“Andrew Smith?” Bella asked, disbelieving what she’d heard.
“I know, right? How could this be happening to me?” Ashley moaned, taking a sharp turn to avoid running into the overfull shopping cart that was racing towards her.
On a Sunday, Wal-Mart was bursting at the seams with shoppers. With so many people breathing in the space, it was hot. Angry rants at the slow-moving line at the counter and kids running across Ashley’s path all of a sudden completed the Sunday shopping experience.
“The monthly astro for Pisces in Cosmo said that this was going to be a bad month.” Bella informed.
That didn’t help Ashley feel any better.
“The astrologer wrote that there would be a blast from the past.”
“More like an atom bomb from the past.” Ashley hurled three large packets of Doritos into her cart and eyed the fourth one covetously.
“I haven’t seen Andrew in a while,” Bella said. “Does he still look the same? Tell me his hair’s fallen off, his teeth have yellowed and he looks like a forty-year-old alcoholic.”
How she wished she could say that. “He looks like a GQ cover model. He didn’t have abs before but now he has biceps, triceps, quadriceps… all -ceps, really.”
“He was on the cover of GQ last year,” Kat stated. Although she was a political reporter, she tended to be well informed of things in the media world.
Bella punched a bag of potato chips. “I hate men with good genes.”
“Says the girl who once dated the hottest celebrity on the planet,” Kat mused.
“We all make stupid mistakes when we’re young.” Bella was unruffled by the mention of her ex-boyfriend. Bella had bulldozed past that heartbreak long ago. She was strong like that. Ashley wondered how long it would take for her to get to that level. “But I’ve learnt my lesson. I’m off hot-as-sin, characterless men now.”
“Good for you.”
“Do you want to have a party at my house on Friday?” Bella asked.
Ashley knew the kind of party Bella meant—only the three of them, champagne, takeout, movies and dancing all night to songs on their playlist they were too embarrassed to share with anyone else. It was fun to hang out with each other and let their hair down once in a while.
“Let’s do it.” Ashley was all fired up.
“I’ll bring the drinks.” For all her healthy eating, Kat had a serious vice—an unabashed love for alcohol she indulged in pretty often.
“Let’s order Chinese. Yang Sing’s potstickers have been making the rounds in my dreams lately.” Bella would make love to potstickers if she could.
Kat didn’t approve. “Too much MSG. We should cook ourselves. I’ll make salad. Brussels sprouts and quinoa.”
Bella chortled. “You’re kidding, right? Who eats salad at a party? And I bet Ashley is craving Chinese too.”
Kat and Bella looked at her. Ashley squirmed under their expectant stares. She hated having to make the tough decision of which friend to please.
“Let’s try Indian this time.” She always did this when she had to choose. She brought out a third option.
“I guess.” Kat didn’t sound happy, but she didn’t protest, either. She shrugged and looked at the pasta sauces in the shelf, examining each one carefully.
“I wish you wouldn’t spend ages reading the nutritional labels,” Bella grumbled, throwing her pink flip-flops against the floor impatiently.
“Look at this, it has twenty grams of sugar in a serving.” Kat set the jar of tomato and basil sauce back on the shelf. “It’s a pasta sauce, for goodness’ sake, not a chocolate chip cookie. The number of unnecessary ingredients in food is scary.”
That made Ashley feel slightly guilty about eating Doritos, which was loaded with copious amounts of salt and fat. Summoning her willpower and taking deep breaths, she put back the three packets of Doritos.
“I’m proud of you.” Bella hugged her from the back and her arms sank into Ashley’s shoulders.
“I know. It’s just that sometimes I get lonely and… Doritos is good company.” she said.
“You need a boyfriend. You’ve been single for seven years,” Kat said.
“I was concentrating on my career.” That was an evergreen excuse, the excuse every woman could count of to have her back when she was asked a question like this.
“Should I set you up with someone?” Bella burst in. “I know this guy. He’s stable and practical. Just what you need.”
“No, I want the first meeting to be organic.” They’d had this talk many times and it always ended with her brushing the issue under the rug.
“If you wait for fate to introduce you to someone, you have to take Andrew. He’s all fate gave you. It’s time to design your own destiny.”
Taking a deep breath, Ashley tried to fight the prickling unease in her chest.
Bella was right. It was time to let go of her fears and try something new. How long was she going to wallow in the sadness of her failed marriage?
Forever, if she had her way. Toxic thoughts had a way of embedding themselves in the psyche. She had to break the cycle. Change was never comfortable, but she needed it.
“What does this guy do?” Ashley asked.
“He’s an associate at Goldman Sachs.” Bella’s silver fish pendant gleamed against her tanned chest.
