Page 35 of Skin Deep

He offered me the wine bottle again, and I took it, almost chugging it down. He patted me on the back when I started to choke.

“Dreams are real to us,” he said, nodding. “When they die, we lose a part of ourselves. What I have found is that if we stay open, we are open to accepting other gifts, other dreams. The hole might not be filled the same way—would you ever want someone to fill another person’s place in your life?—but we can still find joy in others. We can still live.”

“Losing dreams has aged me,” I said, being honest. “Living has aged me.”

I felt his eyes on my profile, but I didn’t turn to meet them. He was an old man, and I was a younger one. It almost felt pathetic to complain to him about age, but he was easy to talk to.

He made a noise deep in his throat, like he was clearing it, but I thought maybe he was really disagreeing with me without making it seem obvious. “I never felt that,” he said. “Old. Even now, when I look in the mirror, my reflection stops me. What exists here—” he curled his fist and touched his heart “—still feels twenty-one.”

“Must be all the good Italian wine,” I said.

He grinned but then became quiet. After a minute or two, he said, “Though I do understand the meaning of the spirit being tired. Mine is still tired after losing my daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking at him.

This time he kept his face forward. He nodded but didn’t say anything. The lemon grove was reflected in his eyes, along with the sun.

He leaned forward a little, opening his hands. “If you had a week to live, what would you do with it?”

His question caught me off guard, but it didn’t take me long to answer. “I’d do everything I could to make sure my family, the people I love, were taken care of. It would worry me to know I’d be leaving them to this world without me to take care of them.”

“You are admirable, Harrison,” he said. “However, I can see you do that now, and you are dying.”

“I am?”

“We all are. Every day.”

“I see why you’re a poet,” I said, lifting the bottle to him.

“It is obvious by your answer that your family is already being taken care of. No regrets there.” He took the bottle back. “One week.” He held up a finger.

“A week,” I repeated, thinking deeper and maybe outside of the box—for once. “I’d want to find the person I’m supposed to love and make the most of my time. Maybe even have some fun.”

I didn’t have enough of that. Couldn’t remember the last time… That wasn’t true. I had some fun with the woman who could be an Italian model at a celebration that felt more like a funeral for me.

He grinned. “It is good that hypotheticals do not consider time.”

I laughed. “I can do anything in my hypothetical world, because in the real one, the woman I was meant to love fell in love with another man.”

“Then she was not meant for you,” he said, as though it was the simplest answer to a question that I’d complicated.

“My heart refuses to believe it.”

“Perhaps your mind refuses.”

“You’re suggesting I tricked myself into believing that I love her?”

“Not trick,” he said, his voice almost musing. “You love her, but it is not the love your heart needs to take root.”

“Do you think baseball wasn’t truly meant for me either?”

He opened and closed his hands again. “A dream is different than falling in love. Even so, the loss of one will lead us to another if we are willing to take the steps.”

“Maybe that’s why I feel old. I’m walking too much.”

He laughed. “That should make you feel young!” He balled his fist and touched my arm with his knuckles, pushing a little. “You are on the path of your life. So much to see!” Push. “So much to discover!” Push.

“Does this path come with instructions on love and women?”

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