I hit the call button and sit back in my chair, for the first time the accumulated exhaustion from my very long day making itself known to my body. Whew boy! I felt like I’d been run over by a two-ton truck.
Shannon picks up on the third ring, her beautiful face materializing a few seconds before her voice comes lilting through the speakers.
“Hi, baby!” I say brightly. My exhaustion of a moment before is suddenly nowhere to be found but has been replaced by a boyish excitement. “Sorry about the delay. Had a last-minute request from the boss. How are you? Is everything okay?”
“Everything is perfectly fine, my love,” Shannon says, her smile as wide as mine. I can just make out the sounds of rain falling on the metal roof of her trailer; as far as I can tell, from what I can see of the living room, everything is as it should be. No water. Not yet anyways.
“Really? You’re not washed away yet?”
“Nope,” Shannon says, brushing a strand of loose hair back from her face. She’s wearing the same clothes from this morning and looks just about as tired as I feel. “As high and as dry as ever.”
Despite the cheeriness evident in her voice, I can read the worry that’s floating just below the surface of her calm. As much as she might be trying to pretend that everything’s normal, it’s clear she’s going to be only too happy once the storm has passed. You and me both, kid.
The first little while we chat, we don’t talk about anything in particular. I recount my day, the story about my near-drowning making her laugh so hard she nearly cries. After this, she tells me about hers. Not much happened, she says, though the big tree in her backyard did fall. But for the most part, all she did was read and nap and eat and listen to the rain. Not a bad day save for the anxiety.
Several times our connection goes on the fritz, though it’s never out longer than a few seconds before it’s back and clearer than ever. And more than once, a crack of thunder interrupts something one of us is saying. But for the most part, the gods are gracious and our conversation burbles along unhindered by the storm.
We talk for nearly two hours, until the clock's hands are edging close to eleven, our yawns lengthening with the minutes. In this time, we cover a fair amount of ground, from this storm to other storms Shannon has experienced to the seeming nonchalance of her local newsperson in reporting rescue efforts to musings on what the dolphins and the whales in the gulf might do during such times of intense disturbance. The topic we end with is the same one we always end with - what our lives will look like when we finally are together. Talking about our future seems more necessary to me than ever today, and the moment I broach the subject, Shannon is only too happy to latch on.
“Oh, Kyle!” she sighs as she clasps her hands together before her, her eyes those of a little girl who has just stumbled upon a big pile of presents all for her. “Our future is going to be so wonderful!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I say, stifling a yawn with the back of my hand. “I really just can’t wait. I thought about it quite a bit today. Where we might live, what each of us might do. The possibilities are endless. Truly endless.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Especially once your business takes off,” Shannon says. “Only…” Her smile vanishes as she trails off. It’s clear we’ve come to the heart of what she’s been thinking about all day. “What if…”
“What if what, baby?” I coax.
“What if…” Her voice cracks. “What if we don’t?”
“What if we don’t what?”
“What if we don’t see each other in person?”
She's so serious and forlorn as she moans this that I can't help but laugh.
“Whatever are you talking about, my love?”
“Don’t laugh at me. I’m serious, Kyle. What if we never end up meeting? What if this...“ She points at me and then at herself. “What if this doesn’t happen?”
“But why wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know. I mean, isn’t this crazy? How crazy do two people have to be to talk like this, to tell each other they love one another and to plan a happily ever after and yet they’ve never even met?”
“Pretty crazy, I’d say.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it?” I shrug, smiling.
For a heartbeat and a half, we’re silent as we stare at one another.
“It might be crazy,” I pick up. “Hell, of course it’s crazy! But that's life. Life is crazy. Everything it’s crazy. Just being alive itself is crazy! But I’ve lived long enough now to have learned that the craziest things, those things your heart wants but your mind thinks you don’t deserve to have—those things are the very things you should go for. So yes, what we’re doing might be crazy, but it’s a crazy I wouldn’t trade for anything else in the world. Let others find their happiness however they want; for me, my happiness is sitting right here in front of me in her living room two hundred miles away, hunkered down as a hurricane pours an ocean down on her head. That’s the sort of crazy I choose. I love you, Shannon, and there’s noth—“
The sound of a hammer hitting a wall bursts from my speakers; my screen goes black mid-sentence as just like that our connection is cut.
“Shannon? Shannon?” I say, knowing already that it’s useless. Dammit! Her electricity must have gone out. What perfectly piss-poor timing! I hoped she understood what I’d been trying to say, at least. I knew her worries about us were nothing more than her worries about the storm. She was more scared than she wanted to admit. And now, with her electricity out…
I should save her. I should get in my truck, drive down there, and force her to come with me.
Well, what’s stopping you?
I go to push myself up from the desk, but as I rise my phone buzzes. It’s a message from Shannon.
I’m sorry, the message reads. I’m just being goofy. You’re totally right. If what we’re doing is crazy, I’d rather be crazy than sane any day of the week. This storm just has my nerves on edge. The electricity is out, but I have enough flashlights and candles to last a year, so everything is okay, I promise! Since there’s not much to do in the dark, I’m going to sleep now, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you. I know the life we’re going to build together will be perfect. Now goodnight! Sleep tight, my sexy man!
I sink back down into my chair and for a moment stare blankly at my phone screen, until another yawn overtakes me and sends a shiver down to my toes. I type out a quick response and hit send. Then, shaking my head to clear away the terrible thoughts still whispering their horrors in my ear, I get up and, without bothering to doff my work clothes, throw myself onto the nearby bed. I’m so exhausted that in less than a minute I’ve fallen into a deep, limitless sleep.
7.
Shannon
As had happened the last time, the lights return not two minutes after they go out, just as I finish typing my text out to Kyle. Leaving my phone on the desk, I rgo into the kitchen for a glass of water. As I stand at the sink and gulp it down, another peal of thunder seems to rip the sky open above me, the windowpanes and plywood atop them rattling. I hardly notice, preoccupied as I am with the conversation I’ve just left.