February 2008
Short Story of the Month
INTERSECTION
It was a very awkward moment for him, and although he
could not know how she felt about it, he assumed that this made her
uncomfortable as well. There they sat at the four way stop, he in his little
white car and she in her blue pickup just sort of staring at each other, as if
they knew this moment would come but could not believe that it actually had.
Renee made the first move. From the pickup she waved and
tried to look as casual as possible, not really smiling and trying her best to
look fully recovered from this man who had cheated her out of her marriage.
Since their divorce she had sunk deeply into depression, alcoholism and other
addictions that had finally culminated in a minor stroke and a year’s recovery.
On her own now, Renee was working in the shipping department of a large mail
order pharmacy. It was her first job ever. Through it all she had alienated or
been abandoned by almost everyone she knew and now here she was, back from the
dead and on her feet again.
She was on her way home from work and had come through
this four way stop twice a day for the past year without really noticing it.
Now she wasn’t sure if she should pull through or let James and his passenger
turn left in front of her. Doing so she would have to follow them and by going
through the intersection first she would be followed by them, so instead she
just sat there at the intersection smiling weakly and hoping the problem would
somehow resolve itself.
James was in no better shape. In fact he was even more
confused. He felt guilty. He felt remorseful. He felt ashamed. Since Renee had
found the courage to throw him out of the house for his philandering four years
earlier, he had pretty much moved on with his life. James had made a
half-hearted attempt to patch things up with his wife for about a year after he
moved out but in that year he found what he believed to be his independence.
Unfortunately, he had confused his utter lack of discipline for freedom and
when his wife did not come crawling back to him, despite her financial and
legal straits, he went off full bore into hedonism.
James moved into a nice apartment complex while Renee
moved into smaller and more squalid digs. He paid off his debts now that his
income was no longer split and eventually purchased a home and a new car. When
Renee disappeared after a year he didn’t even bother to look for her callously
believing that she was now abandoning him. He washed his hands of her and spent
the next 3 years in a series of relationships that included married women.
James was loose, but he wasn’t free.
After 3 years of carousing, he was corralled by an older
woman who held the promise of companionship in exchange for his caring for her.
It was a no brainer. Though they did not have much of a physical relationship,
she seemed to genuinely love him and that struck a chord in his heart. Katrina
was going to be the one who could give him purpose as Renee had and it was she
that was the passenger in his car that day.
“What are you waiting for?” Katrina asked impatiently.
She had the annoying habit of making everything sound like an order, something
James had not noticed until after he had married her. “Are you turning or not?”
James wondered how he came to find himself here. He and
Kat were on their way to the Home Depot to pick up some paint and other items
for the house. Usually they went to another Home Depot nearer to the house but
were on their way home from across town and decided that this store would not
take them too far out of their way. Now James was at the intersection of one of
his worst fears. He was face to face with his guilt and shame in the persona of
Renee and her beat up little used truck. Had he left a minute earlier or a
minute later he wouldn’t be in this predicament. Had he taken a different route
to get here or come on a different day he wouldn’t be feeling this pain. He
longed to be shopping at his regular store, casually strolling up and down
aisles familiar to him, joking with the cashiers that knew his name and never
asked him for his identification. If only he had done this one thing
differently, his life would still be perfect.
Renee considered turning right. It would solve the
problem. She could pretend to be going toward the food warehouse up the hill.
James certainly couldn’t know where she worked, or did he? Had someone been
putting her business out in the street? He had never tried to contact her. He
knew no one that worked with her. As far as he knew, she was out shopping for
groceries. Could he know that she couldn't possibly afford the $40.00 warehouse
membership fee?
In the four years since she threw him out, Renee had been
through a lot. Most of the choices she had made were wrong but she was certain
that one choice she had made was absolutely right. She had decided to live or
die on her own. Renee had never been on her own before. She had grown up with
money and had much given to her. Consequently, she had never had much
appreciation for anything. Any trouble she got into was quickly and quietly
rectified by her father's influence.
When she married James it was partially out of spite for
her parents wealth. He was a man that worked with his hands and was not bullied
by her father as all of her other boyfriends had been. Her father came to
respect James and James did his best to give her all of the things she wanted
without asking for help. Renee continued to live life as she had, asking for
and receiving most of what she asked for. When she wanted something that James
could not provide she would simply go to her father behind James’ back and ask
for the necessary capitol. When she threw James out she still had her father to
lean on and he had always come through.
Nearly a year after James had left home, Renee’s father
became ill. His money went to pay his enormous medical costs and he died having
spent nearly all that he had accumulated in a lifetime. Renee was now stuck
with the unpleasant task of trying to make a living on her own. Not so easy
considering that she had never actually had a job. It was this fact that
contributed heavily to her depression. Her inability to cope with even the
smallest of things created enough stress to finally interrupt the blood flow to
her brain and leave her with impaired speech for most of a year.
Now after battling back from almost total despair, she
had learned how to cope, learned how to work and learned how to take care of
herself. To turn right at the intersection now would be to take a giant step
backward, and so she sat at the intersection and waited for James to complete
his turn.
James became more ashamed by the minute. He deserved to
be. When Renee had thrown him out he wished every evil thing on her rather than
come to terms with his own weakness and poor choices. He had hoped she would
fail financially and physically. He had wanted her to curl up into a pathetic
little ball and die and, apparently she had nearly done just that.
When he heard of her problems he made no attempt to
search for her, he told no one and he said not one prayer for her. Despite all
of her trouble she had refused to quit, she had refused to die and at the same
time she had sacrificed herself to pay for his indiscretions. He was a worm and
felt every bit the part
Now he was stuck in this dilemma. The chickens had come
home to roost and he was at the psychological mercy of the woman in the beat up
little truck.
“Well, are we going to just sit here?’ Katrina repeated
again. The driver behind him honked his horn. “What’s wrong with you?!” Kat
brayed. Renee waved him ahead. James turned left into the intersection. He had
lost.