Life Intended (9781476754178)

by Kristin Harmel

  “No, they’re children,” I say softly, already backing away. “They’re children, and now I don’t know if they’re okay.”

  I’m trembling by the time I reach the front steps of St. Anne’s. I can see an image in my mind of Andrew standing here, his hands in his pockets, a superhero shirt making him look charmingly boyish, his smile lighting up his face. “Where is he?” I murmur.

  I sit down on the bottom step and pull out my iPhone again. I search for his name, and before I even have a chance to scroll down to the text results, I see his picture pop up as the sixth Google Images option.

  I click on it quickly, and when it enlarges, I click on the attached link. It takes me to a profile in the Atlanta Journal-­Constitution of a pair of brothers who own a restaurant called Griddle in the Atlanta suburb of Roswell. My eyes widen as I scan the story and find a second picture—of Andrew and a second man, who the caption tells me is his brother, Kevin.

  Kevin’s alive in this world. The thought startles me, and I realize instantly that without Kevin’s death, Andrew wasn’t compelled to work with deaf children in his brother’s honor. His life took a completely different path, and that means that children like Riajah and Allie don’t have a place like St. Anne’s to look after them. I assume they’re okay and that they’re being cared for by another social services agency. But I can’t imagine it would be the same as being looked after by friendly, hardworking, cares-so-much-it-hurts Andrew.

  My stomach twists as I read the article. Griddle, which specializes in inventive grilled specialties, apparently opened nine months ago with Andrew as the head chef and Kevin as the manager. It’s their second project together, after a restaurant called Mojo that closed in 2012.

  “We’re hoping that our old friends from Mojo give Griddle a shot and that we can become a strong part of the Roswell community,” Andrew is quoted as saying. “Kevin and I grew up not far from here, and I think you’ll find that the menu consists of unique twists on local favorites that should feel familiar to anyone who remembers a childhood in Georgia.”

  I enlarge the photo of Andrew and stare at it for a moment. Is it my imagination that he doesn’t look as happy as he does in real life? He’s ten pounds heavier—surely a result of working long hours in a restaurant kitchen—and his face is more lined, his eyes tired. There’s something in his expression that looks sad, but it could just be me projecting. After all, I’m sad to see that he lives miles away and hasn’t had a chance to help turn children’s lives around. It feels like a waste.

  I close the article and shove my phone back into my purse, then I take a deep breath and stand up. I walk up to the corner and hail a cab, and all the way back to Manhattan, I think about Andrew and how he’s not where he’s supposed to be. Anytime there’s a void, it gets filled by something that makes you different than you were before, he said that day at the Jamaican restaurant. It changes the course of your life.

  His words reverberate through me as New York rolls by outside my window. Life is wonderful here, in a way, because Patrick and Hannah exist—and Andrew’s brother didn’t die—but it’s also different, because neither Andrew nor I had the chance to grow from our losses. Nothing knocked us off course and made us reevaluate everything.

  The cab pulls up outside Gina’s place, and after I hand the driver a couple twenties, I get out and stare up at the sky, which is too blue, too brilliant. It’s beautiful, but I miss the sky where I live. The more time I spend in this world, the more I realize it can’t possibly be reality. The overly bright colors should have been a dead giveaway all along. This may not be a dream in the traditional sense, but it’s not real life either. My eyes filling with tears, I walk up the front steps to Gina’s place and buzz her apartment.

  “Hello?” an unfamiliar woman’s voice answers.

  “Hi. I’m looking for Gina.”

  “There’s no one here by that name,” the woman says. Startled, I look at the name beside her buzzer and see that, in fact, it says Trouba, a name I don’t know.

  “Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.” As I walk back down the steps, confused, it occurs to me that I have absolutely no idea where Gina could be. It’s the only apartment I’ve ever known her in; she even lived here with Bill before he died.

