A Knight in Central Park(94)
“A delicious meal it was,” he agreed. “So,” he said, “what’s on your mind?”
“I wish to know why you still plan to return to your time. Is it because of your father, or is it truly because of the Academy you so often speak of?”
He finished tying the water jug to the saddle and then appeared to be in deep thought as he turned back to her. “It’s hard to explain.” He paused. “But I guess one of the reasons is that for most of my life I thought I could do something great, something that would make a difference. That’s one of the reasons I became a professor. I wanted to teach young men and women about the world. Does that make sense?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “I guess what I’m saying is that my staying here will not change what happens tomorrow. History has already been made in this world. Life goes on in a sense, but nothing changes.”
She let out a huff. “The King of England might very well have perished had you not come and who knows what would have changed in your world and in mine had you not been here.” She touched his arm. “Do you not see? You can make a difference, you have already proven such.”
He shook his head, but didn’t say anything more.
“’Tis done, is that what you are saying?” Her brow creased. “What happens to me and my family has no bearing on you or your comfortable, peaceful life, and so why should you care, is that it?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“I saw the news in your world,” she said, feeling bitterness and frustrations she had not even known existed until this moment. “All of your modern technology and fast cars and markets on every corner and yet people are starving in your world, right under your noses.” She sighed. “I think you are returning in hopes that one day your father will see your full worth, mayhap see within you the boy he gave up so long ago. What then?” Alexandra’s hands trembled. “I wonder,” she said calmly now, “does the boy in the man’s flesh finally and miraculously learn about love and compassion, shedding his old skin like a snake when his father finally returns? Or does the man quickly seek a new treasure like a crab seeks a new shell, hoping this will be the thing that will help him succeed in filling the hole left by his imperfect childhood. Or, when all else fails, does the boy seek a new goal when his true calling, his life’s purpose, fizzles out completely?”
She did not look away from him as she shook her head, saying, “What the boy, who is now a full grown man, does not yet realize is that he has no purpose at all; too busy to see that he has no life, nobody to love, no one to grow old with because he is scared to death that no one will ever love him back for very long.”
She stopped talking long enough to see that she had enraged him. The muscles in his jaw twitched and his mouth had become a hard straight line.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said. “Why can’t you, or your grandfather, or your siblings see that? I didn’t ask to be sent to your world? I can’t just drop my life at the tip of a hat. Marriage, children, whatever it is you have planned for you, for us, was not part of my plan. Why is everyone so damned determined to ruin my life?”
“I never intended to ruin your life,” she said, daring him to contradict her, having no fear of him. “Since your arrival I did not scheme or plan to keep you from returning to your haunted past. Nor would I want to ruin your dreams of being reunited with a man who has all but deserted you.”
“He did not desert me.”
She let out a frustrated breath, and found a sudden need to sit down. Instead, she leaned against the horse. “Call it what you will,” she said, her legs wobbling, “but my father did the same, for neither have I seen him since he walked out of our lives so long ago.”
“It’s different with my father,” Joe said matter-of-factly. “He’s a busy man, is all.”
Alexandra let out an exasperated breath, her shoulder’s sagging as if the weight of the world had landed full upon them. “Aye. You are right,” she said, deciding suddenly that she would not be the one to destroy his fantasy of having a father who truly cared. His father had left him just as her father had left her and her siblings, but Sir Joe was afraid to see the truth. Once again she reminded herself that she did not want his pity. And moreover, she did not want him to stay against his will.
“I am sorry your life has been filled with so many hardships,” he said, touching her arm. “And I am sorry I cannot stay.”