The Fourth Sunrise: A Love Story Read online

  “‘What exactly is it that you remember?’

  “‘You looked at me with certainty.’

  “‘Certainty?’ I asked.

  “‘Yeah, you look at me with purpose. You are the first and last person to look at me that way.’

  “‘What about your husband?’ I asked.

  “‘He looks through me and over me. Maybe there was a time he took the time to see me as I am, but it’s been a long time since I felt that way.’ Christine paused and reflected. She then looked at me and said, ‘I can't believe you came back for me.’

  “‘I can’t believe you were already married.’

  “‘He pressured me.’

  “‘It’s marriage. It wouldn’t matter how much someone pressured me, I wouldn’t marry someone I wasn’t certain about.’ That statement might have come out harshly to her ears, but this was what I felt.

  “‘What you need to understand, Joel, is that I love my husband. He put in the time, and where I am from, you reward that.’

  “‘Reward him? He sounds like a Labrador. You’re rewarding him with your entire life?’ I stated coarsely.

  “Christine looked out toward the street where people were now packing up from another successful Deltarado Days. I had struck a nerve with Christine. The last thing I wanted was for her to be upset with something I said. ‘I'm sorry. That was not my place to say anything. I mean, you’re still married, so there must be a lot of good going on in your relationship.’

  “‘There’s a lot of routine that goes into a relationship. Our daily lives are mapped out in itineraries. Everything we do is predictable. Even our sex life is planned. My son is one of the few kids whose parents know exactly the night he was conceived.’

  “‘I don’t think I want to hear any more,’ I said. I couldn’t handle hearing about her and Captain Jack’s sex life. It was enough to make me ill. I decided to change the subject. ‘How old is your son now?’

  “‘Twelve. He’s back in Virginia with his dad.’

  ‘“Why didn’t they make the trip?’

  “‘He really doesn't like to do much of anything. The war changed him. He was already distant, but when he came back, it was a whole other story. There’s no warmth left in him. He shuts me out, emotionally. That is a little bit of why I decided to take this trip alone.’

  “‘Okay, I wasn’t trying to insinuate...’

  ‘“Insinuate all you want. Your assumptions aren’t far off from the truth.’

  “‘The truth being what?’ I asked.

  “‘That I’m in an emotionless marriage. There is love there, but not the kind of love…’

  “‘Kind of love that what?’

  “‘That two people should have. The kind I used to dream about when I was a little girl.’ Christine paused and sighed. She started to laugh and said, ‘I am so sorry to unload on you so fast.’

  “‘It’s okay. I’ve waited many years to hear these words. I’m not saying that I’m happy that your marriage is struggling. What I am saying is, I’m sure you made a mistake.’

  “‘I can’t call my son a mistake.’

  “‘Parts of it shouldn’t have happened. At least in my heart, I would like to think that to be true.’

  “Christine smiled at me and said, ‘I don't know what it is about you that makes me so comfortable. Again, I go back to your eyes.’

  “‘What did my eyes do this time?’

  “‘They allow me to feel safe. Just like that night. I don't think I ever felt safer in a man’s arms.’

  “‘That was an amazing night. It was a blessing and a curse.’

  “‘A curse?’ Christine laughed. ‘Wow, now you sound like my husband.’

  “‘Please don’t ever say that again.”

  “‘Say what again?’

  “‘The words “my husband.” What’s his name again?’ I knew his name, but she didn’t know that I spent six months with him in Vietnam.

  “‘His name is Benjamin.’

  “‘Well, let’s call him Benjamin if you don’t mind. Each time you say the word husband, I cringe.”

  Present Day – Delta, Colorado - Deltarado Days stage, 2:30 a.m.

  “Why did it bother you that she referred to the man as her husband?” Sharee asked.

  “It shouldn’t have. I mean, I met the man and he was a good person. I guess I just felt like I wanted to play make-believe with her and her saying words like ‘husband’ didn’t allow me to do that.”