  I consider texting Hannah back to ask her for Gina’s address, but I suspect that will make the dream fade away, because there’s no reason I shouldn’t know. I can’t ask Patrick, either. So for a moment, I just stand in place on the sidewalk like a rock in the middle of a stream as people flow by.

  My phone rings a moment later, startling me. I’m relieved to see Patrick’s name on the caller ID.

  “Hey, honey,” Patrick’s warm, deep voice calms me instantly.

  I close my eyes. “Hi.”

  “What’s wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

  I sigh. “It’s just been a long, confusing day.”

  “Honey, what’s the matter?”

  I have no idea how to even begin to answer that. So instead, I ask him the question I had this morning, even though I suspect it will probably pull me right out of this world, the way that questioning things always does. But I have to know.

  “Am I happy, Patrick?” I ask him. “Really and truly happy?”

  “What do you mean, Kate? Of course you’re happy.” He sounds concerned.

  “I don’t mean with you and Hannah. I know the two of you make me happier than anything in the world.” I pause. “But with the rest of my life. Am I happy at work?” The world grows a little dimmer, and I know I’m skating on thin ice.

  He’s silent for a moment. “I think so,” he says. “I mean, you’re happy enough.”

  It’s the same phrase my mother used in reference to Dan, the one that made me balk. “But happy enough isn’t the same thing, is it?” I ask sadly. “How did I get here?”

  The world is almost gone now, and I have to strain to hear Patrick’s voice over the phone. It sounds tinny and distant, and I can no longer understand what he’s saying. As I struggle to hold on, the faces around me melt and the buildings turn into blurs.

  “Patrick?” I cry, but I know no one can hear me, for the rushing sound has begun. Just before the world disappears entirely, I realized I’ve made a choice. I didn’t hang on long enough to see Patrick and Hannah this time.

  But then again, maybe what I chose was life.

  Twenty-Two

  “How’s Riajah doing now that Molly’s gone?” Andrew asks Thursday afternoon as we leave my session at Sheila’s place and walk toward the Greghors’ row house. I want to hug him, to tell him how glad I am that he’s chosen this life for himself, but I can’t reference the restaurant in Georgia without sounding like a crazy person. So I settle for a warm smile.

  “She’ll be okay,” I tell him. “She misses Molly. But to be honest, I think it’s also that she feels like Molly’s parents cared enough to come back for her. I’m trying to discourage her from drawing a parallel with her own situation.”

  He sighs. “Poor kid.”

  “You know, you don’t have to walk me to Allie’s,” I tell him. “I’m sure you have plenty of stuff to do.”

  “What if I like walking with you?” he asks.

  “Then by all means, carry on,” I say formally. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel like an idiot, but Andrew just laughs.

  At the Greghors’ place, he introduces me to Rodney’s wife, Salma, a slender, thirtysomething, olive-skinned woman with a lopsided smile, a slightly crooked nose, and big brown eyes. She takes my hands and tells me she’s so pleased I’ve been working with Allie. Then she and Andrew head for the kitchen while I make my way down the hall to Allie’s room.

  I find her sitting cross-legged on her bed, sketching something on a notepad. She looks up when I walk in, and I’m heartened to see that instead of glaring at me, she half smiles before returning to what she’s doin
g.

  “What are you drawing?” I ask.

  She blinks a few times then reluctantly hands over the picture she’s been working on. “I only just started,” she tells me. “I’m not very good.”

  I look down at the sketch, which is incomplete. It looks like Allie was trying to draw a girl about her age, with dark, wavy hair. I have to blink a few times to get a hold of myself; the hair, even inexpertly drawn, reminds me of Hannah. Or maybe it’s just the idea that Allie, who’s about Hannah’s age, has drawn it. I push images of the daughter from my dreams—and her bedroom wall covered in beautiful sketches—out of my head.

  “This is good, Allie,” I say.

  “Whatever,” she mumbles. “My friend Bella is a good artist. I suck.”

  “That’s not true,” I say. “This drawing looks really nice.”

