The One Who Got Away: A Novel

by Bethany Bloom

  “How about when you get back? How about we make love then?”

  “If you’re still here.” She tightened the elastic that was securing her ponytail. Then she swung her leg back around and sat on the edge of the bed.

  He consulted his watch, which had a large face with four different dials, one in each corner. “Oy. Doubtful,” he said.

  He reached both arms out for her. Her stomach did a flip-flop, something it hadn’t done toward him in ages. “I’ve got to run,” she said. And she hopped up, in one motion, and she was out the door.

  She stood outside the house and braced herself on the front posts. She sucked in a huge breath of morning air and pulled her running cleats over her shoes. They were tiny crampons that gripped the icy sidewalks and dirt roads as she ran.

  She would stay off the trails and stick to the gravel road along the river, where they plowed after each snowfall even in the late spring. She jogged along until she reached the point on the road where the rocks protruded from the soil at odd angles, like shards of broken glass, and then she picked up her pace. Her ankles sprang up she bounded across the rocks. No hint of pain in her knee. She breathed hard and deep and rhythmically This is why she ran. Running made her feel powerful. Strong and capable.

  She had left Paul hanging there. She had left when he asked her not to. Her stomach panged with guilt. There was a time she would never have left him there like that. She didn’t have much time with him, and she should be making all of their moments together count. As his wife, and his wife to be, she was going to need to do things differently. She was going to need to try harder.

  Olivine ran for a little more than an hour, and as she re-entered the house, she shook out her ponytail and removed her clothes on the way to the shower, tossing them into the washing machine as she passed. She loved the way a good, hard run made her senses feel heightened, like she had dialed up their volume. Colors were more vibrant; aromas more pungent. In the laundry room, she breathed in the scent of their detergent; in the shower, her shampoo, her conditioner. And after her shower, she stood in her bedroom and breathed in the familiar scent: freshly washed linens, lavender scented oils, Paul’s deodorant soap.

  She didn’t like how things had been left this morning. She would make it up to him. She would surprise him, at work…something she rarely did.

  She would pick up the tiny almond croissants from the bakery down the street. These were his one weakness, these tiny flaky crescents with just a kiss of warm almond paste in their chewy center. Day by day, she would try harder to be the person she needed to be for him. She would make this work.

  She dressed and brushed her towel-dried hair, dotted on some lip gloss and applied a quick swipe of mascara. Then she took her boots from the back of her closet, the knee high-pair that Paul had bought her for Christmas, slid them on, grabbed a handful of cash and hopped into the Jeep. Along the way, she stopped at Duncan’s Cakes, emerging with a small pink box, a lace doily glued to the top and the name of the bakery written in script.

  She strode into the hospital and signed in at the front desk. The woman behind the desk wore a pressed white blouse and a wide, gentle smile. She recognized Olivine and winked at her. “He’s around,” she said, twirling her hands at the wrist. “Would you like me to page him?”

  “No, no. It’s nothing urgent.” Olivine smiled. “I’ll find him.”

  “Yes, look around, sweetie,” she said, handing her a visitor’s badge on a lanyard. Olivine swooped it over her neck and turned toward the East Lounge. It was a small hospital, so she knew she wouldn’t need to look very hard to find him, unless he was in Emergency. When she reached the doctors’ lounge, she set the box on the table in the empty room and a white blur caught her eye through the slender window on the door. She watched him for a moment. Paul. In his place. He was checking a clipboard, drumming a pen against his leg. His white lab coat, starched and pressed. His face calm, unexpressive.

  She had spent many hours watching him study and read journals. He had a habit, when he was deep in thought, of thrumming away on an imaginary drum set. His fingers, his hands, moving in a beat that, he said, helped direct the procession of thought.

  When he went inside himself, he went in deep, she thought, and he liked the idea that she would be waiting there, on the other side, when he emerged again. She knew as well as anyone that there were some places you went, inside your mind, where people couldn’t come with you. And when you went deep inside your own mind often enough, it was nice to have a neutral player out there. One who didn’t ask questions. One who knew this was a place she wasn’t invited and couldn’t follow.

