The Naming

To anyone who would ask, I'd have said you were someone I used to know. I might even say from where, but that is as far as it would go. That is the unwritten rule to the game, no one can ever know the truth. Even if it weren't in the rules, I would never speak the truth. There there is too much that could be lost if I did, for both of us.

But what is the truth? Some times now I wonder. I know that at one time you were a decadent guilty pleasure and my one great sin. You were an all consuming passion. If I had ever stepped back and took a deep breath, I'm not sure I'd have understood my own behaviour back then. I'm still not sure why I fell into that place to this day.

But I know this. I know that I only need one man for my bed. I chose my husband and I had deliberately left you behind years ago. I need to be faithful and dedicated to the one I chose. But I am now as you were then, at least I am in my head. It's hard to be faithful when your memory plants itself in between us in the night.

So far I can't make you go away. I've ached for you and wished I'd been the one you'd chosen instead of her...at least for a while. I lose myself inside something which is akin to a waking dream, a world of my own making, a place that does not exist. There in that place you are still with me and our stolen times live on. I don't know why it is so hard to make that place disappear and I still have to work to feel guilt for what we had even though it wasn't right or even smart.

When we lay together it felt heady, spiritual and deep. Passion took me places I've never been since I left you behind and places I'd never been before you came into my life. That was the stuff of dreams and notions romantic enough to keep a girl hanging around even when things were not good for her. But what was it really?

It was definately lust, and passion. I believe I even jumped off the cliff into infatuation though I seriously doubt that you followed me there. I felt the sensation of feeling as if I had known you forever, the feeling of needing to know you better, of wanting to bond with you beyond the melding of our bodies, of desiring things I knew I could never have and should have known not to want in the first place.

But infatuation is not love. Love sees the person for who they are and knows the soul of the beloved intimately. It works hard for the greatest good of the beloved and the relationship. It's selfless and protective. It's the future and committment and planning. It's dedicated to the point of hard work and the ability to overlook the times when the beloved is unlovable. It wipes the waste from the body of a disabled husband, carries the emotional load of a wife who is no longer in touch with herself. It stays awake for days at the bedside of the dying, works the fingers raw for the future. Only a fool would ask those things from a man who cannot give himself completely.

The sensual entanglement of our bodies was not love or anything close to it. I know your sense of humour and that you take apples to work. I know that you drink gin and tonic and worry about your health. I know what you taste like, how you feel and what you smell like. But what is that really? The hard truth is that I never really knew you at all. There were times when we talked that I felt like I knew you well and always had...but, it had to be an illusion, probably one that I created. I don't recall your favourite colour, your favourite food or the songs which make you remember your times at school. I don't know how you sleep or if you roll your toothpast tube. I don't know what it is to fight and cry with you or to work toward a goal with you.

So why am I still haunted by you? I know the use of the term haunted sounds strange but that is what it feels like. I feel you when you are not here as if you were a spectre. But it is not you as you are now, it is you as I thought I knew you then. What am I to do? I've tried all sorts of things. I've never had this happen with any man I've had relationships with before or since.

Perhaps, like it is said, ghosts haunt places and people with which they have unfinished business. Perhaps your memory haunts me because it knows I've not finished my business with you. Every other relationship I've ever had of any type there is always a definate ending, a parting of sorts. There is a fight, a packing of things and moving, a death...something. But there wasn't a time when I made a clear break from you.

It's ironic isn't it? I left to get away from you, or more specifically, to get away from the feelings I thought I was developing for you that were not good for me. But there was no goodbye. When I came back that last time, before I went to England, I should have said my goodbyes and made some final exit. But I didn't and now I can't.

How would I explain the phone number which would be on my phone bill if I called you? What would I say if I did? I can't even be sure if I did call you that it would be to make an end of it all. It could make things worse than they already are. I could never make a fool of myself that way.

I lay here on my bed rubbing my very pregnant belly and I've made a decision. I will name my son David. It's not something I will ever explain to anyone. I'm not even sure you'd understand why I'd choose to place the name I used to call you "just in case she was home" on a child I concieved with someone else. But I believe its the best thing I can do.

They say when you fall off of a bike or horse you must get back on again right away or you will always be tormented by bad memories and fears. The idea is that you will replace these bad memories with memories of safety and accomplishment if you get back on and ride again. You never forget of course, and you learn, but the sting is gone.

There has never been anything strong or compelling enough to stop my stomach from knotting and flipping every time someone says the name "David." Every time I see, read or hear the name I remember the way your voice sounded when you came on the phone.

But that will change when my son wears the name. There is no bond on earth, I believe, stronger than that of a mother and a child. A child is also a new beginning, what was before will never be the same again. Life changes forever with the sound of the baby's first breath. When I hear the name, I might remember you. But I will have learned something and the sting will be gone.