The Thanksgiving Virgin
by
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John Sheridan settled into his chair at the large wrought iron table overlooking the cove, the spot where he and Sheila used to spend their evenings together talking and enjoying soft oldies playing in the background. They would read the paper together or just hold hands, soaking in the love of a secure life, talking about another trip to take or making improvements here or there. They would also solve problems together. She was his counsel, always offering new ideas, helping him find a way to make things fit. John and Sheila thought alike, thought together, and he loved that. She saw so many wonderful details, and their retreat house was usually shining with the beauty of her artistic touch, something he left to her alone, but appreciated. Sheila made a graceful difference, the void more evident with the coming spring where no flowers stood in the large half barrels at the corners of the sitting area. Her garden was full of leftover growth from last fall that needed tilling. It would have been done by now, and full blooms would be bursting all over, warming the inside and out. A season after her death, spring came with barren, chilly mornings, and the whole place seemed to pleadingly inquire of her whereabouts as if the house lost a partner as well. It was as he left it in November, absolutely silent, broken. He entered winter in the darkest time of his life, spending all of it back at the farm and working longer hours running the winery. But come spring, he was no better. He felt he had to come back, much as he dreaded catching himself in this moment sitting with only one chair by the table because he couldn’t look at hers. He envisioned what he would do the first time back out here. Now he just sat forward and stared at the rushing water, the Springfield Leader resting on the table in its wrapper. And he held her coffee cup and he began to helplessly cry. John thought about this moment all winter but spent months avoiding it, and he muddled through the moments for awhile until he actually got comfortable with the slight cleansing it brought him that morning. An hour passed. And he started to talk to her. “I’m back, as you can see,” he said softly, struggling with his tears. “I miss you badly.” He paused and let the steady current of Lake Taneycomo roll as he began to reach out for her. He felt her presence with him in their spot. “I need help this morning, hon. I’m having trouble when I wake up. Having a dream about us last night and waking up without you just cuts too deep to fight it off … then when it’s time to go to bed it hits me hard again. Tears me up. I walk through the house, and it’s gotten pretty stale. I hope you can’t see it. I try to distract myself with more work but sometimes I feel like I can’t hang on, and I feel just … scared … alone, I guess. Help me, honey. Please help me.” He couldn’t stop crying, his strong body shaking, so he just let it happen. He felt very close to her again after those first excruciating minutes when his whole body resonated with his love for her, when his tears came, the desperate pain of her loss still squarely in front of him now months on. He stopped trying to hide from himself and felt ashamed for avoiding it. And he quietly continued their talk. “We had a nice harvest and I think we just bottled some of the best vintage we could have ever expected. The other years were good, but this one will prove better. As always, you were right.” He buried his head in his hands now, sobbing in his chair at her table, pouring himself out from deep within as never before while the spring flow swallowed it downstream in an instant. There was no music now. Nothing filled the empty space as a gray pall had settled over the bend in view of Johnson Bluff. Selling the place crossed his mind. Their 28-foot cruiser sat idly by, ready for their next journey through the winding lake or down to Branson on Tablerock. Her cosmetics were still in their rightful place inside the cabin below deck. He only used the runabout now sitting beside it. “I’m a little ashamed of how the garden looks here without you, but that’s how it goes. It’s gonna be different now, and I hope you’ll forgive me. And I just hope you are safe and happy. And I am so sorry.” His conversations would resume every morning that week, and he would feel a bit better with each step. At times he would really feel her gentle spirit descending on him and making him feel all right. Then he would smile, embarrassed at showing himself his own weaknesses point blank. Some days were better than others. But he felt cleansed when he spoke with her at their special place, letting the calm water soothe his memories of that day she passed last autumn. “I’m a grown man and I know I should pull it together,” he said to her one morning, hunched over in his chair. “But we never had our last talk. Never got the chance to say goodbye. Loving you was the most important thing in my world, and I can’t let you go. But I can’t get a hold on the hurt. I can’t find my feet, and I’m worried about that.” He needed to get it out sometimes, and always by himself. But he felt somehow one with her during these times, entranced. “I’m sorry for crying like this,” he said the next morning. “But I think I just need your help for awhile. Let me lean on you some, and please feel that I loved you like no other man could ever love a woman. And I thank you for your love in return.” On Saturday morning he got up and made coffee, strolled out front to get the paper and retreated again to their table. He had spoken with her every day that week but never had he so unabashedly relinquished his composure as he did that first morning. He was heading back up county today, and he wouldn’t return until Wednesday night again, possibly with a realtor. The week was over, and he had walked through the fire down there as he imagined he would. He had finally leveled with himself, faced his fears and began to process the desperate loss of his only true love. His feelings had surfaced many times and he was proud that he had them in abundance for her. He balanced it with trying to heal and move forward, but decided to take small steps. She was right by his side during those mornings letting him know not to rush it. He sat and absorbed the notion of taking time to do things right, including restoring his faith in things. He thought about her patience shown many times in nurturing a new vintage, building something of true quality. John lingered over the thought, spending a few more minutes in his chair looking at a picture of her he kept with him always. And sitting in the stillness of the last morning, he said between his tears, “Goodbye, Hon, for now. Thank you, my heart.”
