I expected David to offer some meaningful and romantic explanation. But it turned out that he first was going to propose to me at a little café, and decided at the last minute that it wasn’t private enough. Then he was going to propose at our next stop—a bench under the Eiffel Tower—but decided it was too corny. Le Chat Botté was a complete afterthought, a small bit of trivia he’d recalled from reading Frommer’s on the plane. I wasn’t disappointed in his answer. Actually, I liked the fact that happenstance had brought him to the right place; it was comforting to know that life would support us if only we were listening.
Now David is here again.
I think I know why you’ve done this, David. When I was scared about what might happen to me at the end, you told me that the shadows thrown by a single candle flame often can be more frightening than total darkness. As usual, you were right. But since my death, it’s you who has been living in the shadows, isn’t it? You’ve been spending so much time and energy holding at bay the memories that threatened to creep into your consciousness when you’re tired or just about to fall asleep that there’s been nothing left except fear.
Tonight is your way of lighting candles. Tonight you want to see and feel the worst of it so that, if you can survive this, tomorrow you might begin to move beyond despair.
David takes a few deep breaths to steady himself and then begins speaking in a whisper to no one. “You know, Helena, I see many different possible futures. But all the good ones have you in it,” he says as his voice cracks.
I feel the same way, I remember telling him that night.
David reaches into his pocket and pretends to remove something. That night, there was no pretending.
He holds the pretend object in his open hand and pushes it toward the empty space in front of him. I remember the feeling that night when I stared mute at the small jewelry box.
“I would really love it if you would marry me,” he said then and repeats now.
I threw my arms around him and said, “Yes—yes, yes, yes!” But tonight when I reach for his hand, all I can feel is the ether that separates us.
David removes our wedding band from his finger. He stares at it for a few moments and then places the ring in his pocket.
I can’t stop crying. I realize that something has changed in me these last few weeks. I’m no longer afraid of the details of a life that does not now, and will never again, include me. Instead, I’m greedy for the particulars of human interaction. I want to take in every look or nuanced sentence, each shoulder shrug or outstretched hand. These things suddenly are so significant to me, as if I now need them to anchor myself for just a while longer in David’s world. I’m afraid to let go because then I’ll need to face what lies before me and I know I will face it alone.
Catharsis sucks.
F
ollowing a poor night’s sleep, David boards a plane headed back to New York City on the day before Christmas Eve.
In the darkened business-class cabin, David stares at his left hand, which is now devoid of any precious metals. He touches cautiously the spot where our wedding band once rested. It is almost as if he isn’t certain the hand is his. Looking at his naked hand, I feel exactly the same way.
I don’t know what precisely has changed in David, but something is different. He’s lost more than just three-quarters of an ounce of gold. There is some air between us now, and we no longer feel like hot skin against upholstery plastic. While we’re not free of each other by any means, I know that I’m no longer the black hole absorbing every particle of light that passes into his atmosphere.
Whether it was Paris, Simon’s advice, anger at the discovery of my deception, or simply time, David appears to be developing perspective. He is no longer terrified.
I think perhaps he’s starting to heal.
David’s first stop immediately following his return from Paris is neither his office nor his home. Instead, he gives the driver the address for Joshua’s office.
“You look like crap.” These are Joshua’s first words when he sees my husband.
“Thanks. It’s been a long flight.”
Joshua ushers David into his exam room, puts him in the spare chair, and closes the door. “How was Paris?”
“Interesting.”
“Interesting in a painful sort of way?”
“Quite.”
“Sorry. I know the city has special memories for you.”
“You were Helena’s adviser in vet school, right?” Joshua is taken aback both by the subject matter and by the absence of transition. Clearly, David is a man with something on his mind, and I know what it is.
“If you can call it that. She didn’t need a lot of advising.”
“Have you heard of someone named Jane Cassidy?”
“The name is vaguely familiar. Why?”
“She goes by Jaycee.”
“Same answer. What’s with the third degree?”
