Keeping Me Awake

There were certain things in New York City that made me think of that summer. The fog of its memory was always hovering in the back of my mind, kept there by my charred and broken heart for fear that its full presence would simply render my very ventricles apart, but there were little instances that would emerge and let that carefree time in my life catch fire. For example, two blocks from my office, there is a little Greek café that always smells like the heavy meat they roasted on the island, the scent strong in the heat, coming in off the smoggy steam of the sidewalk rather than the sea winds of Kalokairi. And then there is that one Van Morrison record I see on occasion in the record stores on Bleecker Street, when the nostalgic mood strikes me and I sojourn downtown and mingle among the young hip crowd. I see it in the back of a bin or pinned to a wall and my mind goes right to those nights I played it with company or by myself, listening to that Irish crooner asking his lass if she wanted to come in his garden and look at the flowers as I reveled in how far away I was from the rest of everything.

There's a million little things that bring me back to the summer I spent in Greece when I was a young man, buried around the city like pieces of a strange, decades-spanning scavenger hunt. When I see them, I smile, grateful for the brief connection to the most wonderful time in my life. I don't just say that because I am older with a boatload of responsibilities now, or because those days were fun and reckless, but because that summer, when I was just traveling, looking for myself and a good time simultaneously, I met a girl for whom a betrayal, a marriage, two children, a divorce, and twenty-one years of no contact has not been able to dull my love.

I see Donna Sheridan in a lot of things. Certain flowers sold at sidewalk stands are the color of her hair, so soft when it passed through my fingertips. When I lay my head down on my pillow at the end of a long day, it sometimes is as smooth and warm as her skin caressing my cheek. In the darkness, a breeze passing through a slightly open window sounds remarkably like her breathing beside me, which I can still hear perfectly all these years later. Everyone once in a while I dream about that one perfect night, the one I rowed her over to the little island I had found. When I wake in the morning, I do so with the gnawing feeling of regret and total loss that I suffered when I saw her storm away from the pier that horrible morning I told her I was leaving and why. She may have been worlds and years away, but Donna haunted me undoubtedly, which I found to be much more of a comfort than a bother. She was always with me, just a whisper away in my heart. And I suppose that is why I was more pleasantly surprised rather than outright shocked when her invitation showed up in the mail.

My God, that was a glorious summer. I know everyone had groovy times back in those days, but when I think about Donna and the music and the island… that is when I remember why we wake up in the morning. Not because we still have it, but because we lost it. Because it was ever there to begin with.

Summer, it came like a light across the highlands

And we laid it down

You wore a dress made of light from the islands

And we sent postcards home

It had been twenty-one years, but there was no hesitation, not even for a moment. A wedding in a few months, July. Greece would shimmer underneath the mid-year sun. I called my travel agent, alerted the office, and called up my sons. Matthew was up at Wesleyan; John lived with Lorraine out in Westchester. When I told them I might have to reschedule our annual kayaking trip, they were understanding, which left me relieved. We had divorced when the boys were ten and eleven, and I remember how it had taken a few years for them to truly understand that their parents did not love each other, not the way that a mom and a dad should. Once I came across Matthew, a young man new to the world of women and hormones, sitting in the closet of his room at my apartment, rifling through a box my old things. He stared down at countless sketches I had done of Donna, the ones I had not left with her when I drug myself away from our island. I saw him gaze absorbedly down at faded photographs of her and I in our flower children garb, which made me laugh at the sight of them, but only for a moment. I caught her eyes, the innocent blue of a new sky, and my stomach plummeted.

Matthew eventually looked up at me. "Who is she?" he asked quietly. He looked back down at the pictures. He was silent for another moment or two. "She's pretty," he then remarked.

Since then, my boys had known about Donna. Now they were old enough to understand that you can love a lot of people in your life, but there's only that one you are meant for. I loved their mother once, but even then, when we were dating, under their surveillance our pushy parents, I knew it wasn't enough. If I had thought it was, I would have married her quicker. I do not believe in calculating moves so carefully. Where's the spontaneity in that? If you love someone, you do not hesitate to let her and the whole world know it. The moment I read that strange invitation – a girl named Sophie was marrying a boy named Sky at the Villa Donna, the hotel Donna and I had dreamed of running together – I was ready to go. Just to see her, be near her again, would be like a type of salvation. I yelped in an excitement that had been stored up inside of me for years as I hopped in my cab on the way to the airport. It was all adrenaline. She was starting to feel real to me again.

