by Reiss, CD
“I’ll tell you some other time,” Catherine said. “Have you eaten?”
She hadn’t. Catherine fed her, then me, and Harper went upstairs.
“You were telling me about the subway.” Catherine tapped the letter in question. Half a page of the most boring narration in the world. She sat in her chair and put her hands in her lap.
“It’s a little dry. We can skip it.”
“Nope.”
I told her what was in the letter, as far as I could remember, expanding on it as necessary, and she told me about her life at the same time. She’d sold the paintings off the walls to bail Trudy out of jail for a DUI. She’d posted bond for half the town at some point or another.
When we realized it had gotten too dark to read my writing, we turned on the lights, laughing at the obvious solution. Morning came and went. We ate sandwiches and drank homemade iced tea.
We were tired, but we couldn’t stop. She was fascinating, creative, driven to keep the people she loved above water. The table was crisscrossed with photographs and paper scraps when we got to the point when Errol Dannon went off to college. She beamed, eyes glittering with tears.
“He was having such a hard time with math in eighth grade. He thought he was dumb, but he wasn’t. And when he went to Duke, he said it was because I drove Harper to tutor him that he made it.” She sniffed, wiping away a tear.
My handkerchief was damp, but I used it to wipe her eyes.
“Thanks.” She shook off the sobs. “I think we should take a break.”
I tipped the box. A single envelope slid along the bottom. “There’s one more.” I handed it to her.
“This one’s in good shape,” she said, flipping to the front. Her brows knit. “No postmark? No stamp?”
“Might have been stuck in another envelope?”
She shrugged and opened it. When she unfolded the page, two tickets fell out. I put my elbows on my knees, leaning as close to her as I could without crowding her.
“What is this?”
“Read it.”
She met my gaze for a second, then went back to the page and read.
Dear Catherine,
This time, I’ll come with you wherever you want to go.
I’ll stay where you want to stay.
I am at your service from this point on.
All my love,
Christopher.
That was the shortest letter yet. She looked on the back of the crisp, white page. Blank.
She picked up the tickets and read them. “The Sistine Chapel?”
“You like paintings on the ceiling. Figured it was a good place to start.”
She was still confused. “The date—”
“Enough time for me to get you an expedited passport.” I reached over to wipe her eyes again, but she took the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes herself. “The tickets… it’s just one thing. There’s more. Paris is beautiful.”
“I don’t know,” she squeaked.
“What don’t you know?”
“They need me.” She swung her hand toward the front door as if the entire population of Barrington could fit through it.
“Let them decide that.”
“This is my home.”
“You can still let me take you to Europe.”
Her head was bent over the last letter. A teardrop fell on the paper with a heavy tick. She rubbed it into a gray streak.
“Catherine.”
“I don’t know how I feel.”
“You don’t have to.”
She swallowed thickly. “I’m tired of crying.” She sniffed, not looking up. “But I keep doing it. It’s like a habit. I keep thinking everything’s just going to be bad forever. And I think because if things got good, no one would need me. I wouldn’t have a purpose. I’d be just…” She looked up, past me, to the ceiling, the morning light, the bare walls. “Nothing. Useless.”
I gathered her hands in mine. “Your work in the world isn’t done.”
She tightened her fingers around mine. We sat like that for a long time. I’m not a praying man, but I prayed. For me. For her. For the possibility of an us.
It was her decision. I’d already made one for us. It was her turn.
The effort involved in shutting up was monumental.
Her hands loosened, but I didn’t let go. I wouldn’t. Not until she spoke.
“So…” She cleared her throat when the word caught, looking at me with eyes clear of sadness. “Is it cold in Rome this time of year?”
“You’ll go?”
“I’d love to go. I’d love to be with you.”
I leapt off the chair and held her. “Thank you,” I said into her neck.
She laughed. It wasn’t a reaction to something funny. No. It went on too long for that. It was a laugh I couldn’t kiss through, though I tried. She laughed because she was happy, and I laughed with her.
I’d replaced her tears with laughter. I’d done much without her, and I’d done much for her. But I hadn’t achieved anything until I turned her sadness into joy.
Chapter 38
CATHERINE
August was hot and sticky in Rome, but somehow, with the fountains and carless plazas, it was bearable. Maybe Chris made any kind of weather seem perfect.
I looked at my watch.
“She’s going to be late,” Chris said. “You know Lucia’s always late. It’s an Italian thing.”
Something strange had happened between Chris’s ex-wife and me. She’d had us and a few others over for dinner the day after we arrived in Rome the first time, six months earlier. We chatted over wine and I helped her shell peas. We didn’t have a single thing in common except for Chris, which should have inspired me to steer clear of her. But I didn’t.
I liked her.
Apparently she liked me too. The next morning, Chris got a note at the hotel, respectfully requesting permission to be my friend. I felt as if she were asking for my hand in marriage.
“I’ll tell her no,” Chris had said, rooting around his pockets for a pen.
