# 27 - Chapter Twenty Seven "It Hurts to Say Goodbye"

 

It Hurts to Say Goodbye 

Chapter Twenty-Seven  - El Siegel 

I had a dream the other night. 

I can’t remember all the details. I only remember it was mostly separate scenes, with flashes of people and colors and feelings, things that weren’t a simple, clear story. 

I had a feeling I knew the dream, I’d been here before. I remember I could travel back in time. I held Faith in my arms, my hands caressing her body, then my fingers touching her black hair and her soft cheeks. But something was wrong. She felt cold. 

The dream was short. Faith knew I had returned to the past to see her. I had moved from the here and now to the before and then, and then I could return. But something was wrong. I took her face between my palms and tried to bring her close to me. 

She pushed back, and her dark eyes looked blank, the sparkle gone, and I could see her tears. Her red lips moved. She said to stop. It wasn’t right. She told me we had to end it. 

I came to see you just one more time, to be with you, I told her. She shook her head. It has to end, she said. We have to go our separate ways. 

The tears ran down her cheeks. She closed her eyes. 

And then the dream ended. Faith was gone.  

-0-

Now, I’m alone in my living room, sprawled out on the black leather couch that faces the front window and the street. It’s mid-afternoon, and I’m listening to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on my stereo and vaguely watching a light snow that’s falling and shifting in waves on the street. It seems we don’t get any real snowfalls any more, because of climate change and all that. Once in a while I hear some neighbors’ conversations as they walk by. Maybe the mail carrier will bring me some real letters later if I’m lucky.  

I don’t know why I had that dream now. It’s been three months since the court session on Leland Stanhope’s plea bargain. His sentence was twenty years, he should spend only twenty years in prison, but he has a chance to survive, something he didn’t give Faith.

Stanhope’s sentencing is a marker in my life, the end of a time that was only a few months long, since the spring, yet it was packed with more pleasure and pain, more emotion and fear and confusion than I could imagine in a lifetime. 

Why would those images and emotions in the dream come to me now? Because I’m being told something, words are coming from deep down within me. It’s time to move on, leave the past and start a new life. 

I push myself up from the couch, the wonderful, sensitive sounds of Beethoven still filling my house. I walk through the kitchen and look out the back door. The same light snow is falling in our little courtyard and blowing in circles over the red brick surface. The flowers are gone, and the green foliage shivers in the wind. The dogwood’s white blossoms have long since fallen from the branches that now carry a light sheen of snow. The lights and colors of spring and summer have come and gone, and now I’m surrounded by the cold and dullness of winter. 

Why am I talking about the seasons, and how they pass, and how everything changes? It’s because I’m trying to understand what I’ve been through and how I’ve changed and what I should do now. 

Yes, I know. Nothing is black and white any more, not even shades of gray. When I think of what I’ve been through, I see so much complexity and intertwined agendas and relationships in a wide range of colors and shades. I have some understanding of it because I lived a lot of it. But there are so many things I don’t know. Like how did the detectives prove Stanhope killed Faith and get him to plead guilty? 

I attended his sentencing. It was held in the District Court building up on Market Street. It was strange. The courtroom was packed, and Stanhope looked small in his orange convict’s overalls. Of course, I couldn’t read the guy’s mind. But he looked annoyed, mad, as though he shouldn’t be standing in the courtroom to hear his sentence, as though none of it was his fault. So, here was the handsome young ladies’ man, and it all came down to him just standing there, his legs in shackles. When Judge Dhawan asked him if he had a statement to make, he simply said “No.” He didn’t even say “Your honor.” 

And here in my home, I don’t feel any satisfaction, just emptiness. While he’ll probably be a lot older before he gets out of prison, his sentence can’t bring Faith back. 

Captain McAllister’s fate is more definite, and this story starts way back to when I contacted the reporter I used to know from The Philadelphia Inquirer. After an article came out in The Inquirer about Faith’s murder, there was a big demonstration in Center City demanding better protection for all artists from the police, followed by the police raid on an entire drug cartel up in North Philly and the arrest of probably most of its members – all covered in detail in The Inquirer. 

It was a real shock when it turned out that Captain McAllister was part of that cartel, actually the partner of the Russian that ran the cartel. I don’t remember all the details, but McAllister was arrested for a long list of crimes, but released on a two million-dollar bond before his trial. The good captain didn’t wait for his trial, he ran. And for a long time I didn’t hear anything else about him. 

Then, at one point, there was an article in The Inquirer about negotiations between the State Department and the Maldives Islands over extraditing McAllister back to the U.S. But the talks stalled because the U.S. didn’t have an extradition treaty with the Maldives. Then, it was maybe a month ago when a short wire-service story appeared in The Inquirer. McAllister’s body was discovered in a blood-soaked bed in the Century Lodge, in Malé, the major city of the Maldives Islands. On the floor of the hotel room was a 13-year-old girl from Haiti, in shock but uninjured. According to the article, McAllister had been shot nine times, and the cause of death was ruled loss of blood. 

