She was in the living room, watching The Sopranos. I felt uneasy, jittery, and I wanted to do something else, but knew this was what she wanted at that time. I got up and paced a little. I walked past the laptop and realized I could do something to cheer her up and help her.
She had been trying to build up her business and she was working from home. She moved recently and never got new business cards. I decided to take the initiative and get some business cards made for her from a place I knew that did it online for a decent price. I used an old card she had laying around as a template and built her a card from the ground up. I used a good picture of her I took recently and updated her info on the card.
I waited until the episode she was watching was over and then I called her into the office to look at the laptop. She came over, asked what it was. I explained to her that it was her new business card. That she had been saying she needed new ones. She asked how much they were and I told her price wasn't important, because I was going to have them made for her. That it was my gift to her in the name of helping her continue to build her business up.
She looked at the screen some more, asked to change one of the colors; I did this with a click. Then she stared at the screen for a minute or two. I watched as the expression on her face changed. Tears welt up in her eyes and she asked me why I did this. I told her because she was important to me and I wanted to help. She became more upset and got up and hugged me, saying that I was too good to her and thanked me. I felt so good to make her so happy that she cried. It wasn't until later on, a couple of weeks later that I understood why she got so upset.
She wasn't crying because she was happy. She was crying with guilt. I was good to her, and did a nice thing. Meanwhile, when I was not around she had been lying to me about who she was with, what she was doing and where she was going. She was using cocaine. She was cheating on me with a person she claimed was a good friend. She was breaking my heart. To see proof that I didn't deserve this; that the guy she was taking advantage of and deceiving was actually still really into her and being good to her, while she was not good to him. Well, the guilt overwhelmed her at that moment and she got emotional.
To realize this later on ruined that memory. I had thought I made her that happy, happy enough to cry. Instead, I made her realize her guilt.
22 November 2009
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1 comment:
A bitter, bitter truth. Sometimes the things we have to know we wish we didn't.
Beautifully written, as always. I love your little vignettes, these brief moments in time, in your memory.
Why is pain so much easier to remember?
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