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The Gate House :: Demille Nelson
Страница: 4 из 490”
“What…?”
“We’re descending,”a female voice said. “You need to fasten your seatbelt and put your seat in the full upright position.”
“Oh…” I adjusted my seat and fastened my seatbelt, noticing that Little John was also in the full upright position. My goodness. That’s embarrassing. What brought that on…? Then, I remembered my dream…
I never asked Susan how, when, and where she began her affair with Frank Bellarosa – this is not the sort of information one needs to hear in any detail – but it was something that remained missing from what I did know. My shrink, if I had one, would say that my dream was an unconscious attempt to fill in this lacuna – the missing piece of the affair. Not that it mattered a decade after I divorced her. In legal terms, I charged adultery, and she admitted to it. The state did not require any juicy details or explicit testimony, so neither should I.
The British Airways flight from London to New York crossed over the Long Island Sound, descending toward John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was a sunny day, a little after 4:00 P.M., Monday, May 27, and I remembered that today was Memorial Day in America. Below, on the North Shore of Long Island, I could see a place called the Gold Coast, where I used to live, ten years ago. Probably, if I looked hard enough, I could see the large neighboring estates called Stanhope Hall, and what was once Alhambra.
I now live in London, and the purpose of my return to America is to see an old lady who is dying, or who may well have died during my seven-hour flight. If so, I’d be in time for the funeral, where I’d see Susan Stanhope Sutter.
The presence of death in the coffin should compel us into some profound thoughts about the shortness of life, and make us rethink our many disappointments, resentments, and betrayals that we can’t seem to let go of. Unfortunately, however, we usually take these things to the grave with us, or to the grave of the person we couldn’t forgive in life.
Susan .
But now and then, we do find it in our hearts to forgive, and it costs nothing to do that, except some loss of pride. And maybe that was the problem.
I was sitting on the starboard side of the business class cabin, and all heads were turned toward the windows, focused on the skyline of Manhattan. It’s truly an awesome sight from three or four thousand feet, but as of about nine months ago, the main attraction for people who knew the city was the missing part of the skyline. The last time I’d flown into New York, a few weeks after 9/11, the smoke was still rising from the rubble.
“What…?”
“We’re descending,”a female voice said. “You need to fasten your seatbelt and put your seat in the full upright position.”
“Oh…” I adjusted my seat and fastened my seatbelt, noticing that Little John was also in the full upright position. My goodness. That’s embarrassing. What brought that on…? Then, I remembered my dream…
I never asked Susan how, when, and where she began her affair with Frank Bellarosa – this is not the sort of information one needs to hear in any detail – but it was something that remained missing from what I did know. My shrink, if I had one, would say that my dream was an unconscious attempt to fill in this lacuna – the missing piece of the affair. Not that it mattered a decade after I divorced her. In legal terms, I charged adultery, and she admitted to it. The state did not require any juicy details or explicit testimony, so neither should I.
The British Airways flight from London to New York crossed over the Long Island Sound, descending toward John F. Kennedy International Airport. It was a sunny day, a little after 4:00 P.M., Monday, May 27, and I remembered that today was Memorial Day in America. Below, on the North Shore of Long Island, I could see a place called the Gold Coast, where I used to live, ten years ago. Probably, if I looked hard enough, I could see the large neighboring estates called Stanhope Hall, and what was once Alhambra.
I now live in London, and the purpose of my return to America is to see an old lady who is dying, or who may well have died during my seven-hour flight. If so, I’d be in time for the funeral, where I’d see Susan Stanhope Sutter.
The presence of death in the coffin should compel us into some profound thoughts about the shortness of life, and make us rethink our many disappointments, resentments, and betrayals that we can’t seem to let go of. Unfortunately, however, we usually take these things to the grave with us, or to the grave of the person we couldn’t forgive in life.
Susan .
But now and then, we do find it in our hearts to forgive, and it costs nothing to do that, except some loss of pride. And maybe that was the problem.
I was sitting on the starboard side of the business class cabin, and all heads were turned toward the windows, focused on the skyline of Manhattan. It’s truly an awesome sight from three or four thousand feet, but as of about nine months ago, the main attraction for people who knew the city was the missing part of the skyline. The last time I’d flown into New York, a few weeks after 9/11, the smoke was still rising from the rubble.