Worlds Apart by Kelley Daniel

Author:Kelley, Daniel [Kelley, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 2013-02-14T23:00:00+00:00

Three: A Passing

There came a day when a teary-eyed Dahlia entered the park, a wholly crushed young woman of twenty, or perhaps twenty-one. She meandered the paths slowly and aimlessly – without energy, without the life that usually sparkled within her. She was wearing an ankle-length black dress, and as she headed toward me and sat on the edge of the courtyard at my base, I knew what she was going to say long before she said it.

She didn’t speak for several minutes. She did little but stare into the distance, across the courtyard and into the thick foliage behind which the bland shapes of brick buildings could be discerned.

And then she looked up at me. “My grandfather’s dead,” she stated quietly, with the tremulous voice of a lost little girl that she had never, ever been. She swallowed audibly. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I loved him so much.”

I had loved him too. But how could I tell her? How could I let her know?

“I have always thought of you as his friend,” she said through her tears, ignoring them as they stole down her cheeks and spilled onto her dress. “There was this day when he brought me here many years ago. He said something about how you might hear me. How you couldn’t answer, but…” She took a deep breath. “I’ve always hoped he was right.”

He was right! HE WAS RIGHT!! And he was my friend, he was! Ever since he came here as a wee little boy wearing a sailor suit!

“I don’t know if you can hear me or not, Langston Frolley,” Dahlia spoke, her gaze shifting away from my face to once again stare toward nothing, “but I want you to know I’m going to do something with my life. I’m not just going to stay here in Williver.” Her hand rose to swipe at her tears. “This is my home; I adore it! But I couldn’t be happy, staying in one place my whole life as my grandfather did. I’ve done as my parents asked: I’ve gone to college nearby, I’ve spent my summers working in town. And I’ve no regrets for that. None. But now that Grandfather’s gone, I realize that…” Dahlia had almost lost control, but grasped the reins again: “I realize that I loved him most of all. More than anything here. More than my parents, my friends, this town.”

And I love YOU most of all! I do, I DO!

“I’m going to do something with my life,” she repeated softly. And it was then that I wished I could cry myself, for the frustration cruelly tearing at me begged for an outlet, for release, for a valve by which it could dissipate!

But I couldn’t cry. I had to hold it all inside.

Dahlia remained below me for a while, for what seemed like hours but surely wasn’t. She snuffled a bit, but never broke down entirely. She flicked away the physical traces of her anguish, but never pulled out a tissue or a handkerchief with which to dry her tears.

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