I woke later than usual. Instead of having coffee, I pottered towards the bay window and gazed at the meandering river.
I liked our city river, whose curve widened away, greeting the hint of first light. I imbibed a panorama of silhouetted, still-sleeping suburban houses as the retreating night shadows outlined tree clusters along the riverbank hiding boathouse moorings. The rising sun on the horizon lay as thin as a sheet of gold leaf.
At peace with my memories, I returned to bed.
Rhea rolled in her sleep and instinctively nestled into my shoulder instead of the pillow. Her eyelids blinked but remained shut, delving inwards into her dreams.
I whispered to her lullaby-like as her hand searched for my chest.
"Yes, sweetheart, I'm here. I journeyed in my mind and writing, contemplating memories. I savoured the allure of the past."
Denser thoughts I kept to myself.
Sexual memory is compelling.
Life's yearnings can linger, messy.
I found relationships I never lost.
I pondered the phantom fragments I carry of individual lives.
We can't deny each other citizenship in our souls' memory.
—I recalled 2016 and a clutch of seminal moments.
I received a jury service summons in May. As a courtroom novice, I followed a form letter. On the selection day, I arrived early. Ushered by a court clerk, I occupied the next vacant seat in the public gallery of a courtroom.
The gallery became crowded in the next ten minutes—a mass of autumn coats and thick jumpers. My choice for a cool day was a dark sweater. There were muffled, inaudible conversations in a subdued assemblage brought together by individual summoning letters. Most sat like me, looking straight ahead with our blank public faces.
A middle-aged clerk wearing a suit and tie called for attention and commenced the selection process. From a box, he selected cards and called names randomly in a clear, concise voice.
My eyes strayed to the superb carved wood surroundings. The judge's bench and the coat of arms displayed a distinguished blend of fine timbers, stating tradition. The whole room imposed a solidness demanding the law be respected.
If your name is drawn for jury duty, you are officially selected to serve on a case. If not, you are free to go home. With my knees together and hands on my lap, I waited indifferently for a call either way. My name rolled off the clerk's tongue as the fourth name was drawn on a card from the ballot.
After I rose, he pointed me towards the front row of the jury box. More names followed. On the twelfth, my ears pricked. I heard Jenny's full name! Any piece of her name was capable of stirring my core.
My gaze travelled instantly and locked on her face — side on.
My lips parted, ready to say, Jenny.
Her presence set my pulse racing. She wore a ruby dress and a charcoal jacket. She focused on the clerk's direction and settled on the bench behind me. I craved to cock my head; so inappropriate. My manners and sense of place halted me.
The prosecutor and defence lawyers negotiated the jury mix. The lawyer's challenges removed two males as they sought an age and gender mix for the case. I squashed my hands under my thighs, perching forward, worried Jenny or myself would be rejected as jurors.
Re-selections occurred, and the judge outlined the case. In summary, it was a white-collar affair, an embezzlement case.
My heart sped and soared; Jenny was here.
The court clerk, grey-suited and officious, guided the jury in a single file to an upstairs courtroom. Jenny moved in front of me by several bobbing heads. We entered a more modern wood-panelled courtroom. The deliberation room was at the rear.
As part of a large, randomly selected group, we settled around a stately polished table dominating the jury room. A pewter pitcher of water and twelve tumblers rested upside down on the centre of the table. As the seating filled, Jenny and I eventuated at a complete diagonal.
In a group, we remained separate. We acknowledged one another, not quite surreptitiously. Jenny and I bobbed heads across the divide like a pair of periscopes peering above a wave, up and down with minimal detection.
Immediately, the clerk asked us to pay attention to the next set of court protocols and processes. After outlining our duties, he continued, informing jurors of the washroom and lunch arrangements. Subsequently, the court's schedule dictated when the jurors would enter the courtroom and listen to opening addresses and first evidence.
In the courtroom, Jenny assumed her position in the juror box's second row, behind me in the first. I responsibly concentrated on the case after taking in my surroundings.
The jury sat on the left side of the courtroom, the judge at the front, seated higher than the court staff, including the recorder and the lawyers, and the accused sat at the two tables, side-on to us but facing the judge. The public seating area was sparsely occupied, and I assumed two guys further back chatting were court news reporters.
The accused pair faced a deep hole: the theft of company funds complicated by infidelity. The woman, perhaps in her late twenties, wore a navy-blue skirt suit complimenting her auburn hair. Mirroring her eyes down, hunched posture, the guy, maybe early thirties, was dark-haired, clean-shaven and wearing a grey suit.
The jury listened to the preliminary arguments until our break time. The clerk steered us to the jury room. We had permission to leave the courthouse for lunch. He stipulated this meant no outside discussion of the case. He said we could choose to stay in the jury room instead, which provided basic tea and coffee. My lunch lay unwrapped on the table, as was Jenny's. The rest of the jury chose cafés or takeaways.
I approached Jenny and sat at the corner of the table. Its fine timber - distinguished Mountain ash - was my dad's favourite in woodturning. The table displayed a straight grain, and its hues toned straw to blonde. The table's rich colour starkly contrasted with Jenny's raven hair.
My hands gripped the underside of the table. Jenny's hands rested topside. Her fingers mesmerised feminine and slender. One of her pinkies bent sideways.
Her smile emerged, insecure at its edges. I offered my smile full of happiness.
Once, I lived for her Renoir beam.
