Forgiveness

Kseniia Isakova

That day I woke up willing to spend the last day of my vacation somewhere out of the hotel I stayed in. After marriage, it was my first holiday I had to go on alone as my husband couldn’t make it because of his unbearable and demanding boss who asked him not to leave as the project they were working on couldn’t go any further without my husband’s instructions.

At first I hated that jerk who ‘imprisoned’ Jim but after awhile I realized it was even for good to some extent. Being married for twelve years, I had already forgotten how much I loved being on my own. That week on the seashore I was living as a nun – I didn’t speak to anyone except the hotel staff and some days I was too lazy even to go for a walk as I had some great novels with me to read. In other words, I enjoyed taking care only of myself immensely. However, when the last day came I felt I actually had missed Jim and those sporadic phone calls were not enough.
Anyway, I decided to go on the beach. As usual, it was a nightmare for me – an attractive woman shouldn’t go anywhere with no company. So I came back rather soon and by force of habit checked my phone in case Jim had called. But there was a missed call from an unknown number. Without any thinking I dialed it.
“Hello?” – woman’s voice came.
“Hello. You might have called me …” – I couldn’t finished as I was interrupted.
“Oh, Lisa, is that you?”
“Yes, and you are …?” – I asked hesitantly.
“Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Alice! Do you remember me?” – the voice sounded quite cheerful. Of course, I did remember her.
“Hi, Alice. How are you doing?” – I tried to remain calm as my heart started to beat faster.
“Perfect, and you? How is Jim?”
“He’s all right”.
“Glad to hear it! Lisa, I wanted to ask you something. Would you mind meeting me tomorrow at 6 p.m. at our place?” - I stopped calling it ‘ours’ long time ago.
“That’s the time I’m coming home tomorrow so I can’t. How about Friday, at the same time?”
“Works for me. I’ll call you on Friday. I’m looking forward to see you, Lisa”.
“Goodbye, Alice”.
I hung up and plopped down on the coach. It took me some time to forget what Alice did to me and my son, Jeremy. At least I managed to stop feeling that despair over and over again. I was wondering if she would apologize for making my son change his first school. It was terrible for Alice to hear from other teachers, her colleagues at the same time, that Jeremy was such a remarkable and talented child. She couldn’t face up with a fact that her son, Alex, was just an ordinary kid and wasn’t that outstanding she described him to be when we first met. Of course, I was proud of Jeremy – though he was a disaster some time in our family life, still he always was a promising kid. I just never thought I’d be made to pay for it by my best friend. Alice had some connections, and despite Jeremy’s high grades, we were asked to change school without any scandal and notes about expulsion. Me and Jim decided to do that as Alice’s tyranny towards our son wouldn’t stop. One part of me even wanted her to die from that envy she might have felt, and that part had swore to do anything to avoid seeing her again.
But there was another part of me. Some time I felt I missed Alice a lot – we had spent really good days together! Before that competition between our sons she invented I used to consider her to be the most sympathetic person I’d ever met. I couldn’t ignore some decent features she had. I wanted to see her, and that optimistic part of me even had a hope that Alice had changed and deeply regretted about what she did. But another voice in my head was assuring me that I was wrong to have agreed to meet her. Both of them had their points. But I had to ask myself: What if I tried to understand her? I could never know what it felt like to have an ordinary kid, for instance, - such a gift didn’t occur to her. I didn’t need even to praise Jeremy in front of her as there were people to do that instead of me. I need to see her and to talk to her – that was for sure, even if Jim wouldn’t approve of it. There was the only way to figure that piece of the past out. And what happened next after I met her - it would be just another story.
Ksenia Isakova