Santo Tomas, Spain (Ricky Rew on Unsplash)
It was a golden end.
To the day. To their journey. To what they managed to do together, for the first time in a long time without bitter exchanges that gouged their hearts and left them both scarred.
The trip to Santo Tomas was an impromptu thing. The healing they’d invested in was not.
“We could go, you know,” he’d mentioned as she’d browsed to pass the time while waiting outside the therapist’s office. It was always an awkward time, sitting together in the ante room, aware that what came next was lancing boils and airing out things too noxious to attempt alone.
“Can we, though?” she’d replied, layering many meanings.
“I think so,” he’d said.
His hesitation, more than anything, was what had her agree.
The therapist’s hesitation, too. She wanted to prove the woman wrong.
She watched him jog by sun-glow. Her heart warmed. They were going home.
For What Pegman Saw: Santo Tomás
Na'ama Yehuda 
This is such a positive and uplifting story, a story of the healing of the relationship between two people who had loved each other and then, somehow, found themselves fighting and hurting each other.
“His hesitation, more than anything, was what had her agree.” That’s a gloriously concise, accurate and powerful way of showing that his hesitation spoke for the honesty of his response, an honesty on which healing could be based. The next line “The therapist’s hesitation, too. She wanted to prove the woman wrong” injects humour by the pin-sharp observation of the woman’s contrary nature. That was a great idea, making the woman a real person, while at the same time redoubling our involvement in the story.
And, finally, “They were going home.” I’m a sucker for endings that call up a happy return home, so I think this is great way to finish!
Smashing story, Na’ama. It’s brightened my day!
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Yay hurray! Thank you, Penny! I’m so glad this worked, and you TOTALLY got the interaction and interplay and layers of characters. I’m so pleased! Also, thank you for letting me know that there was a problem with the comments on that post — WordPress engineers are on the case trying to figure out what went wrong there and why some comments went ‘poof’ and others could not be posted — I’m sorry this happened and I’m grateful you told me. Now it’s fixed and hopefully any who’d left comments before would re-post them … I’m delighted for yours!
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What a beautiful story, Na’ama. The fact they went to therapy is a good sign. Wanting to prove the therapist wrong could have been the wrong way to go if there weren’t some love lying under cover…
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Thank you, Dale! Yes, sometimes wanting to prove the therapist wrong is not the way to go … I don’t even know if it would end up being the way to go (longterm) in this case, but it seems to have worked, for now …
Thank you for commenting! I had problems with the comments on this post — WP Happiness Engineers are looking into why the comments weren’t working on this particular post — and I believe there were a few comments that went poof whenever whatever went wrong, went wrong … But I’m SO GLAD to see yours!
XOXO
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