Some Day And Never: Danielle MoniqueGone
**This is the first of the new stories I completed for The Writers’ Studio Short Story: Genre course. It is a love story. I know, right?! Where the hell did that come from? I’ve written a love story, and my tutor thought I hit all of the requirements. Who knew?**
Friday 1 – Sunday 3 November
Autumn had finally reached Greenwood Park. Alex acknowledged the chill in the air with the slightest of shivers as she turned up the collar of her pea green woollen overcoat and tightened the black scarf around her neck. Once, the carpet of crimson and yellow leaves that spread out in every direction would have piqued her attention, but today, as had been the case for almost a year, Alex’s gaze glossed over the most obvious sign of autumn. She increased the volume of her AirPods and blasted “All Out Of Fight” into her brain in another attempt to feel something. Pink couldn’t help today, just as Adele had not helped yesterday. Nor the countless other love songs she’d listened to as she sat on the same park bench every evening after work since ‘D’ day.
‘D’ day: the day she’d started grieving Ethan’s decline and everything else in her life had come to an abrupt halt. She was losing him to younger onset dementia; at 46, everything that was Ethan was dwindling away. His muscular physique had lost tone and flexibility. His mental faculties dulled, and he became morose and withdrawn. His sense of humour, which she acutely missed, had not withered away over months; it had up and left almost immediately after the diagnosis. Her Ethan was gone, and she along with him.
As she removed the AirPods and dropped them into the right-hand pocket of her overcoat, movement to her left caught Alex’s eye. Head to toe in dress blacks, and without a dark hair out of place, he sat down and stretched his legs out in front. On the bench between them was a cardboard cup carrier which held two paper cups. He gestured to the one closest to her.
‘Sammi said you always go with an extra-large, full cream, no sugar latte.’
Alex didn’t know what caught her by surprise more: his melodic Irish accent or that Sammi had given out her coffee order. With crinkled brow, she suspiciously eyed the cup and then the stranger.
‘She wrote on the side that I’m not some creepy guy who picks up strange women on park benches in October,’ he said. ‘Careful, it’s hot,’ he added, offering a smile.
She lifted the cup and read the message Sammi, barista extraordinaire, had scrawled on the side in black permanent marker.
‘So,’ she muttered, ‘not some creepy, weird guy.’
‘Patrick Corr.’ He held out his right hand ready to accept and shake hers. She half-heartedly grasped and shook Patrick’s hand. The warmth of his touch reminded her of Ethan.
‘Alexandra Blake.’
Patrick’s smile widened. ‘I’ve seen you around here a bit, like every day.’
Suspicion reappeared in her expression.
‘I see you from my work. I promise I’m not a stalker.’ He quickly gestured at some location across the street behind them. Alex’s hackles started to tingle.
Lost in the extraordinary depth of his green eyes, Alex hadn’t noticed his voice trail off.
‘Your eyes,’ she whispered.
‘Yes, they’re green,’ Patrick replied. ‘I get that a lot. I’m the stereotypical Irishman with green eyes. And before you ask, no, not a leprechaun.’
‘Didn’t think you were,’ Alex mumbled.
‘Good, because I categorically do not believe in mythical beings.’
‘Good to know.’ She nodded, not yet breaking eye contact.
Patrick cautiously sipped his coffee.
‘You ever get the feeling you know someone, even though you’ve never met them before?’
‘Not until now,’ she answered.
‘I get it at least once a day. Why do you suppose that is?’
‘No idea.’ She paused, quickly contemplating the risks of opening up too much. ‘You’re very easy to talk to.’
‘I get that a lot too,’ he replied, a mischievous grin on his lips.
The ease, familiarity and safety she felt with Patrick were comforting. With a sudden jolt of recognition, Alex realised it wasn’t her hackles that had started to tingle; it was the gentle rush of a familiar feeling in the pit of her stomach. Butterflies. Until now, Ethan had been the only person to induce them.
The bitter cold of winter had finally forced Alex and Patrick to retreat to Sammi’s for their park dates. They sat knee to knee at a small table in the corner by the front window; their view of Greenwood Park obscured by the giant golden ‘Sammi’s’ window decal. Their tones were as hushed as winter had made the park.
