The Sorrow
You can't live in New Orleans and not be affected by the music. One night a couple of weeks after Sonja left NCIS, Triple P and Miss Loretta drugged me out to go deep into the Quarter.
There was a young woman who was immersed in the music of an artist named Roberta Flack. Percy had played a song of hers the first night I realized that I was in love with her. I never looked to see any other works by the singer. That night I discovered the music to be intriguing and found it somewhat odd that Flack's music weaved stories like the songs that I grew up with in Alabama. After the third song, I was mesmerized.
There were three sets and after the second break I noticed that the lighting got dimmer and the songs got slower and deeper in thought. It was then that she sang the song. It sneaked upon me. The words ambushed me. The lyrics filled the air and whirled around my soul and moved into a place in my heart that I could not tolerate. I had to get out. I think I must have ran from the bar. I have no idea how long I was outside.
I was startled by a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Miss Loretta. "Chris, what's wrong" she asked? "Oh how could I have been so wrong? How could I have let her leave?" As she sang that song, I saw the past year of my life unfold. Not that I didn't feel like a clown weeping in Loretta's arms, but I didn't care. My heart was broken. Now I realized where the boozing was coming from. For weeks I had been self-medicating myself. This time booze, not women, became my comfort. No other woman who could compare with Sonja Percy. For days, now that she was gone, I would find my dreams filled with Percy. The weeks after she left was almost a rewind of the sorrow that I felt after Savannah had died. I knew that I was wrong. But she's gone now.
This was not the first time that Loretta had caught me in an emotional state. Just two weeks before her last day on the job, Percy and I had a horrible argument at the Morgue. We stopped by there to deliver some files before we took off to the NO jail to pick up a prisoner to transport. The initial plan was to fly but the airport was socked in with weather so Pride said to drive so the guy could be in court the next morning. We stood there arguing with me red faced about what route to take until Loretta came out and told us to take the conversation elsewhere.
Small talk was not possible on the way with the prisoner listening to our every word. Once we came out of the dentation center and were alone in the car, I started talking to Percy. "Look, we have a long drive back tomorrow. I'm not going back to 'Nola this way. I'm sorry." She looked at me and saw the sincerity in my face and heard it in my voice. "Let's go eat" she said.
About 7 p.m. I got a text from Pride with some additional instructions for us. I got up and knocked on Percy's door then had to shout "Percy it's me." She let me in and quickly turned away but not soon enough for me not to see that her eyes were red from crying. "What's wrong?" "Nothing really. I was listening to an old singer named Roberta Flack. She makes you cry." I never heard of her before. The song that she was playing re-looped. I put my finger across her lips and shushed her as I listened to the words. The first time ever I saw your face… She began to cry. I took her hand then as I pulled her closer and closer to me the more she cried. "All I ever wanted was for you to love me." Well, the song had gotten to me too. While I had never made love to Sonja, I had to be honest and admit that she had touched my heart with her kindness towards me. "I never said that I didn't love you Sonja, I just said that we couldn't be involved while we worked with each other."
She pulled away from me and while looking deep into my eyes asked "you really love me Christopher?" "Yes I do." "And I love you too" she said.
We stood there holding on to each other for the longest time then I did something really stupid. Rather than just leaving, I found the need to kiss her. And as the kissing escalated, I knew I should have stopped just there but at the moment my mind wasn't working right. The thought of sex never crossed my mind but we wanted each other right then and common sense wasn't even in the picture.
We couldn't have gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep. After that we spent most of the nights of the last weeks she was in 'Nola together. On the morning that she left town I held on long enough for her to get around the corner before I allowed the tears to fall from my eyes knowing that it was too late to go after her now.