TEARS ON ICE

TEARS ON ICE

BY JOHN TUFT

He sat there until dawn. He tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. The text messages remained unread. He’d live in such fear of this day coming that when it did arrive it felt unreal. How was he supposed to make friends with ‘alone’ again? He decided to make coffee. The familiar ritual of filling the pot, getting the filter, six scoops of medium grind, push the button. And sigh. How could she do this? Moving on is a concept so foreign that he might as well be expecting to turn up in Madagascar as he was prone to moving on. The heart wants what it wants but the pain sitting on his heart was that her heart no longer desired his. He could more likely cry tears of ice than he could ever imagine loving again.

Work was out of the question for today. He pulled on his favorite jeans and a ratty flannel shirt that she hated, kept begging him to throw it away. Wearing it today would show her. Nobody tells him what to do. Except he really only ended up sitting again, alone in his aloneness. Finally, he found the strength to go to the closet and dig out the box of chocolates he’d bought for Valentine’s Day. They were her favorite, but he was going to eat every last one of them, right here, right now. Serves her right. Who was she to tell him that he shut her out?! Shut her out of what? That he’s a scared little boy playing at being a grown up? That his job tears him down and he doesn’t mean to, doesn’t want to, but taking it out on her seemed the safe way to vent. Wasn’t it?

Halfway into his sugar-induced stupor, the doorbell rang. It was his father, coming to check in after his wife told him the terrible news. Dad heated up the old coffee and made them both a mug with cream and sugar, the real stuff, not Coffee Mate and Stevia. And then he sat, just sat. With his son in his pain and confusion, in his grief and fears. When the son spoke, he listened without judgement. When the son grew angry, the father heard him out without becoming angry himself. When the son cried, the father wiped the tears with his ever-present handkerchief, the one with the faded monogram and threads hanging off the edges. When the son grew bitter, the father took out his well-worn billfold and took out a small card with printing on it.

The son accepted the card and looked at it, not recognizing what he was seeing. Tears on ice. That’s all the card said. Three words. “I don’t understand. How does this solve anything?” The father looked concerned, “What is it that needs to be solved?” The son was indignant. “She left me. She gave up on us. She made me look like a fool who can’t keep a woman. What needs to be solved? Her. Make her come back.” The dad took the card and returned it to his billfold, which slid back into his left back pocket. “What did the card say?” The son was not having it. “What does it say? Nothing. I need her to come beg me to take her back. She needs to pay for this.”

The father bowed his head. “Son, don’t sacrifice being human for being right.” The son realized the old man might not be much help in matters of the heart. “What do you know? You and mom have it all figured out.” At this the father smiled. “I’ll be sure to let her know that.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Son, if two people have hearts of ice, all they can do is keep it cold. The heart is the center of our warmth. If it grows cold, what is left?” The pain was evident in his own eyes as he looked with love on his son. “Sometimes, our only hope in love is to let our tears melt the ice.”

After the father was gone, the son sat some more. He pondered his father’s words. He looked around at his empty home. He looked within, and he shivered. Finally, he picked up his phone for one last message to her. Through the blur, he typed out, “I’m sorry. I want to melt…”

May your Valentine’s Day be blessed and warmed by love.

Words are magic and writers are wizards.