Sarah and Lewis were meant to have their first date tonight, and both of them have been looking forward to it very much. However, Lewis has also had something of a rough week, with high anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and heavy lethargy, and when this morning he came close to a panic attack, Brid put her foot down. “I’m sorry, Asa’el, but he needs to be at home,” she told me. “He needs rest.”
“Spending time with Sarah will be good for him,” I insisted.
“But I thought the only reason we have delayed their relationship was so that the weight of his healing would not fall on her?”
She was absolutely right—of course, she usually is. So I agreed to help her persuade Lewis to postpone. It took some doing, but eventually he called her and let her know that he wasn’t up for an evening out.
“Are you okay?” she asked, immediately worried.
“Yeah, just stressed,” he answered, which wasn’t quite the right word, but how else could he easily explain that noises felt like blows and that his soul seemed to be draining out through his left ear? “I wouldn’t be great company. And I want our first date to be really good.”
Sarah was quiet for a minute. “Is it just going out that’s bad, or do you need to be alone?”
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be alone—or at least, I really wanted to see you. But I don’t want to see anyone else.”
“Then what if I just came over? I could make us dinner and we could have a quiet evening in?”
The prospect lightened Lewis’s mood, and I looked hopefully at Brid. She considered him for a long moment, then nodded assent.
So that is what we did. Sarah arrived with a bag of groceries—“I don’t trust your fridge,” she laughed, and she was right not to—and set to work seasoning steaks and chopping onions and sweet potatoes. Lewis sat in the kitchen with her, and they talked about light things.
With two angels hovering, and the company of a lovingly concerned friend, Lewis’s spirits couldn’t stay down. “My mom was a fantastic lady,” he said, laughing. “She was the sweetest thing just as long as you were good to her and her kids, but the second you got under her skin, she’d give you what-for. I remember this one time one of my sister’s teachers gave her a hard time about something she was wearing, and my mom came into the school the next day wearing the same exact thing—it was a skirt, I think. And she was like, now if you made a comment on my legs, I would slap you first and then get you arrested for sexual harassment. Tell me why you are allowed to say shit about my fifteen-year-old daughter?”
Sarah laughed long and loud. “That’s awesome.” She checked in the oven, then turned around and leaned against it. “When did she die?”
Lewis rubbed his nose. “Three years ago. Cancer. It got kind of ugly at the end, but she never complained. And she lived long enough to see Addy graduate from college, which was what she wanted. She cried like a baby.” A soft smile was on his face.
“What’s Addy up to now?”
“Oh, she’s in Maryland working her way through grad school. Wants to be a biology researcher.” He got up to get plates and silverware for them both. “What about you—you told me you have two brothers, right? What are they doing?”
Talk about their families carried through the first part of the meal, which was delicious—Lewis ate with an appetite that delighted Brid. Then, as the one candle Lewis had discovered burned low, they sat hand-in-hand at the little table, and Lewis tried to explain some of his shadows to her.
“The meds help, let me tell you,” he said, shaking his head. “And we’ve finally got the dosage right, I think. But they don’t do everything. I still have the anxiety to deal with. And it frustrates me because I can remember a time when I didn’t have all of this going on in my head. Dr. Christensen says I need to not judge myself too harshly, but it’s hard sometimes.”
Sarah looked down at his hands. There were scars across his knuckles, and she traced them with her fingertips. “It’s another battle,” she said. “One that comes out of the first one you fought. And you know, most people think that someone’s a hero if he just chooses to fight, no matter how he actually does.” She met his eyes with a smile. “You’re braver than most people, and stronger than you know.”
“I hope you’re right,” Lewis said, but he smiled back, and I could see that he believed her words, and that they would comfort him for some days yet.
Sarah didn’t stay long after dinner, wanting to be respectful of Lewis’s needs, but Lewis walked her to her car and kissed her lightly before she left. Both of their hearts were warmed by the evening, and they made plans to go out the next time. And Lewis ate every bite of dinner.