Emet by Maytee Aspuro Y Gonzalez

Author:Maytee Aspuro Y Gonzalez [Gonzalez, Maytee Aspuro Y]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hillside Press
Published: 2009-11-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 38

December 17, 2003 – Wednesday

Nicole sat on the bench in front of The Fields. She leaned her head back enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face. It was a clear day. The strong winter sunlight reflected off a fresh blanket of snow. The city streets were never more beautiful. The temperature was near freezing. To someone raised in Chicago, it was downright balmy. With winter Solstice approaching, darkness fell too quickly – more reason for Nicole to delight in the day.

By her choice, Thanksgiving had passed with little fanfare. She had made a point of seeing Jacob and Liza the day before. The Fields hosted its annual buffet under the management of the Three Musketeers, as Nicole purposely shunned all contact but two. She had made calls to Tess and Dion, and later to Yeva and Tasi.

Being with Beth had tempered her tendency to isolate herself from Thanksgiving through New Year’s. Without Beth, Nicole exercised her prerogative to decline all social invitations. In deference to Nicole, the Musketeers had pulled back on their decoration of The Fields. They maintained an elegant winter wonderland theme, excluding all specific references to the religious holidays.

There was not a day that she did not think of her former partner. On a day such as this day, reason gave her a merciful perspective, one that was kind to both of them. If Beth only understood that their conflict had been a travesty, one equally of Nicole’s making.

Nicole had erroneously believed that if Beth could have seen her clearly, without the taint of a grafted faith not her own, the unkind reception of the rest of the world would have been bearable. Nicole had unfairly placed Beth in the position of having to offset every harsh word, every negation, and denigration she had ever experienced and would ever experience.

How she missed Beth. How inevitable that Nicole would return to her lone plateau with the heavens beyond her reach. She knew Beth’s place was with the angels, but there were no heavenly angels to lift Nicole up. There never would be. She relied on the mortal angels who had answered her call: Jacob, Liza, and Tess.

Nicole accepted her complicity to the demise of their relationship. As much as she had demanded that Beth not try to change her, she had demanded that Beth change. Nicole had not asked Beth to step away from her faith, but she had expected Beth to stand against the power of her faith’s underlying tradition.

Under Nicole’s terms, the only way they could have survived would have been if Beth were struck with amnesia, and had forgotten the Church that had made her the woman she is. Nicole granted that if such amnesia had struck, Beth would have become someone other than the woman she loved – thus the travesty, the grotesque tragedy. It was now clear to Nicole that she’d never had a right to expect Beth to fight the Church.

Nicole’s gaze fell upon the Levi Law Office door. With the loss of Beth, she shared with Jacob, more than any other, moments of silence.

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