The One That Got Away (19 page)

The shrilling of my phone jogs me awake early Sunday morning. Noah.

“Hey, babe. Everything okay?” I say groggily, pushing myself up on my elbows in bed.

“Nope, not at all,” he says, voice like a whip, and I freeze in horror. Somehow, I don't know how, he has found out about the kiss. And I have absolutely no excuse for what I did. Wilting with shame, I wait for him to continue.

“The fucking clients have decided to push up the closing by two weeks. We were already under the gun, but now we are going to have to work literally around the clock to get everything finished in time. And you know what that means.”

I am so shocked that his anger is not directed at me that for a moment all I can do is sag back on the bed, limp with relief.

“Sarina?”

“What?”

He huffs an impatient sigh. “It means I'm going to be working nonstop from here on out. Including next weekend.”

Next weekend, when we were supposed to be rejuvenating our struggling relationship. Which he doesn't even know is struggling as badly as it is.

“Well, I don't mind. I'll be there when you come home from work.”

“I don't think there's any point in you coming anymore.” His voice is as bitter as coffee grounds. “It would have been worth it if I could have actually spent the weekend with you, but if I'm just going to be at the office the whole time—it's a waste of time and money.”

Tears prick at my eyes. “Are you sure? I just want to see you so badly,” I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. Somehow seeing him next weekend has become the magic charm that will restore our relationship to health; if I can't hold him and make love to him, I will be doomed to two more months of unease and uncertainty.

But he says no, as I knew he would. He's right; it makes no sense whatsoever for me to go. I know this. But it doesn't make me any less disappointed.

And what upsets me even more is that somewhere in there, underneath the disappointment that I won't get to see Noah, there's relief.

I'm wide awake, staring at my ceiling, when I hear Danny get home from work at 2:49 in the morning. I have been waiting for him. I can't go another day without talking to somebody about what's going on, and as Eamon's good friend, he is uniquely qualified to offer insight.

“Danny, I want to bunk with you tonight,” I announce.

He glances up from his laptop with a smile. “Come on in, love. Just don't let that cat in; I will only share my bed with humans.”

“I always wondered what your minimum standard was.” I dig a spot for myself under his blankets and neglected laundry.

“Nice one,” he comments without looking at me. “I knew you'd been spending too much time with Eamon Roy.”

After a few more minutes, he shuts the computer with a snap, brushes his teeth, and joins me under the covers. We snuggle companionably, side by side. Nerves keep me quiet until I realize he's about to fall asleep, so I just start letting it all spill out of me.

For some reason, first, I fill him in on my day with Anne-Marie a couple weeks back: her kindness, her unexpectedly on-point suggestions, the gray dress I knew instantly was The One. The details on Noah's first marriage. And then finally I work my way around to her comment, the one about me imagining myself walking down the aisle to Noah in the dress.

“That's awesome, Ree-Ree. She
should
be excited for him to marry you. Anyone should.”

“But that's the thing, though,” I say, in a voice so thin I can barely hear myself. “She was imagining it…but
I
wasn't.”

“Okay…but that's not a big deal, right? So you weren't thinking about that exact thing right then—”

I ball his sheets in my sweaty palms. “No, I mean…I wasn't thinking about it at all, Danny. I was having a fun girls' day with Anne-Marie, and trying not to miss my mom too much, and thinking about how I couldn't wait to send John the photo of me in the dress. I didn't even realize it until she said that later on, but I spent the whole time kind of just feeling all wedding-y and parent-y and verklempt, and I wasn't—I wasn't really thinking that much about Noah.”

He's silent for a moment. Then comes the long
hmmm
, which is ostensibly noncommittal in tone yet is unmistakable Dannyspeak for “Houston, we have a problem.”

“I knooooow,” I whisper. “I don't know what's going on with me. I love him, I truly, truly love him, but it's like every time I try to think about getting married, my mind just goes blank.”

“Hmmm.”

“And that's not even the worst part,” I admit, dreading what his response to the Eamon half of the situation will be.