“Humor me. How about a chimpanzee named Charlie.”
I can see that Joshua immediately recognizes the name. “Ah, yes. That one I know.”
“Can you tell me what Helena’s involvement was in his death?”
“What’s this all about, David? You’re really talking old, old stuff now. Did something happen in Paris?”
“Are you saying you don’t remember?”
“No, I can remember, but I’d like to know why I should.”
“Jaycee Cassidy, who claims to have worked with Helena, came by to ask me a favor. She said some things that, let’s say, are surprising and different from what I’d been led to believe. I want to know whether I should help her, and before I do that, I want to know the truth.”
“What did Helena tell you?”
“That she didn’t know Charlie was being infected. That she never would have participated in such a thing.”
“And Jaycee told you that was a lie?”
“Yes. And I think I’m entitled to know who the woman was that I married.”
“You know who you married. You know precisely who she was. Trust your experience of her and let the rest go. Her past, the one that existed before you, became meaningless once she met you. It’s certainly irrelevant now.”
“No. Her stories about herself defined who she was. I want to know if they were simply stories.”
“You sound like someone looking for an excuse to be angry.”
David waves off Joshua’s comment. “I’m not asking for therapy, just answers, okay?”
Joshua is kind enough not to call me a liar to my husband. “You need to understand that her father had just died. Vartag seduced Helena with the promise of answers to questions that had plagued Helena since she came to Cornell.”
“Like what?”
“Her doubts. Are the animals that come into our care better for that contact? Do we make a difference or are we just making them better so they can live out their little lives as someone’s playthings until that or another someone decides that they aren’t worth
keeping around? She didn’t want to save things just to kill them. Vartag promised real consequence—that she could cure hepatitis and not only make Charlie well again, but spare future primates and perhaps humans from the same fate.”
“That line worked on Helena?”
“Vartag was pretty convincing. I heard her myself. She had the credentials and the track record. It really was considered a big thing to be selected to work with her. Plus, Helena wanted to believe. That’s pretty powerful motivation.”
“But when Helena realized it didn’t work? When she didn’t get her answers?”
“It was too late. She came to me to resign her spot at the school. She thought if she could be led so easily by the nose into death, she shouldn’t have the power to make the decision. I talked her out of it and convinced her to come to New York.”
“So that part, at least, was true.”
“I don’t know what else she told you, but I’m betting that it was all true except for the one thing she couldn’t bring herself to admit.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Yeah,” Joshua says. “I think you are. You’re a trained litigator. You can smell liars. That wasn’t her nature.”
“But—”
“Stop it, David,” Joshua snaps. “I can see that you’re hurt, but you’ve got to try to understand the why of it. She did something she believed was so horrible that she felt she needed to hide it from the world—and probably even from herself. She did more than take a life; she caused an otherwise healthy creature she came to care about to suffer. The longer the secret stayed hidden, the bigger the secret became. She carried it with her to her grave without
being able to seek forgiveness from the one person she loved above all else.”
In this one thing, Joshua’s words could easily have been mine. He knows exactly what the burden is like because he’s lived with his own. And now he knows exactly what I need. “Now that you know, you’ll have to find a way to forgive her.”
“Forgiveness?” David repeats the word as I hold my breath for his answer. “Forgiveness is easy. Trusting who she was is hard.”
I know who I was. I know who I was. I know who I was.
D
avid, Sally, and Clifford exchanged presents just after sunset on Christmas Eve. Days earlier, David had invited them and Joshua to Christmas Day dinner, but said he had plans for Christmas Eve. I know Sally doubted the existence of David’s “plans,” but she didn’t push him.
David gave Sally a day at the spa (Martha’s suggestion), which she liked, and a pair of Tiffany porcelain pet food bowls for the new kittens (his own idea), which she loved. He also gave Clifford (with Sally’s permission) the gift of a year of horseback riding lessons. Clifford was so excited that he couldn’t stop talking about them.