“Don’t you dare!” I snapped the letter away.
“What? Why?”
“She’s different than anyone I ever met before.” I folded the paper and put it back into the envelope. “And she thinks I’m interesting.”
“If it would make you happy…”
“You make me happy.” I slipped my hands under his jacket, circling his waist. “Lucia is entertaining, and I’d like to be her friend. But if it makes you uncomfortable…”
“No, no, no. It’s fine. Just don’t go shopping with her.”
“First, shoes! Then, bags!”
Lucia and I hadn’t bought anything but wine and pastry together, and yes in the six months I’d known her, she’d always been late. You could set your watch to it.
“We have to get moving early if we want to make it to Lake Como.” He tipped back a tiny cup of espresso, finishing it in a single gulp, as expected in Rome.
Across the cobblestone plaza, flower and fruit sellers had set up tables. They did brisk business in single carnations and little, sealed grey boxes. A heavy door into the side of the church was chocked open. A stream of people came in and out. Some went in holding the flowers and boxes and left without them.
“But I want to go to the catacombs,” I said before finishing the last of my pizza, which was a completely different thing in Italy. Just a piece of flatbread with sauce and a dusting of cheese. A snack. “And that apartment in Trastevere feels like home.”
“You want to stay then?” Chris reached across the table for my hand, and I gave it to him.
Behind him, as people passed on the sunlit plaza, the pigeons fluttered up in a wave, cooing and dropping back to peck between the cobblestones. He’d let his beard grow in. I loved running my fingers through it when we kissed.
Chris would go wherever I wanted. He’d show me places he knew or discover new things with me.
“Harper’s coming home from Stanford for break.”
“We can come back, or we can skip the Citta Della whatever festival in Como.”
“Chee-tah. Dio mio, Christopher.” Lucia’s voice came from behind me.
I stood and we double-air-kissed. That had always looked phony to me, but when you actually kissed the person and touched them in some other way, it meant you liked them.
I was surprised how much I liked Lucia. I’d known Barrington and Doverton women who kept their hair and nails perfect like she did, and I knew women who put on fussy airs and cared about status. But none of them were as grounded about it as Lucia. She didn’t gossip, and she didn’t look down on me for my short, unpolished nails or quick ponytail. She liked that I didn’t care about my social station, even as she made no excuses for the fact that she cared deeply.
“Chee-tah, then,” Chris said, double-kissing his ex-wife, who now spent half her year in her home country.
“It’s not a cat,” she said, sitting next to me.
“Whatever. If I need a translator, I’ll hire someone.”
“You can look right in front of you.”
The waiter came before she could explain. She ordered lunch in Italian, I did the same, and Chris ordered in a halting patchwork of syllables that I explained to the waiter.
“Excuse me,” I called to the waiter before he left. In Italian, I asked, “What’s going on over there? With the open door?”
He answered, and I thanked him.
“What was that?” Chris asked.
“It’s the feast day of Saint Monica.”
“From Friends?”
Lucia rolled her eyes and nudged me.
“They’re bringing offerings,” I continued. “Silly man.”
“How is it that you’re at your woman’s mercy?” Lucia asked. “What would you do without her?”
“It was worse in Iceland.”
“Everyone speaks English there,” I protested.
“Two weeks.” He held up two fingers. “Two. And she was talking to people. And not just ordering dinner.”
“I spoke at a third-grade level and I barely had a vocabulary. Seriously. It’s not a big deal.”
Lucia, in typical Italian affection, put her hand over mine. “You have a gift.”
“Well, whatever.” I hid my face by taking a drink of water.
“No,” she tsked, wagging her finger. “This is not to be ashamed of.” The rest she said in Italian too quickly for Chris to understand. “This gift is what God gave you. And if you are ashamed of it, you are ashamed of God.” She slid back into English. “God made me beautiful, and I use it.”
“Indeed,” Chris grumbled amicably.
“Anyway, are you going?” Lucia asked. “To Como?”
“We haven’t decided,” Chris replied.
“I want to see my sister.”
“So you return.”
“Maybe. There’s a lot to see. I don’t know. It’s not like there’s a schedule or a point.” I shut myself up. I’d started to bring up my trouble with Chris. I didn’t want to float around the world all the time. I loved traveling and meeting new kinds of people, but something was missing.
Lucia tapped my arm. “Come with me. Un momento.” Then, to Chris. “We’ll be back.”
She led me across the plaza, not missing a step in six-inch heels on uneven cobblestone. Her bag was tucked under her arm, a gift from her current beau.
“Where are we going?”
She stopped at one of the sellers and bought a little grey box. “To make an offering.”
“What’s in there?”
“Porridge. Don’t look like that. It’s just a little.”
We passed through the doorway, into the back of the basilica. The stone floor was worn smooth, and with the sun in the side of the sky opposite the single stained glass window, the little foyer was dark.
“I told you I’m not getting married again,” she said.