“How do you know him? Last I knew, you were a professor of philosophy, not working at Wall Street.”
“He’s my neighbor. You know Joe?”
Kat nodded.
Joe and Bella had been neighbors for half a decade. They were close in age and quite friendly with each other.
“He’s been taking a break from the social scene but he wants to start dating again.”
“I don’t really think we’ll work…” Ashley trailed off. “Joe didn’t really catch my eye that time.”
“You can’t judge a book by its cover. You already made that mistake once.”
Ashley knew Bella wasn’t being malicious, but she didn’t want to be reminded of her ‘mistakes’ so many times in a single day.
And Bella had been the one who’d introduced Andrew to Ashley.
“It’s time to move on.” That was all Ashley could say. But she didn’t feel those words. “It’s just that I don’t have the confidence…”
“Did Andrew say anything that’s making you feel like this?” Kat enquired. The pointy edges of her pixie-cropped brown hair jiggled near her ear.
How come all her self-esteem problems could be so neatly traced back to Andrew?
“No. He didn’t say anything. Forget it. Maybe I should start dating again.”
“So what do you think about dating Joe? I can set you two up. God knows he needs a girlfriend or he’s going to die a lonely old man, probably still living next door to me.” Bella picked back up where she had left off, tossing packets of frozen peas and corn into her trolley.
“All right, I’ll give him a chance.”
“Are you sure?” Concern flashed across Kat’s face. “Don’t feel pressurized because Bella wants you to.”
“I want to. Let’s see where this goes.”
“Even if it doesn’t work out with Joe, it’s okay.”
Ashley smiled reluctantly.
She was in the dangerous zone of a thirty-something. If she wanted to be in a solid relationship by thirty-five, she had to start dating now. Relationship. The word sent shivers up her spine. Not again.
“I’ll pass on your phone number to Joe and you guys can take it from there.”
“Okay.”
Bella put a hand on her shoulder.
“You can love again, Ash. Be brave.”
***
Ashley laid her fingers at the foot of the headstone.
‘Violet Brown,’ it read, followed by her mother’s birth year and death year. The words ‘Loving wife, mother and teacher’ were inscribed below.
She lifted her eyes to the pale blue sky, trying to trap the tears in. But she lost. They dripped onto the roses and clung to the petals like dew drops. Pulling out the handkerchief she had been wise enough to carry, she wiped her cheeks until the cloth was damp. But she couldn’t wipe away the deep sadness that lay at the root of those tears.
She would never be able to do that. Not in a hundred years.
Sobs came in fits. The lingering emptiness around her reminded her of what she had lost.
When her legs wobbled, she had to hold on to the cold granite to keep herself from rocking. Kneeling to the ground, she let all the chaotic sentiments stream out in a dark river of emotion.
She always became emotional on her mother’s death anniversary.
It had been two years since Violet Brown had passed away due to a cardiac arrest while visiting Ashley in New York. She had expected her dad to come down to New York today, but his emotional state was probably too frayed.
He had been the hardest hit by her mother’s death. They’d had a long and loving marriage and he had been left lost. He was recovering now, but he would never be the same man again.
The only reason Ashley had not moved to Greenport to live with him had been because she knew he would not be alone. Violet had been a teacher at the primary school for forty years and there was nobody who hadn’t loved her dearly.
“Mom, I miss you,” Ashley cried. Her mother had been her only emotional support after her divorce with Andrew.
Her mother had looked after her and nursed her back to health. Her mother had cried with her when she had cried for Andrew. Her mother had partied with her when she had gotten her first job as an editorial assistant at Doubleside. Her mother had cheered for her all throughout, and that belief had enabled Ashley to get this far. And that belief was now gone forever.
“Why did you leave?” she asked the cold stone.
The swish of the wind was the only answer she got.
When she reached to the point where another tear couldn’t be squeezed out, she rose from the grave and turned back to the entrance.
As she walked past a row of tombstones, the brightness of the afternoon sun seemed to have gone pallid. Everywhere around her, there was only loss.
What had she expected? This was a cemetery.
Looking around, she saw a man wearing a black suit offered a bouquet to a tombstone. Must be a relative. Then, as he turned, she froze.
Andrew.
Cloudy gray eyes found stormy blue.
The deep hurt in his eyes mirrored hers so perfectly. He wasn’t crying—the emotion in his eyes went so much deeper than that. It was the kind of sorrow that could not be extinguished.
He strode towards her, in hesitant steps. So unlike the confident Andrew she knew. He held out his hand. They were co-passengers on this train of loss, so it made sense to shake hands at least.
