The Weight of Life

by Whitney Barbetti

  For the next three hours, Mila was a workhorse. She took drink order after drink order, smiling and being social the entire time. The patrons seemed to enjoy her presence—which I only took notice of because I couldn’t stop looking at her. I wasn’t checking on her—I didn’t doubt she could do what I’d asked of her. But whenever there was brief lull in the volume of drink orders, I sought her out.

  Her parents left after the first couple hours, without even giving her a goodbye. Jude stuck around though, nursing his water. I tried to chat with him a few times, but the visitors to the pub didn’t start reducing until close to midnight, so it was steady enough that I couldn’t chat for longer than a moment.

  When Mila stepped behind the bar to refill a soda, I took the opportunity to place my hand at her lower back. Just that slightest bit of physical connection was what I had been craving for hours, but now that I had touched her, I wanted more. “You’re doing great, Mila.”

  She bloomed under the praise, her warm cheeks turning the lightest shade of pink. She’d pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, leaving her neck free. I hadn’t seen the curve of her neck often, not with her pile of hair always spilling over her shoulders. Seeing it like this made me want to touch. “I love it.” She beamed. “I like talking to people.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Really? That’s a surprise.”

  She pressed a hand to my chest to push me playfully, but I captured it and held it still. “These people. They’re just so interesting.” She moved closer and pointed with the hand I wasn’t holding. “The couple in the corner near the fireplace? They’re writers, backpacking through Europe. How fun is that?”

  Her eyes were so honest, her smile so welcoming, that I couldn’t help myself—I smiled with her, and brought her hand to my lips, kissing it gently.

  The pink in her cheeks deepened and I vowed then to do whatever I could to make that happen again. To be the cause for color to bloom in her face, to be the reason she smiled.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, you’re smiling at me.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d been smiling at her. It had just formed on my lips effortlessly, thanks to her.

  “You say that like I don’t know how to smile.” The hand on her back pulled her closer to me. “Like I haven’t smiled at you before.”

  “You have,” she said, her voice soft. “But never like that.”

  What a shame, I thought. I should smile at her all the time, for all the ways her presence alone brought light into my life.

  “Hey lovebirds,” Jennie said, bumping into us from behind. “We’re not closed yet, and this isn’t a hotel.”

  We separated and she moved back to the other side of the bar, depositing drinks on tables with a pep in her step that was solely her.

  “What’s going on with you?” Jennie asked, pushing an empty bottle into my hands.

  I shook my head and dropped it in the bin with the other glass. “Nothing.”

  “You’ve never been a good liar, Ames. Not even an adequate one.”

  “Shut up, Jennie,” I said with no heat.

  “It’s cute,” she added when I handed her a fresh bottle.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “No—not nothing. But keep it up. It’s good to see you smiling. Even if it does make me gag a little.” She twirled away, to join Mila out on the floor.

  Just after midnight, Mila handed me her apron. “I have to take Jude back to the hotel.”

  “Okay.” I glanced at the clock and wrote it down. “Come by tomorrow, I’ll give you your pay and share of the tips.”

  She shook her head and framed my face in her hands as she smiled at me. “I don’t want to be paid, Ames. I just wanted to help you.” She brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead, and having her this close, her heartbeat under my skin, was driving me crazy.

  “Be right back, Jennie,” I called as I tugged Mila from the front of the bar to the back and past a bewildered Lotte and Sam. When we reached the closet, I yanked the door open and pushed Mila inside as she laughed and laughed.

  I propped her up on the desk and pressed my lips to hers, needing to taste her skin again. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I stepped between her legs, pulling her close—the closest I could.

  When my lips left hers to press into her hair, she squeezed me tighter. “Embarrassed to kiss me in public, Ames?”

  My brow furrowed and I pulled back to make sure she could look directly into my eyes. “Absolutely not. But I am selfish enough to want to kiss you with no one looking on—especially not your brother, when I’ve said hardly three sentences to him.” The tiny closet was dark except for the monitor screen that awoke from the movement. All I saw were the shadows that surrounded her, reflecting off the glint in her eye as she watched me.

  She sighed and pressed her forehead to mine. “I don’t want to go back to my hotel.”

  “I understand why you have to, Cinderella.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Cinderella? I’m not sure that’s the correct fairy tale.”

  “Hm.” I pressed a kiss to the underside of her jaw. “Well, it’s after midnight. And you have to get back.” My lips moved along the line of her jaw, to just behind her earlobe.

  Her head fell back, knocking gently against the cupboard behind her. “Mhm. But in this case, it’s more like Romeo and Juliet, isn’t it?”

  “Why? Because your mum doesn’t approve?” I didn’t stall my kissing, wanting to explore her whole face, to make this last as long as I could.

  “I’m not sure that’s the correct phrasing, but yes—it’s probably more accurate.”

  “Yeah, well,” I kissed her lips and pulled away and then kissed them again before I continued, “Romeo and Juliet isn’t a fairy tale, is it?”

