by Jill Chan
Oh, what jealousy does to us!
What love does to the living!
It is a completion of something, of anything!
Love, bring me something real, something damned like death, like breath.
God, please forgive us the things we need and could want.
To set myself at peace, I just think that my husband and I were great. Our relationship was great, exclusive. He never was unfaithful. But sometimes we are not sure. It's like looking at clouds in the sky. We see what patterns we want to see.
When I was a child of four, I was riding in the car with my mother. The car was going fast and I suddenly looked up at the sky. Do you know what I saw? I saw the countenance of Jesus in the cloud formation above us.
“Mama, look!” I pointed at the sky with a huge grin on my face.
My mother didn't say anything. In the next second, she was smiling and nodding to me in a look of agreement, apart from consideration but of fact, of truth.
It was like that, like something indefinite, both likely and unlikely.
It is like love. It is like mistaking lust for love. Something big and inexplicable. Or desire, or caring. Something precious.
Then the next thing comes along and you let go of the past like lightning, like sky. The presence of heaven on earth, unseemly yet true, yet real.
But to tell you the truth, I'd been thinking of being unfaithful. The temptation was great.
My friend's boyfriend had revealed to me his frustration regarding his lover. He thought she was being unfaithful to him with my husband.
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excerpt from What We Give: a novella, published as a free ebook at https://en.calameo.com/books/005063882e0b5bfd690e8
It tells of a widow and her ruminations about life with her husband, her doubts and doubtfulness, his exactness and charm, and the consequences of death.
"To us." Important words. I like the easy fluidity of this, the quiet reflections, the acceptance, the gratitude. I shall download your novella.
Thank you Mathew. And thanks for your interest in my novella.
Thanks, Sam for the fav.
Wonderful, Jill!
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Thank you so much, Bill.
Love What We Give! I posted a review on Facebook and in the Forum. Congrats on a splendid job.
La revanche est un plat qui se mange froid. Have downloaded the novella.
Thank you so much, Mathew and Daniel. Mathew, I'm rapt that you liked it enough to review it and say something about it here and elsewhere. Daniel, hope you like it. :)
So fine.
Thank you so much, Kitty.