Whilst I couldn't see my smile, I desired its shape to spell out hope!
My ego was unleashed.
Every life includes significant markers and commonplace routines. We meet a friend or ex-lover and concoct a hasty highlights reel of life events sifted from the everyday humdrum.
Jenny and I roved memory between coffee and sandwiches, offering titbits of information.
"You returned to Melbourne?" I asked.
"Yes, a few years ago," she responded.
"And you?" she continued.
"I've lived in other places but been back in Melbourne for years."
I probed, "Do you have children?"
"One adult daughter, and you?"
"Four," I started.
She dimpled, "My."
I added, "Twins."
"Gosh!" she exclaimed before I urged her to chat about her daughter.
The conversation skirted us together.
I delved deeper, careful at the edges.
"What is your daughter doing?"
"She's at uni doing business management. And your girls?
I recited a list, "a travel agent, two nurses, and a teacher in training."
Jenny revealed a personal morsel. A fact, but I read a lot into it.
"My daughter is not at home. She studies interstate. I'm home alone."
"Alone?" I queried.
I never pictured Jenny alone. My ego pictured Jenny and me.
She added, "I've been by myself for fifteen years, no partner."
She disclosed it openly, not inviting pity or sympathy. Jenny revealed it matter-of-factly as a truth.
I avoided asking why.
"A dog and a cat keep me company," she jollied as I let the conversation falter.
Pets revitalised our chat; well, at a stretch, we had Phoebe and her goldfish.
We managed a relaxed conversation, even as I over-processed her status as a single woman. She noticed how I dipped my head and glanced at her finger: her pinkie. I scrutinised every nook and cranny of her face; at least, I tried to without staring.
Over the years, I taught myself not to stare.
I paused at the interstices between her crow's feet that had naturally emerged. I presided in the realm of 'the eye of the beholder.' Though images of her face and traits overlaid, overlapped and intertwined, Jenny in the past and Jenny now.
In the present, I attended to wherever my eyes roamed.
Her little finger - I strayed to it frequently.
My conscience pricked.
When had I recently looked at Rhea like this?
Coral's voice perched on my shoulder – Don't be seduced by the past if you ever meet those amber eyes again, she had counselled.
Jenny flexed her pinkie at an angle.
Her hand extended towards me.
My ego pricked —I stared!
A tumble of words followed her outstretched finger, "I broke it playing squash," she said, "It hurts sometimes. I play the piano-less than before. If I play too often, my finger aches horribly."
Jenny stretched her pinkie before tucking her hands under the table.
The combination of her extended pinkie and unfeigned words broke my faltering resolve. I sought each segment of her little finger.
I wanted to be the one who kissed it better.
Unintentionally, Jenny exposed her vulnerable desirability.
The way I talked about my family so excitedly, I wondered if she assumed the past lay closed.
If I believed the past was supposed to be behind us, why did it dominate my current thoughts?
The realisation hit me on the chin, like The Phantom's Pow! in Josh's comics.
In the years since Jenny's final phone call, I had imposed a boundary for my thoughts about her.
I purposely blocked out the memory of anything Jenny.
Jurors filed in from lunch and ended our conversation as everyone's focus returned to the case. Jenny excused herself to the washroom. I watched her while she stayed in view.
My intuition informed me of the obvious: there was no rekindled passion here. No dance and drilling of eyes occurred, no chest-slamming instance when minds and souls combine.
I remembered the dance floor —a genesis.
In a jury room, this was absent.
Throughout the afternoon, I focused on my juror role. I listened to the case responsibly, heeding the evidence in the light of 'innocent until proven guilty' played out.
The prosecution painted the crime as a selfish graft.
The accused male sweated, his fingers hooking air to his tie-collared neck. He wriggled uncomfortably in his own body. His co-accused, the auburn-haired lass, her locks tinted coppery when she lifted from her usual slump to sip water.
Complex language flowed, and legal speak was endlessly exchanged.
The judge called time on deliberations towards 4.45 p.m., and the clerk ushered us to the jury room. We received instructions regarding tomorrow's continuation.
Time permitted me to wish Jenny a pleasant evening as we exited the courthouse. Chance informed me we lived separate lives as we split towards our cars, hers parked in the street's west car park, mine in the east.
Yet I hankered to fill the gaps as I drove home, a yen for our former in-sync days.
Delicious smells from the kitchen greeted my nose. Rhea stirred Bigos at the stove. She glanced at me while stirring the pot, and I returned a half-wave as I sunk into a lounge chair.
She prepared ideal comfort food, wafting on entering a cosy home: lime, vinegar and cinnamon.
Plated at the table, the texture of the stew dominated.
Rhea planned a meal for me as our girls were at sports or work.
Despite knowing the ingredients were purchased from the deli, I picked at my treat. I pushed Polish sausage, sauerkraut, mushrooms, and prunes in disinterest across my plate.
In contrast, I gulped my glass of red.
I shoved away my Bigos unfinished and fibbed to Rhea, "I need to update a design brief — urgently."
She asked, "Do you want another glass of wine?"
I waved her away, "No," and I made to leave.
She touched my arm, concerned, her eyes wide, "Forget the court case at home."
"Yes," I muttered as I raced away.
I flipped my laptop open in my office downstairs and surfed the net, speedily garnering information on Jenny.
Capturing her digital footprint proved easy.
My conscience at every new image echoed, you bugger!