The Coming of Anna (The Manhattan Series) (6 page)

He lets me lie on my dress on the roundabout and lies
against me, holding me tight.  I feel tears streaming across my face, but these
are happy tears.  I have experienced ultimate love with the man I love above
anything in this world.

It is time for the yearly teacher’s conference.  In the
past, I always looked forward to this event.  It is fun to catch up with
colleagues.  A teacher’s life can be very difficult; even lonely at times.  You
stand in front of a class with so many faces in front of you.  But they do not
really share your life.  They have no part in what makes you smile or cry once
you close your front door behind you.  In the past, I have run into many
teachers who share the same loneliness, the same frustrations that I have, when
I came to the conference. 

This year is so much different.  How will I get through the
next week without Thomas?  I have grown so used to having him around.  I have
fallen asleep in his arms every night and he has been there every morning when
I wake up.  When the days at school get tough, the one thing that carries me
through, is the thought of going home and making love to him. 

I am closing my bag just as Thomas enters the room. 

His voice is gruff when he says:  “I am going to miss your
sweet face.”

I look up at him and I can see the emotion in his dark
eyes.  I am amazed at myself when I realize that I am close to crying.  I
better not cry in front of him!  He will think I am being childish!

I swallow back the tears.  “It is only for a week.  And I
promise I will call you every night.”

“But you will still not be here.  I won’t be able to hold
you in my arms and smell your hair.  I won’t be able to hear that little snore
you have when you sleep.”

I laugh to hide my own feelings.  “Don’t worry, you will
survive.  And when I get back, we will make up for time lost.”

“Before you leave, I want to make sure you will think about
me every day and every night.”

“Thomas,” I smile at him, “we don’t have time for that!  I
will be late for my flight.”

He reaches inside his pocket and when he takes my wrist in
his hand, my eyes widen at the sight of the beautiful bracelet.

“Thomas!  That is beautiful!”

“You deserve it.  I want you to keep it on and every time
you look at it, you must remember that I love you.  No matter how far you are
away from me, you are right here in my heart.”

I cannot hold the tears back any longer and bury my head in
his shoulder while tears run across my face.  He holds me like this for a while
and I know that he is as sad about me leaving as I am.

He kisses my forehead and gruffly says, “Let’s go.  You must
not miss your flight.”

We drive to the airport in silence.  I am surprised at how
much emotion my trip is causing in both of us.  Even though I really do not
want to, I have to go.  These past few weeks have been wonderful and I can
hardly imagine not having him in my bed for the next few nights.  But we are
grown-ups here.  I smile at the thought that the two of us need to stop acting
like two teenagers with raging hormones.

**********

It is a long flight and I struggle to concentrate on my
conference notes in front of me.  Since that night on the rooftop when we
opened up about our feelings for each other, we have been growing closer and
closer with each passing day.  During the past month we spent as much time
together as possible.  We went for picnics, went to the movies, went to dinner
a few times and often just lay in each other’s arms.  The whole time I thought
I would have a four hour flight during which I could prepare for the
conference.  But now my notes lie in front of me and the letters seem to be
swimming in front of me.  All I can think of is Thomas. 

I look up when I hear a familiar voice:  “Hello, Anna.”

Oh God, I did not expect to see anyone familiar on the
flight over.  Least of all Anton Brouchard!

“Hello Anton.  How are you?  I did not expect to see you on
this flight.”

“Why would I not be?  I am a teacher and this is a teachers’
conference.  When I heard the conference was coming up, I remembered the fun we
had on these excursions in the past.  I saw on the program you were going to be
one of the keynote speakers so I knew I could not miss it.  I strongarmed my
headmaster into letting me come.  And of course I know you never fly in just
before the conference so when I checked flight times, I knew this is the one I
would find you on.  Now don’t look at me that way!  After the way you left, I
think I am owed an explanation, don’t you think?  Now we have a long flight
ahead of us and you have nowhere to run.  What are you drinking?”

