Asking for Trouble (18 page)

Okay. Enough was enough.

“What?” she asked the woman, frowning, confused beyond definition.

The woman looked at her and smiled knowingly. “I’m sorry. Ignore me.” Sydney wished she could, but the woman had total control of her feet, and the yawning darkness was only steps away. “I don’t handle this sort of thing very well, so I make jokes. I loved Edward, and I’m going to miss him. I’m just a little nervous to see what’ll happen when we’re all in the same room with his wife.”

“Wife?” What
was
she talking about? Who was Edward? Who was “we”? And who cared about Edward’s wife? She forced her feet to stop and steeled herself not to move another inch, but the woman was determined.

“Well, surely you must have realized she’d be here, dear,” she said, opening the door and dragging Sydney inside with her.

“No,” Sydney protested, fear gripping at her throat and abdomen. Gripping and twisting until she thought she might scream with the discomfort. Sydney shook her head. She was going blind. Except for the woman’s face, she saw only nothingness.

“Truly,” the woman said soothingly. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be right here beside you.”

“No. I ... can’t see ...” Her feet were moving again. Where was her will? Why couldn’t she take control of her own body from this woman? she wondered, feeling hopelessly lost.

“It’ll be fine. You’ll see. You want to say good-bye to Edward, don’t you?”

Although she couldn’t see, her feet followed the woman. What little control she had left was instantly fried in the sensory overload.

She cried out and turned back to the door. Like the proverbial bat out of hell, she flew through the darkness using her own personal radar system to guide her.

“Please. Please. Let me out,” she cried. “I have to get out of here.”

“Ma’am? I’m Jeffrey—”

“I need to get out of here,” she told him, straining her eyes to focus on his face. In her desperation her mind seized on another idea. “I need Tom. He knows. He’ll get me out.”

“Tom? Mr. Ghorman? Tom Ghorman?”

“Yes. Take me to his office. Please. I have to get out of here.”

“He’s not in his office. Perhaps there’s something I can do for you. I’m the director of—”

“What do you mean he’s not in his office? Didn’t he come in to work today?”

“Well, yes, he did. But only to speak to the movers.”

“What movers? What are you talking about? Can’t anyone make sense in this place?” she wondered aloud, thinking it very possible that hell could be a place in which people spoke incongruously and illogically.

“Mr. Ghorman has had his offices moved to the Fargo Building on Hampton Avenue. But if there’s anything I can do for you ...”

“Why did he do that? I came all the way over here to show him how much I loved him and to see the expression on his face and to ... and now ...” She threw her hands out in despair. She wanted to cry, planned to cry as soon as she was safe.

“You could go over to the new office,” he suggested, looping a comforting arm around her shoulders. “It’s only fifteen minutes from here, and I’m sure he’d be glad to see you.” He hesitated briefly. “You’re the lady he met on TV, right?”

She nodded and took the bright white handkerchief he pressed between her fingers. She didn’t need it yet, but it gave her something to do with her hands.

“Well, then, I know for sure that he’ll be glad to see you. Tom and I are good friends.”

She was walking again, but she had no idea where she was going. She could only hope that Tom’s friend knew where he was going.

“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll call Tom and have him come back here. How’s that?”

“But I can’t stay here,” she mumbled, twisting the handkerchief into a small rope. “I’m already blind, and I think I’m going to have a heart attack if I don’t throw up first. I was so sure that I could do this. Just once. Just to show Tom that I love him.”

“Well, I think he’ll get the idea. If ... if I seat you here, will you be all right for a second or two while I call Tom? You won’t move, will you?” he asked, lowering her onto a deacon’s bench in the foyer. She nodded. “Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.”

She trembled in the darkness and listened to the hammering of her heart. Seconds ticked by sluggishly while her apprehensions multiplied. What if Jeffrey didn’t come back? she agonized. What if she spent the few seconds she had left of her life sitting on a bench and didn’t get to tell Tom that she loved him? Was this it? Was whatever lay beyond life a perpetual state of waiting? Like an eternal express lane? Was this all there was to dying? The blackness? The quiet? The waiting for something to happen? Was this all there was? She’d accomplished some of the major goals she’d set for her life, but there were still so many things she’d wanted to do. She wasn’t finished living yet.

