It didn’t take long for us to be on hugging terms. We liked each other right away when we met in the writers’ group, and started meeting every week for coffee and feedback.
It took no time at all to start sharing the private memories that we crafted into public stories. I was coming out of a ten-year marriage, I was lonely, and she was like a mother to me, except with more profanity and she listened to me. So it surprised me for a moment, that gray day in March, when Helga recoiled from my embrace in the coffee shop.
“No hugging,” she said.
“Oh gosh, sorry, I forgot. I just figure if I get it, I get it.”
“Yeah,” she was smiling but I could tell she was nervous. “If I get it, I could die.”
That was right before the ban came, like a wall clanking down from above. No leaving home, no touching your face, no touching at all.
We talked on the phone, comparing notes and stories as usual. She had a cough, but “I always have a bit of a cough,” she said. We agreed to another meeting the next week.
But the next week I called and there was no answer. I texted. I emailed. Nothing.
The week after that, I got an email. I’ve been sick, Covid 19. Getting better, but now my husband has it.
Just that. Did I mention I was lonely? I’d had a few Match.com dates. Okay, let’s call them Match.com hookups. They’d both satisfied and stimulated my need for physical contact. My friends helped with my emotional needs, and Helga had helped. But God dammit I needed those hugs, too. And with Helga pretty much ghosting me, well, getting high and Facetiming with my friends was no substitute, let’s just say that. Each week I felt a little more bereft, deprived, deserted. And surprised by how much I needed her.
Her last email was what devastated me. The dreary death statistics came alive, in the sense that her husband had passed away. And it was my fault, she said. My fault! The hug, the hug is what had done it, given her the bug, which had invaded her husband and sucked the life out of him. A moment of carelessness, the privilege of youth, and a life ends. And mine along with it. It took all I had to write to you, when what I want is to blot you out.
And that was it.
It was another year before I saw her again. The coffee shop was open once more, and the spring sun poured through windows and onto the tables like melted butter. I was in love, my life felt as green and shiny as the budding leaves on the trees, and my sweetheart and I were surely not unusual among the formerly sequestered single: we couldn’t stop touching each other. But some melancholy force, a cold spot in my soul crying for comfort, pulled me back to the café. I ordered my Americano and was looking for an empty table when she raised her head and I saw her. Her hair was almost white now, her face thin, and her eyes cold, icy. I looked away, but, against my will, my gaze returned to her. Her eyes were still on me, thawing a bit, melting into something else.
“Hello, Helga,” I said, almost to myself. She beckoned to me. I went and stood by her chair, feeling the fear of a child about to be punished. She took my hand.
“You know, it could have been anyone who gave me the virus. Sit down please, if you don’t mind.”
I sat.
“You can’t imagine how fucking betrayed you feel when you lose the thing that’s held you steady for so many years. Already cold before I could touch him one last time, the love of my life. Months before anyone would touch me. I could have blamed Trump--may he rot in hell--but the governor stepped in and tried to protect us, told us to keep our distance, do an elbow bump. I needed a face, an explanation, and, without even thinking about it, I chose you. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’ve betrayed you as much as you betrayed me. I see you, your bright eyes, your unlined face…”
She looked away, then back. “You look well. How are you?”
I told her, in outline form, about my writing, my job, my new love. She smiled, but it wasn’t a smile of affection. It was the smile of a cynic, a smile of “you’ll see.” But she surprised me.
She stood up, and I did, too. “I’ve got to go. I’m glad we met again. Take care of yourself.”
Then she gave me a hug, not a quick, barely-touching one. A full-on embrace. When she pulled back, I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
“Enjoy your life. You never know when it might end,” she said.
We said our goodbyes and she walked out. She didn’t look back.
Writing prompt: "hindsight is 20/20."