Equation

“I am so glad you could meet me for dinner.”

Jon had just sat down and was busy getting himself comfortable while looking around the dimly lit, dark brown wood finished dining room of the Italian Villa Restaurant. Once he was in the zone he answered his sister, Angie in a cheery tone, “Thanks for inviting me.” He paused but before she could answer he continued, “It has been some time since I have been here. Place doesn’t seem to have changed much.”

“No, it hasn’t,” responded Angie looking around to check. “The place has simply been a classic.”

“I hope the food hasn’t changed.”

He picked up his menu and started to look it over.

“No, they have been very consistent,” answered Angie as she watched him scanning the menu.

“It does look the same since all that time ago,” Jon agreed.

“You actually look pretty good considering everything. Have you lost weight?”

He looked up from his menu to answer, “Yeah, about twenty-five pounds in three months. I have been working out, going for long walks in the evening and nice brisk jogs in the morning.”

“Well, it is working,” replied Angie while gently nodding her head. “So, go ahead order whatever you want. It is my treat.”

“Thank you, but only if you let me treat the next time,” smiled Jon looking over the top of his menu to make eye contact.

“Sure, it’s no problem as long as there will be a next time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Jon putting down his menu slowly for effect while staring intently at his older sister. “Of course there will be a next time and hopefully many more.”

“Well honestly it did seem kind of touch and go for a couple of months,” countered Angie leaning forward as she lowered her voice. “Especially when you seem to drop off the radar for over a month,” she insisted.

“Sorry about alarming everyone but I just needed time for myself. I just needed time to sort things out and think.”

Jon thought for a couple of moments and then added, “It just all happened so fast. One moment we were talking about having our first child, a baby I had wanted for years and years and then about two weeks later she was leaving me, accusing me of all of these horrible things which never happened. I just needed so time to myself.”

“Well, it did scare us,” she said with hurt concern in her voice. “We didn’t know what happened to you.” She stopped for a second to catch herself as she realized her voice was getting louder when she caught the stare of another patron at another table about ten feet away. She took a deep breath to compose herself and continued in a whisper, “We didn’t know what to think. You just seemed to have disappeared.”

“But as you can see, I am good.”

She nodded with a slight smile, “Yeah, as I had said, you look great. But I will never forgive her for what she did to you.”

“It’s fine and I wish you wouldn’t do that to yourself. Don’t be a slave to her actions. It was my entire fault anyway.”

Angie looked at him with a questioning expression as he continued to look over his menu.

Finally, she asked, “What are you talking about?”

He sighed and put his menu down starting to explain, “Yes, it was all my fault. Here is a little story to help explain what I mean. Once when I was in the National Guard doing my internship for R.O.T.C. something happened. Either I forgot, or didn’t read my schedule for drills right. I would give my boss at Sears all my drill times so he could schedule me off. Since Jennifer worked there I would make a copy for her to give her boss to do the same since we only had the one car. But for this one drill which started on a Friday evening there was a miscommunication and she had been scheduled to work while I would be at drill. Problem was she would be getting off work about a half hour before me and I didn’t want her to be waiting at Park City, in the dark, in the cold, by herself for over a half hour.”

“Okay, so this makes you a monster?”

“No, but I am getting to it if you give me a chance.”

After a moment of silence just staring at one another Angie said in a little backward hand waving motion with her right hand as if pushing something away from her on the wooden table, “Okay, go on.”

“I devised a plan. She would drop me off at Stahr Armory right before my drill started and she would have plenty of time to get to work. I would just be waiting around the armory about an hour before drill started but all would be good. I went over the directions for her to get to Park City and back. I chose the easiest possible route. She would just drop me off at the armory, go to the next light and make a left to North Prince Street then turn onto North Prince until she came to the light at where Harrisburg Pike begins. She would make a right and follow that out to Park City and she knew the rest of the way to work.