A door opened and closed far away, and she waited to hear Jeffery’s voice again. She soon sensed a presence beside her and waited for him to speak.

Instead she heard someone weeping, softly, almost noiselessly, but with such deep pain and sorrow that it penetrated her terror and tore at the fiber of her heart.

Nature has a way of seeking out an equilibrium. All the elements in the universe eventually came into balance. Sydney was no exception. She knew agony when she heard it. And even through her own distress, she knew it was far greater than her own and instinctively sought a balance.

She turned her head and let the image of a young blond woman form in her consciousness. She was sitting next to her in a rigid upright position, eyes closed and damp with tears, her lower lip clenched tightly between her teeth as if the tension would control the quiver in her chin.

It was several long seconds before the woman picked up on Sydney’s concern and sympathy and opened her eyes.

“I thought we had forever,” the young woman muttered vaguely, stunned in her grief. “He promised me forever.”

In the most natural, unthinking manner, Sydney reached out and gathered her into her arms. Without embarrassment and in no disgrace, the woman took comfort in her embrace. She cried tears from her soul. Bitter tears that sprang from the waste of a dream. Burning tears that came from the loss of a loved one. Biting tears that poured forth from the destruction of part of her spirit.

No words were exchanged. None were necessary. They were two women in pain, two women battling in defeat against the uncontrollable. Real and imaginary, the fear and torment were the same.

She held the young woman without weariness. There was a comfort in the sharing and understanding. There was a serenity in taking on a pain far more immediate than her own, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Tom had ever felt the same sort of soul-linking kinship with his clients that she felt with the woman in her arms.

“Jeannie?” a soft voice broke in.

The head on Sydney’s shoulder lifted at the sound of the voice. In a dazed fluster the woman looked at her.

“I’m sorry ... I ... Thank you. I’m very sorry,” she said, her voice cracking with sudden awkwardness and discomfort.

“No. I’m sorry. For your loss.”

She nodded, and her gaze met Sydney’s with a unique type of silent gratitude. It was a look that Sydney would never forget.

A shadowy arm stretched out for the woman, and she left willingly, leaving Sydney alone on the deacon’s bench. Still basking in the warm sensation of being human, Sydney sat back and took note of other shadows.

As if looking through darkly tinted sunglasses, she saw the few sparse pieces of finely carved antiques set about the vestibule. The Queen Anne chairs, the ornate pattern in the rug, the doors leading ...

The doors!

Like a hostage with one final chance at escape, she didn’t hesitate. She bolted for the main doors, already sucking in the fresh air of freedom when the doors opened.

“Sydney!”

“Tom!” It seemed fitting that he stood on the other side of the threshold in the sunlight, in her sanctuary, one step beyond the gloom.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, catching her in his arms as she flew past him.

She clung to him, safe at last. For long minutes they said nothing. It was enough to simply hold tight to each other, to feel loved, to belong. But the link between time and reality was a solid connection, and the truth couldn’t be put off indefinitely.

“It didn’t work, Tom,” she said, disheartened and miserable, recognizing her opportunity to cry, to release her emotions. “I tried. I wanted it to work, but it didn’t.”

“What?” he asked, brushing short blond locks of hair away from her face and, when they were out of the way, brushing her cheek tenderly because he loved touching her. “What were you trying to do here?”

“Cure myself.” She sniffed loudly. “I thought if I stood up to my fears, that I could find some way to deal with them, and we could—” she shrugged off the rest of her sentence, knowing it would hurt too much to list her hopeless wishes out loud.

“What happened?” he asked softly.

Through a blur of tears she met his gentle, inquisitive gaze and found it hard to sustain in her shame. She walked away from him as she spoke. “It was worse than I ever imagined. I was a basket case. Ask your friend Jeffrey.” She sat down on the steps and wrapped her arms around her, gripping her jacket to contain the tremors that came in the aftershock. “I made a fool of myself, and of you.”