  “How much make-believe did you two end up doing?”

  “My make-believe became my reality soon enough, which was probably not a good thing because I went there for closure. I needed closure, so that I could move on with my life.”

  “You must have known seeing her would ignite something in you.”

  “I just got to the point that I had to see her one more time. At least, that was what I felt before that night started.”

  “Well, Joel, you can’t take me this far and not give me the pay off.”

  “What pay off?”

  “The love scene.”

  I paused, thinking. “You want to hear details of that part?”

  “I am romance writer; that is the best part.”

  I laughed. “It’s a pretty good part, but I’m going to need to keep it G-rated.”

  “G-rated? Please don’t. Give me all the NC-17 details.”

  I was quiet.

  “Do me a favor? Only censor yourself because you want to. I have heard, seen, and written it all.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  July 1982 – Delta, Colorado - Nurse’s Station, 9:45 p.m.

  “I must have spent four hours with Christine just talking and continuing to get to know her more. It had been fourteen years. I wanted to know everything about her, except for her marriage. It was effortless when I talked to her. I had never felt that way with another human being before. I knew I didn’t want the night to end.

  “‘Do you want to go somewhere when your shift is over?’ I asked Christine.

  “‘We should go to the library again,’ Christine answered. ‘So I could slow dance in your arms all night and dream of a life with you.’

  “I looked at Christine. ‘Is that true? Were you really thinking that?’

  “Christine looked me in the eyes with a more determined expression than she normally used. It sort of threw me off. She said, ‘Of course I thought those things! You were going to be my savior. I had it all planned out that night and I held on to that fantasy...for about a month. Then the reality set in that I was probably never going to see you again. You were this great guy who swept into town but who I was never going to see again.’

  “‘I was still with my team for another month. I couldn’t have come before you gave up on me even if I had the means to.’

  “‘Joel, we never talked about a future. I didn’t know what was truly in your heart on that day. But I know that even if you would have come for me even on my wedding day, I would have left with you.’

  “‘What! Really?’

  “‘Joel, I was crazy about you! In many ways, I still am.’

  “I stood up and looked at Christine. I slowly whispered, ‘I fell in love with you on that night.’

  “Christine jumped up and collapsed in my arms and gave me a giant hug, nearly knocking me into the door. It took me by surprise to say the least.

  “I grabbed her body as she lunged into me. We both went back into the portable so we would have more privacy. Once through the door and out of sight of others, I leaned in and kissed her as passionately as I had dreamt of, on almost every night for the previous fourteen years. It was a slow, deep long kiss. My hands felt the fabric of her nurse’s uniform. I had imagined seeing her many times, but I had never imagined she would be looking like a nurse from World War II, dressed in a cute little red, white, and blue nurse’s outfit. More white than anything else.

  “Suddenly, Christine pulled away and quickly sat down in her chair. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure what came ov
er me. Let me think about this for a moment.’

  “‘What came over you was a power bigger than anything I ever had wrapped my mind around. I met you one night and now I’m 34 and I am still not over you.’

  “‘Why Joel?’

  “‘Because when you meet the one, you can’t ever go back.’

  “‘I did.’

  “‘That’s where we are wired differently. I couldn’t. I have longed for you and I have wanted to see each moment of each day for the last fourteen years. Now that I’m here with you, I need to say everything that is in my heart because I don’t know if I will ever see you again.’ I struggled to talk. Somehow I muttered out the words, ‘All these years, you have been my heart.’

  “‘That is so beautiful. You have been in my heart, too, Joel. I’ve thought about you many times over the years and I have longed for you, too.’

  “‘You have?’ I asked.

  “‘Of course. You were the most outstanding gentleman that night in the library. I thought I had met the man of my dreams.’

  “‘You did,’ I stated simply. I wanted closure but all this did was open me wide up. However, I had gone this far and I needed to just say everything that was rising up from my deepest heart. ‘I want to tell you everything that is in my heart. Christine. I will never forgive myself if I don’t say all I need to say.’

