One of the ironies of life is the way our best laid plans often go astray.
I had volunteered to host an inter-college meeting at the farm with the hope of re-connecting with Sara Thompson but Fate intervened in the form of a road closure and it now appeared Sara and I were destined to be star-crossed lovers.
The highly anticipated meet-up was a bust and worse, I’d be marooned at the farm overnight and probably well into the next day.
My weekend was shot as were my vain dreams of reconciling with the girl of my dreams.
Lucky me.
I resigned myself to spending the night alone at the farm.
I uncorked a bottle of cab sav and sat by the fire trying to make the best of a disappointing situation.
At least I had plenty of provisions and light jazz music playing from my portable radio.
The words of Omar Khayyam ran through my brain, bubbling like a bitter stream:
A book of verses beneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and Thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness—
O, wilderness were Paradise enow!
How quickly bright things come to confusion, I mused.
“Theo—is that you?”
I heard a familiar voice call out to me from the lantern-lit path.
My heart leap at the sound.
“Sara!,” I exclaimed, barely able to contain my surprise and relief. “But how did you manage to get through the road closure?”
She looked momentarily confused. “Was there a road closure? I didn’t know. I left early this afternoon to drop a colleague off at her parents’ farm for the weekend and she insisted I stay for supper. I must have missed it.”
The improbability of both of us getting an early start and missing the oil tanker spill was astounding but also fateful in a way.
Perhaps, our souls were really still tethered to each other and this was some form of love’s telepathy.
I realized I was lost in my thoughts and forgetting my duties as host. “Oh, what does it matter?” I laughed, “you’re here now and we have all this food and drink—we shouldn’t let it go to waste. Please, come and sit down and tell me what you’ve been up to at York U the past two years.”
We spent a few moments catching up—the usual shop talk educators are prone to indulge in, but gradually I managed to steer the conversation back to us.
“How are you really doing, Sara—are you happy with your decision to teach at York?”
She paused and looked off into the distance and I saw her eyes grow sad and her voice soften to a barely audible whisper.
“I enjoy teaching my courses and the grad students and staff are friendly, but I must admit I miss Victoria College. We had some good times there.”
She looked at me pointedly and I knew the remark was not a general observation but meant directly for me.
I hesitated for a second and then could no longer contain my feelings.
“I’m so sorry for the way I acted, Sara. I hurt you—I was fool. I hope you can forgive me.”
She closed her eyes and began rocking slowly, her hands clasping her knees as she gazed up at the stars above us as if searching for an answer.
“I thought back over that night, Theo and I think I reacted the way I did because I expected so much more from you—and from us. I wanted everything between us to be perfect—like a fairy tale— which It could never be, and I fled because I couldn’t handle the disappointment of falling short and ending up like everyone else.”
As I listened I felt my feelings shift from worrying about my own embarrassment to a deep compassion for her and her needs.
“I failed you,” I said simply. “I don’t blame you for running away from me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not as simple as that, Theo—I kept having his recurring dream of meeting you by chance and reconciling—as if we were working things out in the ether before meeting face to face.”
“I was wrong to hurt you,” I said, aware that anything I could say would never be enough and always fall short of making things right.
“And I was wrong to leave,” she countered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I guess we both let pride get in the way.”
“Do you think we can put this behind us and start over?” I asked timidly.
“I think we’ve already done this in dreams,” she smiled, “Now maybe we should try it face to face.”
I took her at her word and leaned in and kissed her—one long, interminable, long-awaited kiss.
Our souls had already reconciled and now our arms were beginning to catch up and I didn’t foresee them ever feeling empty again.
