Fiction

Sarah’s Recovery

Love was always there…

Even now when she glanced at an attractive man passing by on her way to work, Sarah was not certain if they enjoyed the hesitancy in her glance as they used to. The distant look on her face had now become a permanent feature and it had nothing to do with trying to play coy.

She simply could not change her mood — it sticks to me like the mounds of debris from Hurricane Sandy’s tidal waters clinging to trees and bushes throughout Bayshore for weeks, she thought.

The Hurricane had changed many people’s lives, but it was the uncertainty brought on by Richard — a man she had loved so thoroughly, but for such a short period of time — that always stayed with her. God, it seems like it was an eternity ago.

It had only been a year since. Though Sarah wanted to try to love once again, any man who so much as gave her the time of day only invoked Richard’s smile, and then the familiar pangs of unimaginable loss would come crashing through.

And it was that vagueness that drove her crazy — Sarah could not be sure if Richard had departed loving her with the same intensity she felt for him, or if he had just departed ….

Ridiculous! She felt the crisp autumn air caress her cheeks as a delivery-truck driver honked his horn at a cyclist who was weaving in and out of the morning rush-hour traffic. Everyone else seemed to be going on with their lives, but I am trapped! Not knowing with certainty that he had shared my commitment to our relationship does mean everything to me right now, I can’t help it!

Sarah had invested so much time, energy, and emotion into the love of her life at the time. And Richard had been the kind of guy who did not express his emotions so well. It was killing her slowly — any opportunity I might so much as feeling a stirring of attraction to another man only brings Richard back, and then my immediate shut-down.

No, she could not reciprocate positive regard from any man, although she wanted to. They deserved more than the hollow image of a woman that I can provide.

At her desk at work, she reminded herself again it was the right decision to have taken his photos down from her office and at home.

The Sunday after their end, he was to have taken her to Saint Anthony’s in downtown Manhattan — one of the oldest Catholic churches in the area.

Richard, a firefighter, had spent much of his time in the church fulfilling his duties as a lector and a singer with the choir. Quite often, he would go in just to sit and say prayers.

Having grown away from her faith in her late teens, Sarah had been missing being a part of a congregation; and with Richard’s persuasion, had been looking forward to the opportunity to be brought back into the church with its warm family environment.

She had even imagined they may wed there one day, with all of their friends and relatives filling the church pews.

Just before Hurricane Sandy, she had been certain that the day was coming wherein he would propose to her! Now, as she glanced at the invoice numbers and business addresses on the paperwork on her desk, she had to, once again, find the motivation to go on.

This meant fighting the desperate loneliness she had been feeling since Sandy, which would wash over her like a storm surge.

I will have to learn to live with fact that I will never be destined to know for certain if he wanted to take that next step. How do you live and move on with that kind of uncertainty?

With the storm approaching, Saint Anthony’s had closed, since it was in the storm’s direct path. During the height of the storm, he was called across the river to help out in Brooklyn.

He had called Sarah earlier that afternoon, before the worst of the storm had knocked out all power and telephone service, to make sure she was sheltering uptown at her friend’s townhouse.

Sarah had admonished him to be careful before they said goodbye.

In the early evening, the townhouse Sarah was staying in still had power, though it was out widely across the city.

She and her friend Lily sipped wine as they watched the news reports that had started coming in of Sandy’s catastrophic destruction.

Later in the evening, fear struck her heart when there was a story about a firefighter who had to dive underwater in order to rescue two children trapped in the basement of a coastal home.

The screen showed the children being wrapped with blankets by first responders, and Sarah searched desperately for Richard. The reporter noted that the children had been screaming for help just seconds before the water literally engulfed the entire seaside neighborhood of Bayshore.

The firefighter had been able to save the children, but he had not been able to get out in time and had lost his life in the effort.

Sarah shook in panic for two hours. She tried calling the firehouse, the TV station, and any of his companion firefighters that she could reach. They all were supportive, but in the end, had claimed that they did not yet know the identity of the fallen firefighter.

Sarah and Lily drank coffee all night. Sleep was out of the question. Then, at two-thirty in the morning, a visit from Richard’s friend from the department had confirmed her worst fear; it had been Richard who had perished saving the two children.

She had been wearing the covering of the veil ever since, and over the next few days, the game of questioning his degree of commitment to her never relinquished its power.

And she did not tell anybody what she was going through, because she was ashamed of her own reaction.

But, how can you go forward in the present when your whole world remained stuck in the past, and especially when the future only revolved around one thing: did he truly love me as I had believed, and would my life have been as happy and complete as I had always dreamed it could be if we had more time?

She had never given herself to the bondage of love as thoroughly as she had to Richard.

Am I only kidding myself, and had I been living with just a fantasy that he would actually want to spend the rest of his life with me?

In her life before having met Richard, she had always felt that she was not the kind of woman who would ever feel so complete in a relationship — never had, never would.