“For the return trip it was exit the parking lot at the light by the Bank of Lancaster County making a left onto the beltway around Park City to the Harrisburg Pike. She would make a left onto the Harrisburg Pike and take it to the light at North Queen Street. There she would make a left and be right at the Stahr Armory. Other than three simple left turns it was pretty much a straight shot.”

“Sounds pretty simple,” commented Angie.

“And it was. I wrote down detailed instructions which even included landmarks and how many traffic lights. We even made a couple of practice runs leading up to that Friday. I thought we had it all under control and of course we did. She found her way to work perfectly.”

“Sounds like you thoroughly prepared her.”

“Of course, I cared about her and wanted her to be safe. Like I said the alternative would have been to drop her off and then she would have to wait outside in the dark and cold for some time before I got to her.”

“Excuse me,” ventured a waiter noticing a pause in the conversation, “Are you ready to order?”

“I am,” responded Jon to the surprise of his sister.

“Sure, I am ready.” Looking up at the waiter, “I’ll have the Chicken Alfredo and a soda.”

Jon waited for the waiter to turn his attention on him, “I’ll have the Sausage and Baked Ziti and also a soda, thank you.”

“Okay, I shall have them for you shortly,” responded the waiter as he finished his notes and then he turned to walk away.

“They are always very courteous.”

“Yes, they are,” answered Angie, “Now I know there has to be a punch line to this Stahr Armory story so I must ask, what happened?”

“Okay, the drop off was a complete success. I was worried because I really had no way of knowing if she did in fact make it to work. We didn’t have cell phones at that time, hell; the internet was still in its infancy. We didn’t even have a computer. But I went to my drill hoping she had made it.”

“Why wouldn’t she after all that preparation?”

“You don’t know Jennifer.” He then quickly added, “She had a terrible habit of over thinking things.”

“So?” asked Angie looking straight into his blue eyes slightly nodding her head trying to prod him along.

He smiled a little in response to her gesture, “I finished drill on time and went outside to wait for her. I was thinking she should be out there. I walked out from the Armory to the sidewalk and looked up and down the road. There was no sign of her anywhere. I hoped that maybe she just got held up, you know, talking to a friend or something.”

“But she didn’t.”

“No, I just kept scanning the traffic, never taking my eyes from it. Five minutes past, ten, fifteen, an hour and no sign of her.”

“An hour?” exclaimed Angie quietly with a puzzled look.

“I was really starting to get worried. There was a pay phone nearby but I couldn’t call the store because it was closed and there was no way to contact her. I just started wondering what could have happened. I knew what probably happened but I was more concerned for her well-being.”

“What was that?”

“Now wait,” replied Jon quickly as he continued with his story, “Another half hour passed. I was also starting to freeze. There was a strong wind blowing. I had a field jacket but that wind just made it cold. I just did the one thing I could. Well, not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, both of our grandparents’ houses were only about a half hour walk from the Armory. I could have gone to either one of them but then I was certain the minute I left my spot Jennifer would show. So, I just kept my vigilance. I needed to be there for her.”

Angie was slowly shaking her head in disbelief.

“Finally, after another forty-five minutes I saw our car come around the corner. She pulled over into a parking space and got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to the passenger as I approached the car. She wouldn’t even look at me. I knew then what probably happened. When I got in behind the wheel I only asked if she was alright.”

Jon had stopped to get a drink of water.

Angie, tired of waiting asked, “So what happened?”

“Jennifer just blew up at me. She started yelling that she should have never listened to me. She yelled that my directions were all wrong and she had been lost for hours.”

“What?” asked Angie looking thoroughly confused.

“What happened is that thing I had thought. Jennifer had an amazing ability of always bringing other people into our business. When she had gotten to work our plans probably popped up in casual conversation with other employees. She showed them our directions or explained the directions to whomever she was talking and they told her that they knew a better way.”

“Is there a better way?”

“No,” answered Jon quite casually. “There is no more direct or simpler route. But what I gathered someone directed her out the back from Park City to the Manheim Pike. It is probably a little shorter but it includes a bunch of turns which some are easy to miss in the evening which obviously she did. It took her some time to find her way back to the mall and finally use what we had practiced.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I got a little mad being berated and blamed because she decided to follow someone else’s directions instead of ours. I drove her back to the mall and showed her our route again comparing it to the directions and the map I had for her and asked her where it was wrong.”