“I never imagined meeting you here.” His tone was so subdued, she feared that she was talking to a ghost.
“Me neither.” The words were half-stuck in her throat, caught up in the web of mucus and tears.
She stood on her toes and craned her neck to catch the words written on the tomb Andrew had visited.
“It’s Drew’s,” he said. “Do you remember him? He came to our wedding.”
“The co-founder of Dracosys.” she said. She remembered him well, though it had been long.
“He passed away last year. Lung cancer.” Andrew gaze up at the cloudy sky.
Ashley bowed her head in apology. “I’m sorry.”
“We’d been business partners for eight years and friends for longer. I never thought he’d die, as strange as that sounds. It was a great loss for me and the company.” The veins in his throat protruded as he tried to rein in his emotions under a mask of impassivity. “Who were you visiting?”
“My… mother. Today is her second death anniversary.” The sniffles turned into full-bodied sobs.
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Violet was a wonderful person.” He bundled her into his arms and let her stain his designer coat with her salty tears. Too emotional to think of the complicated relationship between them, she let him hold her. Soothe her.
His lips grazed her head in a tender kiss. Being enveloped in his scent didn’t dissolve the suffering, but it dissolved the burden of suffering alone. Loneliness was the worst part of this struggle. Andrew’s broad shoulders provided a safe haven to cry and she realized how much she had missed this.
“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, his lips on her earlobe now.
“I know.” Her nose started to run and she rubbed it on his shirt. There goes his expensive shirt…
He held her for a long time, saying nothing, just being there for her while the strain cascaded out of her body with the stream of tears. The stillness grew colder and quieter under the watchful gaze of the trees.
When she had drenched his shirt in enough mucus, she peeled herself away from his sensual, comforting scent and tried to look guilty about ruining his shirt. His arms still encircled her, but their chests were no longer overlapping.
“You want to talk?” he probed.
“I don’t think I’m capable of talking without blowing up into another tear-fest.” She grabbed onto his shoulder to steady her trembling knees.
“It’s okay. I have a spare shirt in my car. A spare jacket too, to soak up the spills,” he said, and despite the mood she was in, it managed to lift the corners of her lips.
“I’ll pay for dry-cleaning this,” she said, embarrassed for having smeared her snot all over his shirt.
“Don’t worry about it.”
When her left foot took a backward step, his hand lunged out and grabbed hers. The sudden touch sparked her nerves.
“Andrew…”
“Stay with me for a while. I’m feeling a bit lonely.” It was a brave confession from a man who had perfected wearing the suit of aloofness.
Andrew and emotion were antonyms. But at the slight quiver in his lips, she gauged the depth of his feelings. She had perfect comprehension of how much it sucked to be alone in moments of sadness.
She expected the screams inside her to break out into a pandemonium when she touched his hand. To tell her to get away from him when she was so emotionally unbalanced. He could affect her so easily now. Could get under her skin effortlessly. But she couldn’t leave. Not when she needed him as much as he needed her now.
Picking up his hand, she led him further up the path for a walk around the cemetery. Nothing like physical exertion to get endorphins going. And endorphins were exactly what they both needed right now.
“How did Violet die?” Andrew asked.
“Cardiac arrest.” Ashley sounded almost peaceful saying that, like she was talking about a neighbor’s dead dog, instead of her mom. Death put that kind of distance between people. “She came to visit me in New York, then suddenly, she had to be taken to the hospital…”
The distant memories flashed like interrupted TV signals.
Andrew kneaded her shoulder and her arm arced around his waist. Being able to hold a human being brought solace to her weakened heart.
With his skin shifting beneath her, the urge to go lower, go in, diverted her from her despondency. No, what was she thinking? They were in a cemetery, for goodness’ sake!
“I wish I could say something that could lessen your loss, but there are no words that can do that.”
“I know. Loss defies words.” Sucking in the mucus dripping from her nose, she turned to inquiring about Drew. “Did Drew have a family?”
“Yes, three kids. The youngest one was one and the oldest six.” The creasing around his mouth showed Andrew had a soft corner for those kids.
“How are they doing now?”
“His wife, Holly, is looking after them. They’re young. Two of them don’t even know what death means.”
“It must be tough for her.”
“Yeah. But she’s handling it well. She’s doing her best for the kids.”
“That’s good.”
They turned where the path curved. He extracted his arm from her shoulder, probably judging that it had been there too long. Her shoulders felt bare without it.
“How’s David doing since Violet’s death?”
Surprised that Andrew remembered his ex-father-in-law, Ashley wished she could have given him better news.
“He’s depressed. He’s changed so much. He’s lost weight and he doesn’t talk much nowadays. I’m hoping he’ll recover slowly.”
