by Glenn Meade
You hold her and talk all night. You tell her about your life. About your quarrel with your folks. She tells you about her quarrels with her own, and about her secret. You’re shocked, but you still want her. You admire her honesty. And you promise never to hurt her, never to lie.
And never to speak about her secret again. That it changes nothing.
She asks if you really mean that.
You tell her that you do.
And she whispers your name in the darkness before her mouth finds yours, and you hear her muffled tears as she falls asleep in your arms.
• • •
In the weeks and months that follow you learn what it is to love. Now that she trusts you, she opens like a flower and teaches you.
That summer sings in you like never before. You know that you can never go back to the life you had with your parents. That something has changed. You’re forging your own future.
And you know that life is a journey, because your old man always told you so, and you discover why you want to take the journey with Lana.
Because your love goes deeper than desire. She’s your soul mate.
And so in the tiny church of St. Nicholas in a flurry of snow on a freezing cold Saturday in December you look at her from eyes that are proud as you both promise to love and honor.
You slip a ring on each other’s fingers—two simple gold rings Mr. Banda gave you as a wedding gift, before he takes the wedding photographs.
You honeymoon in a small hotel in the hills overlooking Sarajevo. You write a postcard to your parents and tell them that you’ve made your life here.
You move into an apartment above Mr. Banda’s restaurant. He’s good to you both. The apartment’s small—three tiny rooms—with narrow walls and a low ceiling that you can touch.
Mr. Banda jokes, “Now you know how I got my hunched back.”
But it’s warm, with a blue tiled woodstove, and best of all the accommodation comes with the jobs Mr. Banda’s offered you.
Lana studies during the day and waits on tables in the evening. You help out in the kitchens cooking and doing odd jobs and paint every free moment you can—your painting is getting better—and there’s always a market so long as you can sell your work to the tourists who flock to Dubrovnik. You’re doing okay, you’re getting by.
When the first baby comes, it’s a girl.
You’re fearful of parenthood, but when this helpless little wide-eyed cherub looks up at you, and suckles on your finger, you fall in love with her.
It takes longer than you could ever imagine for the next to arrive—six years—with four miscarriages in between and by then you have both almost given up hope.
This time it’s a boy.
But he’s tiny, barely two pounds, for he came by Caesarean eleven weeks early and the doctors didn’t think he’d make it, but somehow he did, and thrives.
With his plump cheeks and dimpled smile he will lay claim to your soul. Before you know it, he’s walking and talking. He’s good-humored, like his sister, and because he’s lived despite the odds he has a special place in your heart.
Now there are four of you in the cramped apartment, but you never knew life could be this good.
On summer days when it’s warm you spend your time on the beach, and you paint and sketch while Lana and the children play in the sand with buckets and spades, their caramel bodies healthy and happy.
On winter nights when it’s cold you all sleep in the double bed.
And when the children finally give in to rest, Lana huddles in beside you.
She tells you that she believes the seeds of what we’ll do are sown in all of us. That you and she were destined to meet. That she loves you, that she loved you the first moment she met you, and always will no matter what life brings.
She wants you to know that.
And that she’s proud to be your wife.
You both promise never to leave each other—never—no matter what.
And when she closes her eyes, you hear your family breathing as you look at their sleeping faces in the lunar light that spills its silver fingers on the floor by the bed.
And you’re happier than you have ever been.
• • •
This was all before the war came.
Before the first shells shrieked like chalk across a blackboard as they fell on Dubrovnik. Before three years of siege starved and strangled Sarajevo and blood ran in the streets.
Before the ancient vendettas and grievances and ethnic cleansing cast a malignant shadow over everyone and everything in this land, destroying all that was good and decent and human.
Before you and Lana and your children were caught up in the firestorm, and your lives were changed forever.
You recall that your father used to say that there is always a zenith in life. A moment when you reach the highest point in the arc of your happiness, and everything seems right and the angels are on your side.
If that is so, then this was that time.
For afterward you would always remember that afternoon in Mostar when you jumped from the bridge, and you carved your names upon the olive tree.
And those moonlit nights when you huddled close together for warmth, and looked with wonder on the sleeping faces of the ones you loved.
PART TWO
THE PRESENT
2
* * *
NEW YORK
Carla Lane didn’t know it, but that day would begin with life and end with death.
Nor did she know if some fleeting premonition had passed a shadow across her dreams in the weeks leading up to that afternoon, warning her of the terrible event that was about to happen.
Perhaps it had. But all she knew for certain that day was that she was excited as she came out of the doctor’s office, and that she had never felt happier.
She spotted Jan waiting for her, sitting on a park bench across the street, reading a newspaper.
He looked up when he saw her. He flashed his usual lopsided smile, his fringe blowing in the wind, but then he looked more serious as he folded away his newspaper and came to meet her.
“Well? How did it go?”
She didn’t speak.
