Convincing Amy (Amy, #1)

Chapter 28: Longing

PLEASE BE WARNED THAT THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MATURE THEMES AND IS NOT RECOMMENDED TO PEOPLE UNDER THIRTEEN YEARS WITHOUT PARENTAL GUIDANCE

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

LONGING

It was dusk when Matthew stepped outside his front door one Friday evening. He had a bag of trash in his hand and he placed it in the wheelie bin by his back door. The clouds gave the sky a soft orange colour, but the clouds were heavily thickening, preparing for the predicted storms. He sighed, looking down the street, hoping, praying that she'd be walking toward him. But of course, that didn't happen. Glumly, Matthew walked across the small amout of lawn in his front yard and rested his arms and chin upon the tall brick and iron fence. He stood there, lost in his thoughts.

Matthew missed Amy terribly. He missed her smile, her laugh, her physical presence. He missed kissing her at random moments and snuggling up to her when the weather was cold. He longed to sit around their table in the library and study until their brains fell asleep. It felt all so incredibly distant, as though it hadn't actually happened and that it had only been a realistic dream.

"You okay there young Matthew?" Matthew turned his head to the right and saw his elderly neighbour, Mr Mathers, standing in his driveway, looking at him curiously. "Has something got you troubled? You've been looking a bit sad all week and last."

"I'm alright thank you, Mr Mathers. Women are just impossible to understand sometimes." Matthew gave his neighbour a forced smile and continued to look down the street, hoping, praying, still.

"Would you be talking about the young lady who's been at your house a lot?" Mr Mathers walked the length of his driveway and met Matthew on the other side of his fence. He walked with a walking stick, limping on his left leg. He'd told Matthew on a previous occasion that he'd received a bullet to the leg during the war and it had never been the same since.

Matthew sighed, still looking down the street. "Yep," he popped the p.

"What's the lady's name?" Mr Mathers asked in a coarse, rough voice. He coughed to get the frog out of his throat.

"Amy. And she's not talking to me anymore."

"And why is that?"

Matthew sighed. "Because she's only here until July."

"Ah," said Mr Mathers, obviously understanding. "Yes, women are a bit tricky. I was in a similar situation to you, you know. I've been in love with the same woman for over sixty-five years now."

"But-" Matthew began, recalling that Mr Mathers lived alone, but he was cut off.

"I only wish that she knew, Matthew." Mr Mathers sat down on a ledge in the fence, relaxing his stiff leg. "I met her during the war when Australia - Darwin - was bombed by the Japanese. She was a nurse from Australia. Her name, I recall from heart," Mr Mathers smiled to himself, remembering, "is Nurse Mavis Joan Dudfield."

Mr Mathers smiled a crinkly smile to Matthew and continued. "When my leg was injured, you see, I was taken into ward 52A where Nurse Dudfield was working. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, Matthew. I'll tell you that now. I took her out for dinner one night after my leg was better, and things only started getting better from there on."

The smile escaped Matthew's neighbour's face and was replaced with a look of guilt and sorrow. "When the war ended, I wanted to bring her back here, but she told me that her mother was sick and that she couldn't possibly leave her. We exchanged addresses and that was the last time I ever saw her. I never told her that I loved her though, Matthew. I can only imagine how things would have been different if I had actually said something to her. She married a smart business man a year after the war and they had four children together. Robert, Judith, Sarah and Henry."