“Is he getting any medical help?” The gravel on the path scratched his shoes.
“He sees a counselor and attends a group session every week.” Ashley wiped away the wetness on her cheeks with her hand, but more replaced it.
“Do you ever visit him?”
“Sometimes. I’ll visit him this weekend. He was supposed to be here today. If he comes later, I’ll probably be back here with him in the evening and crying a few more gallons.”
“If you need anything—a jacket to ruin, a human handkerchief or a six-foot punching bag—call me, okay?” His fingers cupped her chin, as he lifted her face up.
“I don’t think I’ll need any of those things.” she said. Especially not from you.
“I mean it, Ashley. Don’t suffer through the misery alone. Misery loves company. Especially of the handsome male variety.”
Despite the gloom of the situation, her face lit up with a grin.
She nodded, another smile encroaching upon her face, then rested her head against the top of his arm. Without heels, her head rested a hair’s breath below his shoulder bone.
“Where did you learn to be such a smooth talker?” she asked him, trying to extend the moment of lightheartedness. “Obviously it isn’t genetic.”
His father had all the tact of a tractor. She had only met him once, at the wedding, but his behavior had left a deep impression on her—a bad one.
“I have my own natural talents, like you have yours.”
Her talents. Her unused talents—kissing, making love. She crushed her lip with her teeth as her insides went to cinders.
No, not here, not now. Not ever, actually. Not with him. She’d suffered enough for her one-sided love.
Andrew stopped without notice, a few meters away from an ongoing funeral service. Men and women wearing black gathered around a casket, faces bent. As a young man recited the eulogy, and the minister read out his words, Andrew turned sharply and retraced his footsteps.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing. It’s just…” There was a perceptible wobble in his steady tone. “Can we walk the other way?”
“Did it make you recall Drew’s funeral?”
“No, it made me recall yours.”
Her eyes widened. “What? I’m not dead.”
“You came damn close to it.” Agitation spilled out of him. “I dreamt every night of this scene—of having to give a eulogy at your funeral. Having to close the casket on your beautiful, dead face.”
The rising tide of emotions overcoming him made her see something in his face she had never seen before—vulnerability. The kind of vulnerability that turned a man into a helpless child. And fear—primal fear.
So he’d had nightmares about her. What else had he had that she didn’t know about? Despite her attempts to squash the sympathy she was beginning to feel for him, she couldn’t. The honesty of his emotions seeped into her heart and softened some of her hatred towards him. Maybe he’d suffered too.
She still couldn’t forgive him for what he had done, no matter how much he had suffered. Because she had suffered much more than him. And he’d let her suffer alone.
But she could see that he had been human. That he had been terrified; he had been panicked. That somehow made his actions seem like those of an immature person rather than a cold-blooded automaton.
“I didn’t know you cared for me enough to dream about me.” She kept her voice deliberately sharp.
“Then you know nothing about me.” With his back to her, he looked distant, as distant as he had when he had left her.
It unsettled her. For the first time, she doubted her assessment of him and his motives behind leaving her. What if it had been out of the fear of losing his mind rather than wanting to get rid of a mentally ill wife? The questions poked at her doubts, her beliefs, her judgments.
How much did she want to know? How much could she handle? How much did she want to deny that he had loved her, even if in his own, selfish way? No, she was the victim here. She had to continue to be the victim if she was to keep him away.
“I know enough about you to know that you are the kind of man who leaves his wife when she becomes too much of a burden.”
No, she wasn’t going to listen. She didn’t want to give up her deeply ingrained resistance to loving him. She was scared of loving again. Scared of having to face the withdrawal of his affection again. Scared of trusting in him again. So she was going to fight to hold onto the hatred that could prevent her from feelings those things again.
“Actually, I don’t blame you. You were probably terrified at the thought of being saddled with a mental patient. When you married me, I was beautiful, funny and all that. Then, suddenly, I’m half-crazy and suicidal.”
“That’s what you think? That I left you because you were not well?”
“Isn’t that what you did?”
He opened his mouth to rebel, but then hung his head, giving up. Whatever he had wanted to say died on his tongue. “Maybe it is. Maybe that’s all a confused twenty-four-year-old could have done. I’m sorry.”
No, don’t let me win, she screamed, but the protest only vibrated inside her, rattling the core of serenity she had built up for seven years.
“There’s no point in going over those things now. Whatever happened, happened. We should move on now.” he said.
The rest of their sojourn down the gravel path was silent, except for the chirping of birds overhead.
Then, at the entrance, they exchanged goodbyes and parted ways.
Her heart refused to stop bleeding on the way back home.
