The Parting

She was going to leave him. There was a joyous excitement within her tinged with a little fear. She did not really know how it would enfold, she was really not afraid of him making a scene or passionately remonstrating. After all he was always in total control. That was what had appealed to her for a fleeting time in the very beginning.

But now she felt it was almost inhuman. Everything he did was so well thought out, so by the book, She could not complain about him missing an anniversary or not making solicitous calls to her old parents. He guided her through her nascent career, he helped her brother through his college. He actually had a hand in helping everyone he came across. He did it quietly, unemotionally and never went overboard with the assistance he provided. A nudge, a word, a little help and he changed the person’s world. He arranged magnificent charity drives, was an active member in the local council, contributed to school activities. To her it seemed he did everything looking at the return on investment, the bottom line. The tasks were always done with a cold irrefutable logic on the need of the hour.

During her self pitying phrase she had silently cried in desperation about living with a such a cold hearted person. Like his off handed dismissal of her offer to help in his business. Like the time when she had that operation. She remembered him taking her to the hospital, picking up the prescriptions, arranging for the nurse and then leaving on the business trip because as he said – he was not a doctor. That there is a certain required healing time which he could not help with anyway. And that in any case the nurse was there and the best thing to do in an emergency would be to call for an ambulance to go the hospital. That cold unrelenting logic and looking at everything through the prism of reason drove her to distraction. She had been bought up on passion and soft words and although she understood the practicality of the way he lived, the cause and effect mentality, she detested and hated it with all her heart.

She then met J. He was talented but oh so awkward, witty with the tendency every so often to put his foot in his mouth, immensely charismatic but very self conscious. He was cute and boyishly good looking without really knowing how attractive he was. He laughed aloud at jokes he liked and grimaced equally loudly at something or someone he did not like. He had a way of shyly entering a room and standing quietly in a corner, and then in a couple of hours you would see him on top of the table belting out songs to loud appreciative screams. He touched everyone lives without knowing he did so. He lived on the moment. Sometime he would lose all sense of time, for instance the time he made her wait for hours because he got into a passionate debate with a complete stranger about the local animal shelter. J was her sun, her moon and her stars. She did not think she existed before she met him, his raw passion for life thrilled her very core. He really gave her everything she wanted from life.

He relentlessly argued with her to let go on a marriage gone sour and move in with her. She always agreed but never seemed to find the will to do it, till today. Today she would let her husband know that she could not live with him any longer, she would not ask for any money, just the suitcase she had packed early in the morning. She was meeting him for lunch, one of the short lunch they had every Wednesday where he always choose and ordered what he thought she should have. As she reached the restaurant she realized that very unlike him he was late, she slid into their usual booth and ordered a strong hot coffee, she was sure she would need that warmth as she got his cold, logical response to her decision.

He walked in, and although dressed impeccably as always, somehow looked a little disheveled. He ordered ,again surprisingly unlike him, a glass of scotch. He looked at her almost wonderingly for a few seconds, before quietly saying “Is six months more too much to ask?”.

She looked at him with a shock as she realized he knew! She thought bitterly about the private detectives he had probably hired to follow her around. She desperately tried not to scream and asked him back very quietly “How long have you known”?

He looked at her with surprise and replied with a faint smile “I would have thought you of all person would show a little more emotion, anyway I found out this morning”.

She noticed a faint tremor at the corner of his lips and wondered if the implacable soul could actually feel? She asked back a little more heatedly “Who told you”?

He replied gently “the doctor of course, he said I have two months at the most three, the cancer is too far advanced for any treatment, I would have loved 6 months to arrange my affairs but…..”

Her mind went blank as she heard him carry on “ I especially worry about you, I tried to avoid bothering you with mundane stuff. See I did not ever want you to change, you were ... are so perfect. My love for you was the only joyful thing I had in my life”.

His voiced dropped to a hoarse whisper as he continued “Hopefully I can explain everything to you before I’m gone. It’s just my hope you would continue living life as I wanted too but never could, live it to the fullest, maybe even find someone who could give you back as much as you have given me, give you back everything you ever wanted from life”.