Moondance (19 page)

Thirty-four years after she had asked.

chapter 28

AT 3:30 A.M., MICHAEL was at his computer, his hand over his mouth, contemplating. He could still smell Lara’s scent from their lovemaking a few hours before. She was sleeping soundly now.

Clusters of snowflakes were glistening beautifully, illuminated by a halo of streetlight, but Michael didn’t see them. When pictures filled his screen, sometimes men, sometimes women, he would lean forward and look into their faces, which seemed utterly devoid of the pain he was feeling. Michael did not want to die, exactly, but he also did not want to live. He existed in an emotional limbo that very few people would understand.

Lara would understand.

Five months after her first birthday, Elizabeth died in Sick Kids hospital from an infection triggered by a drug reaction. Elizabeth was younger than most children with leukemia. Her age had increased her risk. She had responded well to chemo at first, and the doctors believed that she had a good chance of going into remission. A week before Elizabeth was to come home, her white blood cell count had
spiked, and she contracted the infection from which she never recovered.
The reversal caught Michael and Lara completely by surprise.

Michael had not felt this kind of pain since his father took his life.
No, that was not true. He had never felt this kind of pain. Since Elizabeth died, life seemed heavier, more complicated. Walking was more difficult, thinking was more difficult, making decisions was next to impossible.
Why had this happened?
He had no answer. Just that it had.

Afterwards, he and Lara drifted, each of them alone with their pain, handling their grief in their own ways. Michael had cried at least once a day since Elizabeth died. Lara had left him alone with his tears, though he would have preferred to have her close, to share what they were feeling. Somehow, she found ways to be private about it. Preferred it that way. And he didn’t know how to ask her for anything different. Didn’t think it was fair.

Within days of Elizabeth’s death, Michael’s insomnia was back, in full-force. Dr. Reynolds suggested local grief support groups, and Michael gratefully accepted an increased dose of antidepressants. The visions that had previously filled him with such wonder had disintegrated, up in smoke, like the paper that had tried to contain them. His sacrifice hadn’t been enough.
No deal, Michael. How ’bout we keep the change?

To kill time, he surfed internet dating sites, clicking on the screen before him, filling it with a new set of pictures, reading the detailed descriptions. He was looking for specific people — the ones who were divorced, or who had lost someone. And when he found one like this, he’d click in more closely, searching for the pain behind their eyes, concluding that most of the pictures must have been taken before.

Once and a while, he’d find someone who had the sadness, that look that he knew, and he’d save them in his hotlist WANT-ING-MOwant-ingmore, sexygal, secondchance, greatcatch157, but he never went back to write to them.

He knew he couldn’t change what happened to his daughter. He even believed that Elizabeth was at peace and out of pain. He was trying to be strong, and some days, he was okay. But the grief clutched at his heart and didn’t want to let go.

If only Elizabeth.

When he first started surfing personal ads, he thought that perhaps these people were as happy as they looked: completely fulfilled, just looking for the perfect person, the icing on the cake of a well balanced life. Maybe it was only his life that held a darker dimension. Maybe he was completely alone.

But the more he surfed, the more he knew that behind the smiles, none of it was real: they all harbored secrets. Secrets that wouldn’t be revealed in a personal ad created to lure, but he knew they had them. Secrets. Behind the smiles.

Six months after Elizabeth died, Lara’s family offered to pay for a vacation for the two of them. So they booked three weeks in Italy, renting a farm house in the Italian countryside.

Traveling to Umbria had been a turning point for them. The pace had been slow and during that time, they asked little of themselves or each other. They shopped at local markets, and drank the local wine. They ate simply and well, spending much of their time reading and sleeping. They worked well together, as always, and talked little.

On the second last night they were there, Michael went to bed to
find Lara there, on her side, shuddering. When he touched her shoulder,
she stiffened.

During their marriage, Michael had rarely seen Lara cry and he had never seen her cry about Elizabeth. The only time he had seen Lara close to losing control — ever — was when she told him she was pregnant. He touched the side of her face, which was shiny with tears and translucent, her eyelids raw. He lay on the bed alongside her, and his hands moved over her, smoothing her hair, kissing her cheek, moving slowly, wondering if she was going to push him away.

She didn’t. He hovered over her, suspended in time, then she turned toward him, her pale blue eyes glassy. She sniffed, and he saw a brief flicker of the crease between her eyes, weighing, calculating, and then she brushed her lips on his, pulling away slightly, offering him a choice. Michael kissed her then and they made love, gentle at first, then rough, as if intensifying the physicality of the act would more clearly confirm their intention to live. After, covered in sweat, they had held each other as if the other would disappear, neither knowing whether or not it would be enough to save them.

“I want to try again,” she whispered.

“Okay,” he said.

If only Elizabeth.

And now, if only Lara.

Italy had birthed their new plan, and they held on to their future with fatigued arms. Back at home, they’d eat in silence. Some days, he tried to make her smile. Some days, she’d respond, the corners of her mouth reluctantly turning up, though more often, it was as if his words had awakened her from a private dream. One he could imagine all too clearly.

Later, Lara would read. He’d climb into bed with her and they’d make love, the words they couldn’t say transformed into touch. Their lovemaking had become hesitant, as if
each inch of their skin was bruised, instead of their hearts.

After six months of trying, Lara was not pregnant, and of this they also did not speak, their efforts to conceive a balm connecting them in the present and representing tenuous hope for their future.

If only Lara
.

Michael spotted the russet-haired woman’s ad on
lavalife.com, just as he was about to log off. He clicked on her image, and she grew before his eyes. On the back of his neck, he felt a puff of warm air and words
My love
like a door opening into the heat of summer. Despite this, he felt a chill.

