Circuits

A Snippet

He'd not felt a woman's flesh since Sarah died, which was now almost two years. So when Jessie Randall grabbed his bare arm to steady herself (she was wearing wobbly wedges) she might as well have hit him with those chest paddles they're always using on late night medical dramas. He would later tell his best friend, Bo, "She fried my circuits." Bo would've laughed at his longtime friend had he not been so pitiful in his awkwardness after Sarah's death. Many were the friends who tried to set him up with a stable divorcee or a smart widow. And he went on those dates, if for no other reason than out of gratitude for good friends who were only trying to help. There was just one recurring problem—not a one of those ladies was Sarah. So he'd resigned himself (almost) to the likelihood that his later years would be spent solo, one shoe always missing the other.

That almost-resignation may have been why he in turn had to steady himself by grabbing Jessie Randall's waist, an improper move he would have never made in a million years, especially standing in the 15-items-or-less line at the grocery store. But he simply couldn't help himself. Jessie laughed in the moment free and easy, like a schoolgirl would chasing a friend on a playground. It was a laugh light enough to fly over the fence he'd been building around himself and settle on his shoulder. It did not elicit a laugh in return but rather a wide smile, wide like when Sarah was very much alive, and he was too.

"I'm sorry, Jessie. I guess I'm wobbly as well." She laughed again, free, like before. "Oh, Samuel, you only ask forgiveness when you've done something wrong, right?" And with that she grabbed the dozen donuts she'd purchased—six glazed, six chocolate—and wedged away. Samuel’s was so fried he tried to pay for his groceries with his library card. The cashier, a woman he'd actually been on a date with about a year ago, sighed and said, "C'mon. Wake up, Romeo."