Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  Did Kate love Sean? Every image of Mexico was proof it existed; the cuddling figures in the booth, the open smile captured by Sean’s film footage. It was the true Kate, the same person he had glimpsed in the afternoon they first met. Even though that side of her personality had retreated didn’t mean her marriage with Sean wouldn’t bring it out again. Once they were together in Chicago, anything would be possible.

  As for him, he was the person who would drop by in the evening occasionally with a dusty bottle of wine for a gift and an author’s copy of his book for Kate’s library. They would exchange polite smiles and make small talk. The careful, reserved side of Kate would keep its dignity; the polite side of Michael would only seek her company in the presence of Sean.

  The gazebo’s white structure loomed ahead of him beyond the hedgerows, the soft quacking of the pond’s ducks faint in the distance. He climbed the steps to the gazebo’s platform–and found Kate seated on the floor.

  She was cross-legged, an open book on her lap. He saw dog-eared pages, foreign words structured like lines of poetry. She glanced up as his boots made contact with the boards.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. She shook her head.

  “I stopped when it was raining,” she said. “I was on a bench before that–I only wanted a little air away from the house.” She didn’t say why, but he could guess the reasons. Looking into her eyes, he read confirmation in their depths, a mixture of confusion and bitterness.

  “I’ll go,” he said. He moved, prepared to turn away. She scrambled to her feet, the book falling to the floor beside her.

  “Don’t,” she said, brushing her hair back from her face. “It isn’t fair. That we– that we always avoid these moments as if there’s something wrong with them.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “No,” he said, hoarsely. “I know there’s nothing wrong. Nothing happened.” He realized he wasn’t talking about this moment in the gazebo, but the afternoon in San Francisco. It seemed in his mind, that Kate was talking about it also, as she stood before him.

  “It’s become so awkward,” she said. “So uncomfortable when it shouldn’t be.”

  “I know,” he said. He could see the dampness clinging to her skin, the folds of her shirt like a second skin beneath the sweater coat drenched in water. Droplets along her forehead, collecting in the hollow of her throat. He was dangerously close to entertaining other thoughts; thoughts beyond his better judgment and integrity.

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