The Holiday Visitor. Tara Quinn Taylor

be waiting.

      She’d told him to bring Jenny with him next time.

      He’d said she didn’t really like bed-and-breakfasts—preferring the anonymity of hotels. And room service available in the middle of the night.

      He’d be coming alone.

      His glance had promised her something she needed.

      Craig had looked her straight in the eye when he’d stood at the door with his bag, having already taken care of his bill. Then he’d left without saying goodbye.

       Dear James,

      Putting the pen she’d been holding for more minutes than she cared to count to the paper in front of her, Marybeth didn’t think, didn’t analyze, didn’t calculate.

      As always when she came to this place, with pen and paper, no computers, no outside world, she was herself.

      I’ve been thinking a lot about the questions you asked in your last letter. You wanted to know if you’d lost something vital because of what happened, if somehow your ability to love fully had been amputated. You seemed to think that I’d have answers for you.

      I don’t.

      Do you remember when I wrote to you on my sixteenth birthday and told you that I wasn’t dating at all? I told you I was too busy. Playing tennis (a mostly individual sport), taking care of the house and cooking and laundry, babysitting Wendy next door, getting A’s in college prep classes…

      Well, you know all that; I don’t have to repeat it all.

      Then in college when you asked I told you I wasn’t dating because there was no spark. Guys asked me out, they liked me, but I didn’t ever return their feelings. I was fine to be friends. And nothing more.

      Does this sound like someone who understands or experiences the fullness of loving?

      Do I think what happened to my mom had anything to do with this? Of course, I do. And for you, too.

      But do I think it’s for life? I used to think so, but I don’t know anymore. I can only tell you I hope not.

      I spent my senior year in college fearing that I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. And the more frightened I got the more I became certain that I needed to meet you. I really believed that if we could stand face-to-face, if we could bolster each other in real life instead of only in this fantasy world we inhabit, we would be able to free each other from the binds that keep us hostage. Or, at the very least, to share the experience of being bound.

      It took months for me to get up the courage to ask you to see me. And you said no. I don’t disagree with your reasons. Of course there would be some level of awkwardness—at least at first. We know so much about each other that we’d never have told anyone we had to see again. And yes, life and society would intervene. Judgments might creep in. Maybe wewould start filtering our words to each other. Maybe wewould lose this safe place.

      But maybe, just maybe, we’d finally be fully alive.

      You ask about your lack of ability to love completely? Maybe this is part of it.

      I don’t know, maybe it’s the holidays, my first Christmas without my dad, and I’ll feel better again, soon, but I’m really kind of angry with you, my friend. I needed you this week. I needed a real flesh-and-blood friend. Someone who could cry with me. We’re adults now, not kids.

      I needed something more personal than your handwriting. (Although the familiar script still brings joy to my life.)

      Yet you have a life I know nothing about. Very likely you’re involved with someone. Guys don’t live celibate forever. I know that it’s not a mistake that the entire tone of our relationship changed since I pushed for that meeting. You backed away. We haven’t spoken of anything personal to our daily lives in a couple of years. And while I love the philosophical discussions, while I desperately need what we have, this safe place to talk, to say anything and know that there will be automatic acceptance, I also think we’re doing ourselves a disservice.

      You are my best friend. My soul mate. If you’re married, have a lover or a girlfriend…or boyfriend, if you have a child, I want to know them, too. Don’t you see how crazy this is? I have a best friend who I know nothing about?

      We’ve created something unrealistic here, James. The semblance of a perfect relationship. Anything real, anything here on a daily basis, grinding through the boring parts of life, would have to seem flawed in comparison. Wouldn’t they? How could they possibly compete with total acceptance and support?

      Look at me. I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone with a pen.

      Maybe we were both damaged by the incidences of our youth. Maybe we have had some vital part of our ability to give wholly and completely permanently stripped away.

      Or maybe not. Maybe we have to end this fantasy to free ourselves to love in the real world. Maybe it’s time we grew up and got over the past.

      Please, James, can we meet?

       Monday, January 1, 2007

      My dearest Candy,

      My hand trembles as I write this to you with hopes that it finds you well. Would that I could be there with you as you begin another new year. It’s been almost three weeks since I sent my last letter and I still have not received one back. It’s never been this long between letters and I hope and pray that you are well. I miss you greatly, my friend. I rely on your words, your presence in the tapestry of my life.

      I need to know what you’re thinking—that you are well.

      As expected, the holidays were a struggle, though, as life would have it, not exactly the struggle I’d envisioned. As for the questions I asked in my last letter, I have discovered the answer. And I felt compelled to share it with you, lest those questions kept you from answering me for some reason.

      I suspect, from things you haven’t said, that you, too, find yourself unable to open up and give completely and I would hate to think that my ramblings and soul searching in any way made you doubt yourself. I want to give you strength, not take from you.

      So…the answer. Yes, it is possible to feel deeply, to open up and give of self, beyond, or in spite of the tragedies of the past. I cannot tell you that the emotion is enough to sustain relationships as expected by the general population, but I do know that my capability to reach that depth still exists. This I can promise you with absolute certainty.

      I found that out this holiday season.

      I know, too, that you, that this very rare and special relationship we have here allowed me to risk going outside myself. I always had you, this, as a safety net—a place where I would be all right either way. If I could feel, then great. If not, well then, okay, too.

      You know, one of the things that makes us so special is that there are no expectations between us. I don’t have to behave a certain way, say certain things, do certain things, in order for you to feel loved and wanted. Nor do you. We just know, without thought or question, that, no matter what, we are there for each other.

      Our friendship (such a stale, weak word for what we share) does not require any action other than an occasional pen to paper, so there is so little chance of failing at it. You know?

      I’m not feeling eloquent today, but needed to get this off to you as the thoughts are raging through my mind. You are raging through my mind.