Pieces of Me

Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer Wherrett.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922470

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4797-5627-8

Softcover 978-1-4797-5626-1

Ebook 978-1-4797-5628-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/21/2014

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Contents

Beauty

Beauty of the Soul

Pieces of Me

The day of Your Beauty

Eternal Essence

The True Nature of Death

Craig’s Sister

Light to my Darkness

Dreams

Dreams

The Note

Ode to a Lover

Perfection

The Perfection of Imperfection

The Chartres Blue

Love Transformed

The Dragon

Her Dragon

Destiny

Destiny

Portrait of a Memory

Reflection

Reflection

Like the Stopper in the Vial

Reality

Reality

The Traveller and the Book

Higher Dimensionality

The Third Dimension

Delphic Oracle

Light

This book is dedicated to my father

With gratitude for all he taught me

And all he gave me;

Whose soul still shines brightly,

Inspiring, influencing, affecting

Though he walks among us no more.

Author’s note:

I deliberately use capital letters for the following words:

Love, Light, Truth, Wisdom, Fate, Destiny, Knowledge, Purpose, Will, Way, and Process to distinguish these as higher-dimensional concepts from the common usage of these words and from the misguided mindsets of lower dimensionality, or third-dimensional physical reality.

Beauty

Beauty of the Soul

The beauty of a rose

Is in its petals,

Each one not quite, though nearly, the same

In shape, colour, texture

So that each one forms an integral part

Of the pattern of the whole,

Fitted together

In perfect harmony.

Such is the beauty of the soul,

The Self.

But to sacrifice or compromise,

To repress, suppress or negate,

To dishonour or ignore

Any fragment of the Self,

Like the petals of a rose

The facets of You

Will wither and fall from the flower.

The loss of one petal is hardly noticed.

But once one falls so, too, do others;

And the loss of many

Will mar the flower’s beauty.

Like an un-stemmed flow

Will they fall

Until all that remains

Is the naked stalk –

A reminder of what once was,

And what could have been.

Pieces of Me

Ellie slowly hung up the phone and lingered with her hand on the receiver, breathing deeply, trying to control the tumult of her emotions and the pounding of her heart. She didn’t want the kids to catch even a hint of the upset she was feeling, for their sake and for hers. She wasn’t at all certain she could maintain her composure in the face of the deluge of questions they would bombard her with. Because the panic was rising. And although she wasn’t ready to face the truth, like sands running swiftly through an hourglass, time was running out. The truth was closing in, pressing down on her, demanding her attention, forcing her hand… .

Josh wasn’t coming home again. He was spending more and more time at the office, working late into the night and even on weekends. Ellie hardly saw him anymore. For weeks, she’d battled to keep her fear buried, hidden from everyone including, or maybe especially, herself. But it refused to stay buried, and now it was threatening to break through and overwhelm her. The carefully constructed cheerful façade she’d been desperately trying to maintain was starting to crack, and she was finding it harder and harder to hold back the panic, and the tears. She knew she should confront him, but even if, by some miracle, he wasn’t seeing someone else, she didn’t want to know he was deliberately staying away from her and the kids because he was no longer happy with her. That would open a Pandora’s Box of emotions every bit as painful as those aroused by the knowledge that he was having an affair. Either way, she could no longer fool herself nor could she continue to deny that something had gone horribly wrong.

Taking one last deep breath, she swallowed the lump in her throat, re-ordered her features, forced her lips into a smile, and turned to the three children sitting around the kitchen table.

OK, she said cheerfully, who wants ice cream and chocolate sauce?

Lying in the dark later that night, pretending to be asleep, she tried unsuccessfully not to be aware of where Josh was in the room as he quietly prepared for bed. She tensed involuntarily when she felt his side of the bed depress, but, as per his nightly ritual now, he turned his back on her and, almost immediately, his breathing became deep and rhythmical. Ellie seethed with resentment in the darkness. Why did he get to fall asleep so easily when she spent night after night tossing and turning, her thoughts chaotic, her body restless? Why did he get to fall asleep so quickly when, for her, sleep had become as elusive as a snowflake in summer?

With a silent sigh of resignation she accepted the inevitable, and, knowing tonight would be no different from the previous nights, slipped out of bed, wrapped her dressing gown around her, and padded barefoot to the lounge room. Curling into one of the lounge chairs, she sat in the dark, huddled in her dressing gown for comfort, if not for warmth, and finally allowed the tears to come. Making no attempt to wipe them away, she let them roll, one after another after another, down her cheeks. Once begun, like a raging river freed of its dam, her tears gathered momentum until she was sobbing uncontrollably, hiding her face in the thick material of her dressing gown to muffle the sounds.

After a while, she quietened, feeling drained and exhausted but somehow cleansed.

Where did we go wrong? she whispered into the darkness, and when there was no reply, whispered again, We were happy. What changed?

