ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 158: Apologia

A few things I’m sorry for, Ernie . . .

I’m sorry I never loved you.

Perhaps you knew I wouldn’t, which is why you framed a copy of our wedding vows. That Saturday morning in the courthouse I promised to love you. I promised never to leave you. I didn’t keep either promise. Didn’t know how.

I’m sorry I didn’t realize the person you were.

At the stucco cottage, you kept your A.A. book of daily readings on a chest next to the daybed. You read from it so often its cover came off, so you held the book together with a rubber band. You spoke of a Higher Power. I understood none of this. I thought people who believed in a Higher Power didn’t believe in themselves.

I am sorry I didn’t see into your inner life — the rich, deep, intense feelings you felt.

You exposed yourself on paper. Your words on paper reveal, through your characters, glimpses of you. I edited your stories. Typed them. Still, I didn’t make the connection. I thought you made up all those characters. I thought they all sprang, full-bodied, from your imagination.

I am sorry I didn’t comprehend your emotional pain — feeling undervalued and misunderstood.

I am sorry I didn’t recognize your physical pain — brought on by heart disease and bladder cancer.

I am sorry I never knew your deepest secrets. So many secrets within you that you yearned to reveal. So many thoughts unsaid, so many feelings withheld, all piled up within you until something burst.

You must have felt so alone. I know you did because you said, late, when I was across the hospital room from you: “I know I shouldn’t feel abandoned but I do. Come closer.”

I am so sorry we were not close.

I am deeply sorry we each abandoned ourselves.