Life Intended (9781476754178)

by Kristin Harmel

  “I’ll never stop loving him, you know.”

  “I know,” Joan says, folding me into her arms for another warm hug. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t love someone else too. Life has to go on. You’re happy, sweetheart, aren’t you?”

  I nod.

  “Well, then, you’re doing the right thing,” she concludes. “So shall we go back inside to your party? I’d love to meet your fiancé.”

  After I introduce Dan to Joan and down another glass of champagne, someone puts Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” on the jukebox. Dan holds his hand out to me with a smile. “Let’s dance, my beautiful bride-to-be.”

  He spins me dramatically onto the makeshift dance floor, and we fall into an easy rhythm, just like we always do.

  “Pat’s mother seems nice,” he murmurs as our friends begin to appear alongside us, swaying to the music in pairs.

  “Patrick,” I correct. Dan has the annoying habit of calling my husband by a nickname that was never his. “And yeah, she’s great. I’m lucky to have her in my life.”

  “Sure,” he says. He pauses and adds, “So do you think you plan to stay in touch with her?”

  I pull away and look at him. “Of course.” When he doesn’t say anything, I add, “Why wouldn’t I?” I sound more defensive than I mean to, so I try to soften the words with a small smile.

  Dan pulls me back toward him. “I just thought that once you and I got married, you might let that piece of your past go. But I don’t mind. She seems like a nice woman.”

  “She’s family, Dan. She always will be.”

  “That’s fine,” Dan says quickly.

  But it doesn’t feel fine. It feels like Dan thinks I’m doing something wrong, which makes me wonder if I am.

  As soon as the song’s over, Gina sweeps in with another glass of champagne for me, and as we walk off the dance floor, I down it in two gulps. She gazes at me with concern. “Anything you want to talk about?” she asks as she takes my empty glass from me and motions for a waiter to bring us another.

  “Nope,” I say. The bubbles are starting to go to my head.

  “Was that about Joan?” she asks. “Whatever Dan said?”

  I nod and glance at Dan, who’s dancing to “YMCA” now with some of his buddies from work. Somehow, he manages to make the dance look cool. “Yeah,” I say. I don’t bother explaining, because I know Gina understands.

  “You’re not doing anything wrong, in case you’re wondering,” she says. The waiter arrives with another glass of champagne, which I sip more slowly than the last. My head is starting to spin.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” she says firmly. “Joan is a part of your life. She always will be. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

  “Okay.”

  For the next few hours, I down glass after glass of champagne as the party winds into the night. I dance a silly version of “Call Me Maybe” with Sammie and Calvin before Susan takes them home to put them to bed. I hug Joan good night around ten and put her in a cab with instructions to call me once she gets home safely. And I dance with Dan, who pulls me close and tells me that he’s the luckiest man in the world.

  Around midnight, Dan’s friend Stephen puts Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” on the jukebox and pulls him away to rock out on the dance floor with a bunch of his friends. I drift back to a seat at the bar, and as I listen to the song, even though I know that it’s not actually about a child, the chorus gets me thinking about kids.

  Maybe it’s the champagne or the fact that the world feels a bit like a whirling merry-go-round, but as I put my head down, I’m all of a sudden wondering what would have happened if Patrick and I had tried for a child when we’d first married. What if I’d gotten pregnant before he’d died, long before my ovaries had given up? I’d have an eleven-year-old by now. I’d have a piece of Patrick with me forever. Regret surges through me, tightening my throat.

  When the song ends and a Rolling Stones song comes on in its place, Dan drifts over and puts an arm around me. “I’m happy too,” he whispers, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m crying and that he’s mistaken my tears of loss for tears of joy.

  I let him make the mistake, because I am happy. So happy. So many people never get a second chance. And so I kiss him deeply until Stephen and a few of his other friends whistle and catcall from across the bar. I pull back and look into his eyes.

  “Thank you,” I say solemnly.

  “For what?” He smiles and kisses me on the forehead.

  “For loving me,” I tell him. “For making me feel special and for marrying me and for trying to understand me and for . . .” My voice trails off, because I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.

  Dan laughs. “Looks like someone’s had a little too much champagne,” he says. He helps me to my feet and I realize he’s right when I sway a little. “What do you say I take my beautiful bride home and put her to bed?”

  “But I’m not a bride yet,” I protest, surprised to hear my words slurring together like they’re made of syrup. “But yeah, okay. Bed.”

  He laughs again, sweeps me into his arms, and after waving good night to our friends, he carries me home as I fall asleep against his solid chest.

  Three

  The next morning, as I blink into the sunlight, I have the dim sense that something’s off. There’s far too much light for our western-exposure bedroom. Dan put up blackout shades when he moved in six months ago, so mornings usually dawn in near pitch-blackness.

  Where am I? I squint, my head pounding from what is undoubtedly a massive champagne hangover. I sit up and look around, confused, as my eyes adjust and the room comes into focus. Indeed, this isn’t our apartment. The curtains on the windows are white and gauzy; the bed is a teak sleigh queen instead of a burnished black king, and the sheets and comforter are pale blue and soft instead of gray and sleek. The room is oddly familiar, but I can’t put a finger on why.

