Authors: Samantha Garman
•••
“Make a wish,” I said. “The clock turned 11:11.”
“I don’t have time.” Connor’s eyes remained on the legal pad as he scribbled down notes. It was the weekend. We should’ve been out celebrating our engagement, but instead we were stuck inside because he had to work.
“You don’t have time to make a wish?” I demanded. Connor could be such a bore sometimes—no fun at all. He planned everything meticulously. At first I liked that about him. When did it start to annoy me? He had an organized sock drawer. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me what that symbolized. Our sex had become stale and rudimentary long ago.
Nothing about him excited me.
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” I wondered why I had asked such a frivolous question. Shouldn’t I have asked if he thought I was intelligent or wise? I didn’t feel wise. Not lately, maybe never.
Connor glanced up. “Of course, I think you’re beautiful. Do you still want me to make a wish?”
I looked at the clock—it was 11:12. “It’s too late now.”
•••
“My Aunt Mimi and Uncle Richard make the guest list…two-hundred and eighty-five. What do you think?” Connor asked.
I took a deep breath. “I think I’m getting overwhelmed.”
“I told you we should hire a wedding planner.”
We had set the date; it was to be June of the following year on Long Island. Connor worked in finance, and it was important to him to have a large wedding; most of our guests would be business associates.
“I don’t want—”
“Don’t worry about the money. I told you I could afford to give you the wedding of your dreams.”
Connor clearly didn’t know that this wasn’t how I had envisioned my wedding. A small ceremony in Vermont maybe, or on a remote beach—just family and friends. Not a wedding for show.
Mom had been acting strange, quiet and pensive with somber looks. I assumed it was because she was wrapped up in some new book she was writing, but every time I went to visit, her laptop was closed. Mom was going through something, but she wouldn’t share until she was ready. She often withdrew from reality, spending time in make-believe because characters forced her there.
“A wedding planner sounds like a good idea,” I conceded.
My mother wasn’t convinced Connor was right for me, but she’d still be there to watch me say my vows.
Chapter 4
Sage
“Mom?” I called, letting myself into the Park Slope apartment. I’d moved in with Connor months ago, but I dropped by often. We steered clear of the subject of my fiancé and the wedding. Our relationship was strained, but we’d get past it—we always did. It would just take some time. I set a box of baked goods on the kitchen table and called again, “Mom?”
She made an appearance, coming out of her bedroom, wearing a gray sweater and a turtleneck. It was eighty-five degrees out.
“It’s Indian summer. Are you getting a cold or something?” I demanded, heading into the kitchen and filling the teakettle with water.
“Or something,” Mom murmured, taking a seat at the table.
I glanced at her as I turned on the burner. “What’s wrong?”
“Come here, Sage.” My mother’s tone was battle weary, exhausted—I didn’t like it one bit.
“No.”
“Sage,” Mom pleaded, “please.”
Dropping into another chair, I waited, wondering what she would tell me. She didn’t look tired; she looked beaten.
“I have stage four ovarian cancer.” Mom had always been blunt; it’s what defined her. There was no poetry for real life.
“Say it again.”
She did.
“What are your options?”
She stared at me, her eyes stating more than words ever could. We didn’t move for a very long time, not even when the teapot began to whistle on the stove, steam angrily escaping from the spout.
As the last of the water evaporated, the kettle sputtered to silence.
•••
The idea that my mother was going to die had never entered my mind. But she would die; that was the brutal truth, a fact that could not be changed.
Her gaunt face peered at me from the bed, a pile of blankets smothering her. The thermostat was up to eighty, but still she shivered.
I caught a glimpse of her meager arm, her body wasting away from disease, and I went to put on a long sleeved shirt, not caring that I would sweat. I wouldn’t parade my health.
But Mom never became envious or irate about fate’s choice—she was accepting. Too accepting of something she couldn’t change.
I was angry enough for both of us.
She deteriorated rapidly in the days following our conversation; cancer was a voracious animal with an insatiable appetite for death.
