In the Distance There Is Light (9 page)

“I shall raise a glass to your good news, Alex.”

“I was a bit nervous about telling you,” she says. “But I’ve got quite a belly on me now.” She points at her stomach, which protrudes ever so slightly. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at her.

I smile widely and try to gather myself, pull myself together and push back the anger that’s boiling up within me. It’s not as if Ian and I had decided that we wanted to have children. But now we don’t even have the option anymore. Maybe I should check with that attorney, Mr. Coates. Considering Ian was so practical about what would happen after his death, perhaps he had some of his sperm frozen without telling me.

I realize this sudden burst of anger isn’t aimed at Alex; it’s directed at Ian, for leaving me like that. For not being more careful. For not staying the hell alive. It’s not that hard. Look at all the people at this party. They’re all alive. Why them and not him? Why did he have to be the one to die?

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, her hands on the exact same spot on my upper arms where so many people have planted their sweaty palms since Ian’s death. It’s not on my shoulders, but just below. The imprints I have amassed there, as though the press of a palm in that exact spot can inject me with a secret force, a newfound inner strength stemming from the energy of the palm-planting party, and make it all okay.

I know I’m being unfair, and that everybody is just doing the best they can under the circumstances. But so am I. This angry person who feels so unfairly treated by life is the best version of myself I can be at this moment.

I need a drink.

“Yes,” I say, resolutely, my mind on nothing but pouring some of the Veuve Clicquot Jeremy always treats us to at one of his parties down my throat. Tonight, I want to forget. I want to listen to my friends talk about their lives, moan about their jobs, argue about politics, gossip about colleagues, as though Ian were still alive but simply couldn’t make it to the party. He’s at home with a migraine and he didn’t want me to stay with him; it would only make him feel worse. He forced me to come here and have a good time with my friends.

I can’t pour the champagne down my throat fast enough to keep the fantasy alive.

* * *

“Hey there, Miss Thirsty,” Jeremy says while he replenishes my glass. “You’re going to regret this so much in the morning, but I’m not going to be the one to keep you from drinking your tits off tonight. Oh no, not me.” He grins, then kisses me on the cheek.

I glance at the kitchen wall where he has lined up all the bottles we’ve emptied tonight, and I might be seeing double, but there are at least ten already. Apart from Alex, my friends are all drinking with me. We’re doing this together. Getting mindlessly, recklessly wasted together, because what else are we going to do? The more we collectively drink, the more stories about Ian come to the surface.

His best friend Ethan, whom I’ve always found a little weird with his hippy man-bun and very socialist ideas, says, “The thing about Ian was that he was willing to believe everything anyone told him. He always gave you the benefit of the doubt, no matter how crazy the idea you put to him.” For a socialist, he’s enjoying the Veuve with a lot of gusto, knocking back the last of his glass in a fluid backward motion of his head. Then he continues. “Let’s drink to Ian.” His voice cracks and he grabs his wife Sydney’s shoulder. He raises his glass nonetheless, even though it’s empty. A guy Brandon brought to the party presents the bottle for a refill, because Jeremy seems to have grown tired of topping up drinks.

Ethan locks his gaze on me, gives a small nod of the head, and a tear glistens in the corner of his eye. Through the haze of alcohol, I realize that so many people have been missing him like crazy. That I’m not as alone as I thought I was, during those first weeks of grieving, when the pain was too great to think of anything or anyone else. Our friends’ lives have been crushed, too.

No matter how drunk I am, I have enough presence of mind to realize that being here with my friends is good for me. These people whom we had built our lives with and around. Ethan and Bart, whom Ian went on fishing weekends with, never bringing back anything resembling fish. Jeremy, whom Ian had long discussions with about LGBT rights and about how, even though same-sex marriage was now a fact, the battle was a long way from over. And Bo and Cindy, always referred to by everyone as “The Girls”, who were friends of Jeremy’s first, but whom Ian was always trying to meet up with and getting to know better because he admired them so much as a couple—and, perhaps, because they reminded him of Angela and Dolores when they were younger.