“Have you changed your mind?”
“No. Please. Save me from it.”
Through the far entry, we entered a large nave lit with ceiling lamps. Along one side, a long table was set with candles. Celebrants slipped their carnations inside vases or laid them before the paintings of the saint and left bills and coins in gilded chests. Some prayed at a red velvet rail that ran the length of the table.
Lucia put her box with the rest, dropped cash into the box, and kneeled, tapping me to follow. “Santa Monica was Saint Augustine’s mother. She followed him all over the world. Now, you can say what you like about that. But she was a mother first.”
I nodded while she rested her chin on her folded hands. She was going somewhere, but I couldn’t imagine a destination.
“I love children. Always. I begged to take care of my cousins. I thought I would be a mother. But God gave me a gift instead. He made it so that I had to give myself to children who didn’t have someone to take care of them. I’m not marrying again, at least not soon, because my gift isn’t to be a wife. Chris will vouch for that.” She stood and smoothed her skirt.
I followed her to an empty pew and sat next to her.
“It has been so good to know you,” she whispered.
“Thank you. You too.”
“You pick up what people are saying and speak back to them in their language, but your gift isn’t languages. Your gift is listening.” She took my hands. “I’m going to make you an offer to use that gift.”
“What kind of offer?”
“I need you at the Montano Foundation. It is a big organization all over the world, and it does good work. We feed children and build schools. We need someone like you, who listens and can learn a language. Who is generous. Who wants to help. Children need you.”
My blood thrummed. Work. I’d never had a job. I’d always assumed I didn’t have a skill worth paying for.
Lucia continued, “There will be a lot of travel, but we’ll talk about it later. First, you think about it, because you won’t be so free to move around when you want.”
“Okay. Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
When we got back to the plaza, I could see the café. Our lunches were at the table, and Chris was on the phone. He invested his own money, but still loved taking risks and crunching numbers. He loved his job.
Our lives revolved around two things. My travel whims and his work.
How would a position with Montano, where I’d have to travel where and when I was needed, fit into that?
* * *
Chris and I were alone on a small jet flying out of a private airport outside Rome, taking up two of the eight seats. The rest were empty. We’d stayed in the apartment in Trastevere another week, missing the Como festival. I’d been too wound up to take the short hop to Tuscany. I spoke less, got lost in thought mid-sentence, stared out the window for too long.
I hadn’t told Chris about Lucia’s offer. I wanted to think about it first, but I just kept thinking.
Would I be separated from Chris for weeks? Months?
How could I ask him to prioritize my work and his at the same time?
What did the future look like if I did this?
We were in the air before he spoke. “Catherine.”
“Yes?”
“When we get home, is this over?”
“What?” I was too shocked to make a whole sentence. How could he think that? What had I done?
“Just tell me.”
“Wait…” I twisted in my seat to face him. He’d shaved off his beard, and his eyes were soulful and honest. Had he looked this mournful since I spoke to Lucia? How hadn’t I noticed?
“I want you to be happy,” he said. “But you’ve been saddish.”
Saddish? I’d been thinking about my life, for s
ure. Who I was. What I wanted. He’d turned that into me wanting to leave him, and that wasn’t going to work.
“Christopher Carmichael.” I grabbed the front of his shirt. “You are a piece of my happiness.” I tugged the fabric. “You are the love of my life. Do you hear? Do not ever imply this is over unless you want to end it.”
“Then what’s on your mind?”
I let go of his shirt and smoothed it down. “I wanted to think about something before I told you.”
“Well, you’ve thought enough. We’re partners. You don’t get to think that much without me. Out with it.”
Lucia had put the official offer in an email. I got it up on my phone and showed it to him. His expression went from mild irritation (probably with his ex-wife) to deep consideration, to a sharp nod as he handed the phone back.
“You taking it?”
“I don’t know. I want to, because I’m bored. Not with you,” I said quickly. “Not with you at all. Not with traveling or the new places. I love all the people. I love seeing things I never thought I would, and there are so many things I never even imagined. Northern lights. Pompeii. So much. But I’m bored with myself. I don’t have a purpose. I’m not fighting for anything. It’s like…”
I’m dead inside.
But that was too harsh and unfair. He’d breathed life into my heart, but there was only so much he could be for me.
“It’s like you need to become the next version of yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not going to get there globetrotting.”
“Right!”
“But you’re afraid you’ll lose me if you have your own needs.”
He’d hit the bull’s-eye, and he knew it. I couldn’t look at him.
He unsnapped his seatbelt, then undid mine. He looked down the aisle to the front of the plane. The attendant was tapping on her phone in the galley. He craned his neck to the back of the plane, then stood and held his hand out to me. “Come with me or I’ll carry you.”
I laid my fingers in his palm, and he pulled me to the sleeping quarters and snapped the door shut, cutting us off from the rest of the plane. We were alone with a tiny bed and a standing shower. He unbuttoned his shirt.