When I finish the story, he claps his palm to his forehead and says, in an elaborately patient voice, “Okay, clearly there must be something I'm missing. I've been waiting for you two idiots to pull it together for months now. So can you please explain to me what the hell you're doing here in bed with
me
?”

“Aren't you going to yell at me for cheating on Noah? I deserve it.”

“Of course you do. But it's already done. And I don't think you would have done it at all if you were happy with him,” he adds, more gently.

“I
am
happy.”

Danny gives a skeptical grunt. “You used to be. But you haven't been for months, Ree-Ree. Not really.”

I sigh. “The distance has been harder than I expected. Much harder.”

“Are you sure that's all it is?”

“Yes,” I say, because I can't bear to admit aloud that I'm not. “We have some stuff to figure out, but once he's back, we will.”

He doesn't
hmmm
again, but I can still hear him thinking it.

“What do you think about us?” I say quietly after a moment. “Me and Noah. I don't mean right now, I mean the whole thing. Before he left.”

He takes his time to answer, which means he understands what I am asking him, and he understands why. “I think Noah is a great guy,” he says. “Even if he is a yacht-type person.” He waits for me to chuckle in acknowledgment before he continues. “You guys always seemed happy, so I never really thought to question it. I mean, the guy clearly adores you. But seeing you with Ame, it's like…you come more alive. You're you, just…brighter. I've never seen Noah bring that out in you.”

“Eamon has that effect on everyone. Even Newman.”

“Yeah, and as his friend, it's annoying as shit, let me tell you. But we're talking about
you
. Listen, I'm not the one inside your relationship, or inside your friends-who-urgently-want-benefits thing with Ame. All I can do is tell you what I see from the outside. But to me it looks like you two kids are crazy about each other. So, make of that what you will.”

After that, he falls asleep. But I stay awake, thinking. I think about what Eamon said, about me postponing commitment to Noah because I don't truly want it. I know it's not as simple as that…and yet. I've always scoffed at women who embroidered elaborate wedding plans before they were even engaged, picking locations and colors and first-dance songs. I took pride in my un-girlie disinterest in all of those trappings of the Wedding Industrial Complex. But now, in the soft darkness with Danny breathing beside me, I wonder if there was more to it than that.

I am nursing my third cup of coffee on Monday afternoon when my phone explodes with “Back in Black.” I am so tired—specifically from a terrible night's sleep directly attributable to the person who is calling me—that I don't think I am mentally prepared to talk to him right now. I let the phone ring for two seconds, then two more.

That is your client
, I scold myself.
It's your own problem if you can't conduct yourself professionally
.

With a deep sigh, I pick up the phone.

The call is brief. He just has a couple of questions about the house. He's been cooler to me since I told him about my trip to Argentina, and, while I should be relieved, the truth is I'm disappointed. It's awfully good to hear his voice.

“Oh hey,” he says, as he's about to get off the call, “I can't remember, are you leaving for Argentina Thursday or Friday?”

My eyes flick to the framed picture of me and Noah that sits on my desk. We were at the top of the Eiffel Tower, all of Paris spread out beneath us. My hair was whipping into his face and he caught a hank of it between his teeth, like a pirate with a dagger. I remember thinking, as I beamed into the camera he pointed down at us,
This is how it's supposed to be
.

“Actually, I'm not going anymore.”

He waits a beat before replying. “No?” The single syllable is polite, neutral, utterly devoid of intonation. And yet I understand what he is asking as clearly as if he had spoken every word.

“Yeah, Noah had to cancel. His client decided to push up the closing date of their deal, so they're all scrambling to meet the deadline. I'd barely have gotten to spend any time with him, so it wasn't worth it to go all the way down there.”
It had nothing to do with you. My relationship is on solid ground. We are not breaking up
.

“That's too bad. Is his job always this intense?”
Does he always blow you off for work?

“Not usually—this rotation is just extra-tough. Once he's home, the hours won't be nearly as bad. But at least with the deal closing sooner, he'll be home sooner.”
Once he gets home, he'll have time for me again. We will shore up the foundation of our relationship, and you will not be able to make any more cracks in it
.

