In This Life

by Christine Brae

  “Hi!” Maggie answered the phone cheerily. “What’s new? I tried calling you a few times but you didn’t pick up.”

  I wasn’t ready to talk. “You told me that he was never coming back because you knew.”

  “I did, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

  “Maggie! How is it that the entire world knew but me?” I asked, annoyed and disappointed at the same time. I couldn’t help it, my voice lifted higher by a few notes.

  “It killed Dante to keep it from you, Sparky. He really wanted to tell you, but it happened at the same time that you lost your mom, and he didn’t want this to add to your pain. And so when we talked about it, I did tell him that I was sure you’d get over it soon. I mean, you knew the guy for ten days! I figured it would take you one year tops to forget about him. I honestly never knew that you would still be thinking of him five years later!”

  I took a sip of my tea and sat in silence phone in one hand and fingers picking on the leather piping that ran down the sides of the couch. Outside the gray sky was bursting with snow dust. They floated slowly in the air and melted before they touched the ground.

  “Sparky? Are you still there?” she asked with worry. “Do you want me to come over? Donny is out of the country for a few days.”

  “How long was it before you knew you loved Donny? How long were you in Europe?” I demanded. It helped to throw her cynicism back in her face.

  “Spark—”

  “How long, Maggie?” I asked, forcing the issue. I clenched both my hands and teeth in distress. The ugly fact was that two of my closest friends had held the truth from me, no matter the intention.

  “Three weeks. I was in Italy for two,” she conceded weakly.

  I had made my point, and there was no need to say anything more. I didn’t really want to hurt her; all I wanted to do was to place what she felt for Donny in the context of my ten days with Jude.

  “Spark, let me come over,” she continued.

  “No, no, it’s starting to snow outside. And I’m trying to get all my Christmas stuff organized before my shift at the hospital. Thank you for the offer, though.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I need to figure things out. But I want to do it in lockstep with Dante. We started this together, and we are either going to continue it, or end it together. We—I mean, I, suggested we take some time off. I can’t shake him, Maggie. I can’t forget about Jude.”

  “Hey, listen,” she said, pausing to collect her thoughts. “The reason that you and I work so well together is because I’m the ditz and you’re the brains.”

  “Yeah, that volleyball really rattled your brains around,” I joked.

  She met my witticism with silence. “You’ve always been the one to use logic in every decision that you’ve made since I’ve known you. Take it from the ditz this time. This is extremely illogical, and doing what’s right on paper won’t work. Do what’s right in your heart. Dante is here for the long haul, but he can’t wait for you forever. You need to figure out whether you want to put him through some half-hearted relationship when you know that he deserves better.”

  I heard the creaking sound of the twisting doorknob. “Hey, I think Mikey’s home from the neighbor’s. I’d better go and spend some time with him before he crashes. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, call me tomorrow,” she replied. “I’d love to see you before your schedule gets crazy again.”

  “Okay, we’ll see what we can do. Talk later. Bye!” I pressed END on the phone just in time to find Dante standing by the door.

  I JUMPED TO my feet, anxious but ecstatic at the same time that Dante had driven over to see me. I ran to greet him, throwing my arms around him, and showered him with tiny kisses on his face.

  “Hi. I’m so glad you’re here. So glad.” I proceeded to unwrap the scarf from around his neck, and unbuttoned his coat.

  “Hi, Spark. I thought we should talk,” Dante explained as he held his arms down to help me slip it off.

  “No fighting, no arguing. I don’t want to fight with you, please,” I begged. He looked weary and dejected, and his empty stare broke my heart. He wore the same unfamiliar pair of glasses; they felt like an intruder in our home. “Your glasses. I thought they were just for reading.”

  “Apparently I need them to drive now, too,” he answered, lifting me up and carrying me over to the couch at the same time. He took a seat and placed me on his lap. I held on to him, my arms wrapped tightly around his neck. “Maybe I’m just getting old,” he said.

  “Right. You’re not even thirty, Tey. We have a hundred years ahead of us.” I pulled off his glasses and gently laid them on the empty seat next to us. We sat for a few minutes, my face buried in his neck, his fingers tracing a path down my sides. I pressed myself against him and rocked back and forth. His body began to relax, the weight of his arms now holding me against him.

  “I’ve missed you. I’m sorry about the other night. I’ll make it up to you,” I said, blowing gently in his ear before nipping it lightly between my teeth and licking a trail down his neck. He lifted my shirt up over my head, and I willingly removed my bra, exposing myself to him completely. He devoured me hungrily, expertly moving from one side to the other, while his fingers settled themselves between my legs.

  “Take me to the bedroom,” I murmured breathlessly. I needed him so much, and I wanted to prove to him that nothing would ever change.

  “Tell me what you want me to do to you, baby.”

  He was back, the man who helped me to forget the past five years, the man who loved the broken, messed up parts of me.

  “I want you to tear my heart open and fill me up,” I whispered huskily. “I need to have you now.”

  “I WANT YOU to know that I didn’t come here to get you in bed with me,” he declared as we lay in bed one hour after he’d arrived. We were still undressed, his head and shoulders held up by pillows against the headboard, me facing downward with my head in his lap. I lovingly brushed the hair on his legs with the tips of my fingers.

