CATHEDRAL, Patrick Sean Lee [most popular ebook readers .txt] 📗

bloody alive. It’s not August, but one after another, meteorites flash into the atmosphere, then die after leaving a tiny white trail. The Big Dipper is beginning to disappear over the roofline. I see other constellations that I can’t name, but I know by sight at least. The number and strength of the stars continues to astound me. I could get lost in them forever in this equally astounding hideaway I’ve chosen as my second home.

This morning Shadow was put down. I went out after breakfast and watched Bernie, Gertie and Charlie try to comfort her, coax her to come back, but I had to leave after the veterinarian arrived and examined the poor mare. Charlie slunk off into a corner of the stables when he heard Doc Samuel’s diagnosis and cried. He couldn’t speak, of course, but his sobbing was as clear as anyone’s. I had to leave before the needle was inserted. Gertie was a mess all day, and so I hugged her after Bernie led her back into the lodge. I fended for myself when I got hungry. It was a sad, sad day, in that respect.

I’m looking out, trying not to let my thoughts drift back to this morning. It’s so dark that I can’t see the trees across the way, only a jagged break in the snowy blanket of lights at the tops of them. Seeing the Milky Way makes me think of the movie I’d seen in my youth, “Forbidden Planet”, with that actor—Leslie what’s-his-name. The crew sent to find out what happened to a colony of interplanetary explorers that had gone missing twenty years earlier. The over-protective father; the young woman living there alone and happy with him until the ship landed. I think about Isabella as a modern day version of the girl. But she was unhappy on her forbidden planet. I came to rescue her and she ran, unlike the young woman in the movie. I make a wish on the most brilliant star I can find, one that dominates. One that maybe has the power to drive off the monster clawing at her.

Yeah, I’m crazy, but…“Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. Send me Isabella.”

Send me Isabella.

I found her number and called her a little before nine, Mountain Standard Time. She didn’t answer and my heart raced before it dropped after her machine picked up. I just left a message, but I have no faith that she’ll accept my offer. No hope. I tried to write again, but nothing came. Not even a “The”. The stars comfort me, and I’ll throw myself into their soul until I start to nod off, then I’ll climb into my bed and fall asleep. Try to write again tomorrow, I guess. It’s 11:10, now. I find the big star and wish again, and again.

                 Long, quiet minutes tick by. I’m very sleepy, blinking my eyes, when the chime on my cell phone awakens me with such force that my hands fly upward in shock. The sound seems so loud that I’m certain Bernie and Gertie can hear it downstairs in their bedroom. I sweep the phone up and quickly look at the number on the screen before sliding it open. It isn’t Isabella’s. It’s from someone in California, though. Maybe Allison calling from some old geezer’s bedroom.

“Hello?” For a moment no one replies. I wait to hear Allie’s sobbing, or her launch into a go-fuck-yourself ramble. She has a hard time getting her thoughts together, but once she starts, look out.

“Hi, Matthew. It’s me.”

I nearly drop the phone. It’s her. Isabella waits on the other end. She called, for Christ’s sake, she called!

“Oh God! You answered! Thank you.” I’m tongue-tied; don’t know what to follow up with. She remains silent, and that ushers an instant of anxiety over me. There are two possibilities, it hits me: One. She’s going to tell me to leave her alone. I kind of expect that. Or, Two. “I’ll come back.” I don’t expect that. I have to break the silence, and I can think of only one thing to say right now.

“I miss you so much. Yeah, I’m in love with you, that much I’m certain of. Please come to me.” I bite my lower lip and wait. I close my eyes tight and try to see her face, try to see her lips smiling, and the word “yes” forming. I see the hundred million stars, instead—all of them spinning, exploding, frightening to me.

“Ok.”

            There is a hesitation, then, “I’ll book the flight tonight. I have to confess, I’m a little drunk, Matthew.” She laughs. “Annie and I had dinner. I drank way too much wine. God, what am I doing? When I wake up I’ll probably kick myself and cancel the reservation.”

I’m up, dancing in the dark, absolutely shocked.

“Say it again, Isabella. You said you’d come back? Tell me I didn’t hear you wrong.” My voice is two octaves higher than normal. I’m sixteen again. I twirl and fall onto the end of the bed. I can actually hear my heart hammering inside my chest.

“I’ll…come back. I guess I miss you, too. I guess I do. I’ve thought about you pretty oft…all the time. I want to see you very badly.”

