Letting Go

We picked our way carefully over small rocks, between patches of prickly pear cactus and creosote bushes, and around piles of desert brush.  The sun was long gone, the sky deep indigo, but a strip of purple-magenta on the western horizon still glowed, gradually fading into night.

I rubbed a leaf of the creosote branch Garth had picked for me between my fingers, then held it to my nose and slowly inhaled.  Oh, how I loved that smell!  The first time we were on the desert Garth picked a small twig for me, telling me to smell.

"Rain!" I exclaimed in wonder, as I breathed in the dusty fragrance.  All my life I had loved that odor, the first hint that rain was beginning to fall somewhere out on the desert, but I hadn't known it was the smell of the creosote bush. 

For the rest of my life I knew that fragrance would remind me of Garth.  That, and the perfume of the butter colored narcissus he had pulled up for me the day we visited his family's cabin in Arivipa.

"Be careful," Garth cautioned when we reached our destination in the middle of the desert.  It was a mound of tall, black rocks, standing alone on the desert floor.  From the road it had looked like a fairy castle, standing alone out on the middle of the desert, and I had been intrigued.  Up close it was just a jumble of huge boulders, standing ten feet tall, perhaps ten feet wide, and at least twenty feet long.

Garth helped me climb the rocks, finding a level spot on top where we could sit and watch the stars come out.  The spring sun had soaked into them, and they felt good as the evening air cooled around us.

"It's beautiful," I breathed quietly.

"Yes it is," Garth agreed, wrapping his arms around me as I settled back into his chest.  "And peaceful."

It was, and I was glad for that.  It seemed over the past two months that peace was a commodity in short supply for us.  And one that we really needed.

We sat on our boulder, watching the stars blink into existence high above us, until the sky became a piece of inky black velvet, displaying millions of sparkling diamonds overhead.  Finally Garth took a deep breath and said, "I love you, Gale.  You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," I whispered saddly.  I knew he loved me, and it still surprised the heck out of me that he did.  It was at once the most amazing and the most devastating thing, because to love meant you were vulnerable to be hurt.

"I love you too, more than you'll ever know.  So I'm going to have to let you go, aren't I?"

"I'm sorry," he whispered into my hair.  "I never, ever meant this to happen.  You are the most amazing woman I've ever known, and I was sure we were going to have eternity.  But now...."

"It's OK," I assured him hopelessly, "I understand.  You've got to give your family a chance.  You have to put your children first, that's the way it should be, the only way it can be.  You wouldn't be the man you are if they didn't come first.  I know that, and I don't want you to change.  I understand."

Garth squeezed my shoulders tighter, and we sat for a few more minutes in silence.

"I really don't think it is going to last," he finally told me, taking a deep breath before going on.  "My ex-wife has changed her mind so many times.  She's promised to be faithful over and over again, but it's not really in her make-up.  I don't expect this time to be any different.  I know I can't ask you to wait, but someday, if I come back, will you still give me a chance?"

"Of course," I cried softly, turning my face to bury it into his shoulder.  He held me tight for a long time, until my silent sobs wore themselves out, then he kissed me sweetly.  "It's OK, Gale.  It's going to be OK."

I knew it wasn't.  This was goodby, and it hurt like the dickens.  "Why did I ever have to fall in love with him?" I wondered helplessly, hating the pain that filled my heart all my waking hours. "Why did I ever have to meet this wonderful man who was better than any person I had ever known, who had reawakened dreams of living happily ever after, dreams I had shut away so tightly when I was married to Sheldon that I had forgotten all about them?  Now I had to shut them away all over again.

"I'll never forgot you," Garth whispered softly into my ear as my shoulders stopped shaking and he knew I was done crying.  "I thank God every day that he led me to you.  You have been my salvation, my savior, and I love you so much."

I nodded my head helplessly into his shoulder, unable for a moment to respond.  The moon had risen in the east, and Garth turned me now to face it.

"Look at that," he said tenderly.  "Isn't it beautiful?"

It was, full and white and glowing like a torch above the eastern mountains.  "I'll never see a full moon again without thinking about you," he promised, and I knew the same would hold true for me.  "Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, the Friday night closest to the full moon I'll be remembering you."

"And I, you," I whispered into the still night air.  "And I, you."