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Charlie
As I slammed the boot of my car,
preparing to leave, I look up to see a lone figure walking towards me, slow and
small in the distance. The figure stops within metres of Dad’s car, looking
hesitant and near scared to come any closer. But I guess she would be. The
temptation of a car, my car, leaving would be too much for Rosie.
“Dad, can I have a minute?” Dad
pokes his head out the car window, gazing down at Rosie, who stands there looking
apologetically at me. For a moment, I wonder if he’d say no, after what she
did. But he doesn’t. He knows what regret feels like. It’s a sad painful song
and he doesn’t want anyone else singing it too.
“Sure.” He replies, sitting back
in his chair. “Make sure to work everything out.” I smile and give him a quick
kiss before turning and walking towards Rosie. I vaguely think about how ironic
all this was now. Before it was I, standing afar wanting to come closer. Now
the roles have reversed.
“Hey.” I say when I reached
Rosie. She looks up and manages a smile.
“Hi.” She replies. We stand there
for a moment, just relishing the moment and its circumstances, everything that
happened. Then Rosie attempts to put on a brave face, and looks directly at me.
Serious. “Mum says I can’t go.” Rosie holds eye contact, and I could see the
strain. She wants to let me know she isn’t trying to guilt trip me. She isn’t
trying to change my mind. I understood. But before I could stop myself, I had
said it.
“I’m sorry.” Rosie stares at me
for a small moment, then smiles almost bitterly at herself. She knows why I
said it. I don’t want her to think this is unfair. I don’t want to leave her
feeling like she’s being left behind.
“Don’t be.” She whispers. Then
the song breaks into a crescendo and she bursts into tears. It’s a song not of
abandonment nor repression, she really does love her home, but of longing. I
hug her as she cried, and I can hear and feel just how much she wanted to go. She clings onto me and I can hear the apologies in her sobs. A sad rhythm makes me
cry too.
After a while, she regains her
composure and steps back, wiping her eyes.
“Is it so bad to wait a few more
years?” I ask. “It’s the wait that makes it worth it.” She manages a little
laugh and smiles. Already her melody is shifting. Not completely and not by
much, but enough for me to know she’ll be ok after a while once I leave.
“I guess so.” She answers,
sounding uncertain for a moment. Then she looks at me, eyes bright. “I mean, I
waited for you, didn’t I?” She softens and she looks like how she did before
all her lies came out. It was a real smile after all. “You were definitely
worth the wait. I guess I just didn’t realise I was waiting for us to become
friends.” Again, that word. But this time, I can take them and hold them close.
I feel I should do something back.
“I can’t take you with me.”I say.
“But I can make the wait a little easier. Can you wait a little while longer
for me?” She does a little sigh, as if she’s tired. She probably is, and I
worry I’m asking for too much. But then she resigns herself and smiles at me.
“Sure.” She says. “I’ll wait.”
It’s a nice thing being given someone’s trust. It’s like being given the bow to
a violin or cello. You can’t do a thing with it without the bow.
When we part and I get into the
car, I turn to Dad.
“Hey, can we stop by the beach
for a little bit?”
Rosie
A month later...
I sit in my room staring at the
calendar, at the number of crosses from the date that was circled. Nearly
thirty crosses. Nearly a month since she left.
Still, nothing.
I wonder what’s taking Charlie so
long. I don’t even know what she was going to do to make the wait better. It
can’t be that she had forgotten...
Of course not. It’s Charlie
Duskin. She wouldn’t forget.
I stare out at the backyard, at
the grass bathed in the golden afternoon sun. It’s times like these I hear
Charlie sitting out at the porch of her house, plucking notes on her guitar. I
never thought she’d be able to sing as
amazingly as she did at the concert. But that’s Charlie, surprising people.
Thinking that I strengthen my
resolve to wait for her. It’s Charlie. She surprises and she doesn’t
disappoint.
There is a sudden knock on my
door and Mum pokes her head through, and an arm holding a lumpy package the
size of the palm of her hand.
“It’s for you Rosie.” She says,
laying the parcel on the desk. I get up and look it over when she leaves. It
has a strange scent, like salt, and makes a soft rustling noise as I turn it
over, like sand against paper. I undo the paper carefully without ripping it
and gape at what was inside. It was a beautiful conch shell, polished so that
the light reflected off the creamy white and black swirls, the inside a
gorgeous gleaming pink. Charlie didn’t bother to clean the shell of sand, which
littered the inside of the brown paper, the lingering scent of salty water
wafting around my senses.
I’ve bet you’ve been to the ocean. I want to go there, somewhere that
leads places.
I smile. Like I thought, she
surprises and doesn’t disappoint. She remembered.
There was a note underneath all
the sand, I carefully dust it off, thinking to keep the sand in a little
bottle.
Dear Rosie,
I’m so sorry I took so long. I didn’t forget you at all. It was
difficult to find a good shell. You wanted to see the ocean, but I can’t bring
the ocean to you. So I’ll bring you a piece of it. When you come to the city,
let’s go and see it together.
Charlie
P.S. I bet you know what to do with the shell next right?
I place the note down carefully
and pick up the shell, emptying whatever sand was left inside. I then take the
shell and put it to my ear. For a moment, there was nothing.
Then, like
Charlie’s song, soft and sweet, a gentle sound started deep within the shell.
It came to and fro, with a soft crashing. The sound of waves. As I closed my
eyes, the smell of the sea was stronger around the shell, enveloping me. For a
moment, I could actually believe I was at the ocean, the soft sand under my
feet, and Charlie right next to me.
“Rosie! Lunch!” Mum’s voice
snapped me out of my reverie. I put the shell down next to Charlie’s note.
Let’s go and see it together.
“I’ll hold onto you on that,
Charlie.”I whisper, feeling myself smile, and I go down to my family to eat
lunch.
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