“Come on, Carla, don’t do this to me, honey.”
“Do what?”
“Keep me in suspense. Is it good news or bad?”
“Let’s put it this way. I’m going to be eating for two from now on.”
His face beamed, and she knew at once why she’d married this man.
“Carla, that’s terrific news.” He kissed her, slid his hand around her waist, and patted her stomach. “Can they tell yet?”
“Jan, I’m only six weeks pregnant.”
“How long before they can tell?”
“Four, five months, maybe. In all the excitement I forgot to ask. It doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, does it?”
“Not a bit. How about lunch at Barney’s to celebrate? I’ve got a rehearsal at two, so I’m out of handcuffs until then.”
A shadow flickered across Carla’s face. There was something else she had to tell Jan. Something troubling her.
“What’s wrong? You look distracted.”
“Nothing. It’ll keep until after lunch.”
“We’ll have a drink to celebrate. You think the doctor would mind?”
She slipped her arm through his. “Nothing stronger than a glass of sparkling water for me. From now on, Momma’s strictly on the wagon.”
Jan smiled, and whistled to hail a cab.
3
* * *
The restaurant on Tenth Avenue was crowded. Jan was recognized as soon as they walked in. A few people said hello and wanted to shake his hand.
Jan hated the public side of his career. Limelight was something he avoided whenever he could, but now wasn’t one of those times.
Carla left her husband signing an autograph for two young couples and headed for the restroom. She overheard a customer ask the bartender, “Who’s that guy who just came
in?”
“Jan Lane.”
“Who’s he?”
“Are you kidding? Only one of the brightest young pianists on the planet. He plays all over the world. He’s playing Carnegie Hall. It’s been sold out for weeks.”
Months, Carla was tempted to say, before stepping into the restroom and checking herself in the mirror—she was still trying to compose herself after hearing the doctor’s news. You’re six weeks pregnant, Mrs. Lane.
She put on a touch more lipstick and looked at her reflection. She had an interesting face. Her hair was chestnut brown, and with her full figure, dark eyes, and olive skin, men seemed to find her reasonably attractive.
Despite often subsisting on too much coffee and crackers, and kicking a ten-cigarette-a-day habit and putting on ten pounds, her face had held its own. And that was even after five years of countless trials and prosecutions.
She spent two of those years in private practice, the remaining three with the New York County District Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor in Manhattan. Prosecuting criminals and killers, robbers and rapists, the sane and the crazies, some of them monsters whose hate crimes and brutal acts of abuse sickened her.
But law was something she always wanted to practice. Ever since she watched TV courtroom scenes on Law & Order as a gawky teen she could remember craving to be an attorney, to see justice done. She never knew from where that craving came, because her parents or grandparents had no connection to the law. No brushes with it, either—no criminals, fraudsters, murderers, or thieves hanging out on her family tree—not as far as she knew.
She made it into law school with her grade point average, but she had to work extra hard to graduate from Columbia, cutting herself off from everything and everyone as she tried to concentrate solely on her studies. Then, after five years as a hardworking attorney, she made a devastating discovery.
She hated law and being a lawyer.
She hated the insincerity of the profession, the opportunists and the money grabbers. She’d met decent lawyers who cared about justice, but too many were simply hired guns who didn’t give a damn whether a client was innocent or guilty. Like a mortgage advisor, they’d hold your hand and be your best friend until the check arrived.
Then there were the hundreds of awful cases that sapped you.
Her last one was prosecuting a spoiled young Princeton brat who got drunk and ran over two fourteen-year-old girls in his Porsche. He’d sped away leaving their shattered bodies sprawled in the gutter. One survived; the other died in agony.
For a child to die like that filled her with a seething anger. But the accused was rich and it was his first DWI. Big bucks meant the kind of dream criminal defense team that would have made O. J. Simpson proud. The defense argued that the road was badly lit, and that the driver wasn’t drunk when he hit the girls but drove home afterward and drank because of shock.
Carla fought and wanted the maximum sentence but the judge allowed the driver to plead guilty to only a misdemeanor DWI and leaving the scene of an accident. He sentenced him to fifteen days in prison and fined him five hundred dollars.
A week later the dead girl’s mother committed suicide.
• • •
Carla felt sickened. Jan came home from a concert tour that day, and saw her looking morose. “It’s Friday. Why the Monday face?”
She grabbed her coat. “I need a walk, Jan.”
They strolled on the beach, and she told him.
“The way of the world, Carla. Nothing’s fair in love and law, you of all people know that. The law’s got an ugly side.”
“What kind of justice is it when a mother can’t face the pain of seeing her daughter’s killer go free, and then kills herself? All my effort was such a waste.”
“Ever heard of the definition of a total waste?”
“What is it?”
“A tour bus crammed with lawyers driving off a cliff with two empty seats.”
Jan always tried to lighten things.
“Funny. But if I’m not smiling it’s only because I agree with you.”