  Paul looked up just then and met her eyes. He grinned, put his clipboard to his side and charged through the door. Olivine scrambled to one side.

  “When two worlds collide,” he said. He kissed her on the mouth. He tasted like gravy. Why gravy, she wondered for a moment, and then he said, “I like you here…visiting me. It makes me think about the way things will be someday. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing at all. Just wanted to see you. And bring you a couple of those.” She motioned to the table.

  “Is that what I think they are?”

  “They are.” She felt suddenly like someone she wasn’t, like someone who should be wearing an apron and pearls and checking his forehead for signs of heat. “Are you having a good day?” she asked. It was all part of trying harder, of starting to feel comfortable in a world that wasn’t her own.

  “Since you asked, it has been a terrible day. Busy. Injurious.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Well, it pays the bills.”

  “Right.”

  “So, really, what made you come by?” he asked.

  “I really don’t know.” Olivine looked down at the floor tiles, an alternative pattern of khaki brown and an ecru. If Paul were a color, she suddenly thought, this is the color he would be. Khaki brown and, some days, ecru.

  “Imagine if you were working alongside me all day long,” he said. “Just imagine that.”

  “Imagine.”

  “And right now, I would love to eat almond croissants with you, but I’m due in surgery, stat. But do bring them home. We’ll eat them tonight. Or tomorrow morning. So you might want to wrap them up tight so they stay fresh. Okay? Will you do that?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you ready for class this afternoon.”

  “I am.”

  “Good.”

  Paul kissed her again, and opened the door. “I loved our talk last night.” He winked. “Remember, I need you to make a decision on those programs by the end of the week.”

  He pulled open the door and charged through it, sashaying down the hallway, his white coat flowing behind like a cape. She sighed and looked at her watch. Still four more hours before class.

  *****

  She knew just where the brochures would be. Before he left for work, he had cleared the dishes from the night before and stacked the booklets and course catalogs in a tidy pile at her place at the dining room table. He had also made notes regarding “important considerations” on yellow Post-it notes throughout.

  Without sitting, she flipped through one of the booklets, noting Paul’s comments on Pharmacology and Pathophysiology. There were photos of men and women wearing lab coats and staring warmly into the eyes of their patients. Olivine tried, just then, to imagine herself making small talk with a person, with a patient, and then sticking him with a needle. The thought of both the small talk and the needle-sticking made her shudder.

  Maybe she was being a princess, as Paul had told her one day: “Everyone has to do things they don’t want to do,” he had said. “I don’t always want to get up in the middle of the night and conduct emergency surgery, but I do it. Once you get started, it comes more naturally.”

  She knew he was right, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at those brochures. Not today. The sky was a brilliant blue. The roads to the city were clear, and she hadn
’t seen Grandpa since the memorial service. She would surprise him. She would have to miss class, but she’d borrow the notes from someone.

  She stopped by Duncan’s Cakes once again for Grandpa’s favorite: a cinnamon roll. She opted for the smallest in the bakery case and only bought a single roll because she knew he would split it with her. If he was given one of his own, he would eat the entire thing, out of politeness, and then he would be up all night with his gastric reflux.

  She fished her cell phone out of her handbag to let Christine know that she was on her way; maybe she would like to come along. But then she thought better of it. Today, she would go by herself. She would have some quiet time in the car, and she would use it to decide which kind of nursing program she wanted to enroll in. What were the choices again? She had left the brochures on the dining room table. Oh well. She would take a closer look this afternoon, when she got back.

  During the hour-long drive, a sense of calm descended upon her, and as she pulled into the parking lot of Mountain View Acres, her eyes were drawn, automatically, to the bench out front. This was where Grandma and Grandpa used to spend an hour or two each day, perched on two matching orthopedically-approved cushions. They would hold hands and greet people as they came in: children, grandchildren, doctors, nurses, aids. But today, the bench was empty, stripped even of its cushions.

