by R. A. Lee
“I have to get home,” she said and ran out into the night air, hailing a taxi while still holding her shoes in her hand.
Arriving home, Brooke realized she had forgotten the photo.
It didn’t matter. She had also forgotten that although she and Michael didn’t have a lot in common, he was still an incredible kisser.
Holding her hands on her lips, Brooke was doubly guilty.
Lying in bed, Brooke cried. She wasn’t sad about the kiss. She wasn’t sad she had slept with Jake.
The cause of her pain was deeper.
With each kiss, each intimate moment she spent with another man, she was further away from remembering Matthew’s touch.
Her biggest fear was that someday she would forget him altogether.
Crying herself to sleep, Brooke woke up tired, wished MJ a good day and went back to sleep. It was the night of her last exhibition. After that they could go home.
Arriving with the other guests, and fashionably late, Brooke was surprised to see Michael.
“You forgot your photo,” he said, handing her an envelope. Tucking it into her evening purse, Brooke invited Michael to join her.
“I can only stay for awhile,” he said, walking into the gallery with her. “I have a business trip in the morning.”
Nodding, Brooke mingled and introduced her friend to guests and art collectors. Whispering he had to go, Brooke nodded and walked him out.
Standing on the sidewalk, Brooke held his hand as they stared at each other not knowing what to say.
“I wish you the best,” Michael said, squeezing her hand. Still standing, she wanted to say “good-bye” better.
Hugging, she kissed him on the cheek and they slowly turned their heads until they were lip-to-lip and whispering “good-bye.” Giving him one last kiss for old time’s sake, Brooke hugged him and when she opened her eyes she almost screamed.
Standing on the sidewalk, frozen in his pace, stood Jake staring at her in disbelief.
Anger engulfed Brooke after the momentary flash faded that he might be there for her. Hugging Michael and kissing him on the cheek, she bid him farewell, saw him into a cab, and turned back to glare at Jake before walking back into the gallery.
Jake never entered the gallery. The only thing Brooke found was satisfaction. Now he knew how she felt that night at the gallery before she was called away to be with her dying mother.
It was a hollow victory. If he didn’t care for her, then it would be meaningless.
A few days later, Brooke headed back home and was greeted by his mother at the airport.
Arriving home, Brooke didn’t unpack her bags.
The time to wait for Jake’s decision had passed.
This would be the second hardest thing she would have to do in her life.
Chapter 31
On a cold crisp day, after a meeting with the owner and her agent, Brooke wandered from the gallery where she had her first exhibit. They wanted her to do another exhibit, with new work and she had declined.
“I will work on something but I can’t guarantee anything,” she said. “I gave everything I had to this exhibit.”
Although they were disappointed, the last exhibit had taken in an extraordinary amount of money, they understood.
Without inspiration, a lackluster exhibit would be worse than no exhibit at all. Saying “good-bye,” Brooke decided to take a walk. She found herself in a familiar part of town and let the past guide her.
Walking through her old neighborhood, Brooke was torn when she saw an “Open House” sign in front of her old yard.
Yearning for one last look, Brooke considered going inside and looking around, but she couldn’t move. When she left, she had said “good-bye” to the house thinking she would never see it again, but here was her opportunity and she was frozen.
When she got pregnant, she and Matthew immediately went out looking for homes. Wanting to stay in the city for the galleries and Matthew’s job, they realized the only thing they could afford was an attached house or a condo.
When the real estate agent showed them the townhouse, Brooke was thrilled because it was closer to a house and it had a small backyard. Brooke couldn’t have a backyard in a condo. Not any she had seen.
The agent told them to act quickly because it was an end unit with more windows and one wall that didn’t connect to anyone.
Once inside, they raced around, imagining everything they could do with the house, and stood in MJ’s soon-to-be nursery where they decided they had found the home to raise their child.
Did she really want to revisit that memory? For about two years she had moved on, did she really want to take a step back? It was hard enough leaving the first time.
A young couple emerged from the house and talked animatedly as they walked down the stairs from the small porch. Looking back at the house together, they turned and walked past Brooke talking about all the wonderful things they could do with the house.
Anger overtook Brooke. Rationally she knew it was not her house, but seeing other people talk about the dream that once was hers urged her on and she quickly crossed to the stairs and up the porch.
A real estate agent greeted her at the door with a spec sheet and Brooke waved her away as she walked by her and stood in the living room where she had spent the most cherished times of her life.
Warmth embraced her in the cold empty room filled with the light from the hazy winter day, but Brooke only saw the room as it was and was seized by the desire to have that feeling back one more time.
The real estate agent had been talking but Brooke didn’t hear anything she said and interrupted her when she had made her decision.
“All cash,” she said. “I will put in an all cash offer as is.”
The agent, a true professional, nodded.
“I will get the paperwork,” she said and left Brooke to dream about building the future from her past.
Chapter 32
Sitting on her couch in the sparsely decorated townhouse, Brooke just sat and stared at the wall.