“What did she do?”

“That’s when she confirmed my suspicions of what happened.”

“So how is any of this your fault? She sounds incredibly immature.”

Jon nodded his head. “As you noticed her first instinct was to blame me for her decision. Well, that was her way through our entire relationship. She wasn’t able to put herself into the equation.”

After a few moments of silence Angie asked looking slightly annoyed and confused, “What equation?”

“One thing I have learned about relationships is they are like equations. What happens on one side has a direct and immediate affect on the other side.”

“Okay, I’m following.”

“One of the hardest things for a person to do is to realize how they are affecting the actions and decisions of another person. Just like that evening. I was worried sick about Jennifer because she had not shown up when she should have. My response was to ask her if she was okay to which she yelled at me and blamed me for everything. This of course caused me to become angry. That is the equation and it goes on until there is a resolution of sorts. But I could never resolve anything with Jennifer. If she got into a corner or had to face responsibility for her actions she would shut down.”

“Shut down?”

“Yes, she said that she would handle problems or issues by placing them into a mental box and eventually it would go away. Of course I could have just let issues be handled this way if that actually worked but as Freud said that when you repress something it has a nasty habit of manifesting into something worse, in some cases, much worse. Quite often I would get accused of stuff I never did or even happened. All these memories she repressed were constantly popping up as something else and I was in the path. In her mind I was becoming a monster, the reason for all that has happened to her.

“When you face up to your responsibility and problems you learn about yourself and you are able to grow. This is even so much so when you are able to place yourself in the equation and understand how you are affecting the actions of the people around you. I would see how I was affecting Jennifer and I was learning from it. Meanwhile she would avoid, deflect, blame others, or do this box thing instead of challenging herself to grow. She would listen to anyone who told her what she wanted to hear.”

“I always thought that my critics were some of my greatest teachers.”

“And they can be if you remember there is a reason they are criticizing you and if you understand what that reason is. Again, it is that equation. And yes, there are many small, petty people who are far better at being jealous than just doing it.”

“Yeah, I never got that,” interjected Angie, “Why waste time being jealous of someone instead of just doing it? Life is just too short.”

“Well, as time went on I found her falling further behind and me constantly trying to pull her forward. Eventually it got to the point that people telling her what she wanted to hear had a far harder pull on her than a guy who just wanted her to learn to deal with something.”

“Again, how is all of this your fault?”

“I am sorry; I thought it was quite obvious.”

“No, I am not sure it was.”

“Well, I just expected far too much from her. I thought she was grown enough to keep growing. I thought she could handle her control freak of a mother and grandmother which you already knew about. I thought she could deal with many people telling her things and being able to sort out what was meaningful. I had hoped she could learn to point the finger at herself. I had hoped she could learn and grow. All I ever wanted to do was to get her to deal with something instead of running away and hiding. I had hoped to grow with one another, face the world together, and create a beautiful life for us.”

“I think I understand. But didn’t you see any of this.”

“I saw all of it. But I loved her and truly cared about her. I hoped I could reach her and get her to deal with something, anything, just one thing would have been a start but she found it easier to run and hide with those who told her what she wanted to hear, to let her mother control her life. Sad thing is when she did deal with things even in the slightest and didn’t let everyone else dictate our lives we did accomplish some great things and had wonderful times. I honestly thought we had a true chance of achieving much together.

“However, I had put all these expectations on someone who couldn’t handle making a left turn at the bank, another at the light on Harrisburg Pike, drive about a mile and a half to two miles straight and make another left turn onto N. Queen Street. I put all these expectations on someone who refused to point the finger at herself and deal with anything. I put all these expectations onto a person, college student who couldn’t handle driving from Park City to the Stahr Armory.”

“Okay, I do get it.”

“I knew you would.”

“Hey, here comes our meal.”