The first wave of nervousness came when we were just minutes away from landing in Athens. Out the tiny airplane window the uneven, gray terrain of the hills outside of the city stared up at me, reminding me that it had started. It all had been set into motion. All of the sudden, my lungs seemed to ball up like paper. In the thin clouds we passed through, I abruptly saw Donna's tear-streaked face, her hair whipped by the wind around her head like a halo, her hands shaking as they wiped at her cheeks. I felt glued to the seat as I relived that moment she told me she never wanted to see me again. I watched like the young, stupid fool I was as she ran off, catching the rickety old ferry back to the mainland before I could catch her. I heard my hoarse voice call out to her again and again, doing so until she was gone, melted into the horizon, and I sat slumped in the sand, drained of everything.

As if I had been held underwater, my breath shot out of my mouth, throwing me back into the moment. Panic flurried through me like a snowstorm as I clutched the armrests, feeling trapped in such a fast-moving tube sailing through the sky. What had I just agreed to do? My God, she had really hated me at that moment. In twenty-one years, though, I had not blamed her. How could you feel anything but resentment for a man who promised the world to you and then told you his ring was on another's finger? Another prod to my gut filled me with a different long-buried ache, the one that came when I hurried all the way back to Kalokairi only to find that she was with another guy. It was worse than resentment. She had moved on. And just like that, I released it all to the retreating tide, all of those moments I knew for certain that I could never be happier than I was when I was with her. And then I left, allowing twenty-one years to pass.

I cannot say my years with Lorraine were bad, because they weren't; they were just empty. It was that half-life that all of us beatniks were trying so desperately to avoid. There was that circus of wedding, all of the hugging and crying and false smiles. Then there was all that nonsense running around New York City as the whipping boy of several architectural firms, past all the frenzied danger that encompassed Manhattan in the late 70s and early 80s. And then, just before I got a great job that actually distracted me from the life that had slipped right through my fingertips, Lorraine, whom I contemplated leaving quite often, told me that she was pregnant. My sons, they were what made life bearable. All the love I had lost was reborn and redirected at them, and it was them that saved my marriage. I was able to love my wife a little more because she had given them to me. For a few years, we were happy. But it had to unravel, and when it did, I moved on. I lived alone with my thoughts of the woman I loved, the woman who hated me, who moved on so quickly from me. Just the memory of her singing put me to sleep every night.

When I got to Kalokairi, I was with two strangers, Bill Anderson, an adventure writer, and Harry Bright, a funny Englishman who missed the ferry along with me. On Bill's boat, the men talked of other things, but I kept coming back to Donna. They apparently had not seen or heard from her in decades as well, and yet they received the same wedding invitation. It struck me as sort of funny, but I just set my mind on sailing, which I had not done in years. It felt so freeing, to help move that vessel across the water. It prepared me for seeing her, making that thorn of nervousness in my side disappear for a while as the island rose up before us. When I looked upon her sleeping body, a trickle of something moved down my spine, something I had not felt in a very, very long time. I looked at the island and embraced a feeling that seemed to tell me that I had done my penance. Maybe, this time, I wouldn't meet such sorrow. This time, something else was going to happen. Something good was waiting for me on that shore.

Undying light, this was not to be forgotten

'Cause we are the chosen few

Into the sea with a touch as soft as cotton

Beneath this angel moon

The moment I stepped on land, all I could think of was my girl. My foot touched the ground, and it all exploded around me, all of those fragments of my happy past that I had dug up in New York bursting like fireworks. I was surrounded by my times with the carefree girl who called herself a Dynamo, the one who loved to laugh and dance. The one who had loved me so fiercely and purely. She was here somewhere, and just the thought of even seeing her set my limbs on fire. I did not stop inquiring about her, especially when we met Sophie.

Oh, Sophie. I liked her from the start. She reminded me so much of Donna, in large part due to her admission that Donna actually had no idea Harry, Bill, and I were there. I should have felt dread when I heard the news, or at least disappointment, but I just tried to laugh it off. At least I was there. There was more reluctance now, knowing that she had not wanted to see me at all, but I was still on our island, in our hotel. It was something.

And then I heard it. We all did, all of us at the same time. She was a floor below us in that dusky old goat house, humming that South American war song we used to dance to on the club veranda on the mainland, under the stars, surrounded by mandolin strings sweetly producing that heavenly sound. We all moved for her, but Sophie forbade it. I took a moment after she fled so mischieviously to think about how I would approach Donna, but not a few minutes later, in typical Donna fashion, she made her grand entrance, falling right through the ceiling onto Harry's blow-up mattress.

