Gathering Shards

She kissed him softly, almost without emotion. It would be the last demonstration of her anger, her stoic acceptance of their fate. It hurt deep inside of her. She felt like she would double over in pain as she held her arms crossed at her waist. The pain was strong yet hollow in the pit of her stomach. He pulled back because he was the one who had leaned in for this last remembrance. If he found something right away when he returned home he would stay. At this time a promise for nothing was what they shared. It hurt them for different reasons, but they shared a commonality of reality that shook them both. They wouldn’t have each other in their lives for the first time in two years; a quiet moment tomorrow night with many more to come.

He could come back, there was that hope. But as he pulled away she felt as if she was the one deciding their fate. She didn’t have an American dream. How could she go with him and live in a dreamless world? She would leave her parents and by not having an American dream how could she have prepared them and convinced them she was running down a dream? Oh the suspicions were there but to leave under this cloud of vagueness would be more then they could bear. She hadn’t planned for the transition that hung over them for the last 7 months. The forms he gathered sat in the folder. The information about nursing in America lay under a stack of papers somewhere in the drawer they had always been in, untouched and burdensome. Her parents, family, life – how could she leave it? Maybe this was her excuse for not wanting to think of the excruciating pain inside of her but it was there and she felt foolish for thinking she could make excuses that would ease this pain. Why didn’t he meet someone with an American dream? He could be leaving with her now and she could be the better for it.

However, he didn’t fall in love with another; he fell in love with her. And she fell in love with him. It was her he would take to the park and show off to everyone. In her culture it was unheard of to act in such an arrogant manner. He wanted her countrymen to accept him and to accept them. The arrogance of the foreigner she had seen many times before. But this time it involved her and was not much different then the arrogance other Koreans saw in her as she walked around with him; a shamed arrogance. This would be the obstacle in their relationship at least that was what they pretended. They shared this like so many other things. He thought his countrymen would accept her and their relationship better than hers. And he was probably right. But it was a moot point as he touched her, looked in her eyes and knew he would not love another like this. Not for awhile. Maybe not ever.

“You’ll come back?” She wanted to look for one last hint in his eyes. He blinked to send the tear that had welded up down his cheek. The effect couldn’t have been more perfect he thought. The tear would represent the seriousness of this moment and the deep love he had for her. She loved the expression he had always shown for her. He didn’t cry much but when he did it was for her and it was her he wanted to be with, to have her hold him and comfort him. They might have been fighting but people do that as they break up or are about to spend an indefinite time apart. A lashing out at each other but also a surge of the independence they would need to live and forget. They both had to go their own way and they knew it.

No words were spoken until Vaughn said. “Don’t worry. Please don’t worry. We’ll both be fine. You’ll see.” She looked up at him and Said, “I know, but I don’t feel that way now. I’m going to mourn for a man who helped tear my heart apart. I love you and I’m afraid, afraid of choices I’m going to have to make on my own. Relationships, friends, family, and life – I’m responsible for them now, by myself. Our responsibilities were shared and that was a comfort to me. We depended on each other. Tell me Vaughn, we depended on each other, right?”

That was the trump card and she laid it down with the ease of a seasoned poker player. She had finally, after days or maybe weeks of mental struggle, come to the relationship at its merit. That might truly be the question and the dilemma they both would have to face for, at least, this indefinite time, if not forever. How do people move from dependence to independence and then back to dependence again?

He wanted to answer, to set her down the corrective road to recovery. But how could he? He didn’t know either and every situation he had faced in his life yielded a different answer. She had to ask herself that question, find her own answers. She had to gain insight from her own experiences, but like him they were so different from the one she was dealing with now. The pain in the pit of her stomach tightened. She feared the journey to this answer. It seems so hard to have loved so much and to have to try to do it again.

For all they had been through, and in their time it had been so much, he wondered if she had asked this question rhetorically. If she had, he was duly impressed for it would linger for him and be his struggle as much as it would for her. ‘Tell me Vaughn, we depended on each other, right’?” he thought again to himself.

He remembered when they first met. She was a nurse at a clinic he went to on the recommendation of a friend who said that the doctor there spoke decent English. Dr. Jin loved treating foreign patients. Vaughn received preferential treatment at the amazement of his staff. Some disliked this. “Why do we fawn over foreigners so much?” they thought. But at the heart of every deal brokered was Chelsea. Health care for a foreigner is very important to the foreigner. He has to trust those giving him or her care. He could trust Dr. Jin and ultimately he could trust Chelsea. Her curiosities lead her to ask him for English lessons. The look in her eyes asked for more.

She had a side of her that could broker a deal anytime, anywhere. He loved that about her. He was amazed at her acumen in this regard. She was tenacious. The fire would light up in her eyes and away she went. Foreigners are always told that if they want to shop, take a national with you. You will get more respect and a better deal. She was his protector in this innocent way at first. He wondered if it was a gender competition for she fought most strenuously with the males. She never told him if this was true but he suspected it. She was a strong woman when it came to the entitlements her countrymen bestowed upon her at her age and position. However, she was always ruled by men in her patriarchic society. He always wondered why she couldn’t get from under it. Maybe she did when it came to a poor male soul begging for Vaughn to pull her of off him.

In these situations, he would say in Korean, “I can’t speak Korean.” The salesmen would then know that she was his bulldog and that they would like the object wrapped as well. Very few times it came wrapped as the salesperson just gave up, took the money, cursed the foreigner under his breath and handed the item straight to them. The salesmen would be complaining of the deal he was giving. “How can I make any money?” he would feign. “She is ceaseless in her bartering and you watch with arrogant smugness. You damn foreigner. We are turning against ourselves.” Sometimes, we did get it wrapped and we giggled about this.

He really loved her. He bowed to her slightly as they looked uncomfortably at each other. It was getting harder and she begrudgingly bowed back to him. It was her custom and it showed respect. Maybe he wished to see that he still had her respect. Maybe she didn’t but she bowed anyway. Her rhetorical question fell on deaf ears. He moved past it; a last chance to get him to change his mind and nearly successful.

He knew it was difficult for her to date him. It was so difficult that her parents might have suspected but never sought confirmation. He never met them and never would. He met her sister once at the very beginning of their relationship. She had lived overseas and so Chelsea thought maybe she had a tolerance for things different than her own. Maybe she did but it was a one-time encounter never to be brought up again. The family would never be told, its honor protected. “So much honor in her culture” he thought. She honored her family more than him, kept him a secret. He had his issues with this and he bristled slightly gaining the steely reserve he was losing just a moment ago.

“I will call you when I get there” Vaughn spoke. He would because he knew he would want to hear her voice. He was going back to friends who hadn’t seen him in awhile. He actually thought she would be more alone than him having given up family and friends while they dated. He would definitely call.

“I love you Vaughn and I will miss you so much.” Tears began to stream down her face but she stood stoically. Her arms had shifted from her stomach to her waist. She looked as if she wanted to run away at that moment. He wondered if she already had inside. “I will really miss you.”

Vaughn choked out, “I will miss you too. Be strong for us” He felt like he was saying goodbye for the last time.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you too.”

They parted ways, walking backwards for a few steps. Then they turned and walked out of each other’s life forever.