  I felt rather than saw her swallow hard. She let out a breath just by my ear as I kissed the shell of hers.

  “Right.” Her voice was fragile, breathy. “This isn’t a fairy tale either, is it?”

  That time I did pause. She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t know what to say in that moment to assure her. So I kissed her once more, softer, and then helped her down from the desk. “I wish you could stay,” I told her as I took her hand in mine and led her out of the office.

  She smiled at me, but it seemed forced, sad. “Me too. I’ll come by tomorrow, I promise.”

  “It’s already tomorrow.” I pointed at my watch.

  Her smile appeared more genuine then and she let go of my hand as she said, “I’ll see you today.”

  “Can’t wait.” And then she walked through the door to the pub and I turned to Lotte and Sam who were staring at me.

  “You’ve got it bad, mate.” Sam started laughing and I threw Mila’s apron at him.

  I didn’t say anything to that, knowing that Mila’s time here was so short. I wanted to make it special for her, to hold onto her as long as I could, before I’d have to let go.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I crawled into my bed, my mind wouldn’t shut the hell off. My body had aged a solid ten years from being on my feet in heels all night, but the energy I felt just from being around everyone had lit me up from the inside out, at war with the fatigue in my muscles.

  And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the kisses Ames had given me in the closet were part of it, too. I curled my arms around my middle as I lay awake in my big bed, thinking of how my whole body had hummed alive as he’d dropped kiss after kiss across my skin.

  A light out of the corner of my eye pulled my attention away from the ceiling. My phone was lit up on the desk across the room. I turned my head to the alarm clock, reading two-forty-five in the morning.

  Confused, I climbed out of bed, wondering if Jude was texting me. But I saw Ames face lit up on my screen and quickly swiped to unlock it.

  Ames: Awake?

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I typed out my reply.

  Me:
What do you think?

  I bit my lip as I waited for his reply.

  Ames: Go to your window.

  I couldn’t move across the room fast enough. The street was dark at this hour, but there was one street lamp still lit across the street, where a shadow stepped out of the darkness and smiled up at me.

  Holy. Shit. My whole chest ached, and I was sure the smile that crossed my lips was wide enough to crack my face in half. I waved, and then realized I was wearing only an oversized tee. I wasn’t sure how much Ames could see, since I was on the second floor and it was dark out, but he must have realized the moment I did, because his smile grew wider and my phone buzzed in my hand.

  Ames: Nice legs.

  I refused to be embarrassed, but color stained my cheeks anyway.

  Me: What are you doing here?

  He looked at his phone and then back up at me as his reply came through.

  Ames: I was hoping there was a trellis or something of the sort for me to climb. Romeo and Juliet, right?

  Me: You were going to climb up to my room?

  Ames: Yeah. But not in a creepy way. In a very suave, Romeo way. And hopefully I wouldn’t be arrested or break something on my person.

  I found myself stupidly charmed by that, and gripped my phone in my hand when his next reply came through.

  Ames: I figured I’d give you the whole effect. It was the least I could do.

  I tried to open the window, but it was completely sealed shut.

  Me: You wouldn’t have gotten far. My window won’t open.

  Ames: Pity. Tell you what, why don’t you come down and I take you somewhere?

  Me: At two-forty-five in the morning?

  Instead of replying, he looked up at me and nodded. I ran my hand through my hair, thinking,

  Me: I’ll need a couple minutes. To get dressed.

  Ames: Just put some trousers on and grab a jacket.

  Me: I’d like to brush my hair.

  And apply a little makeup, I added to myself.

  Ames: You have one minute and then I’m coming up to get you.

  Shit. I put the phone down and grabbed the closest pair of jeans, shoving my legs through them as my mind raced. I wasn’t wearing a bra, but he’d said to wear a jacket. I had to choose between the bra and running a brush through my hair, and I chose the latter, hoping my jacket would make the lack of a bra not too obvious.

  It turned out that I didn’t have enough time to slick any makeup on. By the time I checked my phone, it’d been two minutes, so I grabbed it and slipped my feet into my sandals before running out into the hallway.

  There was something undeniably exciting about sneaking out in the middle of the night, not letting my parents—who were in the next room—know I was even leaving. I ran as softly as I could down the hall to the bank of elevators and hurriedly pressed the button to go down.

  Almost instantly, the doors slid open and Ames stood there, a smile on his face as he pulled me in with him. When the doors closed, he picked me up and pressed me against the elevator wall, kissing me.

  My heart was beating a million beats a minute, from the rush of running out of my room and running right into his arms. I was out of breath when he pulled away.

  “I think modern day Romeo would’ve taken the lift.” His lips quirked up and my chest ached again.

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Also, hi.”

  “Hi.” I could barely contain the laugh in my throat. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.” He stepped back and looked me over. “Nice outfit.”

  “Yeah, well you didn’t give me a lot of time to prepare.”

  He played with the hem of my jacket. “All you needed were trousers.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  The elevator doors opened and Ames took my hand, leading me out and onto the sidewalk. “Great hotel choice, by the way. This makes it easier for me to take you to the place I want to take you.”