“Good, I'm glad to hear that.”
I don't believe you, but I'm not going to push you on it. Not right now. But we are not through with this yet
.

After my mom first got sick, when I was eleven years old, I became obsessed with the concept of premonitions. I was convinced that the universe held clues to the future, if only I could figure out how to read them. I became acutely attuned to every cry tossed into the wind by a crow gliding over our house, every movement of the winter-bare branches of the dogwood tree outside my bedroom window. I would observe the phenomena of my daily life, watching for a moment seemingly ordinary, yet imbued with warning of misfortune to come.

But the warning never came. Our lives unraveled slowly; they had already started to fray before we even knew it, before the lump was big enough for her to find (actually, John found it—he told me so, many years later and several beers in, still wondering what if he'd noticed it sooner). And at the end, I didn't need a premonition to tell me she was dying.

I doubt that, even if I had been watching, there would have been any warnings to analyze on the day that I find out about John. It's a sunny, innocent afternoon in early November, the day I was supposed to be flying down to Buenos Aires to see Noah, but instead I am with Eamon, shopping for his sofa in one of the high-end furniture stores downtown. My cell starts ringing, deep
in the recesses of my bag, and, fumbling, I almost don't catch it in time. Then I see my stepsister Janet's name on the screen, and my hand starts shaking so hard I can barely hold the phone.

“Sarina?” As soon as I hear her voice, I know it's bad.
Please no, not yet
. John is supposed to live to be a hundred; that was the unspoken deal. Fear is turpentine in my mouth.

“What's happened?” I whisper.

“He's—he's dying,” she blurts. She starts babbling, something about a massive brain tumor, just discovered, no symptoms, and bleeding, but I can barely hear her over the roaring in my ears. The phone slips from my sweat-slick fingers and clatters on the wood floor of the showroom, where I stare at it like it's a backwoods copperhead. I will not pick it up. I cannot bear to go on hearing the things that Janet is saying to me, which cannot possibly be true.

Dimly I feel Eamon's arm go around my waist and guide me into a chair. His voice telling me to breathe, breathe. After a minute I realize Eamon is holding the phone to my face with one firm hand and Janet is still talking, saying my name, over and over again.

“Sarina. Sarina? Are you still there?”

I inhale uncertainly and take the phone back from Eamon. “Yeah. Uh. I'm sorry. What were you asking me?”

“I was asking when you can come. His doctor thinks he only has a few days.”

This is impossible, and I tell her so. “But I just saw him a few months ago. He was fine. He was
great
.”

“I saw him a few
weeks
ago,” she says, subtly reminding me that she lives closer, sees him more often, is a better daughter. His real daughter. “The first time I noticed anything wrong was when I talked to him a couple days ago. He seemed out of it. Confused. So I drove down and took him to the hospital and they ran an
MRI. The doctor said it's been there awhile but it's growing very quickly now, and it's too advanced for them to operate. They can't relieve the bleeding”—her voice wobbles, then she forces herself to continue—“the bleeding in his brain. Please, you need to come.”

“I don't understand, how can this be happening so quickly?” I can hear panic in my own voice, and little-girl disbelief. As if somehow I had forgotten that people I love are capable of dying.

“We should be grateful. He's not in any pain, he's just so disoriented, it breaks my heart.”

I sob at the thought of him weak and confused, his bright blue eyes unfocused, his quick mind blunted. It's unendurable. “I'm coming,” I whisper, as much to him as to her. “I'll be on the first flight home. Please…please tell him to hang on.”

Her voice is tiny and sad. “I will. We'll see you soon.”

Numbly, I hang up and set the phone in my lap. I breathe in, then out. It is an unthinkable affront that everything else in the world is exactly the same as it was two minutes ago: the sun is still shining, sifting through the branches of the trees across the street; I'm still sitting here in Urbanspace, surrounded by beautiful furniture that costs three times my monthly rent. The hip Europop music is still piping away in the background.

Eamon is squatting in front of my chair, looking up at me with worried brown eyes.