Though she had round-the-clock care, I temporarily stayed at the Park Slope apartment. I never asked Connor how he felt about it—I went ahead and did it. Nor did I wonder how her sickness affected him or our relationship. My conversations with Connor grew shorter, stilted, as if we’d already spent a lifetime together and there was nothing left to say.
“You shouldn’t…” Mom’s weak protests went silent on her chapped lips; she didn’t have the strength to go on, and she fell asleep as a new dose of morphine journeyed through her veins.
I hoped it gave her comfort—it didn’t give me any.
Mom always had the power to make me reevaluate. I fought it most of my life, but now I was aware that soon she wouldn’t be there to answer questions with questions. Who would ask me about the things I didn’t want to face?
“Shouldn’t
what
?” I queried her slumbering form. She slept twenty hours a day now.
She didn’t reply.
•••
I stared at my hands fisted in my lap, my eyes vacant and unseeing. It had been hours, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave the church, and had missed my mother’s burial. The pew was solid beneath me, the quiet room an illusionary comfort.
I had told Connor I needed space, and like a fool, he’d left me.
After pushing him away for weeks, was I surprised he hadn’t stayed?
Yes—he was my fiancé. He was supposed to console me, but he was uncomfortable with grief. He didn’t contend with emotion; he didn’t understand the abstract—and didn’t want to.
He was a coward.
“Sage?”
I didn’t turn at the sound of his voice.
“Are you ready to go home?”
Home
.
What a funny word. I hadn’t slept beside him in weeks—I found I didn’t care.
“I’m not coming home,” I heard myself say in a cold, clear voice, like a bell ringing from afar.
“
What?
We’re getting married—”
“No, we aren’t. I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t sorry.
He reached out to put a hand on my shoulder and then thought better of it. He looked shocked and a little lost.
Not nearly as lost as me.
I twisted off the beautiful, two-carat prison and held it out to him. He regarded it a long moment before taking it. His quiet footsteps echoed as he walked away.
If only I felt relief. If only I felt sadness. If only I felt something.
•••
“France? You can’t move to France!” Jules’ eyes widened in shock.
“Like hell I can’t.” I shoved clothes into my suitcases, not bothering to fold anything; I just wanted to get out of New York as quickly as possible.
“What about Connor?”
“What about him? We broke up.”
“When?”
“Right after the funeral.”
“Jesus—why?”
I shrugged.
“That’s not an answer!”
“What am I supposed to say, Jules?” I demanded. “There’s nothing left for me here.”
“Come live with me in New Paltz.”
“And do what? I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t move across an ocean; this is drastic.”
“Yep.”
“Who are these people?”
“My mother’s oldest friends. I need to start over. I can’t do that in New York, and I can’t do that with you watching me with those eyes.”
“What eyes?”
“You know, those Jules-judgmental eyes. You’re worried I’ve gone off the rails.”
“Haven’t you? You broke up with your fiancé, and you’re leaving the only city you’ve ever lived in.”
“I quit my job, too.”
“Obviously.”
“Connor was a symptom,” I murmured.
“I don’t understand.”
“When I found out my mother was going to die, I cried in the shower for hours. He pretended he didn’t hear me, but I knew he was home.”
Jules looked at me, words lost on her tongue.
I closed my eyes. “I just can’t do it anymore—I’m tired.”
“You’ll be so far from—”
“Home? This isn’t my home. Not anymore.”
Chapter 5
Kai
“What is this?” the blonde asked in stilted English as she stroked a finger across the brand on my chest. It was puckered now, a callused souvenir of all that I’d lost. Sometimes I felt it burning, a phantom pain that was as real as any I’d ever known.
I winced at the memory; two years felt like yesterday. Time hadn’t dulled my grief.
“A brand,” I evaded, my mind sluggish. I was in Spain, or maybe Portugal. Most of the time I was too drunk to notice where I was, or where I slept—or the women. So many women, and the guilt—it’s why I kept moving. Stay still and I’d sink like an old battleship.
“What’s it for?” She pouted her sultry lips.
I found her irritating, and there were only two things to do at this point; get up and leave, or bury myself in her and lose my thoughts all together.
“You want to waste our time talking?” I asked, bringing her face close to mine for a kiss.
