Hey guys! I know I haven’t really updated in the past few weeks but I’ve been incredibly busy. Sorry about that. I will make it a point to update every week from now on. Hope you like it!
I felt a weight pressing down on my chest the whole time. I tried to think of how the conversation could go, how I could say something that would make things better; easier. But nothing I could say would do that. What’s done is done, and I can’t change it.
I was distant, trying my best to focus on what Faye was telling me but I couldn’t. Regardless of how much I tried to push those thoughts out of my head I couldn’t, they sank inside me and I wasn’t strong enough to make them go away. Maybe that was the problem, I was trying too hard to be strong, to be what people thought I should be. Someone moving on with her life, looking forward hoping for life to get better. But going to see Mindy Quilter can only remind me how horrible things can get. It’s been years, and I knew it shouldn’t affect me anymore, but hell it does.
Or maybe it should have this effect on me, and I’m the one making things worse by trying to act like losing my friend, watching him die in front of me years ago should be gone and buried. I apologize if I don’t make much sense and I seem to be speaking gibberish. I know it can be confusing for you. But what I need you to understand is the tornado of emotions and thoughts that went through my mind as we kept getting closer and closer to Chicago. I had three whole days to think of what to say and I came out empty handed.
Faye tried to be supportive, ask me if she could help me with whatever it was that was bothering me. But I didn’t share it with her. I shared nothing with her. I don’t really know why. Maybe I was trying my hardest to look strong, not just in front of her, but in front of my family. Trying not to let them see the scars in my skin, the wounds deep in my heart that I never thought would actually heal. That façade was about to die.
Our trip was quiet, we didn’t really talk too much since, like I said, I spent most of my time thinking about Mindy. Faye was getting frustrated with my silence, but she remained patient hoping, eventually, I would break. And I did.
We arrived at Chicago at midday on Wednesday. We checked into a motel and went out to grab a bite. I asked for a meatloaf, Faye asked for the salmon. We ate quietly, parsimoniously, as if we were strangers.
“This is good,” Faye finally said, trying to start a conversation.
“Yeah, it is,” I gave her a weak smile.
“Can you finally tell me what the hell we’re doing in Chicago?”
“I need to see someone.”
“Who?”
“I… it’s a long story. I made a promise.”
Faye took a sip of her drink, than softly asked, “Is it because of what I said?”
“Yeah… no. I’m not sure. But you were right.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I mean, I did, just… not because… I mean…”
I looked up at her and watching her face, trying and failing to find the right words, it just did the trick. It made me laugh like I hadn’t in days. I cracked up so loudly people turned around.
“Sorry, sorry. It’s just… we’re messed up, aren’t we?”
Faye sighed, smiled and replied, “Yeah. We are.”
After lunch, we went into a shop to buy one single thing. Faye didn’t make any questions. I think she just realized I would tell her, once I could stop trying so hard to be strong. I put what I bought inside a gift bag and headed out.
A part of me wanted her to still live there so I could fulfill my promise, another part wanted for her to be long gone so I could move on. But I knew I would never move on until I’d kept my promise. We look for the address for half an hour and finally found the right building. A twelve story building just across the street from a Walmart. Apartment 28.
As the elevator took us closer I looked at what was inside the gift bag again and practiced what to say but everything seemed so… unfitting.
Apartment 28. We walked down the hall until we found the right door. I took a deep breath feeling my hands shake uncontrollably. I knocked on the door and waited. At first, I didn’t hear anything, but when I knocked for the second time, I heard steps on the other side of the door. The door opened about four inches, she had it locked with a chain on the other side.
“Yeah?”
She was pretty, just like he said. She had brown hair and brown eyes, white skin, thin lips and a sturdy jaw. She had the classic, exotic Latin beauty that you just can’t hide. If I had to guess, I’d say Colombian or Chilean. He never told me which. What I did know, was that Mindy was a dreamer. Her parents brought her to the States when she was eight, she speaks better English than she does Spanish. For all accounts and purposes, she’s American.
“Mrs―” I had to stop myself, clear my throat and try again. “Mrs. Quilter?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. John Quilter?”
She frowned and asked, “Who’s asking?”
“My name is Riley Brenan, ma’am.”
Her eyes opened wide for just a second, then she sighed, closed the door to remove the chain and asked us if we wanted to step inside. We sat on the couch in the living room.