“John?” he says quietly, and I nod, feeling my face contort as I struggle not to cry. If anything could possibly make this worse, it would be having a meltdown in the middle of a store, in front of a client and a vendor I work with all the time. Not looking at him, I waver to my feet and hurry toward the door. I force myself to take deep breaths as I walk back to the Jeep, focusing on what I'll have to do to prepare for the trip.

When I reach the car I stand perfectly still next to the
passenger-side door, staring at the gold tips on my Allens boots, while I wait for Eamon to catch up to me. I think back to the day John gave them to me, four months ago. Were there any signs I missed? He has been gradually growing more forgetful over the last few years, but that didn't seem like cause for alarm, given his age; we always just joked about him having a “senior moment.” How could a deadly tumor have been growing in his brain, and I never noticed anything wrong until it was too late? What about that time he fell out of his chair while we were on the phone? Was his balance failing? Why didn't I tell him to go get checked out?

I press my hands against my face, trying to push back the urge to scream and pound the car with my fists. Histrionics won't help John right now. From what Janet said, nothing will. As I try to tamp down on a rising sob, I choke.

After a moment I feel Eamon's gentle hand on my shoulder. “What happened?”

“Uh, he—he has a brain tumor,” I say, not taking my eyes off my boots. I know the compassion I'll see in his face will completely unhinge me. “Apparently it's been there for a while and just hasn't caused any symptoms until now. I have to go home right away. He doesn't have long.”

Eamon begins rubbing circles on my back with his hand. “There's nothing they can do?”

“She said no. My stepsister. I hate that I'm not there with him now. I should be, I'm the only thing left of my mother,” I mumble. “I have to be there for both of us. I only hope I can make it there before—” My throat locks and I can't finish the sentence.

I hear him whisper, “Come here, baby,” and then his arms are wrapped around me so tightly it's as if he's trying to physically absorb this ache that's spilling out of me in ugly, gulping waves. I cry until my breathing is gaspy and hitchy and my throat is hoarse
from sobbing. I had forgotten the way grief can just drown you sometimes.

“It's just too soon,” I croak, when I can speak. “He's only seventy. He's supposed to be there to see me get married, and spoil the hell out of my kids. He's been accumulating model buildings for years to torture them with. I can't stand him not being there for all of that. I can't handle it.”

“He will be there, sweetheart,” Eamon says, stroking my hair. “You'll always have him with you, just like you have your mom.”

“Oh, that is such a load of shit,” I snarl, pulling free of him. “Only somebody who's never lost anyone would say that. People don't hang around like ghosts after they die. I don't have Ouija board conversations with my mother where I ask her for advice and she guides me to the right answer. Believe me, I would give
anything
to feel her presence. For her to haunt me. But she's been dead for ten years and sometimes I can barely remember what her voice sounded like. I have some paintings, and some photographs, and some memories, and those are getting duller—all the time. She's
gone
, and he will be too.

“And
don't
tell me,” I rage, suddenly infuriated by his helpless face, “don't you dare tell me that I should be happy that they're going to be together again, because I don't believe a word of it. And John doesn't, either. He's not lying there in that hospital bed, peacefully letting go 'cause he knows he's going to see his Leigh again, Eamon, he's just
sick
, and he's dying, and he's probably scared if he's lucid enough to know what's happening. Sick, and frightened, just like she was. And I need to be there. Fuck, why am I still standing here
talking
?” I slam the flat of my palm against the car window.

“Okay,” he says. “Let's go.” He unlocks the car and starts the engine.

While he drives, I call Joe, then Jamie, then Danny and Nicole,
to let them know what's going on. I feel myself go numb as I answer the same questions, accept the same expressions of sympathy and concern.

After a few minutes of silence, Eamon glances at me, a little hesitant. “Do you need anything? Is Danny going to be around to look after Newman? I can cat-sit him if you need me to.”

“No, it's fine, thank you; Danny said he would.” I flash him a half smile. “You're just fishing for an excuse to hang out with my cat.”

He returns the smile. “That might be true. Well, how about I look for flights while you get ready?”

“That's really nice of you, but you don't have to do that.”

