Susan is wearing a white dress with a flaring skirt. There are bags under her eyes and they don't seem to belong on such a face. She tells me she doesn't want to go into the ocean, that she is afraid.
I say, that's all right, we can sit on the sand and we talk.
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I, first, saw her at the funeral. She was sitting alone and she was crying. When I say 'alone,' I don't mean literally alone. The church was full of people and they all approached her, bringing embraces and kind words but even then she seemed alone, as if there was a glass wall around her that none could break.
I was playing the organ. That's what I do, I'm an organist. I've been to many funerals. But I've never seen anyone so alone.
My best friend, John, spoke at that funeral. He is a minister. Right before the funeral service started, I asked him about her.
"Susan Pevensie," he said. "Lost her parents, two brothers and a sister in the train crash last month."
I didn't know what to say. "Poor girl," I finally said, quite obviously.
That night during dinner I was telling my mother about the funeral.
"Susan Pevensie," I said. "Lost her parents, two brothers and a sister in the train crash..." Suddenly I found that my eyes were filling up and I had to clear my throat. "Last month," I finished.
Like I said, I've been to many funerals.
About a month after the funeral, I was dropping by John's house to return a book I had borrowed. I found him pacing back and forth in front of the house with a covered basket and staring at the sky.
"Is anything the matter?" I asked.
John glanced at me then turned back to the sky. "Amen," he said before turning back to me. "Martha and I were supposed to visit Miss Susan Pevensie today," he explained. "But Martha has the flu." He paused, then, continued. "Naturally, I am going anyway. But many people would consider it inappropriate for me to visit a young woman without Martha accompanying me. I was just praying that nobody uses this as a chance to start spreading gossip."
"Wait a moment," I said. "You need a…witness? Let me come with you."
"You?" John looked dubious. "I'm not sure…"
"All I will do is be present and make everything respectable," I said, impatiently.
John agreed.
When we rang the doorbell, Susan answered right away. She looked tired but greeted us politely, looking at me as if she couldn't quite understand what I was doing there.
"This is my friend, Charles," John introduced me. "Martha really wished to come with me today but she is ill."
"I'm here to replace her," I said.
John hurriedly interjected, "Uh…Martha sent you some muffins."
Susan nodded. "Thank you," she said, softly. "Please sit down."
We sat down.
"How are you, Miss Susan?" John asked. "Martha and I have been praying for you."
Susan smiled a smile that reminded me of a painted doll. "You can tell Martha that I've stopped crying," she said. "And that I've started working in a jewelry shop again."
"That's good," John said, uncertainly.
"You can stop praying for me now if you like," Susan said.
"I don't think we will," John said, gently.
"You may if you like," Susan said, indifferently.
"Look here, Miss Susan," John said. "We will keep praying for you but we'd like to do more than that. If there is anything you need, any sort of help, you know you can call us."
Susan nodded. "Thank you," she said.
"And if they are both unavailable, you can call me," I said. "Really, if you need anything, help or advice or even someone to talk to, just look me up in the phone book under Charles Bennett."
John hurriedly said that we must be going.
He didn't say anything as we left the house but I could tell he was angry with me by the way he walked, with a sort of nervous rhythm.
"What have I done?" I asked.
John didn't answer.
"Come now!" I said. "I did the same thing you did. I told her she could always call me."
"I sincerely offered her my help as a spiritual leader. You sounded like you were trying to be charming."
"But I was sincere, wasn't I?" I asked.
"Of course, you were," John said dryly.
He didn't understand. But I didn't care. Because a month later, she called me. It didn't matter that she had a practical reason for doing so. Her kitchen stove had a gas leak, she didn't have the phone number of the gas company and she didn't know what to do.
It was 10:00 PM when I came to her house. The kitchen smelled faintly of rotten eggs. I told her to go sit on the porch and I rang up the gas company. Then I joined her on the porch. Her face was turned away from me.
"They'll be here in a few minutes, Miss Susan," I said.
She took a shuddery breath and I realized that she was crying.
"Miss Susan," I said. "Miss Susan, don't cry." Then realizing that that probably didn't help at all, I asked, "Were you frightened? Were you about to go to sleep when you discovered it by accident?"
"No," she said. "I wasn't frightened when I discovered it. I'm frightened now!"
I tried to look for something brilliant to say. "Why?" I asked.
"Because I was happy when I discovered it. Happy and calm. I longed to just go to sleep and leave it the way it was."
My skin grew cold. I reached out to take her hand because I was suddenly afraid that she might disappear. Her hand was as cold as my own. She kept on speaking.
"But then I began to wonder whether the gas leak might hurt anybody next door and I began to wish I hadn't discovered it because then I wouldn't have to make the decision. Finally, I called you."
"Oh, Susan," I said. It suddenly seemed absurd to call her 'miss.' "Oh, Susan," I said again.
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It has been four months since then. We've become quite good friends.
Actually, I've fallen in love with her.
"When I was a child, I loved the ocean," she says. "We all did."
I know, by now, that she is speaking of her dead brothers and sister.
"We rarely went to the seaside though. Most of the time we stayed home, so we invented games. We used to pretend we were kings and queens," she says. "We even had a land of our own called Narnia. It had dwarfs and fauns and talking animals and magic." She laughs. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I thought of it. I must sound so silly."
"Of course, you don't," I say. "As a child it was important to you. Don't be ashamed of it."
She shakes her head. "It was never as important to me as it was to them. They were the ones who played and pretended for years. I always looked forward to growing-up and leaving it behind." She pauses. "So why am talking about it now?" She isn't really asking me for an answer, just wondering.
Dear Susan, I understand. Of course, I understand. You're talking about it because you have an overwhelming desire to talk about your loved ones and yet you won't talk about them because it hurts too much. So you talk about them indirectly by talking about the thing they cared about so much. If it heals you, then go ahead and talk about it.
"Tell me more," I say.
Susan tells me more about Narnia. But first, she asks if we can move further away from the ocean.