She's Sorry Forever

Ringing. There was incessant ringing, but Jim was too weary, physically and mentally, to answer the door. "Come in," he yelled. More intensely the second time: "Come in!"

Jim could not have been more surprised to see Angela, nor less surprised. Nothing made sense anymore. Not since she walked out. He never saw it coming until, well, until she announced one evening that it was time for "a talk." He didn't know about the bag packed in her closet. Nor that her co-worker Sean, the new owner of her heart, was waiting out in his car. That was what, a month ago? Two? Jim wondered why felt confused, and feared he got so drunk so often in his despair that the alcohol damaged some synapses. Maybe he was drunk now.

He realized he should be angry that she had the nerve to return but he couldn't muster enough energy to protest. Jim startled himself when his pet name for her spilled from his lips. "Hi, Angel." His stomach knotted at the word. She was somebody's angel, but no longer his.

"Can we talk about it?" Angela asked, taking a seat. It seemed to Jim as if the time for talking was long gone, although the divorce was still at least months from being final. This would be their first conversation since what he regarded as an ambush. That was where Angela thanked him for 10 years of love and devotion, lamented that they never had children, and announced that she had fallen for a better man. The "better" was Jim's word, but an inescapable interpretation.

Angela looked exhausted. Jim wondered if their separation had weighed upon her as heavily as on him. Or whether Sean the seducer might already have moved on to a "better" woman. She was still trying to find her voice when Jim silenced the speculations in his head. Whatever her issue was, he was about to hear it from the source.

"I never meant it, you know," she said, biting on her lower lip. She read Jim's searching expression and explained. "When I said I never loved you. It was a lie. I always loved you, even when, uh, you know." He bowed his head as she went on. "It was the meanest thing I ever did, saying that. I intended to use those words to make my leaving easier for you. I'm pretty sure now that they didn't. And I have not had a moment's peace since."

"Yet you are still with Sean," Jim said. "What do you want here?"

"No, I'm not," she responded in a voice nearly too low to hear.

"He left you?"

"No."

"You left him?"

"In a way, yes. Yes, I left him."

"Again, Angela, what is it you want?"

"That's complicated," she said, sucking in a deep breath as if there was a lot to explain. "First, I want you to forgive me. I don't deserve it, but that's what really makes it forgiveness. I was just gullible and infatuated and flattered and fueled by adrenalin. I never should have taken up with him. Second, I want you to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong, before or after that awful night, and I don't want you feeling regrets you never earned. Sean was never better than you in any way. Not in bed; not in life. You treated me like I really was your angel. And, you know, I never once heard of any bad thing you said to anyone about me, although I deserved plenty. Third, I want you to understand that I love you, only you, now and always. For the rest of our lives and forever."

Jim hadn't known what to expect when she arrived, but this? It was never even on the list. He had to catch his breath before asking, "You want us back together? Because I don't know..."

Angela broke in. "I know that's too much to expect. I want it. But, no, I'm not here to ask, or beg. I do dream about it. I dream of reconciliation in eternity, if not on earth. I dream of holding you forever in heaven. But I also know that angels of my kind might not be allowed there. Moral, classy men like you are."

Jim had not absorbed her words before she bent in for a kiss that was deep and sweet and sensual.

Then, in an instant, she was gone and the ringing was back. More visitors. Men and women in strange costumes, talking as if Jim could not hear them but whispering in case he did. One snapped a switch and the ringing stopped.

"I pronounced his wife not an hour ago just down the hall," a teary doctor mumbled. "And now him. I'm told they were separated and he never even knew that she caught it too."