‘You didn’t think that was important?’ Alex snapped.
‘It’s only part of who I am.’
‘You’re a bloody priest!’ Alex scanned the shop to see if anyone had registered their discussion. No one had.
‘It’s not that big of a deal, Lexi,’ Patrick muttered.
‘Not that big of a deal? Three months of me asking what you do, and you saying your job wasn’t a big deal. Then you drop on me that you’re a priest!’ Bewildered, Alex took a moment to process her thoughts. ‘Oh, God, I’ve lusted after you! I have feelings for you. I’ve told you things. We’ve…done things.’ Suddenly, the aromas of coffee and freshly fried cinnamon doughnuts were more nauseating than enticing to her.
Patrick reached for her hand across the table, but Alex withdrew her whole body from his touch.
‘I’m not a Catholic priest. I’m allowed to do things with women,’ he whispered. ‘As well you know.’
She scoffed, silently reviling him for lying, and wrapped her arms around her chest in a futile attempt to hide the body he’d explored far too much of already.
‘You’ve betrayed me,’ she snarled.
‘How?’
‘Lying by omission. And you told me you don’t believe in mythical creatures. Hello? God?’
‘I was referring to leprechauns! It’s not the same as believing in God,’ Patrick snapped back.
‘Do you think a real God would allow Ethan to suffer? Your God is a fiction created to control the masses.’
Patrick’s twisted expression of dismay told Alex her words were inflicting the damage she’d hoped they would.
Despite her venomous barbs, Patrick’s even temper and faith kept him calm.
‘God isn’t responsible for everything good or bad in this world, Alex. People are. Genetics are. Economics are. God is the faith that there’s something more than what we’re living. My God loves you. We have a difference of opinion, but it doesn’t change anything.’
She was too angry to be as gracefully accepting of an argument as Patrick. Livid and unable to contain the rage that had built up inside of her since Ethan’s diagnosis, Alex spat out words that she hoped would hurt Patrick the way his God had hurt her.
‘Let me tell you how fundamentally different our opinions are. Your beliefs change everything. God isn’t real. My pain is real. I loathe your God. And as his proxy, that extends to you.’
Navigating around the chair she shoved towards him, Patrick followed Alex as she stormed from Sammi’s. He snagged her coat sleeve in his fingers and pulled her back from the street.
‘We’re done,’ Alex snapped.
‘Alex, I love you,’ Patrick shouted.
‘Get in line behind God.’ She pulled herself free of his grasp and walked away without turning back.
Summer returned, and Greenwood Park once again attracted exercise fanatics, children and those seeking solace in its expanse. Patrick cautiously approached the familiar figure sitting on the park bench.
‘I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.’ He sat down, unsure if he was genuinely welcome. Alex turned her gaze to Patrick’s face. He sensed that something within her had changed.
‘I needed time.’ She smiled apologetically and took a beat. ‘Ethan died.’
Patrick nodded. ‘I heard. I’m sorry.’
Alex inhaled sharply. ‘No, I’m sorry. I treated you very badly.’
From the canvas tote at her feet, she pulled a folded piece of paper and held it out to Patrick.
‘Ethan wrote it before the dementia took too much of him.’
Patrick unfolded the note and Alex waited patiently as he read Ethan’s words.
‘Ironic,’ he snickered as he refolded the paper and handed it back.
‘Isn’t it?’ she replied. ‘Ethan never told me he believed in God. He prayed every day while he was lucid for a cure or a quick end. And for me to feel something other than angry.’
‘Do you? Feel something other than angry?’ he asked.
‘I feel ashamed of my behaviour the last time I saw you.’
‘Other than that, obviously.’
She smiled at the sarcasm in his voice. How very similar he was to Ethan, and how very different.
‘I’d been grieving for so long that I’d forgotten how to feel anything else. And then you came along.’ She smiled and searched his face for any indication that the feelings he’d revealed the last time they spoke were still the ones he harboured now.
‘My feelings haven’t changed.’ Patrick returned her smile, his emerald eyes touching her soul the way they had on the day they met.
Alex reached across and entwined her fingers in Patrick’s.
‘God, I prayed you’d say that,’ she laughed.
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DaniM