If I wasn't so terrified, I might have been more amused at how flustered Donna was when she saw us all. That look on her face, it changed the whole mood of the room. I threw out an artillery of defense mechanisms when actually faced with my none-too-happy former paramour: a joke, a lingering look when Harry commented about how she hadn't changed, a smart ass comment about the three of us being strangers. But I saw her eyes narrow at me when they had been much kinder to the other two gentlemen. She kicked that damned air mattress at me when I stupidly said, "I just dropped in to say… hi." Can't say I blame her. I did deserve it, after all.

There was a moment, though, a moment I felt the first tip of grace come down upon me. She looked me dead in the face with those same eyes, still so innocent but much more hardened, and asked me what my excuse was for staying on the island when she clearly did not want me there. And I told her the truth: "Just wanted to see the island." I made sure I held those tempting eyes down, as if trying to anchor that restless spirit of hers. "You know what it meant to me."

The way she looked at me, like it was all hitting her again after so many years tucked away, was what gave me hope, despite making me feel guilty. There were still some feelings. It could be fresh again. The hurt obviously was. Maybe, what proceeded all that hurt, what led to it….

When she was gone, all I could do was look at the board placed over the dusty window. It was covered with all of the other sketches I had done of her. I had spent hours drawing that face, studying the contours, every spare inch of skin around those open, willing eyes, that slender nose, those soft, receptive lips.

I hated what I had done twenty-one years ago all over again.

It's been keeping me awake

Leaving this behind was my first mistake

And I'm not so strong to be satisfied by all the things I've done

And the things I threw away

An afternoon spent sailing around the island with Bill, Harry, and Sophie did set me at ease. I liked all three of them quite a bit, feeling as if I had known them for years. I took a special interest in Sophie, though, watching as she sailed along with Bill and played guitar with Harry, who, despite all appearances, used to be "quite the rebel." And then she and I sketched each other as the sun began moving westward; it was the perfect light to capture that face, which looked so much like her mother's. I started to wonder who her father was, but it hurt to think of Donna with someone else, so I kept my musings at bay. Instead I thought of the past as we all told Sophie our stories. It was best kind of release, to be there with guys who had an inkling of how I had felt back in those days and how I felt now that it was long gone. The only difference was that they did not seem to pine after Donna, only talk so fondly of her and how she seemed to embody the freedom of those summer days. By the close of the day, I realized that all of our hearts had been captured by Donna Sheridan, but only mine was still locked up. She still had it, whether she wanted it or not.

It was a bit of a risky move to crash Sophie's bachelorette party, but the moment I heard our song as I climbed the stairs to the hotel, I relaxed and let the moment take me. And then I saw her. She and her friends were dressed as the Dynamos, singing and dancing just like they did back in the day, so what else could I do but laugh? The boys and I got quite kick out of it, I must say. I let my guard down as she performed, letting my good mood remain even after I saw that she had become acutely aware of my presence. She stole one or two looks at me, meaningful looks, but I told my heart to calm down. If I knew Donna, I was going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble for this one.

She ran before I had a chance to make a move. While we were officially kicked out by Rosie, whom I had only met once or twice but I remembered as being quite a riot, the other two guys were attacked by the girls at the bar. This was my chance to sneak away, if not to catch Donna, than to at least think for a moment. I wandered out onto the veranda, looking out over that black expanse of ocean, its only friend the tiny little moon drooping overhead. I sighed, feeling small, feeling strangled. I loved her. I loved her so much that it hurt.

From where I stood, I could see the small stretch of beach that floated in and out of my dreams. I looked down at the spot just in front of a remote cove and felt my heart bloat up in my throat. 'Super Trouper' was still rolling around in my head, melding with the soft crashing of the water against the invisible shore. Like it had just happened a few hours ago, I thought of Donna in my arms, her voice tickling my ear, our love better than could be imagined, isolating the two us from all of the other frivolity revolving around our island. It wasn't running away from responsibility. At the time, I had been looking my greatest responsibility bravely in the face. I was more than ready to give her my life. Now I was standing alone in the hotel I had drawn up, and she was off somewhere wishing me away. When Sophie unexpectedly joined me, she pulled me away from a deep kind of hurt.

