Back to Yesterday (23 page)

Dear Sophie,

I just met you and you know what I thought? Besides thinking you were beautiful?

I thought…finally.

Finally, I can breathe, because until I met you, I wasn’t breathing and I wasn’t living either. I was a walking shell of a man with no heartbeat in my chest.

When I met you my lungs expanded with your smiles and your laughs gave my heart rhythm. You brought me back to life.

And I thought…

Finally.

Dear Charlie,

Did I ever tell you what I thought when we first met? I was a mess – complete chaos.

And here you were…staring at me like you had been lost in a desert and I was a fountain of water. It was the briefest of moments, yet the feeling persisted. And with every glance thereafter, I felt pulled into your gravity, orbiting around you. Or maybe we orbited together, like moons and planets. All I know is that I was in a new universe and you were at the center of it.

Looking back on it now, I know this to be true: if I was chaos, then you were order. Because the minute I looked into your eyes my life started to fall into place.

I
knocked on the door and pulled my coat tighter around me. Trees, lawns, and bushes were all bathed in the snow that had fallen the night before and everything was bright white, almost blindingly so. Closing my eyes, I thought of the things I wanted to say but drew a blank. I had started to leave when the locks disengaged and the door opened. A woman who had looked like she’d seen better days stood before me. Her hazel eyes reminded me of a cloudy day.

“Yes?” she said.

Her brows lifted before looking over my shoulder. Charlie’s truck parked on the curb and me standing on her front porch. Recognition registered in her hazel eyes and then she smiled. “You must be Charles’ Sophie.”

“I – yes, ma’am. I wanted…” I picked up the package that rested against the porch railing. “I wanted to give this to you.”

She stepped aside, opening the door wider. “Won’t you come in? It’s freezing.”

I hugged the package against my chest. “All right. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all,” she said. I stepped inside. “Charles has told me so much about you.”

I followed her through her modest living room and into the kitchen where she pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. I’ll make us some tea.”

I sat down and set the package at my feet. “How did you know who I was?”

Filling the tea kettle with water, she looked over her left shoulder and smiled. “You are exactly how he described you to me. I could probably pick you out of a lineup.” She set the kettle on the stove. “And you’re driving the truck that my son gave to Charles.”

I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of that. My only defense was that my mind had been all over the place the past few days. “Right,” I said apologetically. I felt guilty for not visiting her sooner. I should have. “That’s actually why I’m here. I mean, Tank is why I’m here. He’s been on my mind…and I wanted to come see you.”

That was the absolute truth. I didn’t know Tank very well, but I loved who Charlie loved, and Charlie had loved his friend. My eyes were misting, however, I didn’t want to cry in front of Tank’s mom. I cleared my throat and handed her the package once she sat down next to me. “This is for you.”

She eyed me curiously before graciously accepting it. She began tearing off the brown paper wrapping. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She stared at it. Just stared. The seconds turned into minutes until her eyes started to shine, like life had been breathed back into her. She traced the lines of Tank’s face, the one I had painted of him to give to her. When the notion struck me to paint his portrait I had to recall his face from memory since I didn’t have a picture of him. I had chosen the day I’d met him in the park when he had held his hand out to mine and how he had retreated his hand when I couldn’t return the greeting. He was looking down, his mouth hooked into a smile, embarrassed, but oh so handsome.

I wanted to paint that moment because it was honest and he had an innocence about him that I knew his mother would appreciate.

“This says so much about him,” she said. “I’ve seen this expression so many times. Now I’ll always see it every time I look at this painting.” Then something changed in her. She sat up, back straight as a pencil, and she held her chin high as though a decision had been made. It was like watching one person dissolve and another person appearing in her place. She nodded to herself in a resolute manner.

I wanted to ask her about it, but decided this was her private moment and it wasn’t my place to question her. I remained still until she was ready to speak.

The woman who set the painting down was a different woman from the one who had picked it up. She looked at me, her hazel eyes clearer than before. The gray clouds had parted and a spark of happiness peeked through.

“Thank you so much, Sophie. You don’t know how much I needed to see his face. He never liked having his picture taken, so this…this is everything.”

I placed my hand on hers. “You’re welcome, Ms. Cassidy.”

“Please, call me Julia.”

I smiled. “You’re welcome, Julia.” I patted her hand. “I should get going.”

“If you don’t mind, could you stay a while longer? I think you’re as lonely as I am. Better to be lonely together, don’t you think?”

I stayed and visited with her for several hours. We drank tea and I learned that Charlie checked on her every day after Tank died, until the day he left. And according to her, he talked about me on a continuous loop.

When I got up to leave, she said, “Oh my goodness. Wait right here. I almost forgot.” She left the room and when she re-entered there was a letter in her hand, a smile on her lips, and a gleam in her eye. She kissed my cheek and placed the envelope in my hand.

“From Charlie,” she said.

“From Charlie,” I whispered.

In total, I had thirty letters before the end of that first week from various people Charlie had gotten to know in town and people he had worked with. Thirty letters that I would read and reread for years to come. Thirty letters that I keep with me to this day.