“You can!” Connie said. “Just… fight it! Remember the good times we had… remember those times… when you were young and your daddy and I… lived in New Jersey and you were growing up… just remember the good times and think about them as you pull these… these things away from me.”
Michelle took a deep breath, suddenly realizing what she had to do but not wanting to do it. She stifled back a sob and stood over her mother, torn by her decision.
FOR THE FIRST time in three years Alan Perkins was alone with his ex-fiancé Susan Vickers.
He was feeling his resolve crumble.
Susan was crying.
“I’m so sorry, Alan!” Susan sobbed into her palms, her shoulders shaking, as Alan stood there in stunned shock. He still couldn’t get over the fact that she was here and that she seemed so different!
She wasn’t anything like the wooden, unemotional woman she’d been in the last year of their relationship. Back then Susan had lost all of the emotional characteristics he’d fallen in love with. All she’d been concerned about was work.
Now she was actually crying. She actually seemed emotionally affected at the sight of him.
“I didn’t mean to drive you away,” Susan said between sobs. “I just… wanted to get in a position with my career where I could be comfortable. You know… I wanted a stable position… one that… I could manage my time wisely and then… you know…” She wiped her eyes and looked at him. Alan was remembering the last five years of their relationship when she started to drift away emotionally, the time Corporate Financial started taking over. It was all coming back to him in quick images; the long nights alone in their townhouse, the weekends spent apart because she was always working, the vacations she started canceling because she had work to do, her inability to open up to him the way she used to when they’d first met. “I had to work like hell to make a reach for the brass ring because I knew that when I got it we could have a life together.” She looked at him, her blue eyes deep and penetrating. For the first time in years Alan thought he could see the woman he once knew before Susan was taken over by Corporate Financial. “Do you understand?”
Alan wanted to understand. He was fighting to keep his emotions down. Seeing her like this—emotional, crying, having her be the way she was before she drifted away from him—was affecting him profoundly. “Yeah,” he said, swallowing his tears down. “I do. But Susan—”
Susan stopped what he was going to say by pressing her index finger over his mouth. The feel of her skin on his lips sent a tingle of sensation down his spine and he felt his eyes pool with tears. “I know you understand,” she said. She drew closer to him and he could smell her perfume. Memories of their life together before she changed began to overwhelm him and he choked back a sob. “I know you remember the way things were before I put things on hold so I could work on my career. I thought you would understand. I know that you were working hard too and that—”
“I didn’t abandon you though!” Alan cried out, and now he couldn’t help it. He started crying. “I was always there for you! Always! I never put my job over our relationship!”
“I know,” Susan said, breaking down again. “And I’m so sorry. I really am, Alan. I never wanted this to happen.” She tried to embrace him but Alan pulled away. “Please Alan!” She pleaded. “Don’t pull away from me now!”
“Oh, so now you want me back!” Alan cried. Susan’s form was blurry through his tears. He wiped them away with his fingers. “Now that your career is at the place you want it, you think you can just come back to me and we can pick up where we left off.”
“I’d like to try,” Susan said. Alan couldn’t help but notice that she really had changed. She was no longer the unemotional corporate drone she’d turned into in the phase of their relationship. “I remember we talked about it before, when we first got together. How we wanted to get our careers started before we got settled into our relationship. Then we would get married… have a family. I… I know I was wrong to neglect you when I was working at getting to where I am now with my career, but… don’t I get another chance?”
Alan felt a pang of guilt worm through him as he struggled to hold his emotions in. They had talked about this early on in their relationship, how they realized they would have to put in extra effort in their chosen career paths so they could get to a comfortable position to enable them to turn their attention to their relationship and starting a family. They were young when they first got together—just out of graduate school. They still had six years to go before each of them turned thirty and Alan remembered they’d talked about getting married when they turned twenty-six. Of course that never happened, their careers had been more demanding than either of them had expected, so they pushed it back another year, and then when they decided to get married at the age of twenty-eight it never happened because by then Susan was totally ensnared by Corporate Financial and had become a completely different person. She had changed so drastically in such a short time span that Alan felt like he didn’t even know her. She no longer had an interest in getting married, in having kids; she’d even lost interest in her hobbies. She’d never been around to talk about it because she was always working, and whenever he’d tried to bring the subject up she dismissed it.
Or at least that’s how it seemed at the time. Seeing her here now, hearing what she was saying, was driving a spike of doubt into everything he had been led to believe in the past five years.
“Alan… please!” Susan was crying; tears streamed down her cheeks. She grasped Alan’s upper arms and he instinctively reached out to her. “Please forgive me!”
Alan couldn’t hold it in anymore. He was crying openly now. “Oh Susan!” he gasped, thinking, have I been suckered the whole time? Have I… have I lost my mind?
“I’m in that place now, Alan,” Susan said. She melted against him and another piece of his armor slipped away at the feel of her body melding against his. “For the first time in my life I feel ready. I want you.” She looked up at him and there was no doubt in Alan’s mind now that he was looking at the woman—the real Susan Vickers—that he’d fallen in love with. “I want you and I want to live the rest of my life with you. I want to start over. I want to grow old with you, have your child—”
Alan choked back a sob and held her, trying to stem the rising tide of emotions but unable to stop it. He just couldn’t believe this was happening. His Susan—his love—was back!
And then he let the barriers down and the tears rolled more freely down his face and he cried, the long-buried emotions finally coming to the surface as he held her tightly, not wanting to let go of her ever again.
“YOUR FATHER WANTS to see you,” Connie Dowling said, still struggling to break free of the tendrils that enveloped her body. “He’s… not far from here. When we… have these brief moments of… ourselves… you’re the first person we talk about.”
Michelle’s vision was blurry from her tears as she fought to keep the intense emotions she was feeling down. Her throat hurt. Memories of her childhood were rushing past her, making the hurt even more raw and painful.
“I know you remember,” Connie said. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Michelle watched and waited, wondering what to do. Connie seemed to be holding her breath. Her limbs trembled; a vein pulsed in her forehead. Michelle stifled back a cry. My God, what’s happening? Is she having a stroke? A heart attack?