The love we share for him is magnified by us being here together, remembering him, toasting him, having a good old party in his honor, which he would have vastly preferred we do rather than mope about and succumb to infinite sadness. That’s why I allow myself to give in to the vibe of this night, to let the atmosphere, and the copious amounts of alcohol, carry me through, no matter the consequences tomorrow. A hangover is really the last of my worries.

After taxis have been summoned and everyone has left, and I make a feeble attempt at helping Jeremy clean up a little of the mess, he says, “I will have none of that, princess.” He swats a napkin from my hand. “Sit down and relax. Drink some water while you’re at it.”

“Is now an appropriate time to thank you?” I ask.

He sits next to me. “The best way to thank me is to get out more. This was good, wasn’t it? It did you good.”

I nod.

“You must be tired. All that hugging and crying and drinking. It tends to wear a person out.”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Why don’t you go to bed?” He puts a hand on the small of my back. “Come on, I’ll tuck you in.”

With a loud sigh, I push myself off the couch. The heartwarming nature of tonight’s party has thawed the ice around my soul a little, but now I have to go to bed alone. In my fantasy, in which Ian is still alive, just in bed with a migraine, I’d go home to a warm bed, fling my arms around him and cozy up to his strong body. Walking to Jeremy’s guest bedroom, where I stayed when I was at my worst, puts an abrupt end to that foolish piece of make-believe.

I stand in the doorway, Jeremy behind me, and I look at the empty bed. I stare at it for what feels like forever and don’t move, because I know I can’t do it. I can’t slip underneath its covers and fall asleep, not even with the amount of alcohol I’ve had and which is nearly knocking me to my knees. I simply can’t. An invisible barrier has been thrown up between me and the bed.

I need Dolores.

“What is it?” Jeremy puts a hand on my shoulder. “Did someone do something immoral in here while I wasn’t looking?” Jeremy doesn’t even laugh at his own joke.

“Will you call me a taxi, please? I can’t stay here. I need to go home. I’ll collect my car tomorrow.”

Jeremy spins me around and looks at me intently. “Are you sure?”

All I have in me is a quick nod.

Chapter Fifteen

I try to unlock Dolores’ door as quietly as possible. It takes a few seconds before I remember the code for the alarm, but I manage to punch it in, anyway—it’s the numbers that make up Ian’s birthday: 17061981.

Oh shit
, his birthday is in less than three weeks. The sudden realization makes me stand with my hands against the door for a minute, catching my breath.

I’m too drunk to do this gracefully, I think, when I head up the stairs to Dolores’ room—our room. I don’t always use the guest bathroom anymore, but tonight I do. I shed my clothes, leaving them in an untidy pile on the bathroom floor, and only bother to put on my pajama top. It’s getting warmer. We’ll have to switch on the air conditioning in the bedroom soon. I forego brushing my teeth and tip-toe to the bedroom.

The TV is still on, but paused on the Netflix home screen, casting a sleeping Dolores in a gaudy sort of light. I’m glad for the illumination so I don’t wake her with my stumbling in the dark at this ungodly hour. I’m not sure whether I’m glad she managed to go to sleep without me, but then, when I take a closer look at her peaceful sleeping face, I am. A warm glow spreads through me at the sight of her. Then I see the bottle of Ambien on her night stand. I can guess where she got that.

Figuring I no longer have to be ultra-quiet, I walk to my side of the bed, sit on the edge and switch off the TV. The Ambien must have knocked her out really well, because Dolores is lying in the middle of the bed and, despite it being a generous king-size, she’s not leaving me a lot of room. But I didn’t come back here for a lot of space in bed. In fact, I rushed over here in a taxi in the middle of the night because I wanted the opposite.

