― Donna Tartt
Whenever I see Charlotte I'm challenged. She's a guide and mentor but also a disturber—she's not light duty and tells it like it is. I appreciate that, but sometimes I feel ignorance is bliss.
Take this 'time anomaly' Kath and I are caught up in—it's exhilarating in one sense since I finally get to meet the girl of my dreams, but it's by no means comforting.
I feel I'm a dangling man, trapped betwixt and between two parallel realities and wandering in a dream.
There are no easy answers and even Charlotte seems to be without map or compass navigating this strange interior landscape of the psyche.
After meeting with her his morning, I still feel uneasy, especially since she advised me not to tell Kath about my disturbing dream.
Part of me agrees with her reasoning to give it time before leaping to conclusions, but either I'm channeling a vision of my dead cousin's past infidelity to Kath, or I'm experiencing a premonition of my own temptation to cheat on her looming in my future.
Neither prospect bodes well and I can't seem to draw a line between my ancestral connection with Brad and my own present frailties.
Either way it seems we both struggle with an inherited susceptibility toward a weakness in character and morals.
Not the kind of motto you'd want to see engraved on the family shield or stain the coat of arms.
Yeah, wouldn't that be just lovely to end up a blot on the family escutcheon?
But then again, maybe black sheep don't need to be driven out, but accepted.
I come home and find Kath sleeping on the sofa. She looks so innocent I'm wracked with guilt and want to wake her and confess everything.
But what would that do but worry her, perhaps needlessly? The vision may not be a premonitory dream but some kind of ancestral memory passed down to me as a family vulnerability.
Well, if that's the case, it ends with me.
No way I'm going to hurt someone as pure and innocent as Kath regardless of some toxic gene. I'd rather sacrifice myself or be banished from her life forever than wound and disappoint her.
She's suffered enough at the hands of Time--she doesn't need to be crushed by me.
"Oh, you're back," she smiles, awakening from sleep, "I missed you."
"I missed you too, Love," I whisper hoarsely, struggling to suppress my guilt.
She pats the cushion of the couch. "Come, hold me―I had the most awful dream."
An icy chill runs through me and makes me tremble despite the summer heat.
"Tell me about your dream," I coax, all the while dreading what she might reveal.
"It was confused really...I found myself in a shadowy room where everyone was indistinct and their voices muffled. Perhaps they were whispering, as they did at Brad's funeral. Everyone whispering so as not to upset me but it only seemed to make things worse."
"Were they whispering to spare your feelings?" I asked.
"Maybe, or I thought there might be some secret...perhaps about how he died―I don't know, I was numb with grief. And afterwards, nobody wanted to broach the topic. Maybe they thought I was too young and frail or had been through too much, and maybe they were right. I couldn't focus."
"That must have been horrendous," I said, holding her and stroking her hair.
"You sound just like Brad. He always stroked my hair if I got upset and it always consoled me."
"Let me make you a coffee―we'll talk more when you're fully awake."
She nodded and lay back on the pillow.
My heart was wrenched and I was torn between holding her or distancing myself to disguise my guilt for fear I'd tell her my dream and further wound her.
I couldn't hurt her so I told a lie rather than speak my truth. Perhaps I was afraid Brad failed her and I'd fail her too.
It occurred to me it might be her Fate to love two men, neither able to give her what she really needed...
And then I hated Brad and despised myself for telling a lie and not confronting my own weakness.