A Breath Until Forever (23 page)

“Joshua, I can't. You know that I also have a son! He needs me as much as I need him. I can't just go abandon him for a man who is at fourteen years my junior. Fourteen years, Joshua! That is very selfish and immature of me. I can't just go and give up everything that I have worked so long and hard for all my life, including being a mother.”

“Please Meredith! I beg of you!” Joshua was growing ever increasingly desperate. He loved this woman dammit! He loved this woman with all of his heart!!!!

She felt powerless against his persuasion and she wanted to buckle, but she knew she had to be strong, not only for herself, but for her family who were waiting for her back home.

Meredith had to break it off. She had to express the words that needed to be said. “You have a spell over me. I wish I can break it, but it is so powerful and strong. When we make love, I feel electricity and I seem to feel that the universe moves through me and into you as we are one. I feel that when you are inside of me, that we are of one soul, one connection a pure network of unfathomable seas. But it just an illusion, Joshua. It's not real. Do you see? It’s not what happens to normal people, like us. It's something that we have been blessed with, yes, but can't have. It's one of those mirages. Smoky mirror. You know I’m sure you have seen them. So close but yet so far away. Tricks of the eye and the heart to believe that something so wonderful is there, but once you reach out to touch it it seems to disappear as quickly as it had appeared. We can't have it. We want it so desperately bad, but both know it's something that we can not accept. It's selfish. It's a gift that needs to be returned, so that the give can be given to someone else, to be used and played with But we no longer can have it . We need to give it back.”

“We made love the other night and you told me that you loved me more than any other man that you have ever loved. “ Joshua said.

“It's true.” Meredith said.

“If you love me so much, they why do you hate me so?” Joshua asked.

“I don't hate you Joshua, I love you enough, to let you go.”

“And what if I don’t want to go? What if I want to stay and be with you? Be your life, your lover, your friend. This ranch has no place for me anymore. My place now is with you. You are my heartland.”

“But I like the road. Each road opens up a new day for me. A new discovery about myself. A new discovery of who I could be.”

“Your art and your Jeep and your long dirty trips to places that aren't even on a map? That's how you want it to be? For the rest of your life? Don't you get lonely? Feel isolated form the world? Afraid? Scared to see that a man is here before you. A man who loves you so very much. More then your husband, this land. I can not hold you back from what you want to do, but I would kill for you, die for you, and I'm ready to love you with this big heart of mine, and at full speed. Don't you see what you have done to me? You have made me the man I have always wanted to be. I was never sure that I could be that man, but with your love, I grew up fast, and I have become someone I have always dreamed of becoming. A man who is capable to love. And it's because of you. Of you Meredith!!!” His words were convincing, but yet they didn't bring about the change in order to swing Meredith into agreeing with Joshua and his debate.

Meredith spoke. Something had to be said. And it had to be straight up and strong. “I have responsibilities. Things I need to do, Joshua. Things I need to take care of. My family needs me. My history, my commitment with them. Not some guy I've fallen head over heels in love with. Love isn't going to raise my son and love isn't going to pay the bills. If you took me and put me over your shoulders, I would scream, carry and fuss but wanting you to win the fight. But I know out of respect that you are going to let me make my own decision. I have an accountability. I don’t know if it's my age showing or what but I need to own up to my duty as a mom and wife. Sure there is no glamor there. No laughter, only tears. No cappuccinos at fancy cafes up in Raleigh, no candlelight lovemaking when thunderstorms have done away with the electricity. I am very much aware of this. I am aware of what my future holds, and it lacks any happiness for me. But I need to put my own selfishness to the side, so I can make the people in my life happy. For them to live a life that I cannot live because of the past choices I have made. Just with me leaving on these long trips, takes away even that sometimes, and each time I do, I feel like I need to make it up again in some possible way. My life seems more like a chore, then an adventure and it's hard for me to admit that I have to go on living such a lie, but it's life. The real world for me. The world in which we have avoided for so long.”

Joshua needed to interfere with a different tactic, and he needed to do it now, and here, or he just may lose her forever. “Don't you want this?” Joshua got up and held Meredith tight. Squeezed her hard and she felt the strength of his arms and the pressure of his love show her just how strong he felt about her. It was powerful, and amazing and she felt a surge of electricity rush through her body filling her with an influential sense of tenderness. She instantly felt weak, and helpless. He took her breath away. It was hard to say no, to a man who loved her so very much. Damn Joshua! Why couldn't he just let her go? Why was he making it harder then it should be?

“I do, but Joshua please!” She pushed him away. He was almost dumbfounded by her response. “Please, don't. Please don't do this to me. Don't put me in a place where I feel so lost and confused. Don’t make this harder then what it already is.”

She had to convince him  more. Convince him that being together was wrong, for all the right reasons.

“Do you want to live the rest of our lives knowing people are laughing at us? Our age?” She debated. “There is 14 years in between us. You don't think people stare at us now? Watch us when we are out? We are a spectacle. A freak show. Do you really want to live the rest of our lives with people giggling and laughing behind our backs? And you know what happened with John Jacobson. He ran off with his stepdaughter. She was 20 years his senior. I know it's a lot more then us, but really, his wife was devastated. She was so heartbroken that she had a heart attack and died one year from the time he left her and their three kids. Penniless, broke and without a place to no longer come home. I don’t want to leave Daniel and Benjamin like that. I just couldn't do that. I couldn't bear live with myself. I wouldn't want my family to suffer like that with the Jacobson's. What sadness You know Benjamin would hate me so much that he would make sure that I would never see Daniel ever again. He would do everything in his power to see that I would never get to see him. He's revengeful He has it in him. I know him. I now how he works. He can be a a very evil man when he wants to be. I know he isn't in love with me anymore, but he loves to know that he loves me as a wife, and tries to see fit how I should play that role as a wife and a mother. Is it fair? Absolutely not. But life isn't fair Joshua. Life isn't fair at all. And I need to live in that world in which I created, when I was a young woman, naive and not knowing much in the world, and wanting that sense of security in my life but not knowing the sacrifices and consequences that I would have to make to live that kind of life. I wouldn't want to have you suffer the consequences of the mess that I have made. I just can't do that to you. That's wrong, and selfish in so many different kinds of ways.