I am immediately so angry I can hardly see straight.  I owe
him an explanation?  I feel like strangling him but I just sit in my seat,
hoping he would leave me alone.  I can’t make a scene on an aeroplane.  I am
bound to get myself locked up if I allow myself to act on my feelings towards
this man standing in front of me!

The brazen smile on his face irritates me.  Was there really
a time in my life I thought that he was attractive? 

“Nothing for me, thank you.  You will have to excuse me.  I
have to go through my notes before we land at LAX.”

But Anton just ignores what I said.  He calls the airhostess
to order an orange juice for me and a scotch for him.  I sit and wonder over
the absurdity of the situation. 

When I started teaching at King’s Prep, he took me under his
wing.  He had been there since he started teaching and seemed to be very
popular with the children.  But it always seemed like some of the staff members
did not really get along with him.  Since I did not participate in staffroom
gossip, I knew nothing about staffroom politics. 

I had been teaching at King’s Prep for only three months
when my husband one day decided to tell me he is leaving.  I thought he meant
he was going out of town on business.  It took me a few minutes to realise he
meant he was leaving me; he wanted a trial separation and eventually a divorce. 

My heart was broken and as soon as the news of my separation
started doing the rounds at school, Anton made sure he was there to help out. 
He met me at the front gate of the school every morning, came to my classroom
to check up on me during intervals and made sure he found me wherever I was
working when the children left.  He became my crutch.

When I got the phone call to say my estranged husband has
been diagnosed with HIV and I need to be tested, he was there.  He found me
where I was sitting, shocked and crying, in the back corner of my classroom. 
He forced the whole story out of me.  Then he called my doctor and drove me
over to his surgery.  He sat outside, waiting for me until I came out of my
doctor’s office, more than an hour later.

I spent the night crying and shivering.  The doctor told me
it would be about a week before we would have the results and after that I
would have to have myself tested every month.  Because of the window period
with HIV, I would only know for certain I was clean after six months. Only then
would I really know if I was HIV negative.  I felt gutted.

I took the next two days off work.  I told the headmaster I
had an issue with my divorce I had to deal with.  I did not tell him the full
story.  He knew my husband and he knew that Mark had hurt and humiliated me repeatedly. 
He just knew that something about Mark had upset me yet again.  How could I
tell him that one of his staff members might be HIV positive?  I only told him
I needed time off and he did not force the issue.  He was very understanding. 

After school, Anton came by the house.   I was still living
in the house I had shared with Mark and our children.  He told me about things
that happened at school that day.  Later he made a phone call to have pizza and
a movie delivered.  Around ten he asked if I would be okay alone for the night
and promised to come by on his way to school the next morning.

He arrived with all the trimmings to make breakfast.  When I
saw how late it was, he said that he had already called the school to say he
was under the weather.  He wanted to spend the day with me to make sure I was
okay.  I appreciated the company but could not help the niggling feeling of
guilt at the back of my mind.

We ended up spending the weekend together.  Even though we
shared a bed, we did not make love.  Having the sword of AIDS hang over your
head, does not seem to help your libido much.  But having Anton around helped
me get through it all.  In my eyes he was the greatest gentleman.  He was
willing to be my friend and help see me through the biggest crisis of my life. 
And he did not expect me to have sex with him.  At that low point in my life,
he seemed like the miracle I needed.  He was a friend and confidant.  The
shoulder I needed to cry on.

I am brought back to the present when the hostess hands me
an orange juice. 

“Thank you,” I smile up at her. 

I did not want to cause any unpleasantness by telling her
that I did not want the juice.  I am feeling thirsty but I do not feel like
taking anything ordered for me by this man.  Unfortunately, he knows me well
enough to know that I would not cause a scene and just drink my orange juice
like a good little girl.

Anton lifts his glass:  “Here is to us and a fun time in
LA.”

I just glare at him.

“Anton, you know as well as I do that there is not going to
be any fun time in LA.  I am going to address a room full of people in the
teaching profession and you will be one of them.  The rest of the time I will
be part of the crowd listening to the other speakers.  This conference is very
important to me.  Please don’t ruin it for me.”