“Do you want coffee?” Mindy asked.
We both shook our heads and the room filled with silence.
“John talked about you. He said you always had his back.”
God… if only that were true when it really counted. “He always had mine. He was… he was a piece of work sometimes,” I said joking. She almost laughed but stopped herself, “He’s… he was the best person I’ve ever known. I know it’s a bit late, but I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
Mindy’s jaw tightened as she replied, “I hated him. We had money issues, sure, but nothing that couldn’t be solved with a few more hours a month each. He used that as an excuse but truth is he just wanted to fight. Serve his country; a country he didn’t even like at times since I’m Latin American and apparently that’s not okay anymore. And he still left… and never came back.” her eyes rose and laid on me, anger in them. “What are you guys thinking, when you are everything we have… and you decide to leave us?” Her voice was cracking, and her breathing was raging. I was wrong. She wasn’t angry. She was sad, she was still sad about John’s death; her partner, her best friend, her family. Gone.
In her, I saw the pain I had put Faye through. The pain my family felt, and unlike us, she didn’t get her happy ending.
“I’m sorry,” Mindy said drying up the tears she hadn’t yet shed. “I just, seeing you here, it brings so many things back. I don’t expect you to answer me, or to even understand it. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Faye rushed to say. “I get it.”
Mindy smiled at Faye, I knew it was time. “If by being here I’m opening up old scars, I’m sorry, Mrs. Quilter. It’s not my intention.”
“No, I know. I know. But still, I don’t understand why you’re here.”
I took a deep breath. “A few months before John died, a friend of ours, someone we went to school with, was killed. Up until that moment we hadn’t really thought about death and mortality I guess, but John started thinking about it. So we made a promise. If he made it, and I didn’t, he should go to my hometown, find my girlfriend and…” I took another deep breath, “And tell her that she was the only one. That I never loved anyone else. Ever.” Faye heard that and turned to me, but I ignored her expression. “And, if I made it, and he didn’t, I should come here and give you this.”
I placed the gift bag in front of her. She reached over, opened it up and broke into sobs.
“He said you would understand.”
Inside the gift bag, there was a silver pocket watch. Nothing fancy. John said the design wasn’t important, what was important was the fact that it had to be a pocket watch.
Mindy took the watch out and wrapped her hand around it, squeezing it as if by doing so, John would life again. She pressed it against her lips and cried silently. When she stopped gasping, she said, “Before he left, I told him I wished we had more time together. He said we had plenty of time together, four whole years together. And we would have even more once he came back. And while he was gone, I would live my life, follow all my dreams and accomplish great things. ‘Spend all your seconds wisely, Min-Min. I want you to tell me all about it when I come back. And even if I don’t, I will wait until we get to see each other again. And you better make me wait a long time.’ If I were superstitious, I would say he knew we weren’t going to see each other again.”
Yeah, that sounded like something John would say. I wanted to cry, but it would only make Mindy feel worse. “I’m sorry, Mindy.”
She cleaned her face up and asked, “Were you there? When it happened, were you there?”
I swallowed and replied, “No.”
She nodded and lifted the pocket watch, “Thank you.”
We left Mindy’s home at three, we didn’t call for the elevator. We went down the stairs in complete silence and as we searched the first floor, I sat down on the floor, and cried. Faye sat with me and held me as I let it all out. I hadn’t cried for John as much as I cried that day. Meeting Mindy for the first time was as powerful and devastating as I thought it would be. But it was also rewarding. She allowed me to feel all the things I had pushed down inside my heart, thing we all keep hidden from people, even ourselves, things that eventually, either get out, or hurt you and those you love. That day I cried out all my pain and my heart felt lighter when I was done. Just as I imagine Mindy’s was.
On the bright side of things. Mindy did accomplish great things. She wrote a book about their story and sold hundreds of thousands of copies and with that money, she founded the John Quilter Institute, to help wounded veterans.
It took me ten whole minutes to calm down and stop sobbing. When I did, I regained my composure, feeling better. The weight in my chest wasn’t there anymore.
As we went back to the motel, Faye asked, “You were there, weren’t you? When her husband died?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell her?”
“We have an unspoken rule in the army. ‘Don’t tell our wives how we died. They think they wanna know, but they don’t’. John Quilter was blown to pieces by a grenade. Chances are she didn’t even bury his whole body.”
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