The Turning Point…
You know how sometimes two people can just be so perfect together that you can’t imagine how they wouldn’t be together? So entirely perfect, that it’s hard to figure out what’s holding you back? It’s like the heart doesn’t agree with the head.
Yes, I know what you mean.
When you liked me last winter, was it because you felt like we would be perfect together?
It was an inappropriate question, but I let it stand. I could feel the turmoil of his heart.
No. If anything, it was in spite of the fact that we weren’t perfectly matched. But for true love, if you’re truly in love with someone, all those reasons don’t matter. You just don’t care about them. Actually, you love the mismatches as much as the reasons.
He was silent a long while... Ok. But shouldn’t reason be involved in love?
Maybe it should, but not overly so. Reason can justify things that the heart knows are wrong.
Wrong how?
Jude, only you can say that.
I don’t want to ignore my head. If I ignore reason, then how do I know I’m behaving right?
Don’t ignore it, I’m not saying that. But more often than not, you’re putting the emphasis too much on one, and not enough on the other. So my question to you is, are you over- or under- concentrating on the head?
Another pause... Over. I can’t get out of my head.
When it comes to Abigail, what does your heart tell you?
This time, he didn’t skip a beat. We’re wrong for each other.
Poor Abigail. The night was deepening, and I retook his arm as we silently resumed our course around the pond.
I just don’t know why.
God’s why’s are far too infinite for us to understand them. It’s enough that you know the answer.
But I know one of the why’s.... It’s because I’m supposed to be with you.
My steps halted so abruptly that I jerked his arm, and threw him off balance. But I was an angry stone wall, shaking in the darkness, glowering upon him. Somehow, he met my gaze and did not break it.
I am not here to fulfill some empty hole in your heart! I am moving on. I thought that was what you wanted to talk about - moving on. But no - you just wanted to find another person to fill your heart. I’m not that person. I’m just- I’m not!
I fled to my room. I couldn’t keep looking at his eyes, or I would have broke. There was something in them that I had longed to see for so long; and to see it now, when he was so confused and broken... It was wrong! It was wrong. He could not know or mean what he said.
I don’t know why I let him in, an hour later, when he knocked. But I sat on the edge of the bed and stared him down. He leaned, self-possessed, against the desk, and gazed at the dark, reflective window.
Just try and say what you said before. Just try. You can’t make me believe you.
Thank you.
That caught me off guard. Now he looked at me.
Abigail is going home in the morning, and I think she understands. She said she would have married me, but... she was starting to think I wouldn’t marry her. I guess she wasn’t surprised.
I know I hurt you - and not just now, but for a long time - I know I’ve hurt you.
No. You didn’t love me. There’s nothing you could do about that. You treated me fairly. Maybe you weren’t as clear as I wanted you to be, but you treated me fairly.
Didn’t love you... but I did. Or, I don’t know… being around you has always felt very right, but it also made me very uncomfortable.
I was an uncomfortable person to be around. But after all this, you can’t just say you’re meant to be with me. You’re an empathetic person, Jude, and you’re just picking up on my desires. You think that if you make me happy, you’ll make yourself happy. It doesn’t work like that.
Actually, you are very uncomfortable right now. And I could have tried to make you happy a year ago by taking you out, but I didn’t. My point is, I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because I believe I am supposed to fight for you. We’re supposed to be together.
Arg! I don’t know why, but that phrase, right there, makes me so mad! Why do you say that? What do you mean by ‘supposed to be together?’ Make up your own mind! You’re just blaming everything on fate.
On God, actually - yes, I am. And you know what, it’s about time I gave him some credit. For my heart, for my life, for preparing a wife and home for me. For both of us. Aren’t you the one who’s always saying that God’s plans for us are better than our own?
Muted now.
Yes. But I didn’t think you were listening.
Right now, I am listening better than I ever have before. I just broke off the best relationship I’ve had in my life, and I should be devastated, but grace is just flowing through this room. Can’t you feel it? I know you feel it. I just don’t understand why you’re resisting.
That was too much. The floodgates opened, and I wept.
Because, I sobbed, because if I open my heart, then you’re in it. For good and real, this time. I can’t run away. I’ll be swallowed up, and what if you leave, and what if something happens. And you’re so certain right now, but I just hurt so much...
He took two steps, his arms out like a blanket that he wrapped tenderly about me, and held me close. For a long time, he let me cry and I let him hold me.
Then, as if the heavens opened, I realized he was holding me. And I was the only barrier preventing him from loving me the way he wanted to. And what a weak barrier I was, for he was doing it anyway. He was right. God’s grace was flowing so powerfully through the room that it was causing me to tremble.
At last, my voice was quiet and calm.
Pray, please. Lead us in prayer.
He took my hand and led me to the crucifix, where we knelt together, still holding hands, our heads bent toward God, and we prayed.
First, it was an Our Father, then a Hail Mary, but then, as though he had warmed up enough to get his bearings, he suddenly jumped up, cried Wait here, and ran out of the room.
Alone, I cried again. Quiet tears of fulfillment. And when he came back, he found my hand clutching the bottom of the cross, as if holding on for dear life. He came to me and opened a Bible he now held to Tobit, and with his strong voice (that voice I always loved to hear read aloud), he prayed,
Blessed are you, O God of our fathers,
and blessed be your holy and glorious name for ever.
Let the heavens and all your creatures bless you.
You made Adam and gave him Eve his wife
as a helper and support.
From them the race of mankind has sprung.
You said, “It is not good that man should be alone;
let us make a helper for him like himself.”
And now, O Lord, I am not taking this sister of mind because of lust, but with sincerity. Grant that I may find mercy, and may grow old together with her.
I looked at him now, eye to eye, and there was that look from before. That look I had wanted to see for so long, looking at me.
Sincerity?
With all my heart. Grant that I may find mercy, and we may grow old together. Please, Resa, grant it.
Call me Teresa. My full name, with your love.
Teresa. Teresa Illuminata.
There. You have named me, you have tamed me. I am yours.