by Sandra Lowen

Created on: February 01, 2010

FACING THE PAST: 

THE PARTY

His was the last face I’d ever hoped to see.

He still had that shock of red hair and those freckles that made him look polka-dotted. And yes, he still had that scar.

I didn’t realize how the sight of him upset me until Corey pulled his arm away: “For goodness sakes, Jana,” he said, “What's wrong? You’re cutting off my circulation!”

His voice jerked me back to today. I was in the Galleria and I was looking for party decorations for little Corey’s eighth birthday bash. I was with Corey, and he was big and beautiful and would protect me from – from –

He must not spot me. I pulled Corey into the first doorway we came to. “We don’t need anything from the jewelry store,” Corey said. What on earth is going on? You’re shaking like a leaf!”

Corey didn’t know, and I’d vowed he’d never know. But now my past had floated up to my present, and if I wasn’t careful, it could very well settle itself firmly into my future.

I felt the wetness under my armpits. I was sweating. “I – I’ll be fine,” I said shakily. “You don’t look fine,” he said. “I’m going to get you home.”

“Corey’s party—“ I said, my voice barely a thread.

“We’ve got plenty of stuff,” he said, already propelling me toward the door. “I’ll get Lucy to pick up some stuff on her lunch break, and she can drop it off at the house tomorrow. You’ll have the whole afternoon to do the bags. Would that be all right?”

It was fine. The faster I could get out of this mall, away from – him, the better I would surely feel.

Corey drove, a worried expression in his eyes. I slumped against the safety belt cord and clung to it with the hand I usually rested on Corey’s knee, as if that three-inch strap could keep my mind from flying outside, too. Anxiously I peered into car windows as we drove off the lot. I did not see him.

How could he be here? I’d left him in Dallas; how could he be in Poughkeepsie? Just some guy that looked like him, I wondered?

But no, that – scar.

I’d done that.

II

Little Corey loved his dad, and the feeling was mutual. He fairly danced out of his bedroom to greet us – to greet him—as he always did. Everybody who’d ever said little boys loved their mommies best was wrong, as far as Little Corey

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