Tsunami Across My Heart

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

You never know where the smallest action, the most subtle overture, is going to take you. You casually pick up an ancient round stone, worn smooth for thousands of years. You toss it into the depth of a pool as though this relic is brand new. Its existence seemingly ends with its silent fall beneath the water.

 
             
While its ripples radiate gently in perfect circles, your sense of permanence evaporates with the disappearance of the evidence of your act. Yet the act remains, its effect is there. Even if you never know how far that stone fell or where it finally rested, the circles still radiate.

 
             
You may unexpectedly discover the imprint of those actions left upon your heart, your mind and your soul, as they emerge over and over again. How many small things do we do in single days that have similar consequence? Yet, it is the nature of life to blithely move forward without the expectation that someone or something will have the ability to stun you with their essence for the rest of your life.

 
             
He was like that for me.

 
             
When I first noticed Eric getting out of the cab, I thought he was exquisite. Tall, lean, and athletic, his shoulders pronounced and strong, his chest made the shape of a simple “V”. His narrow hips and long legs carried him majestically in an easy sway across the drive. Most everything about him suggested an angle and a rhythm; a simple elegant style, but without being effeminate. I liked his thick, dark brown hair. It was curly but cut close enough not to cascade. My fingers longed to run through it. Mischievous brown eyes and a winning smile knowingly slayed every woman around him, his lips needed to be slowly traced by the edge of my finger. He looked just the way I thought a man ought to look with his handsome face, chin strong and jaw square.

 
             
His voice was clear, unpretentious, strong, not too deep, and held a quick and easy laugh that enchanted me. Back then, he was very confident. Of course he knew the strength of his draw, but he maintained enough of his modesty to avoid vanity and conceit.

 
             
He was captivating in the way he would banter so easily, catching on a phrase or a concept, and then bringing it back into the conversation once again. A slightly ironic and witty style, I found myself laughing with him all the time. He seduced me with the way he was so engaged and would ask questions about me, what mattered to me, but then he would delve even deeper into why something mattered or how I had formed my opinions and ideas. He was interesting and interested, and all the while smiling and looking into my eyes, seeing me, all of me, and the connection I felt was simply pure. How could I help but fall in love with him?

 
             
Now, seventeen years later he looks almost exactly the same, with the exception of subtle lines around his eyes, and a slight softening about his jaw line, everything else is immune to the sands of time. The things that have changed about him have to do with his heart, his soul and his spirit and the way he looks back on his life in the same way that I do with wonder, awe and sometimes regret. So many things for both of us turned out differently than the way we anticipated they would or the way we had planned, despite all the things we both did to make up for the ways in which fate had seemingly cheated us out of what we were meant to have.

At that time in my life I was twenty-seven years old, almost six feet tall with very blonde hair and blue eyes, a pretty face reminiscent of some unknown Scandinavian ancestor, a body that was thin but still shapely and proportionate. I was healthy and reasonably happy with my achievements enjoying a wonderful career managing the use o
f state of the art technology.

While I was focused on the positive, my private sadness was that I was recovering from the most significant heartbreak of my life, and Eric was the first man that I felt a genuine attraction towards in three months.

David had been the love of my life, and we’d been together for all of the previous year. I had thought that it was inevitable that he would become my husband. He had declared “I won’t tell you I love you until I’m sure I want to marry you.” and just three months before on our second New Years together he had said “I love you.” to me for the first time.

My heart burst I was so happy to hear those words from him. I had been telling him that I loved him to his “Thank you.” or “I adore you.” since we had been lying upon the talc white beach in Playa del Carmen,
Mexico
nine months before, and I felt a flood of relief that he had finally admitted to loving me the way I loved him.

Instead of a marriage proposal, what he delivered a few short days later was the heartache that his family would not accept me because I had not been born and raised Jewish, they would not accept my planned conversion, and that he had to choose to end our love affair or be disinherited and disowned. Apparently he had been embroiled in the argument of a lifetime with his mother since announcing he’d found the woman he wanted to marry, and he had lost the battle. Her trump was to deny him support or tuition and he was a spoiled young man who had never stood a single day on his own two feet.

