Free The Remedy for Regret by Susan Meissner Page B

is that you want to talk with me about,” I answer. “Does it have to do with us?”
    He pauses for a moment. I hold my breath.
    “Well, yes,” he replies.
    I close my eyes as if that will keep me from hearing whatever it is he will say next.
    “Tell me,” I am able to say.
    I can sense that he’s thinking of how to say what is on his mind. I hold onto the bedspread under me like it is the handle of a roller coaster car.
    “Tess,” he begins. “I think I know what’s wrong with us.”
    I grip it tighter.
    “Wrong with us?”
    “Yeah. I think I know why you don’t want to get married yet. Why I pretend it doesn’t matter. Why you still grieve for your mother. Why I can’t seem to forgive myself for what I did to that family.”
    Every word from his lips pokes at me. I feel afraid, like the roller coaster ride has started but I can’t see the tracks ahead. I don’t know where we are headed.
    “What are you saying?” I manage to say.
    “I am saying I think we need help, Tess. Both of us.”
    I’m not sure what he means but I’m beginning to think that he’s not planning to leave me.
    “Help?” I echo.
    “We’re going nowhere, Tess. We’re just spinning in circles. I didn’t realize how bad off we were until my accident and I finally understood how debilitating it is to live without peace.”
    “Peace?”
    I cannot seem to stop myself from sounding like a parrot, repeating everything he says. I would laugh if I weren’t so stunned.
    “Tess, last night when… when I left the apartment, I walked around for a long time. I had maybe walked two or three miles when I suddenly knew that if I didn’t do something, the guilt I was feeling was going to kill me. I had to do somethingto try and make it right.”
    The face of Corinthia rises up before me, behind my closed eyes, as he says this. I can see her bending over a basket of wet laundry, picking up a limp dish towel and saying, “Well, you know what the remedy for regret is, don’t you?”
    I want to say now like I wanted to say then that there are limits. You cannot put a broken egg, or a broken mirror or a broken window back together again. You can’t. Some hardships cannot be made right, no matter how much you desire it.
    “I went to Brian Guthrie’s house last night,” Simon says, when I do not immediately respond.
    At this I am truly speechless. Brian Guthrie is the man whose wife and child died in the accident. Simon’s accident.
    “Tess, are you there?”
    “Y… yes. You went to his house? How did you… how did you know where he lives?”
    “He’s in the phone book. It wasn’t that hard. I hailed a taxi and just went over there.”
    “But, Simon,” I say. “Was that really wise? I mean, he might have hurt you.”
    “Well, I wanted him to,” Simon replies easily. “When I rang the doorbell, I wanted him to see that it was me. I wanted him to open the door with a shotgun in his hand. I wanted him to blast me to hell where I thought I belonged.”
    I taste bile in my throat. The roller coaster car is tumbling down a cold, cavernous valley, gathering speed as it rushes forward in the darkness. I cannot comprehend what I’m hearing.
    “Simon.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I can’t keep back the image of Simon lying on a Chicago porch with a chest full of lead. I can’t finish.
    “Tess, it’s what I thought I wanted to happen, but that’s not what happened.”
    I wait for the image to fade before asking him what did happen.
    “Well, he was surprised to see me and his first reaction was disgust.”
    I wait.
    “But he didn’t hurt me like I wanted him to, Tess. And when he didn’t hurt me physically, I wanted him to curse me to my face. I wanted him to damn me to the Devil. But he didn’t.”
    The ride seems to be slowing. I use the moment to catch my breath. “What did he do?”
    “The longer I stood there mumbling about how sorry I was, the more his face softened,” Simon replies. “The disgust faded