  Maybe she should have called first. No. Grandpa loved surprises, and he loved her. But she hadn’t visited since Grandma had passed. She thought about what her mom had said about sixty-five years of breakfasts. She swallowed hard and clutched the box from Duncan’s Cakes a little tighter.

  Instead of taking the elevator, Olivine charged up the stairs, which were lavish and wide with shiny white rails and balusters. Standing before the door to Grandpa’s apartment, she heard the tinkle of soft female voices inside and she gave a gentle knock on the door. A small hunched woman creaked it open. Estelle. She raised a trembling, spotted hand and motioned Olivine inside.

  “Oh Oliv-eeene,” Estelle cooed, “So lovely for you to come. Claude is a little sad today.”

  Further inside, near Grandpa’s chair, stood another small woman. She was plump and a bit younger with salt-and-pepper hair that stood straight up from her forehead and then curled around either side of her head.

  “Olivine!” Grandpa exclaimed, sitting straight up. He grabbed for his cane and hobbled over to her, grabbing the table as he went to steady himself. “Oh, you are a sight.” He grasped her hard around the back and kissed her cheek. His whiskers burned her chin. She had never known her grandfather to skip his morning shave. He smelled like soap. Ivory soap, Not the Old Spice of his younger days, but a clean, familiar scent.

  “Oh, look, and she brought you a treat, Claude,” Estelle said. She rustled in his tiny white cupboards for two plates, a couple of napkins and two shiny forks. Then she set them on the moss-colored plastic tablecloth and said, “We’ll leave you two to visit. Pinochle is at four today, Claude. And if you don’t come down, we’re coming up to get you.”

  They closed the door softly behind them, and Grandpa grumbled, “Old biddies.” But he sat at the place set for him and motioned for Olivine to do the same.

  “Biddies who have loved you and Grandma for years,” Olivine said as she opened the pink box and cut the cinnamon roll in two with the side of her fork. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you not having someone to keep you company.”

  “You know Karen is up there, smiling and laughing at me, knowing that her friends just can’t seem to leave me alone.”

  “You know she is.” Olivine’s throat closed for a moment. Grandpa was sitting still, and his chest shook under his brown flannel shirt. After a moment, he looked up at her, and he smiled.

  “I miss her, Ollie.”

  “I know, Grandpa. I miss her, too.” She put her hand on his. And they sat for a moment, not saying anything, each looking at a different spot on the moss-colored tablecloth.

  When he moved his hand from beneath hers, she asked, “Is Mom coming today?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure she told me, but I can’t remember. But I’m sure glad to see you, Olivine. How is your nursing school going?” He hadn’t mentioned the engagement, so she assumed Christine hadn’t told him.

  “It’s going well.”

  “Good. Are you enjoying it?”

  “Well, no. Not terribly. But they are just prerequisites.”

  “Well, if you don’t like the prerequisites, are you just a little bit worried? About the rest of it?”

  “Nah. I’ll get through. We all have to do things we don’t like. Right?”

  “I suppose so. But it’s much more fun to do things we do like.”

  She thought back to Paul’s princess comment. “Did you always love being a carpenter?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Always?”

  “Well, I suppose there were days I would rather be doing something else. Fishing or the like. But every day, putting on my tool belt, the leather that fit just so, and opening my little black toolbox. Why, even the smell of it. The smell of sawdust and of possibility and of a good honest living. That always got me in the mood. I would work for a time. And when I was finished, I would have something that didn’t exist when I began. There’s something a mite bit magical about that.”

  She nodded and took a tiny bite of her cinnamon roll.

  “Speaking of carpenters,” Grandpa said, “I found a right good one to do some work at the cabin.” He held his fork near his mouth and watched her. “Doors. He specializes in doors. Has he started yet, by chance?”

