LOST, BUT FOUND (EXCERPT)

Jessica turned to look at Anna. “What happened?”

“Excuse me?” Anna said startled. She had been staring at the other woman’s clothes and she had missed the question or something.

“I asked what happened. How come you’re in a wheel chair?”

Anna thought about it for a few moments. “Are you asking because you really want to know or you’re just trying to make polite conversation?”

Jessica’s mouth turned up at one side in a hint of a smile. “I’m sure a lot of people won’t think it’s polite actually. They would think I was being intrusive.”

Anna stared at her in silence for so long that Jessica wondered whether she was going to answer the question.

“I’m very sorry,” Anna said. “Please sit down.” She waited for the other woman to settle into the chair. “I was in my first year of college. I went out for drinks with some friends. It seems that we all had a few too many drinks. No one was sober enough to drive or to tell the person who drove not to drive. We all should have taken a taxi or something. On the way back to school, we had an accident. We hit another vehicle. There were five of us in the car that night. I was the only one who survived although I later found out that I was paralysed from the waist down.”

Jessica shivered. “I’m sorry.”

Anna shrugged. “I really don’t think about it that much anymore. I’ve accepted what happened. I don’t beat myself asking if the story would have been different if we hadn’t gone drinking that night. Or if only we had taken a taxi. You just hurt yourself more that way.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t offer you anything. What will you have? I’m sorry I don’t have any alcohol but there’s soda.”

Jessica shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”

Folding her hands in her lap to stop them from trembling, Anna looked at her. “Why are you here? I’m sure that you didn’t come just to ask about why I’m in a wheel chair.”

Jessica looked at her, her eyes narrowing. “If I remember correctly, you’re the one who came to me. You also didn’t object when I asked us to exchange numbers and addresses so that we could keep in touch.”

Anna was silent. The other woman was right.

“I came to ask you why you decided to come and introduce yourself,” Jessica said. “And I also came to find out if you were actually miserable and unhappy.”

Anna was taken aback. “Why?”

Jessica smiled but there was no mirth in her eyes. “Let’s just say that since I met you again a few weeks ago, I’ve been wondering what would have happened if I had done some things differently.”

“Meaning you’re comparing your life to mine and you think yours falls short somehow so you’ve come to see if I am, as you put it “actually miserable and unhappy”.”

The smile on Jessica’s face grew wider. “I see that you’re smart.”

“So, what conclusion have you come to?” Anna asked stiffly. So she had come here to compare their lives. Anna was sure that she held failed whatever test had been applied.

Jessica didn’t answer the question but instead turned her head to look around the room. There were a few pictures of Anna and her husband around the room. They were smiling and looked extremely happy in the pictures. There was also a couple of a baby.

“Where’s your child?” Jessica asked. “It it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy,” Anna answered. “He’s with Ben’s parents for the day. Ben and I wanted to catch up on some work.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s 2.”

“So why did you come to me?” Jessica asked again, turning her attention back to Anna. “You said quite a few nasty things to me the last time we spoke.”

“Let’s just say that we were friends once and when I saw you some part of me thought that maybe we could be friends again. Or something like that,” Anna added as she rubbed her eyes. “Let’s just say that I didn’t really think it through.”

Jessica considered the answer. “So you thought that once you came over and introduced yourself, I would fall on your neck in happiness and gratitude that you wanted to be my friend again?”

“I didn’t say that,” Anna said through gritted teeth. “Look, I’m sorry that I came over to you. I really don’t appreciate you coming here and making fun of me. I think maybe it’s time that you left.”

Jessica looked at her for a few moments. “I didn’t steal him from you,” she said softly.

“Excuse me?” Anna seemed to have trouble understanding things at the moment.

“I said that I didn’t steal him from you,” Jessica said, her voice stronger. “He didn’t want to go out with you.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” Anna said quickly. Even though it was all in the past, she was surprised to feel a twinge of hurt that someone she had liked had not like her back. If it was that way, she didn’t want Jessica dredging up old memories.

But Jessica couldn’t stop. The words she had wanted to say all those years ago were building up inside her and she needed to let them out.

“I didn’t even know that I liked him but we met that weekend when you went to your grandparents and we got talking.” The words were falling over themselves, seemingly in a hurry to leave her mouth before she forgot them. “That was when I knew that I liked him. He asked me to go out with him and I wanted to say no because I knew you liked him. But I also desperately wanted to say yes.”