“Oh, God. I’ve dreamt and…and…this is so, so…” I can’t unravel the knot of my amazement. I look at my left hand. It’s shaking uncontrollably. “I’ll make your reservation, Isabella. One way. You rest, get some sleep, and tomorrow morning, first thing, pack. I’ll call you at sun-up, no…earlier, five or…in the morning! I’ll let you know what time to meet the cab outside your house, and what flight you’ll be on. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll pick you up at Denver International. I love you.”

“Yeah, me too, I think.” She sounds groggy, like she’s already falling asleep.            

I have enough energy to run to the lake, sing the entire Messiah at the top of my lungs, wrestle a grizzly barehanded, and then write another chapter—all before breakfast. I thank whatever god is smiling down on me. I want to tell Isabella a hundred more times what’s knocking my heart every which way in this moment. A thousand times more. Right now, but I simply say goodnight.

“I’ll call you in the morning, Isabella. Sleep well. I love you. I miss you.”

Her word of response is a tiny, fuzzy, “Goodnight.”

I feel like I’ve tumbled out the window and been caught up on a fiercely blowing, summer wind that’s taking me at twice the speed of light to the star I wished upon. I can feel Isabella’s hand in mine, and her face, so close, is moonlight and starlight, and she’s everything I’ve ever searched for throughout my life. My life! Now it can begin after all those fruitless years of looking, and not even knowing that I was so desperately alone.

I rise from the bed, go online to United Airlines, and a few minutes later I have Isabella on the ten o’clock flight from LAX to Denver International, first class, non-stop. I want the captain to push the throttles forward until they can go no farther. I don’t think I’ll sleep.

The next step is to call information for Santa Monica, find a number for a cab company, and arrange for a car to be at her front door at…her front door? Where? Oh Christ, I think, how could I have forgotten to ask Isabella where she lives! I call her number as fast as my fingers can depress the lit up numbers of my cell. It rings. Again, again, again, and then her answering machine takes over. She’s out. What now?

Mr. Davenport! For sure, though, he’s asleep—what with the grueling day he had. I can’t wake him. I wrack my brain. I could wait until tomorrow when Isabella wakes up. Keep calling until she answers and simply ask her for her address. But then we’d lose a day. Maybe she’d even change her mind about coming back. No. There has to be a different way. I circle the room twice, tapping my skull with a fist. Think. Who can you call right now to find her address? I peer out the window and search for my star. I begin to wish on it…

Dumb, dumb, dumb! It’s right here. In the registration book at the front desk!

Everyone is asleep. I hope. But then if I’m caught, surely my explanation will suffice, especially their knowing little Izzy is on her way home tomorrow. We’ll all have dinner together. I’ll announce that the Almighty has done a wondrous thing; sent a thousand angels with trumpets to fly all around these mountains, around this lodge. It’s my birthday! My soul has finally been given back to me.

I race down the hall in my stocking feet, take the steps two at a time, and then I’m sliding across the pine floor to the inside of the desk. A small lamp left on casts a green glow across the polished surface. I locate the register, set it quietly onto the counter, and flip through the pages to three-quarters of the way in. July, 2008. Filled to the bottom of the page. I turn two more pages. August. Move on. Two more quickly. September. I run my index finger down the dates until I arrive at September fifteen. Mr. Davenport’s writing is worse than a doctor’s. I see Frank and Michael, the husband and wife team. Their last name is illegible. Right below them is Isa…I lose the rest of it to his atrocious scrawling. Next column, the address. He’s done so much better here. It looks like he might have slowed down as Isabella gave him the information. 3264 Stewart Ave. I read it again, then grab a pencil and scrap of paper and carefully copy it down. Check it one more time. Thank you, beautiful star, beautiful God, angels, Mary, Saint Joseph, Milky Way, Doctor Davenport. Everyone and everything. I love all of you!

I replace the register and fly back upstairs to my room. Five minutes later the cab arrangements are a done deal. I’ll wake up at five sharp, call them again to make certain whoever is working this evening hasn’t botched the dispatch order. Tomorrow by seven I’ll be on my way to Denver. I’m going to buy every flower in the fanciest boutique I can find and fill up the backseat. And then when Isabella gets off the plane and I meet her in baggage, look out. I’m going to smother her in kisses.

I’m exhausted, but I feel like running. I feel like I’m finally, totally alive again. And I’m dead tired.

 

Goodbye, Stanfield

Santa Monica

 

Isabella

 

The phone on the nightstand wakes me. It sounds like someone has hung a thousand church bells from the ceiling, and then pulled all the ropes at once. Stanfield is lying atop the covers right beside me, but he hardly takes notice. It’s like any other morning to him, any other call. He opens his mouth in a wide, toothy yawn as I groan and lift the receiver. It’s barely five o’clock and my first thought is that it’s Brad calling. I’m not