In This Life (14 page)

“How does he know where we live?” I asked, my tone steady and even.

“He called after you left the church,” Dante answered guiltily as he repeatedly pulled on his shirt collar.

“Ha! You have each other’s contact info?” I busted out a low pitched laugh.

“We used my phone in Thailand, Anna. Of course he had my number,” Dante answered, his voice thin and weak.

“Great.” I moved away and leaned on the back of the couch. “Dante, please tell him to leave. I don’t want him here in our home.”

Jude shook his head in disbelief before turning in my direction. He placed his hands on his hips and took an admonishing stance. Although we stood just several feet apart from each other, my mind was on an island in the Pacific far, far away. For no matter how much I tried to tune everything out, all I could do was remember.

“Our home?” Jude asked, genuinely confused. It was like a scene from a comedy. We were all so focused on our individual pain that none of us were listening to each other.

Dante approached him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and began to push him towards the door. “Dude, you’d better go. You can talk to her when she’s calmed down.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “No. Anna, please! We need to talk!” Despite being furious at him, there it was again, that strange phenomenon that made me want to touch him.

I stood steadfast in my place, arms crossed, feet squarely on the ground. Dante paced back and forth, first towards me, and then towards him.

Jude’s look turned from baffled to incensed. He squinted his eyes and shook his head, as if he had just heard the most ludicrous thing in the world. With his chest puffed up like a rooster, his eyebrows drawn together, and his tone marked and derisive, he asked once again, “You two live together?”

“Something your new BFF neglected to tell you?” Interesting. It was my turn to throw the dagger.

“Spark, no,” Dante pleaded as he unsuccessfully tried to block Jude from my view.

I deliberately flitted across the room until my face was merely inches from his. He actually thought I was going to kiss him. The way he closed his eyes and tilted his head towards me. The way he sucked in a breath and inhaled deeply.
Presumptuous bastard. I needed to rethink this battle strategy, build up a resistance before it was too late. Soon enough, it would happen. He would demolish me and walk away without a second thought.

Dante gasped in fearful anticipation as I formed every single syllable with my lips. “We. Are. Married. And that just means that we fuck. Every. Single. Day. Now get out.”

Dear Fate,

Go away. Leave me be. Allow me to live with my loss, the truth, this revelation.

“ANNIE? CAN I
come in?”

Mikey knocked softly on my door, seeking permission to enter as I lay in bed wallowing in self-pity. I didn’t know where they were, didn’t care what happened next. I abandoned them in my outrage while they stood motionless and defenseless.

“Sure,” I answered, bundling up the pile of Kleenex on the floor. I propped my pillows against the headboard and straightened up in an attempt to show my little brother some composure.

He tiptoed in quietly and sat next to me on the side of my bed. I pulled him in for an embrace and rested my head on his shoulder for a few seconds before allowing him to lift his head up and take my hands in his.

“I’m sorry for ruining our holiday. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow. Let’s go to the mall. Let me get you those basketball shoes you’ve been wanting,” I rambled in apology.

He smiled at me. That sweet, loving face; he didn’t deserve to see me like this. He’d been through so much already.

“You don’t have to. I have enough shoes,” he said. “I just want you to be okay.”

“I will be.”

“So that’s the guy, huh? The one from Thailand?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy.”

“I’m sorry, Annie. I didn’t know that you’d been suffering all this time.”

“No, no. I haven’t been. That was so long ago. I was just shocked this morning, that’s all. I’ll get over it. I always do, don’t I?” I tried to add some levity to my tone.

“You do.” He paused for a second and then his lips began to quiver. “I worry about you, Annie. I don’t think you’ve gotten over losing Mom yet.”

“None of us will ever get over that, Mikey. Have you?”

He kept his eyes glued to the view from the window, trying with all his might not to let me see him cry. “I miss her so much. If she were here, I know that you wouldn’t be carrying all this on your own. The way that you’ve been taking care of me. It’s not fair that you have to take me on, too.”

“Oh! No, baby! No. I love taking care of you! You’re the reason why I’ve been able to get through this! And I will always want to look after you. I love you so much. I’m so lucky that I have you in my life. Don’t say that, Mikey. All you need to do is study hard and do well in school. That will be my greatest gift. Your success in life.”

He smeared his hand across his face and sniffed. “Thank you for everything, Annie. I love you, too. Dudes aren’t worth crying about. You can get anyone you want. Look at the way Dante is crazy about you. He tells me every single day.” He crossed his eyes in jest. “It gets kind of annoying to see someone so whipped like that.”

I broke out in a peal of laughter. “Whipped, huh?” I pushed him off the bed playfully. “I don’t think a guy like Dante can ever love a girl more than he loves himself.”

“He said that was before he loved you.” The statement warmed my heart.

“Is he here?” I asked as I slid to the opposite side of the bed to stand up. I walked to the bathroom sink and started to rinse off my face.

“Yup. He’s watching some Bollywood movie on Netflix. Something about some girl and a Mr. Darcy.”

“Ah! Bride and Prejudice. He’s watching it without me?” I called out to him while brushing my teeth. “Can you ask him to come in here?” I smoothed my hair in the mirror and wiped my face dry with a towel.

“Sure. Goodnight, Annie. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Mike!” I yelled from the bathroom. “Thanks for checking on me!”