She purred in the back of her throat. Thankful for the brief respite, I grasped her hips and hauled her on top of me.
My memories disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
•••
I left the blonde and headed to London without purpose.
It was raining. There was nothing unusual about the weather—it always rained in England; it didn’t matter what time of year it was or what season.
The pub was dark, and I pushed back my University of Tennessee baseball cap in an attempt to see. I perched on a stool and grinned at an attractive woman that approached the wooden, scarred slab of a bar.
“Buy you a drink?” I drawled.
The brunette smiled, dimpling. A flush stole up her cheeks as I perused her with bold eyes. It was almost too easy—they never put up a fight, but I was glad because I didn’t want the challenge. I wanted to forget.
“Sure.”
“What will it be?”
“Surprise me,” she said, her posh London accent rolling over me. She attempted to tease, yet I didn’t get the tingling rush of the hunt.
It had been a long time since I’d felt much of anything—I doubted I’d recognize it when I did.
Dipping my hat, I ordered a bourbon and ginger ale and squeezed the lime into the glass. “There ya go. It’s a good old fashioned Southern drink.”
She raised an eyebrow, took a sip, and then smiled. “This is good!”
I chuckled. “Don’t sound so surprised. What’s your name?”
“Erin.”
I didn’t care; I wouldn’t remember it in the morning. It was always the same. Every night, wherever I was I’d go to a bar, single out a pretty girl and go home with her, hoping it would be enough to see me through the next day.
Some nights I didn’t even bother; it was too much effort, the guilt of being alive too much. Whenever that feeling stewed near the surface, I knew it was time to move on. Sometimes I had a few weeks in a place before that happened; sometimes it wasn’t even a day.
I never knew peace.
Two years ago with only Tristan’s baseball cap and my grandfather’s mandolin, I picked up, headed for Asia, and hadn’t talked to my family since. I walked dirt roads, ate unusual foods, and wondered why old men with craggy, brown faces and very few teeth were so happy—content even.
“Want to sit with me a minute?” I asked.
Erin looked over her shoulder at her three friends, who were seated at a battered table.
I leaned my five-ten frame toward her, appearing taller than most men over six feet. It was the confidence, Tristan used to say.
“Just a minute?” I coerced.
“Okay,” she said, sliding onto the stool next to me. “What’s your name?”
“Kai.”
“Where are you from, Kai?”
“Wherever.” Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed two blurry shadows. I swiveled my head, expecting my best friends to be sitting at the other end of the bar. Instead, I saw two middle-aged men, who looked nothing like Reece and Tristan, and they peered back at me in curiosity. I sighed. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Let me tell my friends—in case you’re a crazy person.” She smiled.
Already, I felt the drive to move on. After I said goodbye to what’s-her-name in the morning, I’d hop a train or a plane bound for somewhere else.
Maybe Amsterdam. Tristan always wanted to visit the Red Light District. I’d go there.
What else did I have to do?
•••
“I bet chicks are digging that brand of yours,” Tristan says, pointing at my shirtless chest.
I grin and shrug. We’re both dressed in ratty jeans rolled up to the ankles and wading into the silvery water. I can almost feel the sun beating down on me, almost remember the smell of Monteagle in summer.
“What country are you in now?” Reece asks from the bank.
“Not sure.”
“Have you become an alcoholic?” Tristan teases.
“I can still remember my name, so what do you think?” I quip.
“I think you’re boozing hard,” Reece says with concern.
“You always were the mother hen, weren’t you?” Tristan laughs, but Reece doesn’t smile.
“It’s going to catch up to you, you know,” Reece says, as if Tristan hadn’t spoken.
“Don’t listen to him, Kai. If you need to drink to get through this, then do it.”
“It’s been two years,” Reece says, his anger evident. He rarely gets irate, so when he does, it means I have to listen. “You going to drink yourself to death? Is that what you want?”
“I want you guys back.”
“We’re dead. No amount of drinking will change that fact. Don’t these dreams make you crazy?” Reece wonders aloud.
“These dreams feel more real than the life I’ve been living.”