Ever since she bought the house, she had done nothing but put in a couch, a bed in her old room upstairs, a bed in MJ’s room, and hung paintings on the walls. Brooke still didn’t know what she was going to do. She was still in a stalemate with Jake and was moving to the idea that she didn’t need to wait for his decision.
The one characteristic she didn’t like about Jake was he didn’t handle personal relationships well, and that was a very big flaw. Brooke had to mend his relationship with his mother and was now patiently waiting for him to decide whether he was going to try and make their marriage into something stable or he was going to continue pursuing a woman who most likely would never settle down with him. If that’s what he wanted, a woman he loved but didn’t love him the same in return, then it wasn’t Brooke’s job to change his mind.
Jake’s mother took it hard when Brooke told her it wasn’t up to them to change Jake’s mind or encourage him to choose a life he didn’t want to live.
Sitting in the room, Brooke wondered who would make the decision for them.
The doorbell rang and Brooke sighed. It wasn’t unusual to get visitors, the gallery was around the corner and there was always something to sign.
Standing and sighing, Brooke looked out the window and didn’t see anyone at first. Then a man turned and under the porch light stood Jake, looking glazed over in the eyes. Brooke realized he must be drunk.
Brooke had seen him inebriated and relaxed, but never drunk and wasn’t sure what mood he was in, so she pulled open the door the length of the security chain.
Peeking her face out, Jake stood in her view and they locked eyes.
“What do you want, Jake,” she said.
“I want to talk,” he said, holding onto the doorjamb for support. Brooke didn’t detect any animosity or anger and closed the door, took off the chain and opened the door. Jake nodded and walked past her into the living room. Brooke closed the door and locked it.
Watching J
ake explore the room, she crossed her arms waiting for whatever he came there to say.
Surprised when he carefully looked at each painting, Brooke imagined him in a gallery and that relaxed her because it was hard to realize Jake was in the home she had shared with her first husband, a man she had loved deeply.
For a long time, he carefully looked at the paintings. Then Jake backed up from the one Brooke liked to stare at while sitting on the couch, and he carefully sat down still looking at the painting. Brooke quietly walked over to the couch and sat carefully on the far side of Jake, waiting for him to say what he came to say.
“What were you thinking when you did that one?” Jake asked wistfully, unable to take his eyes off the piece.
Leaning back into the couch, Brooke thought about the moment that inspired her to put her feelings and emotions on canvas.
“That was the night I saw you with your lover,” she explained.
“It looks angry and confused,” he surmised. A groan almost escaped from deep within her stomach. Jake saw more than she realized.
“What brings you here, Jake,” she asked softly, staring at the painting with him.
Sighing, Jake leaned back on the couch, let his coat that he had wrapped tightly around him loose, and he unbuttoned his suit jacket. Turning to Brooke, he answered.
“I wanted to see how you were doing in your new old place,” he said.
“I’m doing fine,” she said because it was easy.
Jake nodded.
“I’m glad to see you’re happy,” he whispered. Brooke would not describe herself as happy.
“You looked happy in Paris,” Jake said and Brooke knew why he had sought her out that night.
“I saw you too, Jake,” she acknowledged.
“A friend of yours?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“Yes,” she asserted. “Yes he is. We go way back. He’s Matthew’s best friend from college. We dated. He introduced me to my husband.”
Jake turned away because Brooke challenged him to respond to the fact she had kissed her first husband’s best friend, a man she had dated, and she was not ashamed.
“In this very room, Jake, do you know how many memories there are?” she asked rhetorically. “I can see every Christmas, every birthday, every moment. I remember MJ’s first steps. I remember making love on our couch. I remember waiting for my husband to come home every night.”
Tears threatened to drown her memories so Brooke held her breath and the tears abated. She was not going to break down in front of Jake.
Standing, she pointed out all the moments she shared in her other life, as another man’s wife.
“I remember cooking dinner in that kitchen, feeding MJ at his high chair, and putting candles on cakes for their birthdays. Up those stairs I remember racing to get away from Matthew as I stole the newspaper he was reading to get his attention. He raced right after me and we fell in our bed laughing. I remember the laughter, Jake.”
Jake sighed again.
“Do you have those kinds of memories, Jake?” she asked rhetorically.
Jake didn’t respond.
“You saw me on the street with another man, and now you’re here,” she stated. “When Michael kissed me, I wasn’t expecting it, Jake, but it was nice. It wasn’t on the sidewalk either. It was at his place in France. I didn’t think I was capable of getting to that stage so fast. It’s getting easier to deal with being intimate with another man, Jake. But you know what’s not?” she asked and held her breath until the tears subsided again.
“Knowing that I will forget what I felt when I kissed Matthew,” she said through gritted teeth. Her throat started to tighten and she breathed carefully until it was relaxed again. If Jake came for an explanation, she was going to give it to him.
“Do you know what it’s like to be loved that way, Jake? So fully and completely that another person knows your soul. Someone who understands everything you’re feeling even if you do not know yourself?”