  She makes a face at me. “Don’t lie. I don’t even know why I tried. Bella drew a picture of me, so I wanted to draw one of her too. But I can’t do it. Not as well as her, anyways.”

  “Isn’t it the thought that counts, though?” I ask.

  “That’s what people with no talent say,” she says.

  When I don’t respond, she looks up and mumbles, “Sorry. No offense.”

  I shrug and begin unpacking my bag of instruments. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get Allie to sit back down at the piano today, because she seems to loosen up and become a different, lighter version of herself when her fingers are on the keys.

  “So who’s Bella?” I ask as I lay a xylophone on the floor and fumble in my bag for the matching mallet.

  “She’s my friend,” she says. “My best friend. And I’m not going to play your stupid xylophone. I’m not a baby.”

  “I didn’t say you were. What do you want to play, then?”

  “Who says I want to play anything?”

  “Oh, you don’t? Fine.” I act nonchalant. “I’ll play your keyboard while you draw.”

  I know this will elicit a response, so I’m not surprised when she snaps “No!” and jumps off her bed. She pushes past me and sits down at her keyboard. She pauses for a moment, and I can see her thinking. Then, suddenly, she pounds out the dramatic opening chords of Beethoven’s Fifth. The sound is so sharp and sudden that I jump, startled, which makes her grin.

  She plays for the next few minutes, and I listen, awed. “Beethoven was misunderstood too, you know,” she says, stopping right in the middle of the song. “Like me.”

  “Was he?” I ask innocently. I like where she’s going.

  “Lots of people thought he was mean and had a bad temper,” she says confidently. “But really, he was just a genius. He was thinking about music. And he didn’t have time for people who made fun of him.”

  “Do people make fun of you?” I ask gently.

  She ignores the question. “He was from Vienna. Did you know that? It’s a city in Austria. And when he went deaf, all these people who pretended to be his friends were talking about him behind his back. They thought he didn’t know because he couldn’t hear anymore. But he knew. He always knew.”

  “Do people talk about you because they think you can’t hear them?”

  She frowns. “It doesn’t matter anyways, because now Bella goes to my school. And she’s deaf too. So when people make fun of our cochlear implants and call us robots, we can just ignore them together.”

  My heart lurches a bit, both in pain for Allie and gratitude for this friend who’s in the same boat. “Bella sounds nice,” I say. “She has cochlear implants too?”

  “Yeah.” Allie reaches for the keyboard with her left hand only and plays a short, haunting melody that sounds familiar but that I can’t quite place. “She plays piano too, only she’s better than me. We’re kind of like twins.”

  I smile. “It’s nice to have a friend like that.”

  She plays another verse of the strangely familiar song then says, “Today, at school, Tony Beluti, who’s such a jerk, called me a bastard child because my mom is all messed up and I don’t know who my dad is. Bella waited until the teacher’s back was turned, then she spitballed Tony right in the eye.”

  “That’s some friend.”

  Allie smiles. “The best.”

  “Speaking of your mom,” I begin carefully, “how are things going with her?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Allie says, crossing her arms.

  “Okay,” I say. “How about we just play some more music?”

  She looks relieved. “Cool.”

  “Can you teach me that song you were playing?” I ask. “It’s really pretty.”

  She nods. “Bella wrote it.”

  For the next thirty minutes, we don’t say a word, but we speak volumes with our instruments. Allie plays keyboard, and I imitate the melody on my guitar until we’ve gotten the hang of it, and we’re playing in perfect harmony. Finally, our hour together is up, and I stand to leave.

  “Today was great,” I tell Allie. “See you next week, okay?”

  She nods, and I turn to go. But she calls out, “Kate?”

  I turn, and she looks at me for a moment before signing, Thank you, her hand moving away from her mouth like a blown kiss. You’re kind.

  “You are too,” I say aloud. I pause at the doorway to add, “ ‘Never shall I forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.’ ”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a quote from Beethoven,” I tell her with a smile. I walk out before she can respond.