The article mentioned that at the same time the Century Lodge was hosting a delegation of Russian meteorologists for a conference. The Russians abruptly checked out of the hotel, claiming it didn’t have adequate security. The article was accompanied by a photo of Sibyl McAllister, whose face was hidden behind big sunglasses while entering her former home in Bryn Mawr. 

That short article shocked me, and for days it forced my mind back to Faith’s murder. Yes, I admit it, I think about her from time to time, but not with the sense of loss and desperation I felt before. And somewhere along the way I’ve accepted her death. I can take some satisfaction – not pride but satisfaction – from the fact that I played a small role in finding her killer, but that doesn’t mean much to me any more. 

But more important, that article affected me in another way. It made me think about how important life is, how it can be stolen from us in an instant, and how we have to live our lives in the right way.

So now, I have to find that right way. I have to decide what should I do with my life?  And I’m thinking I should know more about where I’ve been before I can decide where I should go. Like the old saw: You have to know where you are and where you want to be before you can consider the route you take. 

For me, there’s simply so much I don’t know. I’m trying to figure everything out, how it happened, step by step. But that’s impossible; I’ll never know it all. There are all the internal police dealings and procedures, and then the legal questions, and finally all of the human complexities that are impossible to understand, at least for me. No, maybe I should only try to decide what I want the rest of my life to be. 

I’m thinking about all the times I told myself I was a coward because I gave up on the things I loved – books, literature and poetry. Instead, I settled for the money from a Belgian chemical company. I know, I know, we needed money to live on, but I still think I was weak. Now, I understand why I’m so proud of Patrick: he’s doing what he really wants to do. So, a good part of my life should be helping him. Now I have to make a choice. 

I’m trying to keep my promises. And that brings up my dad. I thought about the times the two of us got together and talked about the novels we loved. So, why not get back to that, and get Patrick to join us? I asked both of them, and they were enthusiastic. I hope we follow through, and the two of them let me get a word in edgewise once in a while. 

So, I’m thinking, I know I say I can’t live in the past, but that doesn’t mean totally rejecting it. When I think back, I realize my past has wonderful memories and wonderful people. Maybe there’s something else, or someone else. Like Debbi. 

Back in my living room, seated on my couch, I dial her number. 

She answers but doesn’t speak right away. 

“Debbi, it’s me, El.”

“I think I recognize your voice.”

Why wait? I play my hand. “Debbi, wanna have dinner with me? Tonight, I’ll cook it. You know I’m not a bad chef.” 

I can feel her waiting and thinking.

“Well, I’m kinda . . .” Just the tone, the hesitation, my heart drops.

Then, there’s a change in her voice. “Well, I am kinda hungry. You say you’re really good.”

“Yeah, I’m nearly great. With your help, I could be really great.”

Sorry, no recipes here now. But I’m spending the late afternoon cooking and preparing the meal. 

Around seven, the doorbell rings. I know it’s her. I open the front door, and there she is, standing there, looking at me. Smiling at me. I pull her into the living room, and she slips out of her dark blue duffel coat and tosses it onto the couch. 

I look at her, and I smile. She’s wearing a dark green turtle-neck sweater and gray wool pants. Something about her, she looks fresh and natural, and just wonderful.

I move toward her, we do one of those automatic hugs, and then we take a seat on the couch, side by side. After the thanks-for-coming-thanks-for-inviting me formalities, I get a bottle of red wine and a plate of cheese and crackers, we drink, we snack, and we talk. 

I feel cozy, next to her on the couch. I feel warm and comfortable. We talk about everything. There are no recriminations. The last year, the divorce, it isn’t anyone’s fault. We should talk things out, yes, of course. We drink more wine. Marriages have difficult periods. We know each other, all our good and less good points. We can get more enjoyment out of life. The two of us, can’t argue with that. We know we have to support Patrick. We sip a little more wine. We can travel and see a bit more of the world. We agree on everything, and we toast that.

I get another bottle of wine from the kitchen, and I realize I left our dinner on the stove, safely turned off! I return to my place on the couch, and we realize we agree about everything. Oh, we already agree we agree, too bad. We realize we have so much in common, just like a married couple. We know each other deeply. We look at life in the same way.

Sitting on the couch with Debbi, I know it’s right.

I have an idea.    

I ask her. “Debbi, can we do a little experiment? It’ll take just a second.” 

I think I hear “Yes.” 

“You have to stand.”

I hear “Okay,” and I help her to her feet.

We face each other. I hold her. Softly, I kiss her left cheek, and then her right cheek.

I feel it, electricity.  

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