Find Hope

Alone for the night, Elaine pressed her hand to the cold windowpane, ignoring the pain that came with the bite from the chill. Beyond the pane the outside world was covered in a glistening silent winter wonderland. The beauty of it did not escape her, however in her heart she despised the cold. She finally pulled her hand back when the steam outline traced her entire palm. There I have left a mark on something. Elaine thought bitterly. Her entire life had recently imploded. An eighteen-year relationship down the drain. Yet another rejection letter from another job in which she would have excelled. Her daughter struggling in school despite her best efforts to support and motivate her. All in all, she just felt that she had failed. Which she presumed had been his objective. When he had left, he had taken with him two thirds of the household income. Leaving her with the same stack of bills to pay yet only a third the amount to cover the total. The stressed had been weighing on her since he had had left. She knew it showed in the lines on her face.

“You just aren’t enough for me.” Echoed in her mind again. Those had been her husband’s parting words. There had been other, more hateful things that he had said to her. However those were the words that had stung her the most. She had thought that they were so strong, united. For him to say that to her and look at her as if she were nothing had nearly killed her. Even now eight months later she still felt the tears streaming down her face at just the thought. She was not healed. She was not angry. She was just sad and broken. Her husband leaving her had broken something in her, not just her heart but also in her mind. She no longer could find it in herself to believe in love or have hope for the future.

Elaine wanted to believe in love again, but she could not even watch a love story or hear a love song without feeling the piercing agony in her heart. She could not at this moment even fathom believing in love let alone falling in love again. To let someone that close to her heart again. To risk this trauma again. She was still in love with her husband. She could not even try to love anyone else. She could not trust herself enough to find it in herself to trust another person.

A knock at her door pulled her back into reality, back to her cold, dark apartment. Back into her worries, she ignored the pile of paperwork on her table to get to door. Elaine wiped her face, foolishly hoping that at least she did not look as though she had spent the last eight months crying and stressing about every penny every day and night.

“E!” squealed her best friend Beth the moment Elaine opened the door. Beth’s sunny energy had helped Elaine get thru her darkest days. Elaine would forever be grateful that Beth had been there for her.

“Did I forget to meet you?” Elaine asked confused. Beth lived a town over with a family of her own and rarely had time to drop by unexpectedly.

Beth laughed. Her eyes danced with her laughter. Elaine was sure that her own eyes no longer danced with laughter. Elaine knew that her own reflection showed only sorrow.

“I brought you a present!” Beth squealed with glee. “Don’t open it until I leave. You have to take it!”

“Okay.” Elaine replied in a shaky voice. Some of Beth’s gifts were rather eccentric and Elaine felt brushed hard against her personal style. Still, it was hard to say no to Beth’s exuberant mannerism. Beth genuinely enjoyed giving gifts. Elaine hated the brief glimpse of disappointment that crossed her friend’s features if she said no thank you to any gift. Beth hugged Elaine tightly.

“I have to get home to the twins.” Beth stated before she rushed back out the door.

Beth left Elaine with a soft brown package, similar to a courier package. It was sealed tightly. Elaine could not rip the package open. Knowing Beth, the way that she did Elaine carefully cut the package on one side, cautiously avoiding the contents. She tipped the open package over her table and gasped in a mixture of horror and amazement at what fell out. The first thunk against her table was a little black book closely followed by crisp hundred-dollar bills, dozens of them. The bills floated down gracefully like feathers in the breeze. Elaine forced herself to gather the bills together and count them. There was exactly two hundred. Beth had just gifted her twenty thousand dollars in freaking cash! Her mind screamed the last words. Elaine knew that Beth came from a wealthy family and the money was just pocket change to them. For her, however; this money would change her life drastically. Elaine did not have many debts fortunately but there were enough to hold her in place in this dingy apartment that reminded her of the future that she had lost every single day. The money in her hand could not only pay off her debts but also be a down payment on a real home for herself and daughter. A home with a yard where she could finally gift her daughter the puppy she had always wanted.

Elaine swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. There was no way Beth had not known what this money would mean for Elaine and her daughter now that he had left them. Beth had included something else in the package. It was a lovely black notebook. Tucked inside Elaine found a note:

E,

You have always been there for me. It is my turn to be there for you. I know you would not take this if I handed you a check. Find hope in life again my friend.

I love you girl,

Beth

Elaine felt her eyes well up with tears this time with joy. Real laughter bubbled from her lips as she continued to read Beth’s note.

P.S. Check under A! I may had told Alek that you are single now.

Two pages back in the first ledger under the letter A was the rough handwriting of Alek, an old friend; along with his telephone number. Underneath that was Beth’s hurried handwriting that read “Have Fun!”

Elaine rolled her eyes. The imagination of her friends. Still, she pulled out her phone and dialed in the numbers to send a simple text.

It is Elaine. Text me sometime if you want to get drinks.

She was carefully putting the money into her wallet to take to the bank in morning when she heard her phone go off. And for the first time in a long time, she felt hope.