He
first came
to me
pale, thin,
hands and
face scrubbed
raw—
sleepless,
haunted, lost.
Much,
much worse
than I
had envisioned,
during long
sessions on
the phone.
It
was Sharona
who was able
to coax him
out into the
world,
where,
after a stop
at his wife’s
grave, he
came to
see me face
to face.
Before
me stood a
shadow, cast
by Trudy’s
light—
Trudy, who
was gone.
Sharona
said he
was better,
stronger than
when
she first
came to him,
yet
it took an
hour
for him to
let Sharona
leave, tears
in his eyes.
He’d
only stay
if
she would
wait in the
courtyard
where he could
see her.
Another
hour for
him to speak,
despite all
we
had shared
on the phone.
His
eyes never
left
Sharona. Slowly,
tear choked,
he began to
talk,
seeking
a way to
express a
grief so vast
it
had swallowed
him whole.
Trudy’s
love brought
him
life, was
balm for the
stray wounds
of his existence.
The
job had given
him purpose
before her
and
now that,
too, was lost.
It
is said that
time
heals all
wounds. True
for most—but
not for Adrian.
Not
for a man
with
a perfect
memory that
time does
not alter.
Most
don’t
understand
that his grief
now is as
sharp
as the day
she died.
He
spoke until
dark.
Behind glass
walls, Sharona
waited, his
beacon.
Return
promised,
they’d
left, her
arm about
him as
he bent with
despair.
I
never feared
for
his life.
Intent on
solving
the case,
he’d
survive.
Duty
holds him
to
this life
like gravity,
a
bond he will
not break.
I
worried then
as
I do now—about
his life
when the case
is solved.
Will
he learn to
live?
To cope, to
allow change
in
his world,
unafraid
of
displacing
his
own perfect
memory of
the perfect
woman?
Will
he learn he
can
hold her close
in his heart,
with
room for another?
Then,
as now, I
knew
my work would
be to help
him
find reason
to live,
a
reason beyond
justice, revenge,
closure—those
things which
drive him
now.
Time
won’t
heal him.
He
and I together
must do
the work,
the process
as
unique as
the
man himself.
I have faith
that
we will find
his way
back
to life, past
pain
to sometime
joy, a reason
to be Adrian.
..........for
Skye
