Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint the start of a story. Did the story start with two hands touching or did it start when those hands made their way into this world?
For Sarah it started with two hands touching. She thought she saw the perfect grapefruit and reached out to take it. Another hand did the same and instead of holding a grapefruit, Sarah was holding the hand of a stranger.
For Sarah and the stranger there should have been a bit of awkwardness, a nervous laugh and a mumbled apology and a short argument of sorts as to who should get the grapefruit. Instead the two hands remained joined and Sarah looked up at Jay, the stranger, who’s hand she was holding.
For the people around them it might have seemed that their hands touched for just a moment. For Sarah and for Jay it seemed like an eternity. Finally Sarah withdrew her hand and walked away. She didn’t even finish her shopping. For reasons she could not fathom that moment had shaken her very core and she knew without knowing that it had changed her in some significant way, a way she could not begin to describe.
Sarah was not one to pay much attention to her surroundings, she was usually focussed on her own purpose and mission and saw only those people she needed to see. But after that first moment of contact she saw Jay everywhere. In the market, at the post office, in the bank, a parking lot, the cinema. And every time they seemed to catch each other’s eye at the same time and for Sarah that moment over the grapefruit happened again and again; the feeling of not being able to breathe, of her blood being frozen in her veins, of time standing still. She relived that every time she saw him, every time their eyes would meet. It was terrifying and delicious and she thought often of that moment but spoke of it to no one. What could she say, how could she describe it? Instead she kept reliving the moment, the feel of Jay’s hand in hers. It was a terrible feeling, the most wonderfully terrible feeling she had ever experienced.
“I’m Jay” he said one day.
“Sarah” she replied. She noticed his plain wedding band and thought of her own lying next to the basin where she had left it after washing her hands.
There should have been more awkwardness but instead they stood there in silence, perfect silence. Neither knew what to say to the other but words were not necessary.
For Sarah there was a guilty pleasure to these moments and she could not bring herself to confess their existence to the priest sitting on the other side of the confessional. She felt she should though, felt she was committing some grave sin just standing next to Jay, noticing his aftershave and the colour of his shirt and the flecks of gray in his hair and how his collar was always untidy.
“I can’t go on like this”, Jay said one day. “I want something more, I want you. I think I’ve fallen in love with you Sarah”
For months they had said nothing to each other, just exchanged a small smile in greeting, had their moments of being right next to each other and being worlds apart. Sarah could feel the blood drain from her face and she forgot entirely how to breathe. It seemed that she had been waiting a lifetime to hear him say anything, to say this. And she felt the same. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. So she walked away.
After that she didn’t see Jay anymore but she thought of him every day. She relived those moments and came to see them not as a sin but as a small gift from God, a little something for Sarah that was hers alone to cherish.
And if it’s hard to say where a story starts, it’s impossible to know where it ends. Did the story end when Sarah walked away? Did a new story start, when Sarah saw Jay once again or did the story just continue? And could there ever be a happily ever after if you’re not even sure what that is?
As Sarah held the grapefruit in her hand, as she looked at the man across the counter from her, she thought the story was just continuing, that happily ever after was somewhere down the road. And now, now she was on her way to find it.