I didn’t want to create a future of being ostracized and shut out. I’d already lived this reality with my own family, and I knew it was too painful. He offered to maintain our love affair but keep it a secret. Deserving better, I’d declined to see him behind their backs. I was heartbroken beyond measure, but deeply offended at the same time. I tried to convince myself that if he were truly worthy of my love, he would measure up to
 
the task of being a man, and if he were not that letting go of him was the best thing that I could possibly do for myself.

Yet he had called me daily for the last three months crying, not having the strength or courage to assert his love for me to his family, even though in a moment of desperation I’d offered to pay for the rest of his private law school education personally if they actually followed through and cut him off. Part of me loved him forever; part of me hated realizing that he was so weak, weaker than I was.

My love for David had been so strong, my sense of conviction equal to it, that I never would have tolerated this kind of interference from any person in my life. I was devastated he wouldn’t fight for me, for us. I lost respect for him even if I didn’t want to say it out loud, or admit it to myself, though I tried to understand that he needed them especially after the death of his sister three years before. Determined, despite my disappointment and heartache, I moved on.

I prayed for relief, for true love, for comfort, for Divine will.

The day I first saw Eric was a beautiful spring day and the sun was finally hot again. Work had been long and hard, but rewarding. A tall handsome stranger, he was now engaged in conversation at the same time I greeted my friends and found my seat as the meeting came to order.

I sat through the hour-long meeting trying to ignore that he was sitting right behind me. I’d steal a shy glimpse of him every now and then. When he spoke he mentioned he was in the city on business from
Santa Barbara
. Well, I thought to myself, “There’s an interesting opportunity to say, ‘Hello!’ to welcome him to the glory of the South!” which, of course, was me!

So at the close of business I did just that.

“Hello.” I said, “Welcome to
Atlanta
.”

His eyes met mine and he smiled warmly, “Why thank you for welcoming me, how very Southern of you.”

Inside I swooned. He was attracted too, I could feel it. I felt a certain rush of adrenaline and my heart beat a little more insistently.

“Hospitality is a specialty of we Southerners, you know. They don’t make them any sweeter than they do here. My name is Marissa Elizabeth. Marissa Elizabeth Stone, how do you do?” I held out my hand, and he took it into his, gently squeezing it.

“My name is Eric Ashley. Eric Ashley Davis.” I knew he was mocking the way we Southerners have long complicated names and an odd formality about us besides. But his smile and the gleam in his eye let me know he wasn’t being ugly about it, just funny and flirtatious.

We talked for a time, while the sun set in the window behind him. It was spectacular, huge and round with a golden radiance. The sky was brilliant and orange as it set; eventually a quiet glow was all that remained.

“I was hoping to find a beautiful dinner companion this evening. Would you like to accompany me to dinner?” he asked as the last sliver of sunlight fell beyond the horizon behind him, and suddenly the clubhouse was cloaked in darkness, and the sky was black.

Would I like to go to dinner? With him? Of course I’d like to go to dinner!!

“I could do that. How about if I play Ambassador and show you around the city afterwards? I’ll drive.”

“That would be great! Let’s go!” he said as he slid his arm under mine and led me toward the front door.

“Tell me, where would you like to go?”

We had a nice meal at a place I can’t even recall the name of, and I don’t believe they are in business any longer -- it was in a train car and must have been somewhere in the area off of Peachtree Road near Ansley Mall. After dinner we drove all around
Atlanta
. I showed him Buckhead, Midtown where I worked in Midtown and Downtown too. I showed him
Emory
University
, and we drove through the Jewish Community. I kept telling him all about what I was learning in my conversion courses and after I’d made reference to it six different times he finally said, “Yeah? I know all about that, I’m Jewish too.”

“Oh!!!” I responded and blushed a little at my informing the previously, and very well informed, but I was really pleased to discover we shared this religious perspective in common. We’d had a fun evening getting to know one another, told each other our life stories and talked easily and endlessly.

For the second time that evening, I drove towards the sky rise I lived in just east of
Emory
University
and South of Toco Hills. I should have offered to take him back to his hotel in Buckhead, but it wasn’t really that late yet, and he wasn’t in any hurry to go. Besides, I wasn’t in much of a mood to behave. I lived for the moment because he was going to leave in six short days and I didn’t want to regret not seizing the moment and thinking about what might have been, if only I’d made an overture.