How about some more, after a long, long break?

Chapter 16 

“We ended up moving,” Theo said, “but things were rocky after that. They always are when you move, and I know it was a particularly rough move for her.” He was frowning severely. “Something’s not right, though. That’s not how I thought I acted; I didn’t remember it being such a pointless fight.” He looked up at Ted. “I didn’t remember being such a jerk.”

“Time passes, things happen, people change,” Ted said, shrugging. “You’re starting to see that now, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I guess,” Theo said, but looked confused and disoriented. Ted was grinning, something which Theo didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to think that he had lived a life of such vast change and development that he could no longer identify with his own memories. “No, no, this is starting to make me panic. It’s like someone has gone and altered my significant memories, sterilizing them and removing all agency and sympathy. I can’t take this, Ted!”

“Theo, it’s alright,” he said soothingly. “Nothing can go wrong now. This is still your life, as you lived it, and as you remember it. It just turns out that memory is a finicky medium, and diving right into the raw past without that adjusting lens of memory can be startling. Do you want to stop?”

“Before we do that,” Theo said, trying to get a grip on himself, whatever that was, “I want to see at least one more moment. In fact,” he said, looking up at Ted with renewed enthusiasm, “would it be possible to start at one point and continue on through what I’ve already seen here?”

“Sure,” Ted said, though not without a slight hesitancy. “It’s not like we’re in a hurry. Where to this time?”

“I want to know that I was who I thought I was for at least one moment in my life, before my death, that is. I want to go to the moment that changed my life.”

[Chapters 17 & 18]

A cool, clear afternoon in late October. The only leaves left on the branches were dry and brown, rattling in the breeze like whisperings from a second-rate newspaper of decades past. Claire was walking her dog Gabe to the park a half-mile away, but was moving at an extraordinarily leisurely pace. She knew this would be one of Gabe’s last visits to the park, and she didn’t want to rush it.

Theo was waiting at the entrance to the park. He had asked Claire what her plans were for the day, but had committed to nothing himself. Nonetheless there he was, sitting against a tree in a pair of worn-out jeans and a tweed jacket he must have inherited from his father or brother Adam. His left hand was drumming silently on his leg; his right buried deep in his jean pocket.

When Claire got to the park, she noticed Theo a moment before he had noticed her. She took a second to deliberate leaving before he glanced in her direction, but in that second Gabe took matters out of her hand. Theo had fallen in love with Gabe before he had even considered falling for Claire, and the love was clearly mutual.

Gabe barked. Theo looked up, smiling faintly. “Hey, you two,” he said quietly. The slightest breeze would have taken the words off his lips and shattered them, but all was still.

 Claire seemed to warm up to the thought of Theo as she looked at him there. She smiled, gave a weak wave, and waked to where he was sitting. “Aren’t you cold? You aren’t even sitting in the sun.”

“Nah,” he said, casually but without arrogance. “I’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“Want to join us, then?” she offered. “I think it’d mean a lot to Gabe.”

Theo nodded, and stood up. After scratching Gabe behind the ears and patting him on the back, they were off down a trail that led into the foothills. “How’s he doing?” Theo asked, breaking the silence that had settled between them.

“It’ll be over soon,” she said, “and that’s for the best.”

“At least he isn’t suffering too much now,” Theo said lamely. “I was devastated to hear the news.”

“It would have been easier to take if you had been around,” Claire responded flatly, but without coldness. “I’ve missed you.”

“Why don’t you take him off his leash?” Theo said, temporarily ignoring what Claire had just said. “There were hardly any cars in the lot, so I doubt many joggers or cyclists are out.”

“What if he gets too far away from us?” she protested. She had never been comfortable letting Gabe free in open spaces.

They had reached a point in the trail where trees lined both sides of the path for a considerable distance. Theo motioned to the surroundings and said, “He’s not moving very fast, and neither are we. It’ll be okay; he’s never run away or after anyone else before, has he? Why would he start now?”

Claire sighed, bent down and undid the leash. Gabe hardly noticed and kept on walking once she had let him go, leading the way with determination. They walked like this for some time. After a while, Claire slopped to look at Theo. It was like a painful fire was consuming her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “We’ve barely talked in six months; it feels like an eternity passed since the last time I saw you.”

His gaze was rock-solid, unwavering in the slightest. “I wanted to see him,” Theo said, and smiled.

Claire let out one brief laugh. “To see him?” she said, with an incredulous grin. She walked right up to Theo, nearly standing on his toes, and kissed him in one deliberate movement. Before Theo had the time to know what was happening, she stopped, drew her hand back, and slapped him. Not hard, but the sound was impressive in the still afternoon air. She kept walking.

Theo stood stunned for a few seconds. He felt his cheek, then looked at Claire, who was about to round a corner in the trail. He ran after her.

Stopping a few paces short, he said, “I came back to see you, Claire. I’m here because of you.”

She stopped; Gabe, oblivious, kept walking.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I deserved it.”

“You left.”

“And now I’m back,” he countered warmly.

Claire turned around. She was smiling, but a few tears had rolled down her cheek, clinging to her jaw. “And what am I supposed to do with that?” she asked, squinting her eyes slightly with bitterness. “You’ll be gone again in six months. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“I’ve got an idea,” said Theo, still smiling warmly. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small silver object.

Claire laughed. “This trick again, huh?” she said, all bitterness gone. “Heads says I keep you, tails you run off again? Or do you have something else in mind?”

“That’ll work,” Theo said. He placed the little circle of metal on his hand, on top of his thumb, and flicked it high into the air. Claire traced its perfect parabola into the cool October sky, then towards her. As she reached out to grab it, she realized it wasn’t the coin she had mistaken it for. She caught it anyway.

“Theo. . .” she said, clearly at a loss. By the time she looked up at him, he had made his way up to her, his right hand wiping the tears from her left cheek.

“Keeps, then?” he said, quiet as a ghost. He was sure she must have been able to hear his heart pounding.

“This is a ring, Theo,” she said softly, looking down again. “You can’t just give a ring like this to a girl. It’s not fair.” She had started to cry.

“What if I play by the rules this time?” He said. “Let’s make it fair. Let’s start over and do it right.”

Claire struggled to get free of him. “No, Theo,” she mouthed. “No. . .”

“That’s not the word you’re looking for,” he whispered softly. He thought he might collapse any moment; a bird landing on a dry leaf would have been enough to shatter his calm.

“I. . .” she floundered, looking for the words. “Theo, you’ve always told me. . . You swore to me,” she said, with regained assuredness, “that you would never settle down; that you would live the nomad’s life, a modern gypsy until the day you died. You based your whole life around the notion that marriage destroyed individuals. And now this?” she said, holding up the ring.

“I wanted to stay a lost boy forever, Claire,” Theo said simply. “I didn’t want anything to do with the real world. But then I grew up.” He took a step closer to her, closing the distance between them. “And now I want to grow with you.”

“You mean it?”

“I do.”

“For keeps?”

“For keeps.”

“My parents will never believe this. I can’t believe this.” He laughed; she laughed, too, with tears still gently streaming down her blushed cheeks. They kissed.

“So don’t tell them,” Theo said. “Let’s do this, and make it just ours. In a year or so, we can have a ceremony, so that it can belong to everyone else too.” He could barely hear himself think.

She threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Theo. Thank you.”

She kept her arms there for some time. “I’ve always. . . I never stopped. . .” she attempted, not quite completing the thought.

“I know,” he said. “Neither did I. It just took me this long to figure it out.”

Hand in besparkled hand, they found Gabe, and took a long, steady walk through the park back home.