Dolores is lying on her back and I sidle up to her, wrapping an arm around her middle. Her tank top has ridden up and my arm is on her bare, warm skin. I put my head in the crook of her shoulder, enveloping her as much as I can. Then extreme fatigue hits me right on the head, and I nod off in minutes—minutes of sweet bliss for having someone to come home to, someone who warmed up the bed for me.

* * *

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up, but my head is pounding like someone has taken a hammer to it. I’m lying in a puddle of my own sweat, which is no wonder because Dolores is perched half on top of me. It’s only when I come to a little more that I realize one of her hands is tucked underneath my pajama top, her hot palm on my belly. It’s a touch so intimate—so foreign to me by now—that I break out into even more of a hot flash.

I want to get out from underneath Dolores. Her breath is in my ear. Her hand rises and falls with my own breath, quickening as my pulse picks up speed. What is this? I truly ask myself for the first time. What are we doing here? What am I still doing here? I can really only begin my life again once I move out of Dolores’ house, but the mere thought of it frightens me to such an extent that I find her hand underneath my top, and clasp it in mine.

I turn to look at Dolores. Early light is already coming through the blinds and I can make out her wrinkles, a freckle next to her nose, an unevenness underneath her temple.

I have the rest of my life to learn to be alone again. There’s no way I’m leaving Dolores’ house. How would I cope with the same sheer panic that gripped me when I walked into Jeremy’s guest room, or the prospect of waking up alone and wanting Ian beside me so much it physically hurts. Where would I even go?

The bottle of Ambien looks very tempting, but the alarm clock on Dolores’ side of the bed shows six already. I consider sleeping it off, just taking a day off from this grief, but I don’t want to disturb Dolores by moving. Her closeness calms me, even takes the sting off that pulsating headache at the back of my skull. Glancing at her relaxed features relaxes me in turn.

I bring an arm to her back and pull her a little closer. I lie like this for a long time, trying to focus on my breath, and on the feel of someone else’s skin on mine.

* * *

I wake up again when Dolores starts to move. When I open my eyes, I stare straight into hers. Her hand is still on my belly, mine is still on her back. We haven’t moved an inch since I fell back asleep.

“Hey,” she whispers, but doesn’t move away, “you’re here.”

“Yeah,” I whisper back, not wanting to disturb the peaceful morning atmosphere.

“I’m glad.” She must only then notice where her hand is because she looks down at my belly. “Oh.” She retracts it immediately. “I’m sorry about that.” She gives a small, apologetic smile.

“It’s okay.” With that, the moment has passed.

She rolls away, putting a few inches of distance between us, and pulls her top all the way down. “I couldn’t sleep, so I took one of your pills. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shake my head while I bring my hands to my face and massage my temples.

“How was the party? Rough night?”

I’m relieved she doesn’t ask why I came back. She doesn’t need to. She knows. Just as I know why she went against her own advice and took a pill on the one night I wasn’t here. Some things are better left unsaid.

“I drank too much.” I give an exaggerated moan. “Jeremy has a very heavy hand when it comes to pouring champagne.”

My head is thrown back on the pillow so I only hear the chuckle Dolores produces. “But you had a good time?”

“Hm,” I grunt. “It was good to see my friends.” I tell her about Alex’s pregnancy and how Ethan, whom Dolores has known since Ian was in high school, still hasn’t cut his hair, and we chit chat for a couple of minutes, I bringing her up to speed on Ian’s friends’ lives, she listening attentively, not caring that her hair is all over the place, and there are tiny crusts in the corners of her eyes, and the shoulder band of her tank top has slipped down. Dolores just listens.

“What do you want to do today?” she asks, after I’m done talking.

Simply being asked the question fills me with the same warm glow I felt when I entered the bedroom last night.

“Sleep some more. Be brought breakfast in bed. Get a head and shoulder massage. Become an alcoholic and repeat all of that tomorrow.” I make my voice drip with pathos.