Chasing the Bear

Chapter 45

"You were still looking for the one?" Susan said.

"I guess," I said.

"You ever wonder why you have been so dogged to that commitment?" Susan said.

"Looking for you," I said.

"Looking for someone," she said, "like looking for a pattern, and when we met, I fit the pattern nicely."

"A less romantic explanation," I said.

"But one rooted at least in possibility."

"A pox on all your science," I said.

"So where did the pattern come from?" Susan said.

"That I was looking for, that you fit nicely into?" I said.

"That one."

"Well, first of all," I said, "I'm willing to accept the fact that I could have met someone else and loved them. But I stick to my guns on a simple fact."

I sipped my drink.

"Which is?" Susan said.

"You were the one."

"The one you imagined," Susan said.

"Yes."

"So," she said, "quite literally the girl of your dreams, as you like to say."

"Yes."

"Do you know why you were so committed to the one?" Susan said.

I smiled at her.

"Yes," I said. "I believe I do."

Susan looked at me and raised her eyebrows and cocked her head.

"I grew up in an all-male family," I said. "A good family, but one without a woman in it. I think I was always trying to complete the family."

"Which I did," Susan said.

"Yes."

"So you knew that all along," Susan said.

"I figured it out after I met you," I said.

"How did that make you feel?" Susan said.

"Maybe I was looking for a missing mother," I said. "The fact remains that out of all the women I have known, you were the only one I loved."

"And I loved you back," Susan said.

"So even though you're a Harvard PhD shrink," I said, "you still believe in love."

"Yes," she said. "I've overcome my education."

"Atta girl," I said.