“Why not? It might save you some time. It's not like I'm doing anything important today.”

Once we get to the house, he doesn't wait for me to give him permission, he just walks me inside and sets up my laptop at the dining table while I head upstairs to get ready. When I return twenty minutes later, changed and packed, he has Newman balanced in his lap as he works on the computer.

I lean over his shoulder to peer at the monitor. “What're you finding?”

“You're booked on a four-thirty to D.C. with United. You change at Dulles and get into Roanoke at eleven.”

“Oh, that's perfect,” I say gratefully, then pause. “Wait, what do you mean I'm booked?”

“I used my miles,” he says. “I put the return flight in for next Friday, but obviously you can change that to whatever you need.”

I'm floored. “Thank you, Eamon. I'll pay you back when I—”

He shakes his head. “No way. I'm just glad I could do something useful with them. We better get a move on if you're going to make that four-thirty, though,” he says, gently dislodging the cat and getting to his feet.

“We?” I say.

“What, you thought I was just going to put you in a cab? Come on, let's roll.” He clicks the laptop shut and loads it into its carrying case.

I blink away my surprise. “Yeah, okay. Just let me get some food out for Newman,” I say, heading toward the laundry room.

“I already fed him,” he calls after me. “Why do you think he was sitting on my lap instead of yelling at me?”

I glance at Newman, who is sitting on the banquette, washing his belly with one leg over his head, like a tubby ballerina. Eamon drops my duffel onto his shoulder and jingles his keys suggestively. Suddenly I feel like I'm about to cry again.

He steps toward me, cups the back of my neck, and places a gentle kiss on my forehead. “Hey. Tell Newman you'll see him in a few days, and then we gotta go, girl.”

Inhaling sharply against the tears, I do as he tells me. Twenty minutes later we are pulling up to the departures concourse. When the car rolls to a stop at the curb, I turn to him.

“I'm sorry I yelled at you before; I know you were just trying to make me feel better.”

He waves away my apology. “No, you were right. I didn't know what I was talking about.”

“But you were just being kind; I shouldn't have screamed at you.”

“You don't have to apologize,” he says. “Now, hurry up before you miss your flight.”

“Thank you so much for doing this,” I say softly.

He touches his knuckles briefly to my cheek. “I wish there were more I could do to help. Have a safe trip. And give me a call when you land so I know you got there okay.”

I dig up a smile. “Okay, I will.” On impulse, I lean over and
kiss him softly, just once. Then I hoist my bags over my shoulder and shut the car door behind me before he has a chance to react.

At the gate, I flop down in an almost-empty row of seats, passive-aggressively dumping my bags on one side of me and my jacket on the other. While I wait for the plane to board, I call Noah to give him the news, but, as usual, I just get his voice mail. I hang up without leaving a message. I know it's not his fault—he's working—but I still feel a mounting sense of frustration. It's one thing to have to wait for a late-night callback to discuss the events of an ordinary day, but when the news is that somebody I love is dying, I don't think it's unreasonable to want to be able to talk to him right away.

Suddenly furious, I call him back. “Hey, Noah,” I tell his voice mail, “just calling to let you know that I just found out that John is dying, and I'm heading to Virginia. Sorry to leave such a bummer message on your voice mail, but that seems to be the extent of our communication these days, so, there you are. Call me when you get the message, but if I don't answer, it's 'cause I'm on a plane.” I click off and stare out the window, watching as one silver jet after another arrows up into the sky. The message will make him feel terrible, and he doesn't deserve it. He has no way of knowing how badly I need him right now.
As opposed to all the other times he didn't pick up when I only
sort of
needed him
, I think, and sigh.

When I board the plane, I hunt in vain for my seat before realizing Eamon has put me in first class. I let the flight attendant shepherd me to my spot, where I burrow into the extra-wide seat. I pick up my iPod and swirl through it to the bluegrass mix that I hardly ever listen to; never listen to, in fact, unless I'm feeling homesick, or it's rainy and cold in Austin. One thing often begets
the other. And today the sweet jingling of fiddle and banjo in my ears is taking me home again.