  I lifted my head to look at him slyly, and his face broke out in a wide grin.

  “Oh, I want to give you your Christmas present. Wait right here,” I said as I slid off the bed and moved towards the robe that hung on the opposite end of the bedpost.

  “Spark, you can’t walk around like that!” he teased.

  “Wait! Hold your horses, buddy. I’ll be right back.”

  I ran back into the room with a square black box in my hand.

  “Et Voilà! Merry Christmas,” I squealed as I handed him my present. He pulled me back onto the bed, and I complied by sitting next to him, facing him with my knees hugged tightly to my chest. “Open it!” I ordered excitedly, while bouncing up and down on the mattress.

  He tore through the wrapping paper impatiently, pulling on the ribbon until it snapped in two.

  “What is it?” he asked as the box came into view. “Oh my God, Anna You shouldn’t have. How much did this cost?” He lifted the watch out of the tissue paper and slipped it on his wrist. Its large round face was etched with gold roman numerals and encased in blurry antiquated glass. The brown leather strap was brand new and so was the golden clasp on its end.

  “Wasn’t that the one you were looking at? The vintage watch we found in Palermo?” I asked nervously, afraid that I had purchased the wrong one.

  “Where did you find this?” he asked excitedly as he brought the watch closer to his face and scrutinized its bezel. “It still has the original parts.”

  “Donny had a reseller in Italy who found it for me. I’ve been paying for it since last year. Sort of an Italian version of a layaway.” I laughed. “But wait, turn it over,” I instructed, taking hold of his arm and twisting it.

  “I need my glasses,” he said, looking embarrassed.

  I ran to the living room and jumped back on the bed with them in my hand. Gently, I slipped them on his face, careful to lay them on his nose, tuc
king the stems behind his ears.

  He turned the watch around, read the inscription and smiled at me, a brilliant smile that confirmed to me just how much I loved him.

  Dante Leola, Love of my Life. From your Spark, 12-25-2010

  “Tell me, Spark, what does it mean to be the love of your life?” he asked, gently placing his hand on my knee. I reciprocated by laying my cheek against it.

  “It means that I love you most in my life. That you are my greatest love. That my love for you is real and true, and it comes from the bottom of my heart.”

  “And Jude? Who is he to you?” he asked carefully, his words were stilted and unsure.

  “He’s a ghost from my past.” There are many of these ghosts, you know. They taunt you for what you were, what you had and what could have been. I want to face them, want to jump in and save myself from my own fears.

  “Do you love him?”

  “I’m not sure I love Jude. How can I love him based upon the few days that we spent together? He’s a force that pulls me towards him, a cliffhanger in a story in need of an ending. I look for him, I want to be with him.” I paused as I saw the pain on his face. He shut his eyes tightly and let out a deep breath. “Please,” I appealed, “I don’t mean to hurt you. I want to be honest with you.”

  “Go on.”

  “He’s like an unfinished song in the story of my life. The words bombard me every single day, they come to me in my dreams, demanding me to finish them, to complete them. It might not be love, I know it can’t be love. But it wouldn’t be fair to you to pretend that I don’t want to see him, to seek out some answers, to know for sure that I’m over him. You know, I realized in the past few weeks that I met Jude at a time in my life when it was falling apart because of my mom. And then I lost my mom, and I couldn’t deal with another loss. So I focused all of my energies on the hope of seeing Jude again because I didn’t want to face my problems. If anything, I need to tell him this.”

  He loosened his hold on me and shifted his body so that his legs stretched out under the blanket. I lay my head in his lap.

  “And this is why I’m letting you go, Anna.”

  I jerked my head back in response, eyes wide with surprise. “You’re what?” My wounded pride had overcome my relief.

  “I think I made it worse by keeping it from you. You know, the fact that he was a seminarian. If I had told you sooner, I think you would have had your closure. So some of this is my fault, but I really thought that you’d forget him. We meet so many people in this life, look at all the women I’d been with—I thought that he would be the same for you.”

  “No, this is all me, Tey. And I’m so sorry. I know it sounds crazy, but I do love you. I’m being selfish, I know.”

  “But you’re not in love with me,” he argued. “I love you, Anna, more than anything else in this world. But I deserve more than being the backup guy because he wasn’t coming back. I’m not going to share you with anyone. And I’m done being your second choice. He’s here now. Whether or not you call it fate or a fucked up coincidence. It’s up to you to figure things out, to understand what you truly want. Life is short. We can’t drag this out. I’d like to have a family with you someday, and when that time comes, it wouldn’t be fair to our kids if we didn’t have you with us one hundred percent.” He lifted his eyes to look at me, and they spoke to me more than his words ever could. “You’ve changed. You’re not the same anymore. You’ve lost your spunk, your love for life.”

  “I lost my mother and I’ve had to raise my brother. Can you cut me some slack?”

  “You lost two people on that day. It’s like a package deal of some sort.”

