or paid from an account I’m certain I at one point in time was knowledgeable about but forgot. She and I choose not hide information in the dark, no matter if it’s a matter as harmless as purchasing ice cream. We’re all about open-book communication.
“I have to tell you something,” she speaks unexpectedly.
I note the fact that she stands with a semi-lowered face. Based on appearance alone, her downturned mouth, her sudden change in demeanor, I assume for the worst because I have never seen her in such a mood other than around the time her parents drowned at sea from the sinking of a cruise ship. Instead of assuming further or fixing my lips to speak in front of her, I let her have the stage to muster courage forward and speak on what she needs to tell me.
“I’ve been here for the past week. I’m not saying I haven’t been all the other days because I have. I’ve been here, waiting for you to wake up so I could tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Please don’t be mad.”
“Tell me what?” I repeat, except this time with rise in the tone of my voice.
She reveals her left hand from behind her back. “That I’m married.”
“Married!” I heave out bed to confront her – her bracing back a step in fright. “After all the sacrifices I made! Selling the home, living out of my office, sacrificing everything to my name just so you’d have a chance to be here, with me, so we could spend the rest of these lives together, and you run off, marry some man who doesn’t care cents about you.”
“But, you don’t—”
“What’s there to understand, huh? When, when you were lying in that bed, I was right there with you for ten years, three thousand days I will never have back no matter how hard I try. Not one month, not two months, not one year, but ten. Now when I need the same in return from you, you run off, do this. What’s there to understand about that, huh?” I take a needed while to look off, give myself time to calm down before I become the cause of something I may regret. The bomb she blindsided me with has me wanting to strangle someone, savagely put hands on something until it shatters to pieces.
I’m pissed at her judgment. I wasn’t unconscious for three months, and she runs off and marries some newbie – or, perhaps, some asswipe she knew prior to everything – who didn’t care to support her through the convulsive attack that about seized her life from her. Not a phone call. Not an in-person appearance. Not anything but him moving ahead as if she meant nothing, moving ahead like he hadn’t a mustard seed of faith in her will to fight for life and triumph impossibilities. I was the person here, not him. I was the person starving and feeling thirst and smelling and living under a roof I’m certain I would have been arrested out from had law enforcement found out. When medical practitioners and nurses spoke foolishly about me, I was here, disregarding their smirks and chuckles and slandering and gossiping against me believing she would be mine, again. When the time came for me let go of home, Jen Juice, and that automobile, I did so with spending the remainder of life with her in mind. I let go without hesitation. I let go with a cheerful heart. I let go because I loved her, thinking she would do the same for me. I guess I was so blinded by the will-be of me and her that I overlooked reality.
I just wish I would’ve known sooner. I could’ve prepared myself ahead of time, versus waking from a coma to have my emotions whacked by a train. I thought she loved me. I thought her devotion to me was legitimate. I thought that once we were through the cataclysmic attack that about put an end to her we would continue being lungs to the happily-ever-after we talked about. Instead of being in a kneel with her hand in mine, proposing a question for her hand in marriage, now I stand brokenhearted with nothing but a name and no idea how and where I am to go from here, uncertain of how I am to find the sentiment to be able to live with her forsaking me, our relationship. And to think, I thought seeing her mere existence in a hospital bed was severer than lethal injection to an innocent man. How am I to exist, without her, in a world that has been a blistering cold temperature since the day I walked into the room to find her suffering?
“Would you like a divorce?” she speaks.
I give a still look at her. “Divorce?”
She brightens her face in a suitably gentle way – not a sudden sunburst, but an oil lamp being turned slowly up, an abbreviated shine and glisten of her eyes and peaceful animation of her dimpling cheeks. “I’m sorry for not waiting. I couldn’t. I had April, Dr. Jamison, or whatever you call her, marry us, with the nurse as lone witness. Unofficially. I was so touched from the bottom of my heart by what you’d done: your love, your devotion, your faith, your hope, that I went behind your back and married you. I hope you understand. Hope you’ll be able to find it in your heart to forgive m—”
Refusing to hold horses a second further, I heave into pressing her irresistible, succulent lips with mine. She catches a chill at the sizzling embrace I engulf her with. I run my palms from the middle of her back to the nethermost curvatures of her derrière, assertively coercing her into an adjacent wall as I carry on with expressing how much these lips of mine have been yearning to caress hers. I cannot think. I cannot breathe. I cannot picture myself being anyplace other than the place I belong, the place He – God – willed for me to be, in this moment in time, expressing love for and devotion to the precious light of my life. Her heart is a perfect match for mine. Her smile is sun of the solar system that pulsates inside this chest of mine; and I will not let anything whatsoever sway me into not cherishing her for the one-of-a-kind person she was created and molded and enriched to be.
She is altruistic.
She is phenomenal.
She is demonstrative.
She is Jennifer Emmeline Clevenger, love of my life until the final breath I breathe.
Dear Reader:
I would like to extend a kindhearted thank you to you for taking time out of your precious schedule to visit with my imagination. I am honored to have had you as a reader, and I hope this was as graceful of a reading experience as writing this novel was for me. I look forward to spending more time with you through my imagination. I am a firm believer in using words to inspire people; they mean more than what we oftentimes give them credit for. I look forward to gracing you with relatable stories that inspire love; stories that inspire friendship; stories that inspire commitment; stories that inspire benevolence; and most important, stories that inspire faith and belief in perseverance. Until next time. Be encouraged.
Tavares
Author Bio
Tavares Jones is an American author of two novels. He is also founder and chief executive officer of Brandt Hoffman, a publisher specializing in producing novels that hold meaning in life. A compassionate writer, he appreciates using his imagination as a vessel to encourage and inspire people to become better. For more about the author, including forthcoming releases, subscribe to his Facebook fan page or follow him on Twitter at: iamtavaresjones.
/>
My Bridge To Forever Page 16