  Had Dan put me to bed at a friend’s apartment last night for some reason? I struggle to remember, but the last thing I recall is falling asleep in his arms just after leaving the restaurant.

  “Dan?” I call out tentatively.

  I hear footsteps in the hallway, then the sound of someone whistling softly. Again, I have a strange feeling of familiarity, but it only unsettles me. Dan never whistles. In fact, he’d told me on our first date that he considers his inability to whistle one of his greatest failures in life. It was the first time he’d made me laugh.

  “Babe?” I venture a bit more uncertainly.

  And then the person whistling rounds the corner into the bedroom, and my heart nearly stops, because it’s not Dan standing there at all.

  It’s Patrick.

  My husband, Patrick.

  Who died a dozen years ago.

  “Morning,” he says with a smile, and the sound of his sweetly familiar deep voice hits me like a punch to the gut. I was so sure I’d never hear it again. This is impossible.

  As I gape at him, I realize that he doesn’t quite look the way he used to. His dark hair is a little thinner around the temples, his laugh lines have deepened, and he’s more solid than he once was. It’s how I always imagined he might have looked if he’d lived to grow older with me. His eyes are just as brilliant and green and warm as I remember, though, and for a long moment, I forget to breathe.

  “What’s happening?” I finally whisper, but my voice barely makes a sound. I notice with a start that there’s a sort of haze filling the room, the kind of softening of the light that happens when the sun’s rays hit particles of dust in the air just the right way. Those gossamer moments have always made me think of fairy dust and wishes come true. I wonder if that’s what’s happening now, something magical and unreal.

  But as I stare at Patrick, something strange happens: my disorientation begins to
fade. I look around and realize with a start that I knew somehow that there would be a slender Dyson vacuum cleaner propped haphazardly in the corner; I knew there would be a Word-of-the-Day calendar on the bedside table; I knew there would be a small cluster of yellow roses in a blue vase on the bureau.

  This is our old apartment, I’m startled to realize, the one on Chambers Street, the one we were living in when Patrick died. The furniture is mostly new, but I recognize the layout, the hardwood floors I’d once loved, the walls I’d once pounded on while screaming and demanding to know how God could have taken my husband away. I can’t understand what’s happening.

  “Katielee? You okay?” Patrick asks with concern, cutting into my confused train of thoughts and bringing me back down to earth.

  I can feel tears rolling down my cheeks as I struggle to say something in return, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a meaningless string of vowels. A part of me is wondering if this is a dream, but the longer I’m here, the more convinced I am it’s not. After all, I’ve never dreamed this vividly and in this much detail before. Then again, if I’m not dreaming, what explanation is there?

  Patrick sits down beside me on the bed. “You must have had a rougher night than I thought, honey,” he says with a chuckle.

  Then he reaches out to stroke my arm, and my whole body feels suddenly like it’s on fire. He feels so real, and it startles me so much that I pull away and then instantly regret it, because I’d do anything in the world to have his hands on my skin.

  “What is it, Kate?” he asks, reaching up to wipe my tears away. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re alive!” I finally manage to choke out between sobs. His hand on my face is the only thing grounding me. I have the sudden feeling that if he moves away again, I’ll simply drift straight out the open window and back to the reality in which I belong.

  “Of course I’m alive,” he says, looking puzzled.

  I sniffle and try to explain. “But you . . . you died twelve years ago.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the whole room goes fuzzy. I reach out in a panic, groping for him.

  “Honey, what are you talking about?” His voice sounds very far away. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “Because—” I pause as the world around me continues to fade. Abruptly, I wonder whether my doubt is making this reality disappear. Isn’t that what happens when one shakes the foundation of a dream? All of a sudden, regardless of what this is, I’m desperate to stay here for as long as I can, so I take a deep breath, force a feeble smile, and say in a rush, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sorry. You’re obviously right here.”

  The room comes instantly back into focus—Patrick comes back into focus—and my heart skips a beat. For a few seconds, I look around in wonder, taking it all in. The impossibly blue sky outside the window. The technicolor yellow of the roses on the bureau. The searingly red glow of the numbers on our digital bedside clock. It’s like someone has turned up the color dial by fifty percent, making everything more beautiful. I look back at Patrick, and although he seems to almost glow in the overly saturated room, he still looks like himself. Except that he’s frowning.

  “Katielee, you’re scaring me,” he says. The room flickers again, and I grab his hand in a panic.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I hurry to say. “I think I was having a bad dream.”

  The minute the words are out of my mouth, I find myself wishing fervently that they’re somehow true. What if this isn’t the dream? What if everything that has happened in the last twelve years is instead the strange fiction?

  “You dreamed that I was dead?” He looks concerned, and I can feel my eyes filling with tears.

  “Patrick, it was the worst thing I could have imagined. You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here.”

  He gives me another strange look before pulling away. “You’re being really weird this morning. Why don’t I go get you some ibuprofen and a cup of coffee, okay?” He stands up and takes a step toward the door, and before I know what I’m doing, I lurch out of bed and grab his arm in a panic.