“Do you know how I feel now, Jake? Most of the time I feel like a call girl just good enough for someone else’s pleasure. Sure, people like Michael think they want to care for me, but they are not seeing who I am, Jake. I don’t know who you’re seeing when you look at me, Jake.”
Pointing to the couch, she remembered how Matthew cared for her.
“One night we had a fight, I don’t remember what it was about, I never remembered what our fights were about,” she rambled. “But I decided to sleep on the couch. I woke up and lying on the floor beside me on our comforter with his hand on my stomach was Matthew. He said he couldn’t sleep without me. Even though I would never leave him, a part of him always worried because I was always so opinionated and let him know what I felt. It was something he loved about me but always knew he had to ignore me as well. He knew how to temper my anger because I needed to vent. He knew that, Jake.”
Pointing to the downstairs guest bathroom, Brooke continued.
“We had another fight about something I don’t remember and I locked myself in the bathroom and just sat on the counter to cool down. I get angry or upset, I let it out then I let it go. Matthew knew that. The door popped open and Matthew was standing there with a screwdriver. He was casual showing that he could open the door with a screwdriver and I remember he said something like ‘where were we’ and then we just started laughing and laughing.”
Brooke smiled and closed her eyes thinking about how he never took their fights to heart.
“No one will ever know my soul like Matthew and my mother,” she asserted like a promise. “They’re both gone, Jake. When I’m around other people I realize I’m just another person. I’m nothing special. I will never be special in that way to another human being in my life. My son, I pray, will grow up to respect and love me, but he won’t understand my heart. I feel that I could blow away, melt into the universe and it wouldn’t matter.”
Jake sighed.
“Is that why you bought the place?” he asked quietly when she paused from pounding him with her words.
“Yes,” she whispered. Looking around, Brooke remembered feeling so powerful when she bought her old home. It was hers. Nobody could take it away. It was a victory.
“I wanted to bring my son back here and raise him in the house where he was first intended to be raised,” she avowed. “It was a victory for me, Jake.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?” he asked, overwhelmed by her confession.
Brooke looked around the room, at the kitchen, over at Jake slumped on the couch, up the stairs and out the window where cars passed by in the cold winter night.
She had every memory that she thought she had lost.
“When I bought the place, that was the plan, Jake,” she confessed. “I started moving in. Then I brought MJ here to show him the old house. The house we first brought him to when he was born and do you know what he said?”
Jake slowly shook his head.
“He said ‘can we go home now?’” Brooke said and she stopped a groan from escaping. “I brought him home and wanted him to be happy, but it wasn’t what he needed to be happy, Jake. Home to him was your house. Home to him was where he was living because he had the ones he loved. The memories that I have are not his memories. He has a mother and father figure and a grandmother. He loves his school and friends. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be in his room.”
“I’m sorry, Brooke,” Jake said quietly.
“What am I going to do, Jake?” she asked, hoping he would help her make her decision.
“It looks like you’re doing well for yourself,” he said and Brooke didn’t know how to interpret his statement.
“Is that what you think, Jake,” she said to his back. Walking up to him she stood and faced him. Jake didn’t move; he just looked up at her with tired eyes.
“You’re right, Jake,” she asserted, holding her hands on her hips. “I can make it without you. I probably always could, but I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I needed
to wait for you to make your decision. But I don’t anymore, Jake. The only thing holding us together is that I don’t want to pull MJ out of the home I created out of thin air. I can lose you, Jake. I’ve lost enough already. I will not end up like my mother.”
Brooke covered her mouth, but it was too late.
“It’s not that easy,” she whispered and turned away. Catching her breath, Brooke fought to finish her thought.
“I never thought I’d love again, Jake,” she whispered. “But I was surprised that I came close. I can do it again. Not the same as before. But I could find some happiness again. I’m not going to wait for you anymore.”
The tears would not be stopped. Overflowing, they burned her cheek and she wiped them away, caught them in sniffles, but they wouldn’t stop flowing.
Brooke wanted to say more, needed to say more, but she couldn’t talk. Breathing was her only consideration.
Walking away, she headed upstairs and slammed the bedroom door behind her. Resting on her bed, Brooke had one more memory.
It was of the night the laughter died in her home.
Chapter 33
Jake met with Jenny at their favorite restaurant.
Sitting across from him she pouted.
“We have to talk,” he said after they ordered drinks. His hands folded on the table, Jake was in no mood for games with Jenny.
“Why do you have to be so serious, darling?” she said dramatically.
“It’s clear that you’re never going to leave your husband,” he said. “I am content with that. It’s been this way for so long I don’t know anything else. I’ve been happy, but I need something more.”
For some reason, when Brooke made a decision based on his indecision, he realized he had to figure out where he wanted to be and whom he wanted to be with. The clear choice was Jenny. He had loved her for as long as they had been together.
At some point in the last few months, though, Brooke had somehow made him realize there was much more to their relationship than just a mutual agreement. She had put up with him going back and forth, but her patience had run out.