Sally and Clifford gave David a framed photo montage of all our animals to put up in his office, “to remind you what’s always waiting for you at home.” It was exactly the right gift for him at exactly the right time.
Sally also left each of the animals one wrapped present under the tree and gave the three dogs a kiss on the forehead, holding a sprig of mistletoe above each one as she did so.
Now, standing at his front door on Christmas Eve, David helps Sally and Clifford with their coats and kisses Sally on the cheek. “Merry Christmas,” he tells them.
“You sure you’re—”
“Really. I’m fine,” David says, cutting her off.
“You call me on my cell if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Mom,” David says with good humor. Sally smiles at him and then walks with her son down the steps.
After David is certain that Sally and Clifford are gone, he takes a stack of moving boxes from the garage and carries these back to our bedroom. The dogs take positions on the bed to watch David work.
Then my husband opens the doors to all the closets and the drawers to all the dressers and stands by the bed in the middle of the room. All my clothes are now in full view to him—my jeans, dresses, shoes, shirts, blouses, panties, socks, clothes that fit, clothes that got tight on me after I went on a junk food binge in the weeks following 9/11, and clothes that swam on me during and after my chemo.
David removes a pair of my jeans from the closet and, holding them close to his face, inhales deeply. Then he carefully folds the jeans and puts them into one of the boxes.
At eleven fifty that same evening, David stretches and surveys his work. All my personal items from the bedroom and the bathroom have been carefully packed, and he has just started on the living room. The dogs have fallen asleep.
David walks into the kitchen, pulls a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne (my favorite) from the fridge and two champagne flutes from a cabinet.
He calls for the dogs and all three of them follow him, the champagne, and the glasses out the back door and up into the barn.
The barn is silent as David enters. He yanks a bale of hay into the middle of the floor and drops down on it. Then he opens the bottle of champagne without allowing it to pop and pours it into the two glasses balanced on the bale.
Skippy jumps into David’s lap and quickly settles into a comfortable half sleep while Chip and Bernie lie at his feet. Arthur and Alice peer into the barn from the adjacent paddock, curious about the late-night goings-on.
David checks his watch. It is now midnight. He lifts a glass into the air. “Merry Christmas.” He takes a small sip from his flute and closes his eyes.
I remember another Christmas Eve in this barn. David, handsome in his tuxedo, and me in the one formal gown I owned, entered the barn holding hands and laughing at the behavior of the people at the party we’d just left. The dogs followed us.
In a long relationship, there are just some nights when you’re more in love than others. Perhaps it is the way the women at a party looked admiringly at your husband, or the way your spouse always made sure you had a glass of champagne in your hand, or even the way he saved you from a boring conversation with a narcissistic jerk. Whatever it is, you realize that you not only love him, but you’re proud to be with him.
This particular Christmas Eve, David was the love of my life and I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without him.
“Christmas Eve, midnight, and about as close to a manger as we’re ever going to get,” David said to me, pointing to Arthur and
Alice and then nodding to the dogs. “If these guys don’t talk now, then they never will.”
I smiled back at him. “They’ve all been chatting with each other since we walked in. Don’t you hear them?”
“Hmm,” David said, playing along. “Perhaps they’re mumbling.”
I turned him to me and kissed him on the mouth. Then I tapped him lightly on the forehead. “Perhaps you need to listen to them a bit harder. Less head, more heart.”
“I think I need a little more incentive,” he said.
I kissed him again. “I love you, you know?”
I don’t recall if David answered. He rarely spoke in those words, as if just by giving voice to his feelings he might put them in jeopardy. He counted on me to speak for the both of us and I was happy to do that for him.
Tonight, when I see David’s eyes flash open in the barn, I wonder if my words are what he has allowed himself to remember. Who will speak for him now?
While David ponders the quiet of the barn without human companionship, Cindy sits alone in her Cube in the dark and empty laboratory at the CAPS facility. The lab—for so many months an ever-beating heart of activity—evidences only the silence of abandonment.