  “Please don’t go!” I cry. I’m terrified that if I let him stride out of the room, I’ll never see him again.

  “Okay,” he says slowly. “Would you like to come with me?”

  I nod, feeling foolish, and after giving me another concerned look, he helps me out of bed. I feel dizzy and disoriented the moment I’m on my feet.

  As Patrick takes my hand and leads me out of the bedroom, I glance out the window in the hall and notice that the dilapidated funeral home that always stood there has been replaced by a little green space with a jungle gym, a yellow slide, and a poplar tree. “Everything’s different,” I murmur.

  “Kate,” Patrick says, his voice hoarse, “what’s wrong with you?”

  I turn to face him, and he’s so close that I can hardly breathe. I move into the space between us, and as I feel his body against mine, I remember with a jolt the way I used to fit so perfectly into the nook between his arm and his chest. I touch his face, and the stubble on his jaw feels so real. “I . . . I’m not supposed to be here,” I say, because I don’t know how else to explain what’s happening to me. The hall flickers and sparks at the edges, and I realize that I’ve again threatened the fabric of this world.

  “Where else would you be?” Patrick looks at me for a moment and then gently turns me around and begins moving us back toward the bedroom. “You know what, honey?” he asks. “Maybe it’s better if I just bring you that ibuprofen. You seem really off this morning. Let’s get you back to bed for a bit, okay?”

  I let him lead me back to the bedroom, because he’s right; I feel dazed and unsteady on my feet. “Don’t leave me,” I murmur.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says as he tucks me under the covers. “I promise.”

  “But you promised me you’d be with me forever too,” I whisper after he’s gone. For a moment, I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what’s happening. Why does everything here feel so familiar? How do I know, for example, that the ibuprofen bottle Patrick is going to get is the generic brand from Duane Reade, that it’s on the second shelf beside the sink in the bathroom, and that there are only a dozen pills left? How do I know that the shopping list attached to the fridge has ibuprofen written on it, directly below milk, marshmallows, peanut butter, frozen onions, and toilet paper—all in my handwriting? How do I know that when I reach for the lamp on Patrick’s bedside table, it won’t turn on, because the bulb burned out last night? I take a deep breath and just to be sure, I reach across and flick the switch at the lamp’s base. Nothing happens, and I exhale heavily, more confused than ever.

  I can’t shake the feeling that I’m really here, that this isn’t actually a dream at all. But that doesn’t make any sense.

  My heart thudding, I reach for the phone on my bedside table. We still have a landline, I know in a flash, because Patrick thinks it’s safer, just in case we ever need to call 911. How do I know that? I shake my head and dial my sister’s home number. Surely she’ll explain everything.

  But a second later, a recording comes on telling me the line has been disconnected. I hang up and redial, assuming I’ve hit the buttons wrong in my confusion, but the same recording comes on again. I try her cell, but there’s a man’s voice on the outgoing message instead of hers. I’m getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if something happened to her?

  “Is Susan okay?” I demand as Patrick walks back into the room. Could this dream world have traded my sister for my husband, one horror for another? “Please tell me she’s okay. Please tell me she’s alive.”

  Patrick’s brow furrows. “Of course she is, honey,” he says, and relief floods through me like a river. “What are you talking about?”

  “I just tried calling her,” I say as I feel myself begin to shake again. I
rattle off the digits of her home phone, as if saying them will bring her back.

  He shakes his head. “Katielee, that’s her old number.”

  I stare at him, and suddenly, as if someone is uploading my memory files as we go, I know exactly what he means. “She moved,” I murmur. “For Rob’s job. Eleven years ago.”

  Patrick looks concerned. “Of course. To San Diego.”

  “Right,” I say slowly. I also know suddenly that Sammie is taking surf lessons, that Calvin broke his arm falling off his skateboard three weeks ago, and that they live in a little yellow house with blue shutters seven blocks from the beach. “How do I know everything?” I whisper.

  Patrick climbs into bed beside me and slips his arm around me, pulling me close. “Honey, what are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmur. I close my eyes and breathe in his woodsy cinnamon scent, the one that’s so specifically and intimately his. I lean into his warm, solid chest, something I’d never imagined doing again. I reach up and kiss him, and it feels just like it always did. His lips are soft and gentle, and after a moment, he reaches up and strokes my right cheek with his left thumb, like he always used to do. He tastes like toothpaste and love and life, and I consume him eagerly, hungrily, as tears sting my eyes. As long as I’m kissing him, I’m not scared.

  But then I’m hit with a sharp pang of guilt, and I pull away. Am I cheating on Dan? I shake the thought off. Of course I’m not. This isn’t real. It can’t be.

  “Tell me you love me, Patrick,” I whisper urgently, because I need to hear him say it before reality comes crashing back in.

  Patrick pulls back a little to look me in the eye. “More than you could ever imagine,” he says. “I love you, Kate. I knew before I met you—”

  “—that I was meant to be yours,” I murmur, feeling the salty path of tears down my cheek.

  He leans in to kiss me softly, gently, and it feels like magic. Our kiss is beginning to grow more intense when we’re interrupted by a voice from the doorway.