David cradled his head in his hands as he rocked back and forth on the sofa. His anger was gone, shoved out of the way by a feeling that had threatened to mug him for six months. A feeling he had found impossible to banish without the constant presence of his anger.
He had brought this on.
A single sob rose in his throat, and he forced it back down with the little composure he had left. The door opened, and the Baggage Handler looked at the confetti on the floor and shook his head. “I’m amazed at how many people think that’s the best way to deal with their baggage.”
David looked through tears that were foreign to him. “Why is this happening?”
The young man sat down next to him. “Because you’re carrying around baggage that’s more than weighing you down. It’s killing you. Literally. I’ve seen it all before—I’m guessing digestion problems, headaches, sleepless nights?” He counted them off on his fingers.
David stared at the floor as the Baggage Handler ticked off his health problems as though he were reading down a menu.
The Baggage Handler leaned into him. “And that’s not to mention what’s happening to your heart.”
Fear gripped David with an icy hand. “What do you know about my heart?”
The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on him with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “More than you’ll ever know.”
David sniffed back control, avoided the young man’s sad eyes, and cleared his throat. “Why am I the one who has to deal with this?”
The Baggage Handler put out his hands. “You’ve been hurt. You’ve been betrayed. But your baggage isn’t the betrayal. You’ve been using it to justify other things you’re doing.”
David narrowed his eyes as he folded his arms. “Such as?”
“For one, you’ve used it to justify hurting Sharon for months. That trip a few months ago, at the karaoke bar when those girls—”
David’s mouth fell open. “You know about that?”
“Of course. And you thought staying angry justified doing it. Good for the goose, good for the gander, and all that.”
David’s mind raced. This guy was picking out his flaws with surgical precision.
“I know about all things, including the ultimatum you gave to your wife last night.”
David’s neck threatened to snap as he spun to face the Baggage Handler.
“But she and Jerry—”
“I know. As I said, you have a right to feel betrayed, but you’re responsible for your behavior, not hers.”
The injustice again raged inside David. “I’ve nearly killed myself to provide for my family. I get repaid like that, but it’s my problem?”
The Baggage Handler nodded.
“Everything I did—all the work I put in, all the extra hours—I did to make them happy.”
Still that slow nod.
“She tells me she doesn’t want me to work so much, but we never seem to have enough money—”
“David, your marriage has been in trouble for longer than six months. You’ve got to understand that you’ve contributed to that, and when Sharon—”
“Now, hang on a minute—”
The Baggage Handler again put out his hands. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. Your wife shouldn’t have done what she did. My heart breaks for what happened to you, and I don’t condone the way she chose to handle the distance between you. I’m glad she’s tried to own what she did, but I’ve seen this time and time again. When people come here carrying unforgiveness, they feel like they’ve got a Get Out of Jail Free card because of what’s been done to them. And in the past six months, you’ve been looking for evidence she’s still having an affair behind your back. Checking her phone for more photos. Working out if she’s got email accounts you don’t know about.”
David stopped breathing. That was exactly what he’d been doing.
“You haven’t found anything, have you?”
He hadn’t.
“That’s because, as she said, it was over, but the part of you that was hurt almost needed to believe it was still going on.”
David’s breath came back. Slow. Fuming.
The Baggage Handler leaned back and crossed his ankles.
“But still you look. Here’s my question: how is that working out for you?”
A numbness spread down David’s spine and froze every joint. The Baggage Handler was right. It wasn’t working out for him. As much as it was making him feel righteous, it was making his marriage—and, in turn, his life—worse.
“Your digestion is shot to bits, and the headaches . . . Do you think there’s a chance that’s all linked?”
“Listen here—”
“When did the stomach trouble start?”
David reined in the answer before it shot out of his mouth. It was six months ago. When his suspicions had driven him to sneak a peek at Sharon’s phone while she was in the shower, and he found the photo.
“Have you never wondered why?”
No, he hadn’t.
“And then you’ve got the situation at work. Have you been a good boss in the past few months?”
The cinema of David’s memory now flashed with the faces of those members of his team who left after yet another one of his explosions—the good salespeople, the ones responsible for their record-breaking year. And the ones they’d left behind were the deadwood, the serial underperformers who knew they would never get a job anywhere else.
The Baggage Handler leaned forward into a conspiratorial crouch with David. “This is all because you refuse to forgive her.”
David stared hard at the floor, unable to look at this man who was staring into his soul with x-ray vision.
“What do you mean? I didn’t even know all this was in here until thirty minutes ago.”
“Well, now you do, and now you’ve got a decision to make.”
David stared into the open suitcase. Jerry’s polo shirt. The photo. Somehow reassembled. He pursed his lips. “And what about her?”
The Baggage Handler smiled. “You weren’t listening. She’s responsible for her behavior. There will be a time when Sharon and I have a conversation she won’t want to have, and she will face the way she hurt you. But that doesn’t let you off the hook for dealing with your baggage now.”
A resolve hardened in David. Sharon wouldn’t get off scot-free. Good. “I can’t tear this up or throw it in the trash. What are my choices?”
“It’s quite simple. You can choose to keep carrying your baggage, or you can leave it with me.”
“I can’t leave my suitcase with you; it’s got all the financial reports—”
The Baggage Handler shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Why are you not getting this? And stop calling it a suitcase. It’s baggage. You have a simple decision to make. Leave your baggage with me or keep carrying it.”
Leaving behind the baggage would be so simple. This guy was right, and what David was doing wasn’t working. All he had to do was reach into the suitcase . . .
He glanced down at the polo shirt and the photo. His wife, full of the joy of the moment, smiling and carefree. Happy. And with another man.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The Baggage Handler folded his arms, and his voice took on a harder edge. “What’s the real pain here, David? You’re angry, but why?”
David’s thoughts raced. It should be obvious, but the words wouldn’t come. He was angry because . . . He was angry because . . .
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The answer revealed itself in a moment of sheer clarity. The ticking of the alarm clock slowed, slowed, until it stopped. A single thought dropped unbidden into his head. He was angry because he knew he had contributed to their problem, even in a small way. In his drive to provide for his family, he had driven her away.
The Baggage Handler smiled. “I’m not saying you need to move on as if nothing happened. But you have taken an important first step toward making this decision.”
The bile of injustice again rose and swept away his thoughts. “It shouldn’t be my decision. She needs to pay for this. I’m the one who stayed faithful to my marriage vows.” His voice cracked as it grew louder, and his fingers fanned out the restaurant receipts. “I might need these when I get back home.”
The Baggage Handler’s face darkened as his cell phone rang. “If you want to let your anger loose at someone responsible for all this, there’s a mirror over there. That’s where you need to start.” He gestured to the far wall. “I’ll give you another minute, and then I’ll be back.” He stood, smoothed his overalls, and whistled that maddeningly familiar tune as he left the waiting room.
Pressure and guilt pressed in on David from every side, pinning him to the sofa, his muscles frozen in place. Then the tune the Baggage Handler had been whistling revealed itself. For a father of a six-year-old girl obsessed with the characters from Frozen, it should have been tattooed on his brain, based on the number of times it had blared from the car stereo, a tiny girl’s voice belting the lyrics from the backseat.
The Baggage Handler had been whistling “Let It Go.”
David dropped his head, and the tears came again.