Promise Me Something

In almost every way, I have the life I’ve always dreamed about.

           I’m sitting in a house I own. It’s small, but big enough for me, and I have artwork I like on the walls; still-lifes of Tuscan streets and hanging flowers. I have food I like in the refrigerator – tapenade and marzipan and braunschweiger with fancy crackers – and beautiful wine glasses that I like in the cabinet, next to dusty bottles of wine.

           I’m sitting in this old red armchair. It’s old on purpose – I’ve always liked old things. They bring me comfort with their aged wisdom, the way they’ve been loved over the years. It’s soft and just big enough to envelop me, sitting here with my cross stitching, partly finished, in front of the fireplace. There’s music on the record player. Django Reinhardt. Gypsy jazz.

           I’m sitting here and I’m listening to this music in this old armchair in this house that I own and I’m happy, I think.

           I think I’m happy, and I think I’m warm under the quilt I made, sitting here beside the fire, and I think that this quilt would serve better in other hands. I have plenty of quilts and besides, who needs a quilt sitting in front of the fire? I think I’ll get up and fold this quilt and put it on one of my old oak shelves. I think I’ll give it away.

           I made it but it isn’t mine. The quilt, I mean. It was meant for somebody. Her name isn’t important. You don’t know her, and if you do, it’s better that you don’t tell her I’m still thinking of her. I remember sitting in the craft room upstairs after work, in those days when I worked, and slowly stitching these squares together by the window. See this square, here, the way it’s a little lopsided? This was one of the first quilts I made. I didn’t know how to keep the fabric from bunching like that yet.

           Things were so optimistic then. They’re not pessimistic now, they’re not anything at all. They never got to be anything.

           You’re young yet, so I’ll tell you – no, you are. Even if you don’t feel it, time hasn’t calcified your joints, hasn’t hidden your glasses under the bed or hardened your hands. I’ll tell you about her if you make me a promise. Will you promise me something?

           Well, I can’t tell you what it is yet. You’ll just have to trust me.

           She was the kindest woman in the world. Actually, we were both girls then. Not women, not yet. The first time we ever met, before we even knew each other, she complimented my cardigan. The first words she ever said to me were a compliment, can you believe that? Look out the window at that world – those bare branches and that cold wind. A world like that, and she gave out compliments like penny candy. The world wouldn’t be like that, all sharp edges and cold winds, if there were more people like her out there.

           But believe me when I tell you there aren’t more people like her. Not anywhere, not in the whole world. And I’ll tell you something else – the first time I met her, I let her walk away. Can you believe that? She complimented my cardigan; I complimented her shoes. She told me about them. I picked up my coffee, we exchanged nice-to-meet-you’s, and then I left. I was always rushing about like that when I was young. Always had somewhere to be that wasn’t where I was.

           Even back then, I knew she was special. As I walked home in the rain, holding my thumb over the mouth of my cup to keep the water out, I thought about her. I even considered going back to get her telephone number. But it was raining, and who walks into a coffee shop holding a cup of coffee anyway? I went home. I let her walk away.

           I looked for her shoes everywhere, especially in that coffee shop when I had occasion to go. They were loafers, and nobody wore loafers back then. Everywhere I looked, it was tennis shoes and platforms and boots. I thought for a while I’d never see her again. I didn’t know why that saddened me.

           But, yes, I did see her again. Not at the coffee shop, but in the library attached to it. I was there getting a new book to read. She was studying at one of the many tables. I might’ve missed her, buried in big reference books and papers as she was, had I not noticed her shoes as I walked by.

           “I like your shoes,” I remember saying, “Loafers?”

           She looked up at me and smiled. “I like your cardigan,” she said. “I hope it didn’t get too wet in the rain.”

           I’d learned my lesson, or so I’d thought. I had her write her telephone number on my bookmark, and I picked out my new book and went home. From then we became friends, and as I got to understand just how extraordinary she was, something a little more.