Her life had revolved around her job and a few friends, and that would have to be enough for her. But that had all changed when she met Richard at an outdoor cafe where she was having coffee with friends.

It was he who had brought her out of the mentality of despair, and into a world of glorious possibilities. I had just learned happiness for the first time, only to have Sandy rip it from me once and for all.

After work, Sarah found herself firmly planted on the subway seat as the train came to a stop at her station. She was about to get up when the thought came to her, why not stay on for a few more blocks?

As the train pulled away, she felt that something bigger was driving her, although she was not aware of what it could be.

After the next two stops, it occurred to her that Saint Anthony’s was the next stop. The church had been absolutely flooded during the storm, and it had taken months to restore.

I wonder if everything had been replaced or if most of the artifacts had been lost forever?

Why not walk there? she thought. Just to see it one more time. She doubted that anything that Richard had cherished still remained.

Surely all of the books, church records, monuments, and religious statues had been destroyed or washed away altogether. She felt chills running up and down her spine as she climbed the steps to the church’s entrance. How Richard had loved this place.

Upon entering, she was shocked to find that everything looked exactly as it had a week before the storm when she and Richard had gone to attend an evening service.

It was as if the church had never been harmed by Sandy, unlike the lives of so many! She saw the statues of Mother Mary and Saint Joseph, the Alter, and looked to where the parishioners’ book of petitions, the one that Richard had used so often, had been kept.

Could it be the same one as before? Would that even be possible?

On a wooden stand, there was a printed page that gave her a clue. She read it slowly:

“All Historical Records and most of the Church’s Treasured Pieces are here — they had been preserved uptown at Saint Patrick’s during the storm due to our detailed Emergency Planning with The Artists’ Restoration Society of Metropolitan New York.”

For a moment, she lost her breath. She walked around a bit in a daze. The Stations of the Cross, The crucifix, the stained glass — all the things he had treasured! She started to feel Richard’s presence again.

And then she came back to the book of petitions.

There it was — the very thick Prayers of the Faithful binding. Richard had often kidded with her that he would frequently write in this book of petitions to God that Sarah would return to the church.

And here I am! She smiled to herself. Then the important consideration suddenly overcame her curiosity entirely … it could not be that this was the same exact volume after all this time? It was a very thick book, perhaps it was?

She began to impatiently leaf back through the pages, and since the pages were dated and arranged chronologically, she became filled with excitement the closer she got to the date.

Yes — it must be the same volume! As she drew nearer to the day of Sandy’s unwanted arrival, she became immobilized with anxiety.

Finally, when she got to it, Sarah saw that no entries had been made from two days before the storm all the way through to just six months ago when the church had finally reopened.

She turned a few more pages back in time.

When she got to October 23, 2012, she recognized Richard’s handwriting immediately.

Again, she got chills. But, it had to be — only Richard would make his h’s look like a cat arching his back with his tail waving high.

He had started doing it to amuse Sarah because of her love for her cherished calico. She hesitated and looked away. I can’t read his prayers, it wouldn’t be right! On the other hand, if I don’t, I may never have the chance again and will always wonder what was here.

The thrill of something new from her beloved was too strong of a tonic.

Then the opportunity to have Richard back again, in any form, completely overtook Sarah.

Midway down the page, what caught her eye immediately was his cat’s tail at the end of her name on the third line of the petition. It was a large petition from Richard, and she started reading furiously from the beginning.

Tears burned down the corner of her eyes, but she stayed focused until she got to the part with her name and had to read it over again —

“That God, You would just allow Sarah to want to be with me for the rest of our lives together, just like I want to be with her, and that when I finally do propose to her next Friday night, that You would inspire her to say Yes, if it be Thy will!!!”

She cried in the pew next to the Book of Petitions, holding herself, for the next bit of eternity. She was thankful that everyone else in the church, including the priest who was getting ready for Mass, just let her be.

When, finally, she walked out into the crisp evening air, she suddenly felt that her spirit had been restored within her soul and that she had been given new life.

She looked up into the fading daylight and saw Richard’s smile glancing at her from behind one of the whimsical clouds within the orange sky.

She blew a kiss to him and then felt both relieved, yet saddened by all that they would miss doing together. But also, she knew now that she could begin to let go of him.

He had loved her as she had him. He had sent her a message from heaven on this day, which had begun as hopeless as the last 365 had.

Thank you, Richard! Thank you, God!

She felt so grateful that the church’s valuables had been saved from the destruction of Sandy. And that an organization such as a restoration society had planned and assisted churches to prepare ahead of time for the unknowable.

She decided she would donate tomorrow to their funds, and also to the church.

Walking down into the subway platform, she noticed a handsome man her own age walking towards her. As usual, she glanced at him as they were about to pass each other.

He gently nodded but was smiling at her as he passed by.

It was the first time she had seen any man smiling in her direction since the storm.

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