love remembered, an exerpt

December 8, 1940

    It has to be something that represents him, she thought.  Nothing fancy, but something sturdy.  Something that could survive anything, like he had.  Like they both had, she corrected herself. 
    She slowly browsed the catch-all antique store on First Avenue in the East Village.  This place had always intrigued her for some reason.  Until today, she had only window-shopped on the days she had walked past.  She loved old things, used things, probably because that was what she was used to having as a child—secondhand things.  She supposed it had made her more appreciative of what she did have that she could truly call her own. 
    She picked up a polished, ebony box.  No, this was too perfect, too clean and resembled nothing of what they had had so far, what she was hoping to change forever.  She needed something solid and sturdy, but nothing new.  Their love was too old for something new even though she hoped, with all that she was, that this was a fresh beginning for them.
    However optimistic she was about loving life and as deeply as she had tried to bury the past and the hurt, another part of her was insistent that it wasn’t going to last forever.  It couldn’t last forever.  It hadn’t the first time when he had talked her into hoping for something that she knew couldn’t possibly work.  She believed then—and he had left her. Or rather, he had left all of them.  What made her think anything was different now? 
    A change in location was just geography.  They both may have ended up on the other side of the country, but had anything really changed? 
    Should she continue?  What was this game they were playing, and who was going to end up hurting whom? 
    As she brushed a gloved hand over another container, she mentally brushed those negative thoughts aside and moved farther into the store, where she spotted a box that very much fit how she was feeling: scarred but resilient.  She carried the box to the cashier’s desk. 
“This is a good, solid box, Miss,” said the young man whose grandfather, sitting on a stool farther down the counter, had an eagle eye on him.  He was teaching his grandson the business and wanted to make sure he treated the young woman with the utmost attention as all customers should be cared for.  The family had been selling antiques and going to estate sales long before the young man had become a part of the family business, but he had come to love it as much as everyone did.  When other young boys were on the beach or relaxing at home, he was out trolling estate sales with his grandfather.
The girl seems sad, the young boy thought.  He had a knack for knowing people as soon as they walked into the store.  It was a game he and his grandfather played as they waited for customers to decide on a purchase—figuring out their stories before they made it to the counter to pay for their items. 
    This young woman—he guessed her to be in her early thirties—had been in the store for over an hour.  She had wandered around most of the time, running her fingers over various boxes and containers as she walked.  She seemed to be contemplating something very bothersome as he saw her face go through a range of emotions when touching certain items.  He wondered what she might settle on and what it might say about her situation.
    She adjusted her hat and looked the young man straight in the eye.  In response to his observation about the box being solid, she said, “I need something solid to hold onto.” 
She blinked.  Why had she said that?  She didn’t even know this man.  But she knew it was because she needed to talk to someone; she needed someone to tell her she was doing the right thing or the wrong thing—the very wrong thing. 
She wanted to tell this young boy to be careful with his heart, but she also wanted to tell him to love wildly and madly, to throw out any doubts he had about the one he loved or might love because doubts only brought sorrow.
    “This will do it then,” he said softly, sensing that she was more involved in her own thoughts than in the present time.  The box wasn’t large, just smaller than a briefcase and a bit deeper.  It looked sturdy because fortifying the lid were metal brackets that hugged the top and sides, two on the front corners, two on the back corners. 
    A small handle rested on top of a metal plate that was centered at the top of the box.  When she saw it, she thought she could get Simon’s initials engraved onto the metal.  The wood of the box was stained a warm brown color but had become worn with age, yet it showed no signs of failing to do its job—protect whatever was housed within it.  The inside was just as plain as the outside; the velvet that had once lined the box was no longer there.  Only the shell existed. 
    But the part that intrigued her the most was that she could lock it.  The key was taped to the inside of the box.  She wondered what had been locked inside there over the years.  She knew what she was going to lock in there—her heart.  It was the only place she thought she could keep it safe from this game that she and Simon were playing. 
    “I hope it serves its purpose, Miss,” the store owner said sincerely as Loredana paid him, and he slid the box across the counter to her.
    “I hope it does as well.  Thank you.”  She took the box, nodded at him and left the store.

    Simon peeked in the box sitting on the table, found it empty except for its key and wondered why Loredana had purchased something so old.
    “What’s this?”  He asked quizzically.
    “Oh, just something I bought to store some things in.”
    “May I ask what ‘things’?”  He questioned as he comically yanked her to him, then dipped her dramatically to the floor, silently threatening to drop her if she didn’t answer.  She just wrapped her arms around his neck as she looked up in his twinkling blue eyes.  Even though she was quite tall, he held her easily.  In this position, he had her completely at his mercy, towering over her, and she loved it.  She felt safe.  He tilted his head down and kissed the tip of her nose.
    “Some things a boy once gave me a very long time ago,” she finally answered him.
    “Who is this boy?  Where does he live?  I must find him and make him ‘disappear’,” he said gruffly.  She laughed as he feigned he was going to drop her again, but she relaxed all her weight in his arms, fearing nothing.
    “Go look in a mirror—you’ll know him and know right where he is.”
    “Good answer.  You just saved some miserable sap from a premature death.”  His eyes danced with humor, and his laugh lines stood out around his mouth like they were waking from a deep sleep and had to be stretched before falling into place.  He rolled her back up to her feet and kissed her hard, but quickly on the lips.
    “Oh, you.”  She pulled out of his arms and walked to the table where she fiddled with the box.  “I’m going to put your letters in here.  I want to keep them safe.  They have my heart in them.  I’m afraid if I don’t lock them in this box, I might lose it.”  She became very serious as she came to the end of her explanation.  She looked at him, waiting for him to take in what she had said, waiting for his response that was going to tell her everything was going to turn out alright in the end.
He walked over to her, but did not touch her. “Loredana Moretti, I love you, but I don’t know what I can do with that love anymore.  I used to, but everything is so different now.” 
She looked at the box rather than at him. “And I love you Simon De Marcoli, but I do know what I can do with my love.  Give it to you just as I can give you myself.”  She moved to stand right in front of him, almost daring him to step back from her bold, confident presence.
“I’m afraid to take it, Lo, because I don’t know what I can give back, or for how long.  All I know right now, all that I am sure of, is that I belong to you, only you, and I always will.  I just—” He sat down hard in one of the chairs at the table.
“I’m afraid too, amore mio,” she whispered as she moved again to stand directly in front of him.  He quickly grasped her around her waist and buried his head against her midriff, moving his face back and forth as if he could wipe away the thoughts of the past and the future.  She wrapped her arms around his head, pressing him against her belly, stopping his movement. 
“I’m so afraid of losing you again,” she mumbled—tears had gathered in her eyes; her breath had caught in her throat—“but I will take you for as long as I can have you and as much of you as you are willing to give.”  He looked up at her with his chin resting on her firm stomach, his arms still wrapped around her full yet trim waist, his eyes searching hers through his own tears.
“Ours is a love gone mad, isn’t it, my love?”
“Yes, it is, darling.”  She leaned down, cupping as much of his face in her hands as she could, and kissed him with all the passion she had carried in her heart for so long.  She knew this moment would not last, but she would take every gesture, every word and wrap it in love, place it in her box, and put it away forever when it came to an end. 

Everything does, she thought.  Even stars go dim eventually.

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