Anna felt like pressing her fists to her ears so that she wouldn’t hear the words but she didn’t. Her hands stayed in her laps.

“I always wanted to tell you but I didn’t have the courage. I knew you would be angry. Peter wanted to tell you but I told him not to. I wanted to be the one to tell you but I just couldn’t summon enough courage to do it. Peter said that if I didn’t tell you, you would find out and that it would be worse. He was right.”

Anna wheeled herself toward the other woman and held one of her hands as she cut into the flow. “I understand Jessica. The thing was that it was Peter’s choice to make who he wanted to go out with but I didn’t want to understand. I was hurt. My pride was injured and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

Her words seemed to take the wind out of Jessica’s sails. She looked blankly at Anna as if she didn’t understand what she had said.

Anna continued. “I’m sorry that I was so mean to you. You gave me your friendship and I tossed it back into your face. It was terrible of me. Forgive me?”

Jessica pulled her hand out from Anna’s own and stood up. She went to the window of the apartment, staring out sightlessly at the scenery.

The silence in the room stretched out till Anna wished she would say something, anything to fill the silence.

“I think that’s why I came to you at the antique center. I was hoping that maybe we could start afresh, be friends again. To know that you had forgiven me. I know that God has forgiven me and that Jesus has taken all my sins away. But I would love to know that you too had forgiven me.”

Jessica turned from her position by the window. “What’s this? God has forgiven you? Jesus has taken away your sins? You’re beginning to sound like my parents with all their religious babble. Don’t tell me that you’re one of them now?” she asked as she gave a mirthless laugh.

Anna straightened her body as much as she could and held herself up with dignity. I don’t know what you mean by “one of them”, but if you’re asking if I’m a Christian, yes I am. I believe in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Bible. Everything.”

Jessica was shocked. For the first time she looked at Anna. It was then she noticed some of the things that were different about her. The extra piercings in her were not in use and the few tattoos she had were gone. Anna, a Christian?

It wasn’t as if she considered Anna the greatest sinner in the world or anything like that because she didn’t believe in those things. But if there was someone from her high school days who she would have said would be the last person to become a Christian, it would be Anna.

“So you believe in Jesus and all that nonsense now? And you probably want me to say that I’ve forgiven you so that you can feel better.”

Anna shrugged. “It’s not about me feeling better Jessica. I’m just sorry that I hurt you.”

“Why did you become a Christian? Was it after the accident?” Jessica asked. “Did you convert because you thought that a non-existent God was going to suddenly forgive your drunken mistake and miraculously “heal” your legs? Even when you know that you’re never going to walk again?”

Even as the words came out, Jessica knew that she had said too much. She watched as Anna’s face lost its color and became ashen. She wanted to apologise as soon as the words came out.

“That’s enough. I think you’ve said more than enough and I think you should leave.”

Jessica turned to see Ben Palmer who had walked into the room unnoticed. There were bags of groceries on the floor where he had evidently dropped them. Fruit rolled on the floor and a few found their way under the settee.

“I ...”

“I said that enough Mrs. Carver,” Ben Palmer said his face flushed and his voice high and angry. “I don’t know who you think you are coming here to insult and upset my wife but I think you should leave. Now.”

Jessica looked from Ben Palmer to his wife. Anna was crying, the tears rolling down her cheeks. Her chest was beginning to heave with the sobs wracking her body.

“I just ...”

“I don’t want to hear anything from you. I suggest you leave now before I physically throw you out.”

Jessica looked at his hands and saw that they were clenching and unclenching by his side. He looked angry enough to carry out his threat. It seemed that it might be wise to do as he said. She walked back to the chair she had sat on and picked up her bag from the table beside it. She walked past Ben Palmer on her way to the door and she could have sworn she felt the anger emanating from him. She opened the door and turned to look at Anna one last time. The other woman was sobbing openly now. She felt something painful in her chest. Then she walked through the door and closed it behind her.

Ben Palmer waited till he heard the door close behind the intruder, then he hurried to kneel beside his wife’s wheel chair and hold her as she cried.

JC Cruz is the author of DECEPTIO published by WestBowPress, a division of Thomas Nelson publishers.http://bookstore.westbowpress.com/Products/SKU000194087/Deceptio.aspx and LOST, BUT FOUND available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DPLLEUQ/.