Fig Newtons and Loving
A child nearby is looking at me, pointing me out to his embarrassed mother. Perhaps I look threatening. The mother, wearing sandals and a patterned frock, leans into her child and pushes his arm down by his side.
I put my packages on the table. “café avec de la crème, s’il vous plaît,” I say to the young server.
My beard is scraggly, not trimmed in several days, a linen shirt just removed from a suitcase, and wearing sunglasses when there is no sun, only the lightness of small rain.
I’m sitting under an umbrella outside a small café, Shakespeare and Co. Across the way, the ruins of Notre Dame after the fire, clearly visible and emotionally distressing.
I feel hopeless. She will not come.
Things like this must happen to people all over the world.
But still, I wait. Hoping a taxi will pull up, the passenger door will open, she will swing her legs out, wearing her casual allbirds and three-quarter leg white pants.
I will not care what we do, anything would be fine, nothing is okay, too. It does not matter.
The woman sitting with the child finds what she wants in her purse, and leaves, turning the corner holding the child’s hand.
What if I don’t wait?
What if I get the next flight to Glasgow, rent a car and be home tomorrow?
I wait because I was thinking about her and want to see her. She will like that. She might say she’s happy to see me and put her arms around me. We can get next to the fire, eat Fig Newtons and just huddle.
Is any one of these things likely to happen, I ask myself.
If she does not come, I will walk through Paris and after a while, turn over my responsibilities for others to sort out. It’s not the drink that’s the problem. It’s the inability to accept responsibility to find out who I am instead of what I’m told I should be.
If freedom is still what I know it is, I haven’t felt its touch for a small forever. This is not a plea for help. I’ve used them all up. I know the only actions that will change what must be changed, will have to come from me, out of me — over coffee, the next hour, or whatever time it will take to find the courage to take me out of this loneliness.
I am head and heart tired.
Something inside me needs to kindle and burn again.
Love, can it ever reach a saturation point?
We were so happy. My heart and mind always full of her. No cloud of anger, no readiness to hit out, drink in, no heartaches or misunderstandings.
My impulse was always to lie about the smaller things, but I’ve forgotten how badly that works for me since she came to love me.
It was strange to be a part of her life, in a place where truth was held as sacred.
I promise if such a love happens again, I will let myself bleed to death before I tell a lie.
I left her a text:
I’m coming to Paris; I’ll be at the Shakespeare & Co Cafe at 11:00 a.m.
Please be there.
I’ll bring the Fig Newtons and new Allbirds.
Blue.
I look at my watch.
© Harry Hogg 2019
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