  I had to speed up my steps to catch up with his long stride. “Is this a date?” I teased him, squeezing his hand tighter when we crossed a street.

  He stopped for a second and looked down at me. “I still owe you one of those, don’t I?”

  I shrugged. “Well, no. You don’t owe it to me.”

  “I’ll take you on a date before…” He looked away for a moment. “I’ll take you on a date.”

  I swallowed the sadness that always arose when we talked about my leaving. “I’m going to hold you to it.”

  We walked for a couple more minutes before I realized where we were going. Up ahead was Westminster Bridge, much less crowded than it’d been the night we’d met. On the other side of the river, the Elizabeth Tower stood proudly in the dark, its minute hand on the fifty-three.

  “I remember you saying you came here to see it.” He pulled me closer and switched to hold my hand with his other so he could wrap his arm around my shoulders. “But the bell was ringing when you fell over.”

  I pressed against him. “I didn’t really fall, I was sort of pushed.”

  His smile was teasing. “Same outcome, right?”

  “You remember the bell chiming when I went over?”

  We began walking across the bridge and stopped feet from the spot we’d first met. “I remember everything from that moment.” He unwrapped his arm to pull me back against his chest and wrapped his arms in front of me, holding me securely to him. “This time, you’re with a local, so you’re less likely to fall off the bridge.”

  I dropped my head back against his chest and laughed. “So gentlemanly of you.”

  The bridge was so much darker than it’d been the night we’d met. Cars passed us, and few people were actually crossing it by foot.

  I rubbed the hands that were tightly wrapped around me, my finger brushing over his wedding ring. Part of me expected to feel bothered by the fact that he still wore it, but a much larger part of me understood it. So I ran my finger over the design carved into it—some chevron-style pattern.

  Ames pulled his hand from me and I momentarily felt bad for touching it, but then he put his hand in front of my face. “Go on, take it off.”

  I turned my head to look at him questioningly. “Take it off?”

  He nodded. “It has a story.”

  “A story? It’s a wedding ring.”

  “Not really.”

  Confused, I stared at it before I began to cautiously twist it until it was loose enough to slide off his hand. It was heavier than I expected, much heavier than any ring I’d ever worn. Heavier than I thought most men’s wedding rings were. My nail traced over the pattern.

  “It’s an ‘M’ repeated.”

  “It’s heavy.” I held it in my palm and lifted my hand up and down to mimic a scale.

  “It is. Twenty-one grams, in fact.”

  It seemed odd that he’d know its exact weight. “Is that significant?”

  “It is.” He took the ring from me and held it up between us. “Over a hundred years ago, there was this physician named Duncan MacDougall. He made it his mission to see if he could determine the weight of a soul.”

  “How can you weigh a soul?”

  “By measuring the mass lost at the moment when a person dies.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it’d be easy to do.”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose it was. But he was determined. He had six patients who were in the process of dying from tuberculosis, so it was easy to tell when death was knocking at the door. When they were in the final stages, he placed their bed on a giant industrial scale and measured the weights of his subjects at the moment of their deaths.”

  “And?”

  “Well, when his first patient passed, the scale dropped twenty-one grams. His other patients lost varying degrees of weight, but he stuck with the theory that when the soul departed the body at the moment of death, it weighed twenty-one grams.”

  “And your ring weighs twenty-one grams.”

  “When Mahlo
n died, I had our rings fused together. There was a little bit of metal left from her ring once it’d hit twenty-one grams, so I had it made into a charm for Lotte.”

  “So, you believe the weight of a soul is twenty-one grams?”

  He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Not necessarily. But it’s a notion that fascinated Mahlon. She wrote a paper on MacDougall’s studies, defended him and questioned his practices—even going so far as to explain the twenty-one-gram loss. She found it romantic, the belief in the weight of life. And when she died, I wanted to honor her presence, her life, in some way.” He slid the ring back on his finger. “So now, I carry her with me.”

  I couldn’t blame Mahlon for romanticizing the ethically questionable practices of the doctor and his subsequent hypothesis. The idea that life wasn’t weightless wasn’t something I’d ever considered, but it made me feel a little more whole—thinking that a soul was something that could be measured.

  I leaned against Ames and his arms wrapped around me again. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “Don’t be sorry.” His lips pressed into my hair. “I was lucky. I am lucky.”

  The melody from the bell began, silencing anything else we would’ve said. I listened to its song and waited for its three chimes, and closed my eyes, imagining that this—whatever this was—didn’t have an expiration date. That in two weeks, I wouldn’t be going home.

  My chest heaved a deep sigh and I relaxed more fully into him.

  When the bell had rung its last chime, I turned to face Ames. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

  “Better experience this time? Standing on the bridge rather than hanging over it?”

  I playfully punched his chest. “Slightly better—despite the company.”

  “Yes,” he put his hands in his pockets. “The company is a disappointment. Good on you for enduring it anyway.”