  There were times when he was annoyingly insistent. Today was not one of them. Something was off, but I didn’t want to dwell on it, especially because everything he said was true. The tables had turned on me. And in a way, I knew that his feelings were justified. He continued, “You’ve been through so much, you deserve to find your happiness, your peace. You bring peace to those around you, you take care of people. You need to take care of yourself. Love is like that. I love you and I want what’s best for you.”

  His voice was strong, his words articulate. I realized that he was closing the door on us.

  “Oh, Tey.” I started to cry. “Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

  But I did hurt him. I caused him so much pain, burdened him all these years with my losses and offered him a half empty heart. He leaned his head back against the bed rail and closed his eyes.

  “What happens now? Where do we go from here?” I sobbed, my face contorted in pain and apprehension.

  With his eyes still closed, he pulled me towards him and rested my head on his shoulder. “We’re more or less separated anyway. Take the time to see him, talk to him, figure things out. I’ll be in Lake Forest for the holidays, but I’m leaving for Germany the day after I bring Mikey back here from Chicago. They’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse, so I’ll be setting up a new office there.”

  “How long?” I asked, concerned mostly for myself. I would miss him so much while he was gone.

  “Three months. I’ll be back in three months.” He seemed conflicted, as if he was fighting a feud inside of him. “Maybe then you’ll have your shit together.”

  “Why does this seem so easy for you?” I challenged, swiping my hand across my face to dry my tears. I needed to be strong for him. I would make this work—train my heart to love only one, and in three months, he would have me back.

  “Easy? Five years isn’t easy, Spark. It’s been that long. You told me it was going to be a fling, nothing more, and look where we are five years later. You’re right. You’re in love with a ghost, and you need to exorcise it from your soul.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed fully. “And I’m so out to sea at this point. But I’ll find my way back. Just you wait.”

  “Don’t promise anything you can’t keep. Figure things out and we’ll see, okay?” He stroked my hair as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Get your groove back, Spark. Take it back from him. No one should be able to steal you away from you.”

  “I know.”

  “I love you, Anna.”

  I no longer wanted to take those words for granted. Whenever we ran out of words, this is what he would say to me. And everything would always fall into place.

  “And I love you, Dante.”

  We locked eyes for a time before I settled myself back in the crook of his neck. I no longer resented the sound of Christmas music drifting in through the walls. The cracks on the ceiling, the lint balls tucked tightly in the corner opposite the bed, the wooden rosary and the gilded rosary, I saw them all despite the shadows in the room.

  “But you’re still angry,” he stated.

  “Yes. At you, at Maggie. And at Jude.”

  He brushed my hair with his fingers. “For simply showing up?”

  “Yes,” I answered. He had no business coming back.”

  He nodded his head in agreement.

  I continued, “And our lies. You and me. We both lied to each other.”

  He took a sharp breath and swallowed loudly. The shine in his eyes was replaced by a cloud of tears. “And so this is how we suffer for it. Those irreparable lies.”

  I ducked my head and hid myself in his arms. For a while, we both strained to listen to the merriment around us. Our tears fell simultaneously, a drop of his, a drop of mine. In the solitude of our tears, we were searching desperately for our peace.

  I held his wrist and ran my fingers over his watch. “Do you really like it, Tey? The watch?”

  “I will wear this watch every day until I see you again.”

  I felt his body go limp. He was tired from the long wintry drive, and I assumed that he would fall asleep soon.

  “Tey?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Why can’t we figure this out together?” I declared in all stubbornness. “Why can’t I figure this out with you by my side?”

  “Wha
t do you think we’ve been doing for five years?” he answered curtly. “No. This is your deal. It’s time to make a choice.”

  The girl with everything to say was, for once, at a loss for words.

  I squeezed him tightly and held him until he fell asleep. Dante had always been a heavy sleeper, so he didn’t budge when I unwrapped myself from him to walk back to the living room to make myself another cup of tea. Mikey was fast asleep on the couch, and the timer on the Christmas lights had just turned itself off. The house was dark, and yet it felt like a subtle light was shining on the three of us that night.

  It’s believed that Christmas is the season of rebirth, of new beginnings, of the casting out of sins, and the dawning of new hope. For the first time in my life, I trusted in this truth, placed all my confidence in it. A feeling of melancholy washed over me as I embraced the stillness of that night. The world didn’t end with the integrity of our words; from that day forward, there would be no more secrets, and our lives would be lived in honesty.

  It was the simplest of premises, really. Nothing trumps a magnanimous heart.

  Dante woke up the next day and found me asleep on the couch.

  I stayed there that night, crying tears of loss until the sunlight streaming through the windows threatened to expose me. He climbed in next to me, held me for a few minutes, brushed his lips against mine, and walked out the door.

  “I want a trouble maker

  For a lover,

  Blood spiller,

  Blood drinker,

  A heart of flame

  Who quarrels with the sky

  And fights with fate,

  Who burns like fire

  On the rushing sea.”

  —Rumi

  “GRAY, PLEASE REMEMBER.”

  When she’d uttered those last two words, she cast a spell on me. All I did was “remember,” for how on earth could I forget? I relived our days in the sun and under the moon, our dances in the rain. I recalled the touch of the tips of her fingers, the feel of her skin, the sound of her voice.

  That kiss at the hut, the last time I ever touched her lips.