Sarah Smiles

 


A subtle quietness filled the air as she crossed the beach. The moon reflected brilliantly against the waters of the Gulf ... shimmering. The breeze brushed her fair skin lifting her auburn hair gently. Her dark brown eyes matched the piercing darkness of night surrounding her. She paused, feeling alone.

Lost in thought she felt rather than saw the wave that covered her feet. She wiggled her toes in the warm wet sand, enjoying the sensation.

Sarah turned to leave but instead dropped to the sand drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. She remained like this for minutes ... or perhaps hours. Here, time stood still. Her mind wandered back to a less complicated time, a time filled with promise, passion and love. Had it been five years?

She closed her eyes and remembered. Their first look. Their first touch. Her fingers reached up and traced the outline of her lips and remembered the fierceness of that first kiss. She remembered well how her hands had captured his face for that kiss. How she had run her fingers through his hair and brought his face closer for that kiss to deepen. How his arms around her had tightened as she leaned into his embrace.

Soon they were naked. Where their clothes went or how... she couldn't remember, it was all sensation, hearts pounding, hands reaching ... searching. Her body arched to every touch of his hands. He paused. Her body screamed for more, but he held her still with his eyes locked on hers...He wanted her lucid for what his body was asking, for what was next. His eyes begged for permission. To answer the question, his eyes were asking, Sarah brought his face down and kissed each eye slowly then left butterfly kisses along his cheeks as she claimed his lips in surrender.

"NO", defeating the purpose here. I need to be honest with myself. There is another to think about now not just me."

With a deep sigh, Sarah lay back on the sand, still warm from the hot July sun. Her eyes liquid with unshed tears as she lifted them to the starry moonlight night sky. Unknowingly playing with a strand of her long hair twisting it in her fingers. A habit since childhood when she was worried or in deep thought.

She closed her eyes and traveled back to the early days of their marriage. The wonder and love that shone in his eyes when he thought she was not looking. She smiled. Young and in love there was nothing they could not do. No obstacle they could not overcome.

They had moved from high school to college as one. Their friends and family lovingly referred to them as yin and yang. Their life stayed magical while in college. It wasn't until after that their life had spun out of control. Slowly at first then gathering speed like a locomotive with no brakes.

His fall from a scaffold at work, while supervising a construction crew had been the catalyst in the breakdown of their life together. The vertebrae in his back had been crushed. The pain even after rehab had left him dependent on drugs. When the prescription meds were not enough Sam had moved into the dark world of Heroin. His drug of choice.

The lies, the long absences and the missing valuables. Sarah felt so blind ... How could she not have known for so long? The question plagued her. Had she known sooner, would their life, their love have lasted.

Addiction pure and simple had consumed the man she had loved. The soft easy to laugh, got the world by the tail man she had fallen in love with had completely disappeared...in his place was this glassy-eyed, hard, don't touch me, easy to anger, ready to hit man he had become.

Shaking her head as if to dispel that memory Sarah told herself, "I have to be positive now. Plan a future." In the months and years ahead she would be called upon to make tough choices. She stilled herself for that now, in this place she loved so much. She relaxed. Consciously willing it to happen. From her head down through her body as the air left her lungs she felt her muscles give in.

She had been driving herself crazy with all these "what ifs". "What if" I hadn't been out of town ..."What if" I hadn't taken that promotion? Perhaps it had been her job as a Personal Assistant to the glamor magazine CEO she worked for which kept her out of town a lot which aided Sam's efforts in hiding his addiction so well.

"There I go again." she thought, but she gave into the memory.

She had come home unexpectedly that day. Sam thought her gone until the following week. The house was quiet as she entered. She sat her bag in the entryway and walked to the kitchen for a drink of water. As she reached to get herself a glass there was a noise upstairs. Frightened because no one should be home. Sam was scheduled for a swim class at this time.

She walked slowly back the way she came and peered up the stairs...there it was again. Faint but yes there was someone up there.

She moved up the stairs quietly and as she reached the landing she could hear muffled speech. TV? Or Sam home perhaps skipped his swim time? Moving to the door cautiously she peeked around the corner.

Her eyes growing bigger at what she was seeing. Sarah closed her eyes tightly and reopened, surely she was not seeing this.

There was Sam sitting in the middle of the bed with his back to her, a blonde woman facing him. She was possibly a beauty before the drugs took over her body, Sarah thought, taking in the black rings around her eyes and the dullness of her hair. Both, still unaware of her presence naked as they prepared to share a needle.

Rage unlike she had ever known filled Sarah. She spoke his name in the stillness of that rage. "SAM!"...his head swiveled toward her and the needle fell between him and his companion. He was off the bed coming towards her in seconds.

Her hands held up in front of her to signal him to stop...he did...She shook her head in disgust, clinched her fists and turned to walk away. Sam grabbed her,"Please stop baby. I am sorry. Talk to me!", he pleaded."It will never happen again I promise!'', she pulled away. Sarah wanted to hear none of it.

When he reached for her arm again she shrugged away from his touch. She said two words..."GET OUT!!" Sam froze.

Sarah returned to the kitchen and filled the glass she had gotten not with water but with Jack Daniels. Taking a big swallow, she sat it down with a loud bang, spilling part of it on the counter. She walked to the kitchen island and sat on a stool...Placing her head down on her arms she waited for the front door to close, signaling Sam and his little playmates departure. She didn't have to wait long.

With the door closing the dam of tears broke. Sarah made a guttural sound not unlike that of a wounded animal. A mixture of tears and anger, she sat there a stunned crying heartbroken woman.

She moved to the living room and laid her crushed spirit down on the couch and cried herself to sleep. Her life would never be the same.

Sarah knew Sam had loved her somewhere still, for the pain in her eyes had been his undoing. The proof knocked on her door in the early morning hours of the next day when she opened the door to a police chaplain. Sam had put a gun in his mouth and taken his own life that night.

Shaking her head Sarah knew she had to stop. With that she covered her eyes, letting her hands slide and rest across the bridge of her nose and mouth then bringing them together in the prayer position in front of her. On the warm sand that hot July night...Sarah looked towards the heavens, and said "Help me. Help me to move forward, help me not to hate, help me to forgive."

Gathering herself mentally, she rose from the sand picked up the bag she had brought with her, walked to the water's edge again. Reaching into the bag Sarah pulled the vase which held Sam's remains out, removed the lid and poured the ashes of her life into the gentle waves. Dropping the vase into the sand Sarah turned, placed her hand on her abdomen and walked away from the nightmare which had claimed her happiness.

Sarah's future would be different for sure, but her love for Sam and his love for her still evident, growing now inside her. It would live on in their child.

Sarah smiled.