Then what, Mister Sanders? Is the government murdering
Richard Bach or are you? Do you want to kill him because Leslie cut him loose? Will his life be so empty without her that it won't matter to you if he dies?
I thought about it for a long time. It would be exciting to take off and change my name and run away. But: is that what I most want?
Is that your highest truth? she would have asked.
No.
I sat on the floor, leaned against the wall.
No, Leslie, that's not my highest truth.
My highest truth is I've got a long way to go to learn about loving another person. My highest truth is that my Perfect Woman at best is good for some talk, some sex- transient affairs, staving off loneliness. She's not the love that the kid at the gate had in mind, so long ago.
I knew what was right when I was the kid, and again when I quit barnstorming: find my lifemate foreversoul an-gel-become-woman to learn with and to love. One woman who will challenge the hell out of me, force me to change, to grow, to prevail, where otherwise I'd run away.
Leslie Parrish might be the wrong person. She may not be my soulmate come to find me on my way to find her. But she's the only one . . . she has Leslie's mind in Leslie's body, a woman I don't have to feel sorry for, I don't have to rescue, I don't have to explain to anyone, wherever I go. And she's so god-damn smart that the very worst thing that could happen is that I could learn a lot before she leaves me next.
If a person is cruel enough, I thought, anti-life enough, even his soulmate backs away, letting him alone, willing to wait another lifetime before a new hello.
But what if I don't run away? What's to lose but my
hundred tons of steel plate, supposed to protect me from hurt? Stretch my wings without armor and maybe I can fly well enough not to get shot down. Next time I can change my name to Sanders and take off for Port Darwin!
That impudent talk-back I had sealed away, he was right. I opened the doors, apologized, let him free; yet he said not one word more.
I was looking at the biggest choice of my life, he didn't have to say it again.
Could this be a test, planned by a hundred other aspects of me from different planets and times? Are they gathered now behind a one-way glass, watching me, hoping that I'll let go of the steel, or are they praying that I'll hold on? Are they taking bets on what I'm going to do?
If they were, they were awfully quiet, behind their glass. No sound. Even the roaring in my head was still.
The road split two directions, in front of me.
The two futures were two different lifetimes: Leslie Par-rish, or my so-safe Perfect Woman?
Choose, Richard. Now. It's turning night outside. Which one?
thirty-two
"ff
fj. ELLO?" HER voice was out of breath,
nearly drowned in guitars and drums.
"Leslie? It's me, Richard. I know it's late, but could you have time to talk?"
No answer. The music smashed, beat on while I waited for the click of her telephone hanging up. All that struggling with choices, I thought, and the choice has already been made; Leslie was no longer intere
sted in the likes of me.
"Yes," she said at last. "Let me turn down the music. I've been dancing."
The phone went quiet, and in a moment she was back. "Hi."
"Hi. I got your letter."