When did he see her last? Had to be more than three years ago. The gas station. She didn’t recognize him then, he was sure of it. This time, her face was relaxed, and her hand held a martini, as if she was making a toast. He peered into the screen, looking into her eyes that appeared to gaze back at him. He couldn’t see what color they were, but he saw that she had dimples when she smiled, a deep one in her left cheek.

He put her ad into his hotlist. The system asked: Would you like to send a message to Althea1111? Althea. He hadn’t known her name. He clicked no, and logged off.

Now this was one with secrets.

chapter 29

ALTHEA’S NEW JOB WAS more than promotions: she was Vince’s right hand. In her role, she negotiated agreements with bookstores, developed White Light’s online approach, coordinated translations and the sale of foreign rights, and worked with publicists and promotions firms to set up author tours and events. The projects White Light accepted were well-promoted and their readers were unusually loyal.

White Light’s office consisted of Vince, Althea, Stacy and Peter Wu. Peter was Vince’s first employee, and three days a week, the quiet 58-year-old — who looked no more than 40 — ran the financial side of the business. Stacy, a self-proclaimed Goth and early Anne Rice fanatic, was Vince’s assistant. Vince’s wife, Phyllis, a former editor at a big publishing house, had a great deal to do with White Light’s success. She had signed Ivana, a karmic astrologer, and one of their best-selling authors. She was well connected socially and sometimes could intuit what people were feeling.

Ivana’s first book described a way to use astrology to learn about one’s past lives and current life’s purpose. When Phyllis signed her, Ivana already had a built-in readership through her website. After the book was out, she spoke at a conference in California where she met a television producer who arranged a series of talk show appearances. The rest, as they say, was history.

White Light quickly grew into Althea’s extended family.

Vince was outgoing, generous and an eccentric uncle of sorts. For
his charisma, Vince was business to the core: he called books “product”
— something Althea could relate to. Althea sat on Vince’s couch, with a handmade, hardbound notebook perched on her knees, a gift from Vince on her first day. Rocky, the office cat, lay curled beside her, his orange paw extended lazily across her thigh.

“Learn the product, Althea, that’s the first step. Know what you’re selling. People are starved for information on why they’re here and how to find their soul mates. Look at the success of psychic lines and dating services. When things aren’t working as planned, they’re starved to know why — and they’ll pay for it. And you know what else they’ll pay for?”

“Information on sex?”

“Right. And in Ivana’s next book, we’re in a perfect place to get our share.” Althea smiled, thinking about the scenarios she used to write for George. Ivana’s next book was expected to be controversial. It would lay bare the karmic aspects of sexual taboos and sexual abuse.

“Have you and Phyllis ever had a chart done?” Althea asked.

“Me and Phyllis have been around a few times. Sometimes we screwed up. But somehow in this life, we managed to get our shit together.”

“Who has his shit together?” Phyllis said as she glided into the room ... Phyllis didn’t walk, she glided.

“We were talking about your past lives together,” Althea said. Phyllis’ eyes crinkled.

“Oh yeah? You digging up that old dirt? Well, Althea, remind me to tell you the story. And what a story we’ve been.”

“I didn’t always wear the pants in the family,” Vince said.

“Right. And sometimes you had trouble keeping your pants on.”

chapter 30

GAMBERONI WAS A BUSTLING Italian restaurant in mid-town Toronto with red-checkered tablecloths and some of the best seafood pasta Althea had ever had. As she entered, she heard opera and smelled sweet roasted garlic. The waiter showed her to her table.

“Would you like some wine?”

“Just some Perrier for now, I’ll wait.”

Despite working for a publishing firm and her earlier love affair with writing, Althea wasn’t much of a reader. She opened Ivana’s first book,
Using Karmic Astrology to Discover Your Life Purpose
and read quickly, scanning each page, something she learned in business school. Earlier that day, she had surfed and made notes on Ivana’s web site. Twenty minutes later, Vince called.

“I can’t make it tonight, something came up.”

“Is everything all right? Should we —?”

“No, I want you to go ahead with it. I just talked to Ivana and she’s on her way. Get to know her, get to know how she thinks. Think marketing. Think big.”

When she got off the phone with Vince, she felt nervous. She didn’t agree with what Ivana stood for, and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t looking forward to meeting White Light’s star author.

• • •

IVANA WAS A TALL, lean woman with creamy, coffee-colored skin. At age fifty-three, she looked twenty years younger.

The waiter poured a glass of wine for Althea to sample.

“The wine’s great, thanks. I’ll have the house salad, please. And shrimps diavola,” Althea said.

“I’ll have the portabello carpaccio to start. And the veal piccatta.”

“Very good,” the waiter said.

“So how does karmic astrology compare to the daily forecasts published in newspapers?” Althea asked.

“What you read in the paper are general statements according to Sun signs. I consider them too general to be relevant.”

“Sun sign?”

“The Sun sign is the astrological planet that most people are familiar with. It represents our central energy. But the astrological chart is made up of more than the Sun — ten planets, in any combination of twelve houses and twelve signs. There are other factors as well. Astrology is anything but simplistic.”

“So if someone came to you, you could tell them how their life would unfold, based on their life purpose.”

“No, I don’t predict. The sessions I do are based on what the client wants to work on. When it’s relevant, I provide clients with information from their charts that offer different perspectives.”

“So someone could ask you why something happened to them.”

“Sure. I believe that our souls create all of our life’s experiences perfectly so that we can learn more about why we’re here.”