The Wilderness

“For fuck’s sake Caroline, you know I didn’t sleep with him,” I tried to explain as I had been doing so since I woke up yesterday morning.
“Don’t give me that, Charles.  You know just as well as I do that it was all over your face, black and white.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to me yet, but maybe she was right.  I guess it didn’t matter anymore.  No matter what I said or tried to do, she was leaving and she was leaving tomorrow.  
Her life was packed…along with half of mine: the brown boxes, the dresses, the make-up, the shoes, the pictures, the everything; and not that the dresses were mine, it’s just that it was our life.
I didn’t know if I felt anymore.  I didn’t even know if I could.  But that was how things went, and this is how things were.  My Caroline was leaving.  My Caroline was already gone.
I guess it all started in fourth grade.  Well, that is my earliest childhood memory.  My father had died and my mother had left him years before. I didn’t know her.  I didn’t even remember her.  There was a picture of her on the nightstand in my father’s bedroom, but I only saw it twice.  I wasn’t allowed in that room.  
I snuck in there to see the wilderness I never knew, but was thoroughly disappointed to find the room immaculate and like something out of the movies.  I had only seen a few movies on my grandmother’s television set by this time. We didn’t own a television.  I never asked why, but I think it had something to do with my mother.  
Anyhow, fourth grade was different than most.  I had moved into my grandmother’s house and had to go to a new school.  I don’t remember much of the school days but grandmother smoked a lot.  It made me cough.   I think that is what probably killed her; she coughed herself to death one day.  When she died, I moved.  
My aunt was very nice and she liked to make me pudding.  That’s where I finished school; at my aunt’s house in some god-forsaken city I never knew.  
When I got out of high school, I got a job.  I think Paul, the kid I was friends with, went to college.  I never really knew, but I never talked to him again.  And I didn’t think I would ever speak to Caroline again, either.  I didn’t want her to go, but she said she had to.  I just couldn’t see why she had to leave.  I had to stop her.  
“Caroline!” I screamed.
“What is it Charles?”
“I don’t want you to go.  I am sorry for everything.  I didn’t mean it.”
“Charles, shut up.  Don’t start this again.”
“I am not starting anything.  I just want to fix it, I swear.”
“This was fixed before it even began.”  
I don’t think she was talking about the kind of fixed like a broken sink, I think she was talking about the kind of fixed like at a baseball game or a sporting event.
“It wasn’t.”
“Charles, I am leaving and you know it.  You have done enough.  Just…just go.”
“I’m sorry, Caroline.  I truly am.”

I was sorry too.  I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.  I can’t even remember why she wanted to leave anyway.  Maybe it was the adrenaline rushing through my veins and into my fingers.  I could feel them pulsing, really, really fast.  My heart must have been beating fast also.  I didn’t want to check though.  Sometimes I can’t remember things when I am angry or sad or scared.  I just block them out and try to focus on the now.  It is better to do so anyway.  You can’t predict the future.  You can’t even see it.  And the past is similar.  You can remember what happened, but it is just a memory.  I’m sure I could fabricate a memory and remember it as the past.  I’m sure of it.  
All I knew is that I wanted to see her; my Caroline.  But all I could remember was the day we met.  It was on a bridge.  I was fishing and she was walking with an umbrella in her hand to shield the sun.  I don’t really remember why I was fishing, but that doesn’t seem important.  Anyway, I waved at her and she smiled back.  I asked her if she would like to take a seat.  She was wearing a pretty flowery sun dress and a fake-gold locket.  She sat down and we talked and then the next thing you know, we were married, though it was almost two years later.  After that, time flew by like the wind and the stars and well, everything.  
I wanted to see her.  She said she was leaving.  I knew I could convince her to stay.  I had to.  I just had to.  
So here was my plan.  I was going to ask her to go to one final dinner with me.  I would show her the most excellent time and remind her of all the good times we have had.  I would take her for a walk, down to the bridge where we first met.  It was quite a drive, but I am pretty sure it would be worth it.  After that, I would kiss her, like the first time, and everything would be just as it was.  And all the brown boxes would be unpacked and everything where it used to be.
I don’t remember exactly how it went, but I convinced her to stay.  I helped her unpack all the brown boxes the next day and I put all her dresses back.  I put all her make-up and shoes back in the drawers and in the closet.  I put all the pictures back on the shelves and the nightstand.  I did this and I remember it.  I knew that everything would work out if I put my mind to it, and I knew I could convince my Caroline to stay.  Everything was exactly how it was.  Everything.