“With who? Jeff?” he asked, sitting down beside her. “I don’t think so. He told me you were beautiful and that I was a lucky guy.”

“Everyone must go blind in there,” she said, dejected.

Tom exhaled slowly, biding his time. He could see that Sydney wasn’t as happy with what she’d done as he was. She was upset and disappointed—he was thrilled. He concentrated on keeping a concerned frown on his face so he wouldn’t grin, and waited for her to realize that he had her right where he wanted her.

“I don’t know where I got the idea that this would work,” she said, folding her arms across her knees and lowering her head to hide her tears. The gentling hand on her back did little to console her.

“If it matters at all, I’m not disappointed that it didn’t work.”

“It matters to me,” she mumbled into her lap. “What if I never get over this fear I have of dying?”

“Then you never get over it.”

“But what about us? You moved your office for me, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He wanted to shout with joy. He wanted to kiss her, take her there and then on the steps of the mortuary and make love to her for the rest of time. He wanted to leap park benches and dance in a fountain. But it didn’t seem like the right moment. “I moved the offices so that you could have as much or as little to do with my professional life as you could handle. But as far as I’m concerned, you don’t have to have anything at all to do with it. You don’t even have to think about it. Tell your friends I’m a mailman or an antiques dealer. Tell them anything you’re comfortable with. It’s my personal life I want you to be a part of, and I’m perfectly willing to keep them two complete and different entities.”

“Why?” she cried, turning to look at him with a tearstained face, clearly lost to his thinking. “Why would you go to all that trouble for me? Why do you want me so badly, when you could have any number of normal women?”

His brows rose as if he were surprised by the question. “You mean aside from the fact that you’re bright and intelligent and beautiful and kind and giving, why do I want you? I don’t know. I guess I must love you,” he said, looking more serious than he felt.

“You’re as crazy as I am,” she said. Her chin quivered, and she turned her head to keep him from seeing.

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

“No! It isn’t,” she said, turning back to tell him why. His face was mere centimeters away, and his eyes were brimming with his emotions. Spring flowers bloomed in her heart under the steady scrutiny of his sky-blue eyes. If she were going to live forever—and she had every intention of doing so—she wanted to wake up every morning to blue skies and happiness, the kind she saw in his eyes.

“It is great,” she murmured softly, touching his lower lip tentatively with a finger. “But it’s not going to be easy.”

“Name one good thing that is easy,” he said before he kissed her.

“I do love you,” she said.

“I know,” he said before he kissed her again.

They sat shoulder to shoulder, heads together, fingers entwined, on the steps of the funeral home with no place special to go, no one more important to see, and nothing urgently needing their attention but their closeness.

“I’m proud of you,” Tom said, his tone of voice telling her how much. “It took a lot of guts to come here for me.”

Self-consciously she looked down at his long, well-shaped fingers and watched as they traced the lines on the palm of her hand. Braving her fears wasn’t exactly the success she’d hoped for, but she conceded to the idea that it was a step in the right direction—Tom’s direction. With all they had going for them, compromise in this part of their life together didn’t seem like too much to ask. It beat the alternative.

“Did you ... have you always worked in the office here, or have you done other things?” she asked, not sure if she really wanted to hear his answer.

“My father was running the show when I graduated from college. I ... worked my way up the ladder. Why?”

“Were you ever the funeral director here?”

“Not here, but at the West Side home for a while.”

“Did you ever hold someone when they were in pain? I mean, someone crying because of—” the flip of her hand finished her sentence.

“We call it comforting in the trade,” he said, teasing her. Then more seriously he added, “And, yes, I’ve held someone in pain once or twice.” He paused. “People are strange creatures. Most of them come here acting stoic and in control, and then go home and cry alone. It’s sad really. Who besides a mortician or a doctor or maybe a minister would understand their grief better?” The long, hard look she gave him made him nervous. “Why do you ask?”

“You do good work, Tom Ghorman,” she said, her voice quiet and inspired. “What you do is good.”

“Well, thank you.” He was grinning, but overall his expression was a little bewildered.