  “‘Listen, Joel, I want to hear everything your heart yearns to tell, but not here. I get off at 1:30. There is a new place that I want to take you. It’s in the exact spot of the old place where the library used to be.’

  ‘“It’s a motel,’ I said.

  “It sure is, Joel. I’m not scandalous, but I want you to go get a room there.’

  “I began to laugh. My laughter was pretty abrupt.

  “‘Why are you laughing?’ Christine asked.

  ‘“I’m laughing because ever since they made that library into a motel, I have stayed there during this Deltarado Days week, in hopes I would see you again at that damn place.’

  “Wow. It’s been up for five years.”

  “I know. Trust me. I know.”

  “Christine smiled at me and said, ‘Well, write down your room number and at about 2:00 in the morning, you might get a visitor.’

  “‘I might get one?’ I asked.

  “‘You will definitely get one.’

  Present Day – Delta, Colorado - Deltarado Days stage, 2:45 a.m.

  “Wow, she was bold,” Sharee stated.

  “You’re telling me. She had a determination I hadn’t yet seen from her, so of course, I agreed.”

  “How did you see her?” Sharee asked.

  “The same way I have always seen her. Even until this day, I see her as a light shining in my life whenever she is in my presence.”

  “That is beautiful, Joel,” Sharee said with tears in her eyes.

  I looked at the young lady and for a moment, I saw her as a woman. Tender and soft. But that was a lifetime ago to have a beautiful young woman like her interested in an old man like myself. Sharee was in her thirties, after all. I probably shouldn’t be too hard on myself being a little bit attracted to this young woman, but of course, with me in my sixties, it would have been inappropriate to pursue my mild attraction to her. However, there was a calm and a peace surrounding Sharee that was actually similar to Christine’s. I was an open book around her. All my life, I had been absolutely closed off, but Christine always got me to be the person I had always knew I was deep to the core of my heart. Somehow, Sharee earned my trust on this night, but I wasn’t sure why.

  Chapter Eighteen

  July 1982 – Delta, Colorado - Motel Room, 2:12 a.m.

  “I went back to my motel room and got ready. It was the most bizarre event of my life, preparing to see a woman alone in a motel room, a married woman who I had obsessed over for the last fourteen years. I thought that there was a chance that I had dreamt seeing her at the fair and that I had never left my room. My mind was playing pretty bad tricks on me as I agonized, waiting for her. Mainly, I was almost beside myself because my heart wanted this so desperately and if Christine stood me up, I had no idea how I would not break down completely. It was as if my longing for her for the last fourteen years willed this very moment to happen and I had to believe it would happen, with all of my heart.

  “I still didn’t know what she thought of me, not fully. Did she think of me as much as I thought of her? Did she cry for me like I had for her? Did she miss me as much as I did her? What if I was just a guy passing through one night just like I was fourteen years ago?

  “Like I said, my brain was playing pretty bad tricks on me.

  “I remember staring at a two-handed clock on the wall. You know the ones that don’t have the second hand twirling around constantly? And once a minute, that damn hand moved one tiny increment. I remember thinking how each of those minutes felt like an hour.

  “It was 2:12 in the morning. I remember because after that moment, the number 212 had become my lucky number. It seemed that I had seen that sequence of numbers everywhere. They resonated with magic, with destiny.

  “On that night, Christine Norquist came to my room and didn’t say a word, at first. Not one. She knocked softly and I tentatively opened the door. She looked at me, from the other side of the door and her eyes told me the story of her deep and faithful longing for me. She lunged forward and collapsed in my arms, kissing me passionately on the lips, her tongue and lips a gift stepped right out of my dreams and into reality.