           I shared things with her – special things, like aquarium visits and the Jewish food festival where my clarinet teacher performed, and normal things, like fresh oranges my parents bought me and the squirrels chasing each other in the tree outside my bedroom window. She took me to her favorite parts of the city, and even though I’d already decided I didn’t like living in a city, she made me see why so many people stuck around. She took me to secret places, where we could sit up high and watch people pass underneath us, and popular places, where we saw musicians and comedians perform.

           She was silly, and optimistic, and the kindest person I’d ever met. She had a soft heart and big eyes that seemed to see more than what was really there. Sometimes, when we read together in my bedroom, she would laugh out loud, or I’d look over to see tears streaming down her cheeks. She loved holidays, especially Valentine’s Day, because it gave her leave to make valentines out of construction paper and then go around with her tote bag full of candy and distribute them to her seemingly endless list of acquaintances.

           I wish you could have met her; you would have loved her. I certainly did.

           I was at an age where love was an enigma. I knew it well conceptually but had spent many hours wondering what it felt like. I had tricked myself into believing I knew it a couple of times in the past, but let me tell you, when it’s real, there’s no doubt. I loved her almost right away. The softness of her, the endless kindness that she not only had but brought out in me. The world was a warmer place when she was around.

           She loved me too. God only knows why; I was a fool then. Maybe I still am. Self-centered, easily tired, and painfully young. Maybe it was my earnestness, how honestly I adored her. Knowing her, it was something that I’ve never considered, even in all these years since.

           She came to me one day, heartbroken. It was her little brother, she’d said. He was ill. Very ill, the sort of ill that kids our age and especially younger weren’t meant to be. She had to go home to Washington to be there, just in case.

           If I’d had any sense in the world, I’d’ve gone with her. It sounds reckless, I know, but listen to me. There isn’t anything in this world like the way she made me feel, and there isn’t a person in the world like her. I wanted to follow her to the ends of the Earth, and you should always listen to your heart with wants like that.

           But I was much too practical back then. I held her while she cried and tried not to let my pain show, worried about how it would hurt her. I told her that her brother would be okay, that we would call, and write, and I would send her packages full of all her favorite things from our city. I would fly out on holidays. “This isn’t goodbye,” I promised her.  

           It was. The distance was just too significant, the end date too nebulous. We tried. We did, but something about what was happening to her little brother was bleeding the light out of her, and I was too far away to help her, to hold her the way I should have. Love is a living thing, you know. Not like us but living just the same. There are things it needs to stay healthy, to stay alive. Some things are important, like time, and attention, and kindness. But some things are more important.

           She called me one day. She didn’t cry. She didn’t sound sad, just painfully tired. Her brother had passed. After nearly a year of struggle, the fight was over. He was at rest.

           What could I say? What could anybody say in the face of such a tragedy? Loss of life, especially the young and innocent, is difficult to navigate by itself, let alone with twenty-five hundred miles thrown in. No weekend trip, no flight, nothing was going to fix this.

           I know what I should have said. I know her better now, even after all this time apart. I should have said it a long time ago, but if I’d known it was my last chance, I’d have said it then. I should have said, “I love you,” instead, I said, “I’m sorry.”

           She said, “I’m not coming back to Charleston.”

           I said, “I know.”

           She said, “This might be goodbye.”

           I said, again, “It might. I’m sorry.”

           She didn’t say anything else, except goodbye.

           And it was goodbye. It really was. I haven’t heard from her since then. At some point, I realized how stupid it was. What I let go, that I hadn’t learned anything since the day I let her walk away in that coffee shop all those years ago. I called her number, but someone else answered. I sent her letters, but she never wrote back, if she received them at all.

           Some say it only happens once. Love like that. I don’t know if that’s true for everyone, but it’s true for me. There’s not a person like her in the world. Not for me. Listen to me. You said you’d promise me something – promise me this: if you have love and you know it, never let it walk away. Do you promise?

           Good. Otherwise, you’ll end up here, in an old armchair in front of the fire, in a house only you own, talking to nobody about someone long gone.