“Spark?” Dante entered the room shyly, keeping his downcast eyes towards the floor.

I switched off the bathroom light and settled on the chaise facing the window. The view of Manhattan from this place never ceased to impress me. I spent many nights looking out at the sky from here, wondering, wishing, and constantly convincing myself to enjoy what I had in Dante.

“Hi. I’m okay now. Come sit next to me.”

He hurried across the floor and took me in his arms. “I’m so sorry, baby. I didn’t want it to go down like this at all.”

I leaned into him, accepting the warmth of his body. Whatever his reasons were, I wanted to know about them.

“Tey, what did you think would happen if I found out? For five years, I blamed myself, wondered whether or not I had imagined what happened in Thailand. You watched me go through it and never said a word.” Tears started to form in my eyes. It still hurt to talk about the events of the last few years. “All you had to do was tell me.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry. When I arrived back from Thailand, your life was unraveling at warp speed. I didn’t want to add to your stress and pain. When Grayson told me that he was going to pursue his religious vocation, I saw no point in hurting you even more. And you must know, a large part of it was because I wanted you all for myself. I waited so long, Spark. I waited so long to have you.”

“But what you kept from me, Tey. I could’ve closed the door on him years ago.”

“I know,” he said, his eyes still glued to his knees. “But through all these years, I’ve tried to make up for it. Tried to make you forget.”

He was right. Our endless trips to every part of the world, his friendship, his loyalty.

I turned to face him, gently resting my elbow on his shoulder. “You will always have me. We’ve been best friends for ten years. And I’m your wife.”

“Married for only a year,” he interjected. “You’ve just now learned to love me, and he’s back to take you away.” He tipped his head upwards and stared at the ceiling. Focusing on anything but me.

I laughed at that preposterous suggestion. “Yeah, right. At least not in this life.”

“He’s not yet a priest,” Dante muttered under his breath.

“What do you mean?” I asked, surprised.

“He’s a deacon. He said something about it being the last step before taking the vow of priesthood. I knew he was assigned to assist at SPJ, and that’s why I told you not to attend mass there.”

“Did you guys keep in touch a lot?”

“No, not really a lot. He would text to check in on you once in a while. He knew where you were training and kept tabs on your progress in school through me. But that’s it. I would hear from him every few months, tops. I was sure that he’d already been inducted by now.”

He watched for my reaction as he explained himself. I could see that he was relieved of this burden. Dante and I never held any secrets from each other, so this must have been really difficult for him. But that didn’t change the fact that I was angry at him. That my trust had waned albeit slightly. I needed space to figure things out. Seeing Jude brought back so many feelings, so many emotions. I no longer knew which side was up.

“Tey? I have to tell you something. Mikey goes back to school on Monday. I’ve decided to stay by the hospital for a while, stay at the apartment close by. I really need to be in my own place and sort things out in my head. This whole thing, it’s really shaken me up.”

“Are you…” He hesitated. “Are you leaving me?” He turned to face me, searching for my eyes.

“I could never leave you, Tey. You’re the most important person in my life. But I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved. And so I think that being on our own for a while will be good for both of us.”

“What about Mikey? Do you need help with his tuition for the semester?”

I reached out my hand to caress this sweet man’s face. “No, baby. We’ll be fine. I’ve got a buyer for my mom’s car, and I’ll use that money for the rent on the apartment. Mikey’s school has a monthly plan that takes directly from my paycheck.”

“You know, you’ll be richer than me once you finish residency, don’t you? You’ll be supporting me very soon,” he said, trying as always not to make me feel inadequate about my current financial situation.

“Haha, right, Mr. Millionaire. Fat chance in hell.” I scooted my body so that my knees rested on his lap. He wrapped his arms around me.

“What is it with you and hell lately?” he said with a laugh. “Everything is hell. Hell. Hell. Hell. What about heaven? What about goodness and light?”

“I live that every day. With you,” I whispered, planting tiny kisses along the outline of his ear. I closed my eyes and savored the feel of his skin on my lips. He smelled heavenly. He was my blue sky. My sunshine. My light. I pulled his hand to my face and pressed it to my cheek. He leaned over to kiss me, and slowly, sensually, I kissed him back.

“Will you fuck the hell out of me?” I taunted as I slipped my hands underneath his shirt.

“The hell I will!” he snorted. And we both sank to the floor in a fit of giggles.

I’D BEEN ON
my own for two weeks. Dante hadn’t allowed me to take all my stuff and move it to my new place. He needed some assurance that I was coming back, so we compromised on leaving a few of my things in the spare room next to his.

I returned to my one bedroom apartment in Pomona, about a thirty minute drive from the hospital. It was more than I could afford at my salary considering Mikey’s tuition obligations, but I truly believed that the time away would do us both some good.

There were a handful of co-workers from the hospital who witnessed the incident at the church on Thanksgiving morning. Afihsa asked me about it one day in the middle of a staff meeting. The hushed whispers, the looks of pity that greeted me in the hallway, it all started to make sense after she confronted me about it.

“Was that the guy?” she had asked. “You didn’t tell me it was serious.”

“It wasn’t!” I barked. “It was ten days. It wasn’t.”

Jude had deserved his shame, but in the end, this was my territory, and I was the one left holding the bag. Small world, great big coincidences.