  That evening, dinner conversation with Dan is stilted. I can feel the awkwardness radiating from him in waves, but he keeps our small talk polite. The silences between the chatter seem to stretch on indefinitely.

  I consider bringing up my session with Allie, just to make conversation, but I know he won’t understand, so I keep quiet. I feel oddly buoyant after today’s interaction with her; I’m really beginning to believe I can make a difference in these kids’ lives, but the thought of telling Dan feels like giving a piece of it away. Like giving a piece of myself away. And I’ve already given away far too many of my pieces.

  I twist my engagement ring on my finger as I wait for Dan to finish his food, and I’m hit with a new wave of shame. I never should have said yes to him, never should have taken the ring. Misgivings were already rumbling in the pit of my belly, but I had grown accustomed to ignoring them, since I thought there was no real pressure to make up my mind.

  In fact, I realize as Dan chews, maybe I never should have gotten serious with him in the first place. The first time I met Patrick, there was an instant spark between us, a glimmer of something that seemed to grow brighter and brighter the longer we talked. I felt butterflies and tingles and all the things you read about in bad romance novels. But with Dan, there weren’t butterflies. There were nerves, of course, which perhaps I mistook for something else. But most of all, there were whispers of logic. He’s great. He’s perfect for you. It’s time to move on. And in retrospect, not all those whispers came from my own head. The people who were most concerned about me—my mom, Susan, Gina and other friends—thought Dan was the answer to a question I hadn’t actually been asking.

  I thought, at the beginning, that it was only natural that I wouldn’t feel the things for him that I felt for Patrick. Patrick was one of a kind, after all, and so was the love we shared. But that shouldn’t have meant giving up a chance to have butterflies in my stomach again, nor should it have made me talk myself into falling in love with someone simply because he was there.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Dan says, smiling uneasily at me as he finishes the last of the frozen lasagna I threw in the oven when I got home.

  I force a smile back, take his plate from him, and chicken out. “I’m not sure they’re worth that,” I say, heading for the kitchen without looking back. I know I’ve wimped out again, and the longer I
hide my head in the sand, the harder it will be to blink it all away.

  It’s not until the glowing red numbers of my bedside clock have ticked past midnight that I wonder for the first time if Allie has triggered a latent maternal instinct in me, and that everything else leads back to that. Am I so attached to her because I know she needs a good mother and she reminds me so much of Hannah? And is that making the gulf between Dan and me even wider, because the more I realize I want to be a mother, the less likely it is that my future includes him?

  I roll over on my side, away from Dan. It’s foolish of me to be thinking like this anyhow. Allie already has a mother, and it’s not me.

  Just then, the text alert goes off on my phone, a bright ding that pierces the silence of our bedroom. Dan shifts in his sleep and mumbles something, and I glance at the clock. 12:37. Who could be texting me this late?

  I pick up the phone, angling it away from Dan to avoid waking him with the bright light. The text that’s shown up on the screen is from an unfamiliar 917 number, and it reads, No one wants me.

  I frown. It must be a wrong number. But just as I’m setting the phone back down, it beeps again with another text: So you don’t care either?

  Who is this? I type back.

  There’s silence for a moment, then a single-word reply: Beethoven.

  Dan stirs again. “Everything okay, babe?” he asks.

  “Um, I’m not sure,” I say, my mind racing.

  He mumbles something else then rolls over to go back to sleep. I hunch over my phone and type, Allie??

  Yeah, she replies.

  How did you get my number? I write, then I cringe a split second after hitting Send. If something’s wrong, I don’t want to push her away by making her feel like I’m accusing her of something. My phone is silent for long enough that a pit of dread starts to form in my stomach. When it dings again, I’m relieved.

  Andrew wrote it down for my foster mom. I saw it on the paperwork. U mad?

  No, I reply. I hit Send, then I type, Are you ok? Where are you?