Chapter 7

  Her name was Amarita, and she was appeared to be in her early thirties. She had Long brown hair, big brown eyes, and a huge smile that he guessed drew people to her from a lot of different corners of the world.

It had been a while since he had done a “cold call” with a woman like this, and he chuckled thinking back on his checkered past as a single man. His moves were often bold, funny, and fueled by a significant portion of alcohol.

But this time he started with a handshake and a simple introduction. Old school. She was an Indian woman working in New Zealand for a year, and had recently become engaged to a British man. She was a university professor in Wellington, and taught classes in Anthropology. They fell quickly into conversation, and John was reminded of something he read by Richard Bach many years ago from his book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. “Your friends will know you better in the first moment you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”

 He looked up and saw that they had been talking for several hours, about writing, music, travel, and wine, and it occurred to him that he felt more connected to this woman than anyone since his wife. And yet he was also on dangerous ground. She was engaged. In love with someone else. Tread carefully John he thought to himself, as they agreed to meet for dinner later that night. 

He had come to a fork in the road.



They met in front of the hotel, and decided to make the small walk

into the town. There was a romantic restaurant on the beach, and although his instincts warned him against it, he still found himself walking towards the ocean with this new, lovely woman. 

Settling into their table by the fireplace, he looked into her eyes and felt a kind of sadness there. He knew he could simply ignore this signal and proceed with their romantic evening, but it wasn’t in his nature.

“Forgive me for ruining the mood, but I can see something is on your mind,” John began. “Tell me what is weighing on you.”

“Oh boy. You guys just can’t help it, can you?” She asked with a laugh. “But yes doctor, you’re absolutely right.  All day I’ve been resisting the urge to get closer to you, but I haven’t been able to do that. It’s something I haven’t felt with my current partner at all, and now I’m remembering what it was like and that makes me sad.”

“As long as we’re making confessions now, I should be honest with you as well. My wife and daughter died a couple of years ago and I haven’t felt this connection with another person for a long time. But when you know. You know. And I’ve been sitting here thinking about how easy and perfect it is to talk to you, and then I was thinking that you’re already engaged.”

She took his hand and smiled, and he felt that electric current again and felt truly alive for the first time in years.

“You’re sweet to think about him, and I’m thinking about him too, believe me,” she began. “But what is life for if we don’t have the power to change our choices? That must be your bread and butter doctor?”

“Yes, that’s right. And I have to admit when you touched my hand

 just now it was like being struck by lightening. And for most of my life my instincts have been razor sharp about people. But now I’ve been lonely for a long time, and grieving for a long time. And all of a sudden I find a gorgeous, brilliant woman in one of the most beautiful little corners of the world waiting here for me. It reads like a beautiful story, I agree. And I would like nothing more than to touch you and kiss you and talk to you about anything we can possibly think of. But, is it right? In the grander karmic sense of what one person does to another. Is it right to the man you’ve made promises to?”

She got up from the table, and came and rested herself on his lap. She took his face in her hands, and looked deep into his eyes. She went to kiss him and at the last moment diverted her aim and kissed him on the forehead.

“You poor sweet man,” she said quietly. “You poor sweet man. In another life this would have been the start of a whole other life for you and me. A whole new life.”

“But I guess not in this one.”