The darkness failed to whisper back, but a memory, long buried, began to stir within her. Frowning, she concentrated, trying to bring it into sharper focus, and then watched in her mind’s eye as the memory unfolded like a story. She’d met Josh a year after finishing her degree. He was like a dream come true, and she’d fallen helplessly and hopelessly in love. But the timing could not have been worse. She and Jessie, her best friend, had been planning their trip to Europe since they were little girls, and, finally, after years of scrimping and saving, planning and researching… and dreaming, they were getting ready to leave. They would at last see the castles, cathedrals, and cities they’d spent their short lifetime reading about. But Ellie had been afraid Josh would not wait for her, and so she’d allowed him to persuade her to abandon her plans and move in with him instead. She vividly recalled Jess’s disappointment and her own guilt at letting her friend down. And, equally as vividly, she recalled the knot of regret she felt when Jess returned with a ton of wonderful photos, memories, stories, and experiences. At the time, Ellie had justified her choice by convincing herself she and Josh would go together one day. But, of course, they never had.

She frowned in the dark. How curious she should remember all that now. She’d not thought of Jess or the trip for years.

But the memory barely faded before another came. This time, she remembered giving up her job in Sydney when Josh was offered a promotion that necessitated the move to Melbourne. She’d loved that job and was well aware of how lucky she was to love what she did. Again, she’d justified her choice to move with Josh by convincing herself she would get a similar job in Melbourne. After all, people edited manuscripts in Melbourne, too, didn’t they? And she had found a job she enjoyed, but she’d struggled with leaving her old life and her friends behind, and to start again in a new city.

Again, she barely had time to process the memory before another came, this one of putting her career on hold because Josh had wanted to start a family. By that time, she’d begun to build a successful career of her own and hadn’t felt ready for children. But she’d allowed Josh to talk her into it.

Suddenly, like an opened floodgate more memories came, one after another, so that she sat powerless as they washed through her like an unleashed torrent: severing relationships because Josh didn’t like either her friends or their partners; declining an opportunity to speak at a conference in New Zealand because Josh had needed her to help him wine and dine an important client; going to Sydney to see Josh’s family instead of having a holiday in Thailand; buying the black leather lounge suite he preferred instead of the soft, bottle-green suede one she’d liked; naming their little girl Victoria – Josh’s preference – instead of Vivienne – her preference… .

Oh God! She began to feel sick.

Even with Thomas, their third, she’d wanted to return to work, but Josh had convinced her to have another child. And though she wouldn’t be without Thomas – he was a little bundle of pure joy – once again, she’d had to postpone returning to work, jeopardising her career in the process. She even listened to his music when they were in the car together, and they never ate fish because he didn’t like seafood even though he now rarely had dinner at home… .

Ellie leaned forward in the darkness, her eyes wide with shock, and her hands over her mouth as if to stifle a silent scream. She felt the revelation like a punch in the gut, and found it hard to catch her breath. Why had she never seen it before – this pattern of acquiescence? It was so clear. And with every sacrifice she’d made, she had slowly but surely lost a piece of herself. Now there was almost nothing left. What had happened to her dreams? Her desires? Her ambitions? She’d relegated them to such a low priority so often that she now did it out of pure habit, completely unaware that she did so; and they were buried, forgotten, lost in the intricacies of a life Josh had built for them both.

And, Ellie realised, feeling another punch in the gut as she confronted another brutal truth, as much as she yearned to, she could not blame Josh. This was her doing, and hers alone. She was the one who had compromised herself over and over and over again. She was the one who had given Josh the power to dictate their lives and, with it, her choices and actions.

She lost track of time as she sat alone, numb with shock, in her lounge room. Only when the dark of night lost its potency, turned to grey by the gentle light of a new day, did she unfold her stiffened limbs. After her night of contemplation and realisation she was absolutely certain of one thing. She had to find a way to reclaim the lost pieces of herself.

Ellie smiled at her reflection, liking what she saw. Josh’s work Christmas party was, traditionally, a formal affair, and this year was no different. She’d made excuses not to attend in the past, but not tonight. This year, she’d been quietly resolute. If she and Josh were to have any chance, she knew she had to go tonight. So, in a new dress and high-heeled sandals, with her hair cut short – something she’d wanted to do for a long time – and new make-up courtesy of the tips given to her by the girl on the Estée Lauder counter, she looked and felt good. Gone was the overweight, frumpy woman who barely had time to bother with her appearance. In her place was a slimmer, elegantly-dressed, attractive woman.

But it was the sparkle of new-found confidence in her eyes Ellie was most proud of. Following the night of her confrontation with the past, she’d wasted no time, unwilling to wallow in self pity, as tempting as that was. The first step had been obvious. She needed to lose weight and feel good about her body again, so she’d joined Weight Watchers, and then she’d joined a yoga class. Yoga, she’d discovered, was as valuable for her peace of mind as it was for her body. It calmed and centred her. She’d made new friends at yoga, too. She’d also contacted her old work colleagues and had started editing manuscripts at home so she could work around her commitments with the kids. Next year, Thomas was booked into childcare for a few days a week, and she intended to start working in the office again part-time. Until then, working at home in the evenings gave her a perfect excuse to sleep in the study so that she no longer lay tense and restless in the dark wondering when Josh was coming home.

She hadn’t asked him if he was seeing someone else because she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d thought a lot about their relationship over the many months since that night in the lounge room, but she’d not yet reached any conclusions. In truth, she was still not ready to confront the tough questions. Did he love her? Did she still love him? Her love for him had been the very cause of losing vital parts of herself, and it had damaged her. So was it