You’re a damn fool, Caitlyn. You came this far to see a mysterious bench, I scolded myself.
“Well, I’m here now so I better check it out,” I said aloud and wiped away
the layer of snow covering the bench.
Inspecting it, I saw engraving in the stone. Tears filled my eyes. Kneeling down, I read the words of William Shakespeare that I knew well. I had written a
paper about Sonnet 116. It had always spoken to me. Softly, I began to read the
words aloud:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
A shadow fell over the bench and I stopped reading. Jack’s husky voice began to read the rest of the sonnet:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
“Why are you here, Jack?” I asked without looking at him.
“Caitlyn, you were not brought here to be saved, but you’re here for a reason. My mother loves you. You’ve been so wonderful for her…giving her the
ability to tell her story…to share her life. I appreciate the gift you have given her…have given me. I don’t think anyone else would understand her story like
you do.”
“Jack, why do you even care about me?” I demanded, finally facing him.
“Do you want to fuck me, right now and here, and move on?”
“You know that is not what I want. If that is all I wanted, I wouldn’t have stopped us that night in the car.”
“Right, the night I threw myself at you. I am damaged,” I screamed. “You don’t want someone like me. You don’t know what I have done. You don’t know
what he did –,” I collapsed with those words.
“You really don’t think you deserve to be loved, do you?” He wrapped his arms around me and stroked my hair. “Caitlyn, why wouldn’t I want you? Why
wouldn’t I care about you? Ever since that night we had dinner together, I’ve kicked myself daily for not telling you to stay with me. I’ve longed to be a part of your life, but I let you walk away. Determined to see you again, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let you go. I was going to show you what it was like to be loved – truly, deeply loved.”
I pulled away from him. “Jack, you don’t know the things I’ve done…what I
let happen.”
“I don’t care what you’ve done.”
“I’ve done horrible, unforgivable things.”
“I don’t believe that.” Jack reached out for me.
I shrunk away. “If you only knew the things I did. What I put myself through
to leave that marriage…I was too full of spite to just walk away. I had to destroy lives on the way out.”
“But, you left him. Caitlyn, I can’t pretend I know our future. I won’t lie to