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About the Author
Charles Haas, a graduate of the University of Iowa, has been a business analyst for fifteen years and lives in Kansas City. This is his debut novel. The teachers at Iowa went above the call of duty to develop their students. I remember taking classes from MFA candidates from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop as an undergrad. I signed up for writing courses just to pad my schedule filled with science and business. What I found were expository and creative writing teachers who recognized a bit of talent in me and encouraged it, helped me mold it, and took me into more classes where I further developed a voice. Today, a number of those people are still involved in academia and some return each summer for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival in Iowa City. I benefited from their guidance and expertise in ways that are still playing out for me. And I remember their messages as well." One of their messages was for him to become a writer after college, which Charles immediately shied away from. "It was 1988, a recession had engulfed the economy, and I needed a job. So I went into business and told myself I would get around to that novel one day. It took fifteen years." It took just one year for him to get into business and technology consulting and he was off on a career spent as a project manager and analyst serving various corporations. "There are methodologies and disciplines closely followed in my regular line of work, but there are still innovative ways to think and to solve problems. Writing is a complete departure from my regular work where no methods need followed, and the occasion to free-form ideas is commonplace. There are right and left brain elements to both business analysis and writing a novel, and plenty of discipline needed for both, but they are different pursuits, each with their own sets of challenges. I enjoy that. Writing gets just as intense as anything else. I found that writing a novel takes hard work and a great deal of time. And there are days when you don’t want to do it." On method: "I wrote this book without knowing what was going to happen, no notes, no outline, and no plan. But a stream of thought filled me up every day and I found the story leading me after a short while. It was a fascinating experience, especially switching courses in the overall plot within multiple stories; having the book speak to me is the best way I can describe it. I’ve heard other writers describe it as sort of paranormal. They end up becoming a channel for the prose as if they had little to do with its origination or synthesis. I can say that I know that sort of strange feeling on a sustained level, because sometimes I would anticipate going into my writing room and wonder if anything would be there. But it nearly always was. Perhaps part of that was due to the fact that when I was finished with each session, I would forget about it and go do other things. I was very much disciplined and I recognize that part of it, I edited it myself as well, but the creativity sometimes came from nowhere. I do visualize quite a bit of the writing. I do think that’s necessary." Influences: "Many authors, contemporary American writers like Patrick Conroy, Irving, Salinger, the usual suspects. Rick Bragg is an example, Tom Wolfe. American writers are sort of like American composers, direct and unpolished at times, but sincere and present with description and sensitivity to human conditions. You listen to a Copland piece and hear the texture of it; you read Conroy or Bragg and see there is a southern resonance to their work just like there was with Faulkner and Twain, or a Grisham, a loyalty to the stories that lingered on the land. I can say there is a certain mystery to the Ozark culture that inspired my writing." Some people have gifts they are not afraid to share, and some have a bottomless well to offer. I’m not afraid. I’m inspired by many people I have been blessed to know.