You wrote your name as we lay among the heather

What you left behind

Following paths that would lead us both together

Let us lose our minds

The focus shifting to Donna's daughter was not something I had planned. That night, more and more events transpired that led me to believe that Sophie was getting married as a way to solidify herself to Donna and the hotel. It was selfless, but it was wrong. I knew what that was like, to settle down for all the wrong reasons. It also made me feel incredibly guilty; this should have been my job. I should have been running this place with Donna. It killed me that she had done it so long by herself. Not that she wasn't capable. But the thought of her alone actually pained me more than the thought of her with someone else. Donna didn't deserve to be alone. She deserved to be loved, no matter whom it came from.

Should I get into the part where I figured out I was Sophie's father? I have to say, I took it better than you would think. It actually excited me, the thought of having a tie to Donna this entire time. And a daughter, one as great as Sophie. Me and my impulsive mind did not hesitate to offer walking her down the aisle. At a loss of the responsibility I had wanted to take on a long time ago, I jumped at the chance for this one. I liked Sophie, and I loved Donna. I wanted this. But I also wanted to help, which is how my confessing my undying love was halted by an unstoppable need to do what was right for my daughter.

The next morning I found Donna stressed out, grabbing bagpipes out of Sky's hands in the courtyard before tossing them inside the hotel. I laughed in spite of my nerves; I hadn't seen my bagpipes in years. I remembered bringing them to Greece and Donna finding them, as well as my Scottish background, endlessly fascinated. She had kept them. I couldn't believe it.

I tried to talk about the two of us that morning of Sophie's wedding, but it did not go as smoothly as I would have hoped. She could barely look me in the eye at first, refusing my help when I offered it, scoffing at my mention of our once-shared dream of running the Villa together. When she looked up at me and said that she could deal with her own disasters, I broke inside. My daughter. Her wedding. Her making the same mistake that I had, abandoning dreams because of something she thought deserved her life more. All the conservation did was lead to one of the sadder moments I had experienced in a long time, Donna unconvincingly announcing how happy she was to be free and single. She still held that grudge against me. Looking into her eyes so desperately, I threw out one last rope for her to grab onto, attempting to remind her of how happy we had been together. When I started to ask where it had all gone, she turned, unable to take it. I failed on my part and Sophie's part all over again.

It's been keeping me awake

And leaving this behind was my first mistake

And I'm not so strong to be satisfied by all the things I've done

And the things I threw away

It was just another hard moment when I tried to confront Sophie herself about the issue. As frustrated as her mother, she angrily asked me if I felt about my ex-wife how she felt about Sky. I took a moment before shaking my head and truthfully telling her I hadn't. I lacked the courage at that moment to say that I had felt that way about Donna. I watched Sophie speed off, leaving me no choice but to get to Donna before the wedding.

I remembered that little church up on the craggy hilltop. I recalled looking up at it with Donna, holding her close and thinking how I would love to marry her in that tiny place but unable to tell her so. Donna was not thinking of marriage at that age. It was obvious she had not since. I stood swept up in bittersweet memories when I heard the joyous calls of the wedding procession. Sophie looked beautiful, hoisted up in typical Greek fashion on a donkey. Her mother's neighbors and employees led the girl up the steep, winding pathway to the church, but I noticed that an emotional Donna stood still, watching her daughter go. As soon as I saw her move, I went for her. I knew she was vulnerable, and I hated to interrupt, but this was the only option that I was left with.

I tried to talk about me being Sophie's father. I tried to bring up that Sophie wanted me to give her away. I even tried to allude to the fact I was perfectly willing to be her father. Donna, however, was not very interested in such a conversation.

"Sam, I can't do this now." She shook her head, as if to make me disappear. "I can't hear this now."

The next words rose up uncontrollably, out of desperation, out of desire slipping away forever. I couldn't bear to miss another opportunity.

"Donna, listen to me… this is about us."

Down came the rain. Donna looked up at me with so much sadness that I swear I could hear a heart break open; whether it was hers or mine, I wasn't sure. She stood there, looking so beautiful under the setting sun, the endless sea laid out behind her, and she told me everything she had not been able to say for twenty-one years. Her voice shook with such pain, such loneliness that I found myself mute. She told me how she once thought she belonged in my arms but found herself foolish to think so. I smiled for a moment, hearing that she had indeed wanted me as much and as long as I wanted her, but then she kept going, speaking of the terrible fact of accepting that she had been dealt a bad hand.

And then it really started to sting. "Tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you? Does it feel the same when she calls your name?"

