A TIME TO SEE
By
Loretta M Miller
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
A Time To See
Copyright © 2012 by
Loretta M. Miller
Paul Henderson stepped into his office and shut the door. He needed to focus. He needed to concentrate. The livelihood of his advertising business depended on it.
Atop the clutter on his desk sat piles of overdue bills, letters from IRS demanding payment on back taxes and the worst, bankruptcy forms. Business he had all but ignored and tried to forget.
His long fought campaign to win over Prestige Clothiers and their CEO Michael Timmons had just slipped through his grasp and in the advertising world, Henderson advertising was hemorrhaging.
Paul cast his eyes across the room to his father's portrait. Frank Henderson had spent his life in advertising and Paul was following in his footsteps. He had been Paul's ideal, his role model. If only he were still alive.
"Dad, what would you do?"
Frank's stoic expression didn't offer any clues and Paul had no idea how he was going to tell his eighteen employees their world was only days away from virtual collapse. The company was about to succumb to red ink seemingly a mile thick.
Paul opened his bottom desk drawer, withdrew a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels and filled his coffee cup. He downed half of the contents in one gulp. He welcomed the burning sensation in his throat and waited for the brain numbing mellow feeling he had lately begun to lean on.
The intercom buzzed catching him off-guard; he nearly dropped the cup.
"Mister Henderson, you have an important call on line 5."
"Who is it?"
"Angie Reid, your sister?" Her voice lifted in question. She knew Paul rather well. He had said he didn't have any family.
As he heard the name he stiffened in his chair, and put down the coffee cup.
"Tell her I'm busy."
"I told her you were in conference, but she insists. She says it's crucial."
"Crucial," he muttered sarcastically under his breath. "... 10 years, not a single word. Now suddenly something is crucial?"
He had a family, technically, really not much of one left since the divorce.
The two kids had been separated when their parents divorced.
Frank had taken solace in alcohol and Paul believed his mother, Irene, had driven him there. When Frank died of pancreatic cancer, the ill will that had festered unchecked effectively severed his relationship with his mother taking his sister along with her.
Paul took in a deep breath, pressed down the line and said, "Hello" into the speakerphone. He wanted the distance.
"Paul? Is that you?"
"I'm a busy man, Angie. What can I do for you?"
There was a pause on the other end, and a slight sigh, "I'm not a business account, Paul. I'm family."
The words were met with cool indifference. "You said this was crucial."
"Mom's at St. Anthony's hospital. She's dying." Angie said as she blurted out the words quickly, as one would pull a band-aid from a wound. One quick moment and… well, she always believed it be less painful that way.
Still, she heard no response. No reply.
"It's cancer, Paul. She only has hours left." The doctors told me to gather the family. We're the only family she's got left."
"She should've thought about that year's ago. It's too late now."
He expected an explosion of anger, resentment, bitterness, instead, "You need to patch things up before it's too late," she said, her voice was tinged with sadness.
A buzz on the intercom interrupted them. "Hold on a sec," Paul said as he shifted to the intercom. "Hold all my calls."
"It's Mr. Timmons," his Secretary said quickly. She knew how important this phone call was.
Paul inhaled sharply. "You think he's reconsidering?" Paul asked aloud, not expecting or wanting a reply, as he instinctively stood and straightened his tie. He watched line 5 blink. His sister would just have to understand, he reasoned. He knew his father would.
"I'll take it," he said with us sharp stab of decisiveness. Business can be cold and cruel. He pressed down line 5. "Uh, listen Angie... I have a call… A multimillion dollar deal I can't afford to lose. Dad was always better at business. I really have to go."
Before she could protest, he disconnected. He took in a deep breath and clicked on the next line.
"Mr. Timmons, good afternoon," he said as mind raced over all of his father's business dealings they gave them a very comfortable living. No matter how easy their life had become, he still privately craved his father's attentions. He was rarely home. His father's answer: he brought him home a beautiful Irish Setter named Rusty, the dog that became Paul's best friend.
Timmons was matter-of-fact and to the point: "I'm not pleased with the timing Price & Rowe offered me, do you want the contract?"
Paul could barely speak. The very thought of the contract lightened the deep red that permeated his every thought. He felt himself straighten, a tremendous burden lifted.
"Yes, Mr. Timmons, I, uh, we would like that very much."
"Fine. Fine," he said crisply, "let's seal the deal at lunch then."
Timmons' offer stunned him. "Uh, sure...," He said as he tossed the bankruptcy forms into his desk drawer and grabbed the unsigned contract in a manila envelope. "Where would you like to meet?"
Less than ten minutes later, he stepped outside into the bright noontime sun. Paul squinted at the unusually harsh onslaught and cursed to himself that he had forgotten his sunglasses. He tried to shield his eyes to no avail as he walked. He kept his head down as he walked. The sharp rays of light off the neighboring office windows, glints off chrome and metal on all the cars seemed to be laser beamed on him. He was still 40 feet from his car when he suddenly stopped short. He nearly stepped on the very thing he needed so desperately at that very moment: a pair of sunglasses.
The dark, sturdy frames would have been his ideal pick from a store display. They looked rugged, handsome, yet stylish with small bits of chrome near the hinges. The lenses themselves were dark and for all intents and purposes, they looked brand new.
Paul looked left and right down the aisle, and seeing no one in sight that could have dropped the glasses, he tucked the envelope under his arm, bent forward and scooped them up.
The frames felt good in his hands. He lifted the glasses and a quick look through the lenses told him there wasn't a scratch.
"Well, sonofabitch anyway," Henderson muttered, utterly grateful for his find and the expected instant relief, he put them on and opened his eyes.
Through the dark gray tinted lenses, he was no longer standing in the crowded parking lot but was, instead, in the backyard of his childhood home.
His eyes widened as he looked right and left and then down.
This was no dream, he was standing in the Kentucky Blue Grass that he romped in as a child.
And he knew one thing for sure: it was a home he knew no longer existed.
Yet, there it was...just as he remembered: The torn screen door, the chipped clay flower pot and the empty dog house.
He instinctively yanked the glasses off as an avalanche of painful memories shot through him like someone hit him with a Taser. In that millisecond, Paul was back in the parking lot surrounded by tall buildings of concrete and steel, the all-important large envelope lay at his feet.
Paul reeled forward, trying to catch his breath.
With a surge of anger that ripped through him, he threw the glasses as though they were a Frisbee and watched them skitter across the asphalt surface and looked around. There wasn't a soul nearby.
It wasn't all that unusual, he reasoned to himself, most ever
yone had already left the area for lunch. What the hell? If there had been somebody, anybody.
He shook his head, as he heard his heart pound in his ears and felt his blood pressure flushing his face. He thought of Rusty. He was love incarnate. He was the very first to offer him unconditional love. He thought of the day he came into his life and the day he no longer was.
He picked up the envelope and stumbled to his car, his eyes once more hurting as they had before. He used his key fob to unlock the driver's door and he plopped down behind the wheel. The door came shut only slightly making a small click. He flicked his wrist and watched the envelope land on the empty passenger side seat.
That's normal, Paul said to himself. Everything else was screwy.
His mind raced at mach speed, over long forgotten memories that he had thought he had buried. But, they were back, alive and kicking and just as painful.
He shook his head against the images as he looked back over his left shoulder to see where the sunglasses lay.
Still, his mind raced but stalled on the