  “He has, in fact,” she replied, trying to keep her breathing even. “So, Grandpa, how did you come to find this particular carpenter?”

  “Grandma googled him. Months ago.”

  She laughed. “Grandma googled him? Of all the phrases I never imagined coming out of your mouth…How long have you and Grandma been google-ing?”

  “We took a class in it, actually. A class in internet research, at the senior center.”

  Olivine grinned at him.

  “What? You don’t think people in their eighties can Google?” He laughed.

  “Well, did you know that this carpenter and I used to date. We used to be together? A long time ago.”

  “Did you, now?” he asked, patting her hand as it lay on the table.

  “We did.”

  “Huh. Well, all I know is that the doors this man creates are magnificent. A little piece of history. I want this door built for our home. Think of it as my legacy,” he said. “It’s a carpenter thing.” He winked again.

  “Alright, Grandpa.”

  “And Olivine?”

  “Yes, Grandpa.”

  “A favor. It’s very important.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need you to personally oversee the project. Personally. For me. Okay?”

  “Anything you say, Grandpa.” She patted his hand again, and he gave her a barely upturned smile. She felt a leaping in her belly.

  *****

  Olivine stayed in Grandpa’s apartment, playing game after game of cribbage, until just after lunch when Christine arrived and said Grandpa might need a rest. She kissed her grandfather goodbye and drove slowly back toward home, arriving too late to make it to class, but too early for Paul to be home.

  The house was quiet and dark. She sat down at the kitchen table and thumbed through the brochures. Then she stood. She had a restless feeling in her arms and in her legs. She needed a run. Another one. She unfolded a new set of running clothes from her lavender-scented drawers. It seemed that, lately, the only time she was able to think was when her legs were moving. Fast.

  She would run out to the cabin and back again. It was roughly a six-mile round trip. Ten kilometers. Perfect. She would quickly check on Henry’s progress, so she could report back to Grandpa, but because she was in the middle of a run, she wouldn’t be able to stay.

  The evening was cool and she could smell spring in the air
. Fuzzy pods clung to the limbs of aspen trees. The sun had begun to set along the ridge to the west, its slant drawing out the shadows and making hers appear long and lean, as tall as the road itself. Her feet struck the road, the gravel, the soil with a rhythm that was familiar, comforting, like the sound of her own heartbeat and the steady puffs of her breath. This time, she willed her mind to stay clear, allowing thoughts to roll across her awareness like clouds on a windy day.

  As she approached the driveway to the cabin, she slowed her pace and her breathing. She rounded the bend at the top in a slow jog, and there he was. Standing tall at a cut table on the front porch. A carpenter’s pencil tucked behind his ear.

  She hopped up the porch steps, looked at her watch and checked her pulse, mostly so he could see that she was timing herself. So he could see she wouldn’t be staying.

  “Olivine.” His voice was soft; his face blank, relaxed. He held out his hand, palm up, and she placed her hand in his. He regarded it for a moment, gave it a squeeze, and released it. “I don’t think you gave me much of a chance the other day. Before you ran off.”

  “Sorry about that.” Olivine vowed to soften toward him. Grandpa would want her to let the man speak.

  “I just want you to know that I’m not here to hurt you or to mess up your life. After the other night, I…”

  She held up her palm. “I’m just checking on the door. Because Grandpa asked me to.” As soon as she said the words, his face retracted, and she wished she could take them back.

  “Oh.” He gestured toward the cut table. “Well. What do you think?”

  “I guess I don’t know what I’m looking at.” It was a series of wood pieces, squeezed together with orange metal clamps. It didn’t look like much of anything, if she was being honest. She chewed on the inside of her lip.

  “I guess you’ll have to come back when it’s closer to being finished.” He bent his head and kept working.

  “Yep. Okay” she bounced on her calves, checked her watch and turned.

  “No. Wait,” Henry said, “I was just about to stop for the night. And I was just thinking that there are two things every person needs in this life.”