Prodigal Son

Originally written January 1, 2006

Dennis has been back from Massachusetts all week, so I’ve actually been working with him on curriculum material alone. That has been interesting in a nice way, since we haven’t really gotten to know each other except through Patrick. I usually form a very strong connection with my Grey Orchid students, and I hadn’t noticed before this week how Patrick’s presence was functioning as a mediating factor between me and Dennis. He’s quiet, much quieter than Patrick, and I wonder if he sometimes feels as if he’s in his boyfriend’s shadow much of the time. I still don’t know if he’s cut out for the curriculum in the long run, but he certainly has an inner strength I hadn’t noticed before.

Speaking of the devil, Patrick himself returned on Friday. I had been able to put from my mind the possibility that I’d been responsible for that woman’s death throughout the week, but seeing him for the first time since I’d hung up on him caused the emotions to rush back in a hurry. I tried to focus on the anger that I’m certainly justified for feeling, for Patrick dismissing my ability to make responsible decisions, for believing he—little more than a child—can know what is in my best interest, for acting on his doubts instead of voicing them to me. But the shame kept creeping up and seeping in. Shame of knowing he could be right. And no, it doesn’t feel like he’s right, but he is a very intelligent young man, and his scenario is disturbingly plausible. The timing, as he’d said, was uncomfortably accurate. The power of the charm is so sensitive and unpredictable that I should have known I’d have to pay close attention to what I said and thought while wearing it. The anger wouldn’t come without the shame; it was an all or nothing deal. But much of that was sidelined when I felt him before I saw him.

I didn’t realize at first that I was feeling him. The quartz charm had begun to vibrate the way the coral one had done at seemingly random times on previous occasions. I was sitting at home, and it began out of nowhere. When it became especially frantic, I laid a hand on it to quell the quaking. Then there was a knock on the door.

I opened to find Patrick in the hallway with an overstuffed backpack clinging to his shoulders. He was holding the coral charm by the chain, also vibrating away at the end of its cord. Neither of us said a word; I released my grip on the quartz and moved nearer to him. Within moments, it started up again.

“Huh,” he said. “So that answers that question.”

He followed me inside, and I explained how I came across it, or it came across me. I took it that he hadn’t been keeping up with my journal in the past few days (insert inside-jokey smiley face here). He’d also come straight from the airport by taxi without stopping at home to see Dennis first. Thus, he’d stopped by not because he knew about the new charm but because we had a conflict to resolve. Our priorities now split, I thought it would be more important to discuss the implications of the vibration factor, but he seemed to disagree, returning me to the more volatile side of the scenario before I could vocalize it.

“We can get back to that, but I really came over because I wanted to give this back and to apologize for everything.”

The events of this day to be continued...