  “I kicked the door closed, and stumbled backwards into the wall, holding her as she clung to me, as if wanting to drown me in her kisses. I held my balance and kissed Christine back. As our tongues touched one another’s, something ignited my soul as if it had been fourteen years before. I truly felt the energy of youth surge through me.

  “I tried to break my lips away to say something but Christine wouldn’t let me. Finally, I had to come up for air. She placed her right index finger on my mouth and gave me a look that said, ‘Let’s just experience this moment without words.’ Her eyes closed for a moment in a sad plea and I understood her need for no recriminations of what we were about to experience.

  “I nodded my head and led her by the hand to the king-size bed where I had pulled back the blankets and sheets. We collapsed on it and continued to kiss each other with an intensity of a thousand magic moments, all piled on top of one another. It was an explosion of love, passion, desire, and sensuality all rolled up in one.

  “Slowly, we removed each other’s clothes. I carefully unbuttoned her nurse’s uniform and pushed the fabric to the sides, then unhooked her bra in the front. As her breasts fell free, I covered them with my hands and softly caressed her. She unbuttoned my shirt, sighing deeply and soon our undergarments went by the side of the bed, her shoes and her stockings gently pulled off by me, one by one, the garter belt unhooked and laid aside. We were naked before each other and her eyes were shining with happiness. She opened her arms to me and I went into them. We were chest to breasts and she was utterly…soft and yielding.

  “Two thoughts were echoing in my head. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing with a woman who I had desired so immensely. I was in love with this woman. And I would accept all the consequences if any came my way, possibly more consequences than even her husband finding out. I knew one thing that was for sure. No one had ever loved her more than I had at that very instant. My love was close to worship, and I understood, finally, that I was at some beautiful door that had been opened to me, and within it, lived all that I had ever needed to survive, and thrive, as a man.

  “‘Christine,’ I said out loud. ‘I love you. I have always loved you. Every waking second since the moment we separated fourteen years ago, I have hungered to be with you. I have longed to be loved by you. I don’t know why I feel this way for a woman who has a husband. I can’t worry about that. My love for you is greater than my own purpose in my very own life.’

  “Christine looked up at me and with te
ars dripping from her eyes. She said, ‘I knew the moment I laid eyes on you fourteen years ago that you were the love of my life. I blew it, Joel. I am so sorry.’

  “‘You were ensuring yourself a family with a hometown boy who you’d known all of your life. It was all you knew to do when I had gone.’

  “‘I love my family very much.’

  “‘I know you do.’ I looked at Christine and my hammering heart felt like it was going to come out of my chest cavity. ‘What do we do with this?’

  “‘What do you mean, Joel?’

  “‘How do I love a woman who lives on the other side of the country and has a family of her own? How do I exist, knowing that someone else is receiving your love, the love that I have ached for, for so very long?’

  “‘You managed to do it for the last fourteen years,’ Christine said and it was hard to accept that statement, because it inferred that maybe it was survivable for another fourteen without her, too.

  “‘It was the hardest thing I ever had to do,’ I said hoarsely.

  “Christine rolled on top of my stomach and she looked down on me. ‘I want you, Joel. Even if it’s only for tonight. I’m sorry that I can only promise you tonight.’

  “‘I’ll take any moment of time that you give me,’ I said as honestly as I could.

  “‘Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe I’ll be able to promise you something else tomorrow. But tonight, I know I can promise you a hundred percent of my mind, soul, and body.’

  “I was speechless. It was the saddest, hottest, most painful, sexiest statement I had ever heard. With that, I allowed my body to speak to her on a level that was beyond my own consciousness. Every bit of me poured into her being. Not an inch of her body went unkissed. This was my moment, this was my time. This is where I separated myself from anyone else. I would pour my entire sexual being, my heart and my soul into this moment of time. I knew that tonight we would create memories that would last us for the rest of our lives. I fully expected that this might be our only time to be together, physically, so I wanted to express my love for her in such a tender way that she, too, would remember the night with joy, for the rest of her life. I hoped so.