“I probably don't sound like it, but love you a lot. I love you too much. I love you more then love itself. It goes higher, then love. And it's very hard to have to tell you these things. I don’t even like listening to myself even having to tell you. I wish this wasn't real, that I can just go with you, tear myself away form the life I have created back out in Seattle and to break free from the captivity of what I have made and become. But I am held back by my guilt. My shame. Don't make me want to choose. Don't put me in that place, Joshua a position to have to underestimate or guess myself. I don’t want to have to do that. I cannot deal with that right now. I just wish you could understand all the responsibilities that that I have. I cannot fight these feelings I have for you. And you know that  don't force me to be someone that I wasn't meant to be, and that is to be with someone I love.”

“Meredith, I can't believe that I am hearing you say this.” Were Joshua's heartfelt words.

“Believe it Joshua. I can not love a younger man. I allowed myself to do that already but I will not permit myself to love more and over through years of time. Already even those short months, it has affected my emotions and my heart can not take it anymore.”

“But I can't go on thinking the thought that I may never see you again.” Joshua said. “I will die!”

“Neither can I but please, don't make me have to give up all that I have lived my life to live. All those responsibilities. If I leave now, perhaps, there won't be any regret or shame in what I have done but if I let it continue, then the shame will eat me up alive and I will become someone in which I will hate and that will not do anyone, not even you any? If I left with you tonight, it will turn out bad. Both you and I know it, Joshua. I may lose my son, you could very well lose your ranch, and we both may lose each other.”

Meredith began to cry. Tears began to stream down her face. She had never felt so much hurt before, so much pain, not even when she had given birth to Daniel. But that had been a physical pain, and could be overcome with time. But this kind of pain was something deeper, more emotional, and she didn't know if this kind of pain was something that time could ever possibly erase.

“So please, Joshua, please. Don't make me give up everything that I have worked so hard for.” Meredith begged Joshua for her release. She was weak now, and surrendered to the moment. Joshua had all the power now. He was in control of all that was to be. “Please.”

Joshua grew silent. He knew what she was talking about, all the responsibilities and that the guilt of leaving her family behind would only destroy her in the end. And quite honestly it would destroy him too, knowing that he had played a big, vital integral part in it all. His heart ached. His soul ached more.

Deep inside, and within a realm within his broken spirit, he knew that she was right, but also knew it was something he didn't yet want to admit, and so he looked out of his window, looking out for all that was to see. The lonesome stretch of many acres of ranch he still had to plow and foster, and the muscled cattle that he still had to rustle up, gave him the realistic pinch that he, too, had responsibilities. 

The awakening of fall, made a fluster of old tendered leaves to rustle alongside the dirt road. Their crisping noises bellowed. He watched as the leaves tangled in the wind, stirring up scratches against the dry earth. He struggled with himself to not want to shout at her some more, to persuade her not to leave him and go, but he understood what she was saying and so, he let everything go. He allowed her feelings to overwhelmingly override anything he had felt so strong and deep inside of him, and let the moment fade into another one of those one in the lifetime chances in which you know you can change the future of your destiny, but willingly let it ride, with the hope that perhaps, the future knows better then you. But did it?

“Come here.” Joshua asked of her.

Joshua reached out to Meredith and took her into the comfort of his arms. He held her for a very long time, sometimes rocking her softly, when a cry could not be held back. He was her relief now, and Meredith thought briefly about what she was going to do without him. What was she going to do? Without that comfort that she has grown accustomed too, she would probably go back to smoking packs of cigarettes that were so bad for her and her health. Cigarettes made her feel at ease when she felt so very lost and out of control. They were her only savior in times of stress and worry. Joshua had been a temporary replacement for that, but no longer. He was going to be gone, and so cigarettes were going to be her comfort yet once again.

Meredith began to whimper, her cries stammering deep within her chest as her tears flowed strong and heavy. Joshua hushed her along. “Shhh ...shhhh...there... there.” He comforted, abating her tears, and she instantly thought how selfish it was that she was the older one of them, yet she was the one being comforted like a baby, when she was a mother, and should probably be comforting him instead, in return.

As he held her like the branches of a tree to a new baby sparrow he began to sing her favorite song and even though his voice was harsh and raspy and not the best she had ever heard, she thought it was very consoling and allowed herself to be reassured that everything was okay in the world very much like a lullaby when sung.

“I have to tell you something, before I really need to let you go.” Said Joshua. His voice was full of attention.

“This kind of love, only happens to someone once in a lifetime, if even then not at all. And I loved you with a deepness, that not even the outer corners of the universe can reach. And that you have showed me that the academy of this life is not all darkness and shadows, that there is light. I want you to remember that I will love you, always and forever, and I don’t care if you are back with your husband and your son, but know that even though you may not be with me, in the physical sense, you will always be with me in heart and spirit and that I have never left you nor will I ever leave you. You are the center to my universe and you have given me the confidence to believe that I am worthy of love. That even though I may not have a lot of riches or the smarts or even that I am deserving of something big and that I am capable of loving someone that I never thought in a million years would love me back.”