Tallis' Third Tune by Ellen L. Ekstrom

Author:Ellen L. Ekstrom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: death, love, life, family, relationship, marriage, true, reincarnation, spirituality, ghost
Publisher: ireadiwrite Publishing
Published: 2011-10-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Dennis tightened his grip on my hand as we walked towards the church, ignoring the whispers and stares of such luminaries as Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth the First, the composer of my favorite piece, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otis Redding, who was singing Here Comes the Sun.

“You have to do this,” Dennis whispered as we moved closer. Then he was gone and I was left to face Donovan, not Quinn, alone.

Once again the scenery changed, but rather than the creamy, rich strands of watercolor and oil paints, shards of brightly-colored glass fell around me like snowflakes and I was moving at a fast clip through Union Square. It was Friday night in that week before Christmas in 1977, and it was another disappointment.

I could hear Donovan’s feet on the pavement, his calls for me to stop. Off in the distance a Salvation Army band played “Good King Wenceslas,” and carolers were strolling in Dickensian costumes while they warbled “Silent Night.”

“Alice, please!”

“All you do is plead!” I shouted. “Why don’t you think before you act – or make up a more convincing lie!”

“Let me explain!” he begged, catching me up halfway through the square. We stared at each other for the longest, most uncomfortable time. I grew tired of waiting and snapped, “I’m here. Say what you have to say.”

“She’s a grad student, in my seminar. The class wanted to go for drinks to celebrate the end of the session.”

“It looked like you were celebrating pretty hard!”

“Look, I’m pretty drunk right now, not in my right mind.”

“Finally the truth! Bye, Donovan.”

I started down Stockton Street towards the BART station.

“But I’m sober enough to know I’ve hurt you, Alice!” he called. “Please – stay and listen!”

Spinning about, I stood upstream of pedestrians shoving their way past me to get to the nearest sale and waited.

“Please, sit down. Hear what I have to say,” he said and gestured towards a bench facing the southern end of the square and fronting Macy’s and Neiman Marcus. “I’m making a promise to you, Alice, here and now. I’m baring my soul to you. I can be a sonofabitch; I’m careless about others’ feelings.”

“Clearly! I see there really is truth in wine.”

“But I want to change. I do. All I can see is your loveliness and know that is what I want – your loveliness of person and soul. I love you. If you could see your way to forgive me, of loving me…”

“Could you say that while sober, Donovan? You see, it dawned on me last night at my brother’s that you need an awful lot of wine to say what you think and mean. I noticed that in Florence, too. I came from that – both parents. I don’t want that in my life anymore.”

“I’ll get help.”

“Would you?”

“For you, yes.”

“For yourself, Donovan. Would you?”

“Yes.”

I watched a couple cross the square hand in hand, laughing, their heads close. The man was hanging on to his sweetheart’s every word.

“Could you be like that?” I queried, nodding towards the couple.

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