“What happened to that thirst for justice?”
“It dried up, Jan. It got sapped by battling rich lawyers who get criminals off.”
“Remember what Oscar Wilde said? Life is a bad quarter of an hour made up of exquisite moments. Don’t waste those moments. Change jobs. At least take a break from criminal law. See how you feel a year or two from now.”
“It’s not that easy. It may be drudgery but it’s well-paid drudgery.”
“Then come work with me. I need a lawyer to negotiate contracts, and I need a manager to organize concert tours. I also need someone to fill Jessie’s shoes. You’d be perfect. You can even work from home.”
Jessie, his secretary PA, had left, moving to Los Angeles.
“Are you serious?”
“There’s a cardinal rule in life: when anything gets to be drudgery it’s time to do something else. Say yes.”
She did.
• • •
She heard tales of husbands and wives working together whose marriages ended up on the skids, but working with Jan turned out to be the saving of her. A change was exactly what she needed, and she had enjoyed every exquisite moment. He was such a wise owl, sensible beyond his years.
Sometimes she would look at him and think, How did I get this lucky?
She first saw him at Columbia. He was walking across the campus with a bunch of friends, his fringe blowing in the wind, a lopsided smile on his face. They never met, but she heard rumors that Jan Lane was a promising musician.
Although she’d put any thought of boyfriends on the back burner while she struggled to graduate, afterward she’d had four years of lousy dates and failed relationships.
The last one took her to a party one stormy night in Greenwich Village, then wandered off to hit on a pretty blonde. Incensed, Carla flung her plastic cup of wine into a garbage bin and went to storm after him.
“Hey . . . am I playing that badly?”
She was so enraged she never noticed a guy playing a piano nearby. A spray of wine doused him. It was Jan, and he was playing Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,” and playing it beautifully.
“I . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
He looked at her date moving off with the blonde.
“You came with that guy?”
“I thought I did. Now I just want to slap him.”
“Big mistake. Just ignore him and put it down to a life lesson.”
“And what lesson would that be?”
“That some men are about as faithful as their options.”
“That’s a good line. Is it yours?”
“I wish. Some writer said it.” He smiled, but there was genuine caring in his voice. “Anything I can do to help?”
Carla glanced over at the rain-lashed window, the trees tossing in the storm. “Did you come here with anyone?”
“A bunch of friends, but no one in particular.”
“Have you had a drink?”
“I was just about to. Why?”
“Did you drive?”
“What is this, a murder investigation?”
“Would you do me a big favor and drive me a couple of miles to where I left my car?”
“Are you serious?”
“On a night like this I could be waiting for a cab forever. I came in his car. What do you say?”
“Buy me a coffee and we’ve got a deal.”
He drove her to her car, they found a Starbucks, and Carla bought him coffee. She discovered he was a promising concert pianist, but his modesty meant she had to drag that fact out of him. She also discovered that he liked to poke fun at himself, and he certainly didn’t take his own reputation unduly seriously. They talked all evening, and he was a good listener.
It was the first time in a long while she felt comfortable with a guy.
In the following months, they dated often. She grew to love Jan’s intelligence, his gentleness, his humo
r, and his wisdom. It almost seemed as if they’d known each other in another life, even if she knew so little about music. They married ten months later. Home became a house in Bay Shore, Long Island, an old family clapboard that overlooked the beach.
On lazy summer days when the sea was calm they loved to swim together in the waves, and afterward on the beach they would often fall asleep in each other’s arms, under a parasol. She never thought much about family, before she got pregnant. It happened by accident. But Jan seemed so happy about it, too, and for that she felt relieved. Recently, she’d begun to suspect he was distracted in their relationship. He was spending more time away on tours, when she guessed he didn’t need to.
He began flying home a couple of days after his concerts ended, when really he could have flown straight home the next day.
Then there was the time a couple of months back when she emptied the pockets of his suit before sending it to the dry cleaners—and found a business card for a “private gentleman’s club” in New Jersey called Slick Vixens. An embossed card with the shadowed figures of two strutting, voluptuous pole dancers.
She looked up the club on the Internet.
Nothing much, but on a chat site she came across a few comment lines: “The management is pretty selective about their clientele. Men with a little class, a lot of money, and a middle-age identity crisis seems to be the common profile, or should I say the most profitable one for the owners.”
The next day she decided to drive to New Jersey.
She found the club.
Freshly painted, well decorated, a single door entrance. The only giveaway a sign that said, “Happy Hour drinks half price. Beautiful girls.”
Was it the kind of place where more than a lap dance could be bought?
She didn’t know, but it struck her as odd. It wasn’t the kind of place Jan would have hung out. Or maybe she was wrong?
Her curiosity was eating her.
She asked Jan about the card. He’d laughed it off, saying he’d been invited there by a bunch of friends but never went.
The thing was, she believed him.
