Behind The Mirror

It is almost dawn and I am sitting in the upstairs parlour staring out at the fading dark. T is already asleep in the next room, it is very late, and so I am alone with my thoughts, thoughts as painful and chaotic as they will be for her when she wakes tonight. She will not want to press, not ask why I was so late getting in, why I did not get home before she slept. She will not ask but it will be there in her eyes, those dark expressive eyes that will reveal the pain she carries despite her best attempts to hide it.

And so I sit, thinking over the events of this evening, fighting off the oblivion of the sunrise just a few minutes longer, enough time so that I can try to make some sense of what happened and so that I am able tell T, to get through the painful parts and to the part where I promise her that all is well. Lavi….it is her I saw this night, her that refuses to back down, to leave my thoughts despite my insistence that there is no going back. Tonight’s meeting was difficult, angry, and strangely clarifying. I close my eyes to block out the dawn, and it is Lavi’s face that looms in my mind as she was tonight…

She was her usual cool, calm, and sarcastic self – the veneer she adopts when she is hurt or upset and wishes to hide it. After the opening snide ‘pleasanteries’, I said what I came to say: that I owed for all her help in getting T home. As usual, the mention of T brought with it the waves of anger I have come to expect. I decided it was time to speak frankly with her, we have avoided this issue for too long and I did my best to impress on her that there is no going back. I made it clear that I refuse to hurt T any more than she has been already. She wakes up every night expecting to see that Lavi and I have ridden off into the sunset together. And while I’d be lying if I said I didn’t still think about it sometimes, I can’t go there again.

This is where things took an odd turn. She seemed to misunderstand my intentions, somehow, and try as I might, I still cannot see where the misunderstanding came about. She said I needed to make up my mind or she would make the decision for me and looking back it sounds very much like a threat. I apologized, but I said I recall too vividly what it was like when she left. It was too painful and I cannot do that again. And Lavi being Lavi, she caught me with a good left hook.

Determined as I was to clear the air completely, I left her with these words that I record here. …There is a vast gulf between hope and desire, Lavi. There was a time I damn near drowned in that gulf before T pulled me out. No matter how badly we may desire something sometimes, it may not be good for us. Eventually, we accept it or go down. I do love you, and always will. But I am where I need to be and where I want to be. It’s better all around for all of us. I then made a hasty retreat in time to avoid getting hit by her paper weight.

What I said is true. I do love her, and I have for sixty years now, but it will never be what I have with T. Lavi I managed to walk away from, T I know it would be impossible for me to even try. And so, I sit here facing the dawn wondering how I will ever tell her this story, the story she needs so badly to hear to banish the doubts, without raising further suspicions. An unexpected face pops into my mind now….Terrence. He was the one real threat to an eternity with T. He worshipped her at a time I could not do so openly, or even willingly. How I envied and hated him then. But I know, deep down, just how T feels. Whatever it takes, I will do, that is my vow.

The sleep begins to overtake me now, and so I rise, making my way into the next room to sleep at her side, letting the dreams come…letting the fear fade with the coming day…