“Relax, Girl.  Don’t be so stressed out.  Let down your hair
a bit.  But don’t worry, I won’t bother you any longer.  I will let you get
back to your notes.”

I feel relieved when he gets up and moves back to his own
seat at the back of the plane.  When he leaves, my mind drifts back to that
horrid time.

Anton came by about twice a week.  At school he would be
with me almost every chance he had.  I came to rely on his support. 

After the news that I might have contracted HIV from my
husband, I filed for a divorce.  How could I stay with a man who confessed now
(after the fact) that he had been with so many women that he could not say who
infected him?  Even the prostitutes he had apparently been with, he could not
count.  Odds were that some of the women he had been with had been on drugs, so
he could have got the HIV virus from any one of them.  Why could Mark not have
been like other men and had an affair with my best friend or a colleague?  No,
he had to scrape the bottom of the barrel and put both our lives in danger. 

As usual, I feel the anger towards my ex-husband build in me
again.  Since Thomas came into my life, I thought about Mark and his betrayal
less and less.  Even Anton became little more than a distant memory.  Now,
being cooped up on an aeroplane with him is bringing back all the memories and
all the bad feelings that go along with them. 

Anton supported me through all the turmoil and sadness of
the divorce and the regular HIV tests.  He seemed to be a true friend – a friend
whom I believed I was falling in love with.

Anton wanted to go to court with me the day my divorce was
finalised.  I wanted to go alone.  Everybody advised me against it. 

“If you feel you cannot take one of your children with you,
then ask a friend.  Just promise me you won’t go through it alone,” the
headmaster insisted.

I lied:  “Okay, Sir, I will get a friend to go with me.”

I knew I was not going to.  Couldn’t anybody understand that
I wanted to go through this alone?  Couldn’t they just see that it was so much
easier for me not to share this experience with anyone?  Maybe I had to prove
to myself that I was strong enough to rid myself of a marriage that literally
put my life in danger.  Maybe I had to prove to myself that I was worth standing
up for, that I was worth fighting for a new life for myself.  They all meant
well but they had a difficult time believing that I was strong enough to go
through the divorce on my own, not leaning on anyone.

The evening after my divorce was finalised by the court,
Anton knocked on my door with a bottle of champagne and some flowers in hand. 
I was happy to see him.  I wasn’t hungry and I did not plan to cook anything
that evening.  I ended up cooking us a simple dinner of scrambled eggs and he
opened the champagne. 

He put on some music and after dinner held out his hand for
a dance.  My head turning a bit from the champagne, I allowed him to pull me to
my feet.  He held me close and in that moment I felt a peace come over me.  I
finally knew I was free.  Not only was I free from the shackles of a loveless
marriage but I received the final results from the lab the day before,
confirming my status as being HIV Negative. 

When Anton bent down his head to kiss me, I did not resist. 
His kiss was soft and comforting but he soon parted my lips with his tongue. 
Was this wrong?  No!  I am a single woman!  How can it be wrong?

I ignored the voice at the back of my mind telling me that I
did not really love him.  He was good to me.  He was a good friend and nowhere
did it say that I couldn’t learn to love someone who seems to always be there
for me.

I did not resist when he took off my blouse and unclipped my
bra, all while still kissing me.  I did not resist when he carried me to my
bedroom and lay me down on the bed.  I watched in silence as he first took off
my pants and then my panties.  I felt the cool night air over my naked body
while I quietly watched him get rid of his clothes.

He lay down next to me and started kissing me again.  The
champagne made my head spin and in a far corner of my mind, I was thinking that
I did not really want to do this.  However, I convinced myself that I had
fallen in love with Anton and I suppose this is the logical next step.  I was
not married anymore and both of us were legally and morally allowed to do what
we wanted to.  The children have grown up and have moved into their own
apartment about a month before, so it was just me in that big house.  So why
could I not allow myself to give in to the fire that must still have been burning
inside me?  All it needed was a little flame of passion to ignite it again, I
told myself.