God, that was brutal. I could barely look at her when she questioned me about the subpar woman I had gone back to. And then she said the words that would have satisfied all of my wondering over the years had it not come in this form, in this moment.

"Somewhere deep inside, you must know I miss you."

Twenty-one years later, and she missed me. The wind rushed ill-temperedly around us, and yet I couldn't breathe, not for the life of me. I stood there feeling so sick as she told me she knew why I was there, to shake her hand for her troubles. I should have said something right then, but watching her passion and pent-up sorrow come rushing out like that was enough to keep me silent. Then I found myself chasing her again, calling out her name once more, only to have her keep running for refuge, propelled by the hurt I had caused her. When she retreated inside of the church, I had no choice but to go into the wedding. I would not sit slumped in the sand again, not this time. It was not over.

Sophie, just like her outrageous mother, could not just have things go normal and smoothly. That ceremony – bullocks, it was like nothing I have ever seen. One confession right after the other. Sophie had three possible fathers… Donna didn't know who the lucky man was… I came back for Donna all those years ago… Harry liked men the way he once liked Donna… Sophie decided she did not care which one of us fathered her after Bill, Harry, and I decided to "split" her. It all kind of went into a tizzy beyond imagination when Sophie, smart girl that she is, called off the wedding, knowing it wasn't what she or Sky really wanted. It was as all the gentlemen in the room moved to the doors of church that something made me turn around and look up at the simple altar. There was Donna Sheridan, more beautiful than I had ever seen her, surrounded by candlelight, standing up beside the poor bewildered priest. One look at that image and I suddenly was as brave as I should have been years ago.

"Why waste a good wedding?"

Told you I was impulsive.

The confession of undying love finally came, and I have to say, it was pretty satisfactory. The women loved it. I also have to say that it shocked the hell out of Donna. She had assumed I was still married. When I got down on my knee and finally asked her for her hand in marriage, the whole world seemed to balance out, as if for the past twenty-one years the scales had been tipped off-center. She couldn't resist me anymore, and after two days of her valiantly doing just that, the hurt gripping me was able to flee. When she ran for me and kissed me, it was like being resuscitated. I could have had my lips to hers forever, amid all of that cheering that I could not ever hear as she wrapped her arms around my neck. Not a minute later, we took the vows. We were pronounced husband and wife. We kissed again, as if we had never been apart. When she pulled away, I looked into her wide smile and felt my spirit soar.

"We did it," I told her happily.

You should have seen the relief flood her face. "I'm happy," she said to herself, as if she just discovered the answer to a test. And then she shouted it. "I'm happy!"

"Are you happy?" I yelled out over the cheers, caught up completely and willingly in the moment.

"So happy!" she cried, throwing her arms around me.

And just like that, Donna Sheridan, now Donna Carmichael, accepted my heart. The best part was, I was finally allowed to have hers back. This time I would not break it.

Our union was ushered in by a bevy of toasts wishing us a world of happiness. When it seemed that everyone had spoken their piece, I stood and raised my glass, staring down at my blissful new wife whom I had loved for half of my life. She gazed up at me like she had been waiting for me and for this night. I allowed her to take my hand in both of hers, and then I began. "Here's to us, one more toast…" I could barely make it through to the whole thing without kissing her more than once.

It all happened so fast. Even still, I did not miss a beat. This was how it was supposed to be. Fate does not pull the rug out from underneath of us to cause accidents. What seems like the end of the world can actually just be the beginning. When I woke up the next morning with Donna in my arms, there was no question if I had ever been happier in my life. She moved slightly in her sleep, cuddling up closer to my chest, the breath traveling in and out of her nostrils tingling my skin. I blinked back tears as I leaned down to kiss her hair. She had never left me, but now I held her in more ways than just in my heart. Turning to look out at the most beautiful morning I had ever seen, I watched the past float on, leaving only the good, eradicating the bad. There just was not room for the regret anymore.

Summer, it fell and it coursed across the highlands

And so quickly gone

Your faded dress is now tied away and silent

And the night's late lullaby is now keeping me away

And leaving this behind was my first mistake

And I'm not so strong to be satisfied by all the things I've done

And the things I threw away…

I had thought that that one summer over twenty years ago was as good as it would ever get. But the summer that Donna and I found each again… that was one hell of a summer.

Hey guys, I have been wanting to write this one for a long time. Reviews would immensely appreciated. This song is called "Keeping Me Awake" by Tarkio, and it is truly one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. I want to cry every time I hear it. Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed. Keeping publishing Mamma Mia fics!