wavering ...and caught between two lovers

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
—Sylvia Plath

The restlessness of autumn mirrors my mood. I’m caught in a maelstrom of doubt trying to decide between two lovers.

I should be happy but I’m not.

I was hired to teach freshman English at Victoria College—a goal I was pursuing through my doctoral studies as a solution to my mounting student debt. But that was before Claire Astor and I broke up.

It was my fault really—I got drunk at a local pub and had a fling with a flirty girl from my graduate seminar. The next day, my guilt kicked in and I confessed the whole sordid affair to Claire and she decided our engagement was off.

My life’s been on hold ever since—until I met Sherri Jones, a beautiful, young redheaded secretary working in the Office of Graduate Admissions.

Now, I’m facing a dilemma. Claire has changed her mind and wants me back, but I’ve also fallen in love with Sherri.

“What should I do, Raff?”

Raff has been my best friend ever since first year—he’s also my mentor when it comes to women, seeing he’s happily married to Brie and they’re raising a small child.

“First of all, I wouldn’t be in your position, Pal—but if I were, I’d make a decision. I wouldn’t be wavering back and forth.”

“It’s not that simple. What are you suggesting—I toss a coin?”

He gives me the same sardonic grin he always uses when I ask dumb questions and it usually means, have you got a better suggestion?

In this case, I don’t.

I spend nights sitting in my parents’ kitchen dividing a loose leaf sheet of paper into two columns and trying to weigh the relative merits of Claire versus Sherri. It’s driving me crazy.

“And by the way,” Raff adds, “you really need to move out of your parents’ house and start living on your own—it might help with your decision making.”

I’m scheduled to see through a rental flat in a run-down house near the university, so I figure I’m slightly ahead of the curve on that one—but how that will help with my decision making is beyond me.

“Oh, and Sherri—what kind of a name is that? She’s way too young for you, Pal—and no education compared to Claire. And, she's from a lower social class. Yeah, she’s beautiful, but how will she fit in with your friends?”

I’m instantly on the defensive. Admittedly, there is a ten year gap between us—I’m twenty-eight and she’s eighteen—but she’s very mature for her age and also a really genuine person. And, as for her being from a lower social class—that doesn't even enter the equation.

Still, Raff’s criticism hurts, and sows more doubts about whether I’m socially delayed, or simply infatuated and out of my mind.

As I’m musing about my dilemma, my cell rings—it’s Sherri. She asks if she can accompany me to check out the rental flat and I agree. Raff rolls his eyes.

Maybe he’s the down-to-earth, safe, predictable type who ends up in a stable marriage—and maybe I’m the incurable romantic who’s looking to be head-over-heels in love and bewitched beyond caring.

But at any rate, she makes my heart sing, and for now, I can’t get past that.

She’s on lunch break and meets me on Huron Street outside the old Victorian house. It must have been a beauty in its day—but now of course, it’s in need of paint and the wooden verandah is beginning to sag.

“I like it,” Sherri smiles. The sun through the maples lights up her red hair and leaves me momentarily breathless.

“C’mon,” she laughs, and grabs my hand, “I want to see inside.”

If this were Claire, she’d be appalled—she’d want the building condemned, but Sherri sees it the way I do—as magical—a part of an adventure.

You wouldn’t want to invite your friends over there—I can hear Raff say in the back of my head.

Mrs. Price, the owner, is friendly and takes to us right away. “I can just see the two of you living here—you’d have the entire downstairs, and just have to share laundry in the basement with Mrs. Young, who’s lived upstairs for the past ten years.”

I don’t bother to correct her about Sherri and I—we’re not actually a couple yet—but hearing her say it makes me feel warm inside.

There’s a huge wood-burning fireplace, a dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms. I can just afford the rent if I don’t go out much and eat only two meals a day.

“I’ll take it,” I hear myself say.

“You’ll both be happy here,” Mrs. Price smiles. Sherri smiles too. I feel like a stick in a stream being carried along.

After Sherri leaves to go back to work, I finish signing the paperwork with Mrs. Price. She hands me the keys and leaves me standing alone in the middle of the dark-stained hardwood floor, in the front room of the echoing house.

It’s all mine, but I’m not sure where I’m going now. I sit down on the base of the fireplace and lean back against the stones and survey the flat.

A shaft of sunlight slants through the oval, leaded glass window beside the fireplace. Colored patterns are thrown onto the floor and they waver and ripple like watery images, mesmerizing me with their beauty.

The room is like a shadow box, brightening and darkening as the wind stirs the maples outside.

In the wavering light, shadowy patterns dance and then, gradually resolve into two dim figures in cameo—a silhouette of two lovers embracing.

I hold my breath at the dumb show before me, fascinated and afraid to stir for fear of disturbing the vision.

Gradually, the figures dim and fade and the light changes again in the room.

I’m intrigued by what I experienced and sense there’s significance behind what I can only describe as a vision.

I go back to the university and begin researching details of the house starting with the street address.

In the historical Toronto archives, I find a wealth of information about the Annex area and discover the house is listed as a heritage site.

The more I probe I find information about the original occupants. It turns out to be an interesting story.

It seems the house was originally built by a University of Toronto Professor whose wife suffered an untimely death just after the house was completed. He lived alone in the house for several years before marrying the young servant girl who assisted the housekeeper.

The marriage apparently caused quite a few raised eyebrows in the Professor’s staid circle of friends, but the two lived happily in the house until they passed away during the First World War.

A newspaper article recounted that when the house was being renovated in the Thirties, a cache of letters was found in the attic throwing light on the devotion of the couple and their unswerving love toward each other.

A passage from one of the letters touched me—the husband was reassuring his wife that their differences in class and age were nothing but superficial. Quoting William Thackeray he told her, “A person can’t help their birth.”

As soon as I read that line, I knew why I had been drawn to the house and what the shadow play I witnessed really meant.

I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being overly concerned about the wrong things—and besides, the heart always knows before the head does, otherwise, what was the point of those nights in my parents’ kitchen adding up columns and weighing them until they came out in a certain redhead’s favour?

It was obvious my heart already knew what my head would slowly learn—that compatibility in love is a matter of gravity—of slowly being drawn in one direction.

And Mrs. Price was right—we will both be happy here.

image credits: https://goo.gl/images/umwHe8, https://goo.gl/images/E2u5Pq, https://goo.gl/images/yYnWdz