The Life I Now Live (2 page)

“No one is after you.”

“I don’t feel safe here.” She closed her eyes. “I’ve never lived alone before, and now that I have a baby to protect I feel even more paranoid.”

“I can understand that,” I said. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“What if you bought the house across the street? It’s been on the market for a year.”

“I can’t. I’m already paying for my apartment plus helping you out with this mortgage. There’s no way I could pay for two mortgages at once.”

“What if you moved in with me? You could fix the basement up and live there.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek and considered the possibility. “I don’t know. Might be weird for Riley. She’d grow up thinking of me as her uncle and that’s not what I want to be.”

Her eyes opened. She turned her body toward me. I stood there. Arms at my sides. Wanting to hold her. To be hers.

“What do you want to be?” she said, a hint of flirtation in her voice.

“Don’t play with me,” I said. “You know what I want. It’s not a game, Heidi. We’re not in middle school. This isn’t a check yes or no if you like me game. I love you, okay? What more can I say? I want to be with you. If that means I’m your best friend until the day I die, then okay. I can deal with that. But you know what I want.”

She sat up. “Why, Pat? Tell me why. How can you love me? We barely know each other.”

“Not true.” I sat beside her. “You know me well and I know you as well as anyone can. You don’t let many people in right now. I think I’m as close to you as someone can get.”

“But what about me do you love?” She wasn’t playing. She was serious. “And don’t say everything.”

“There’s not just a list of qualities, although I could give you plenty of those. It’s us. What we have. I love what you and me equal.”

She thought for a moment, then said, “What about Gavin and Ella?”

“What about them?”

“You think we have something like them?”

I laughed. “No one does. That’s their own thing. Ella creates love stories wherever she goes. You’re not Ella. I’m not Gavin. But that doesn’t mean that what we have is anything less special. It’s just us. It’s the picture you see when the puzzle pieces find their match. I like this picture.”

She reached for my hand. Squeezed, then let go. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“It’s not. You’re just making it that way.”

“You don’t understand. There’s more to the story, but I’m not allowed to say anything.”

“Says who?”

“I can’t say.”

Man, it killed me to walk away from her. I never imagined falling in love again. Not after the hell on earth I endured with Emily. When she died I told myself no woman would ever be worth that again. You spend your life fighting for a girl only to have her give up and die, and that was before the cancer killed her. It certainly doesn’t make you want to fight again.

Maybe this sounds bad, I don’t know and I really don’t care, but I wanted to be fought for too. Not in a damsel in distress kind I way. I was no damsel and I wasn’t quite distressed. Yet.

I wanted to be loved. Really loved. Like my friends. Gavin and Matt. Their wives smiled at them from across the room with such sweetness. Lydia went through a lot as she waited for Matt to choose her. She fought. She gave up something.

Why did I fall for women who were locked behind walls with no windows? Heidi was different than Emily. She didn’t seem as depressed. Just sad. And the chemistry between us. She hid from it, but there’s no mistaking those kind of sparks. Still. She stood behind an enormous brick wall and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to chip at the bricks.

If only I had a grenade, I thought. That would work. 

I walked into my apartment, took my shoes off, and immediately got into bed. Midnight. About the time I always went to bed now that I spent most nights with Heidi.

Her face lived in my mind. A permanent resident. I closed my eyes and saw her. Tears running down her face. I wanted to know her. To get behind the wall and find out what she really felt.

She made it so difficult. Looking down and seeing that ring on her finger didn’t help. I loved her. Wanted her so bad it hurt. But not with that ring on her finger.

I pulled the sheets over my head, rolled to my side, and wondered how life became so twisted. On my nightstand, my own wedding band reflected the red light from the alarm clock beside it. Emily. She would’ve been sleeping in the bed right now. Me, on the couch. Never allowed to touch her. If I tried to hold her hand, she flinched. She blamed it on her past. I had no doubt. Being raped by your dad when you’re seven years old would mess me up too. But doesn’t there come a time when you need to bury the past? When you stop using it as excuse to curl up in a ball and not live your life? Doesn’t there come a time when the past no longer lives in the present and muddies the future?

I was tired of mud. So exasperated with it. I flung the covers off, grabbed the ring, opened my window, and flung it out into the winter wonderland. Shivering, I jumped back into bed and smiled. The past one step closer to really, truly, being behind me.

Heidi’s face appeared again. Bright eyes and wavy hair just past her shoulders. The way she smiled at me. She loved me. I knew she did. If only she’d admit it and let the bricks fall to the ground. 

I wanted to fight for her, albeit tired. But I feared the grenade didn’t exist on my side of the wall. She held it. Firmly. Right there on her left hand ring finger.

Oh well, I thought as I picked up my phone and texted her.

I love you.

Take it or leave it, I decided to love her whether she loved me or not. Not like I could help it anyway.

Ch. 3 | Heidi

 I couldn’t sleep for the fifth night in a row. So I told Patrick to sleep on my bed and I’d wake him up an hour before he needed to leave for work. Seeing him in my bed was strange. Along with the help of my friends, Matt and Gavin, I painted the entire house in colors that reminded me of my relationship with Andy. I told myself I’d never let another man sleep in my bed. And I thought the meaningful paint in every room would help that, but it didn’t. Patrick was right. What we had was different. Special. I can’t even explain it, but whatever we had was better than what Andy and I had when our love story was in its cute stage. For a while I lived in denial about the last year of our life together. I erased the bad parts from my heart and chose to remember only the good, but Patrick, warm in my bed, the bed I shared with Andy, made me question all I ever believed about love.

I cooked breakfast. Perfect view of the snow-covered yard while I prepared two plates of French toast and scrambled eggs. Riley babbled in her high chair, banging wooden toys together and sipping my milk from her cup. I smiled at her. She smiled back. Andy’s smile. She looked just like her daddy.

I set the plates on the kitchen table, picked up Riley, and went upstairs to wake Patrick. He adjusted to the light, asked the time, and came downstairs with me. I put Riley back in her chair and walked to the front door.

Snow. I loved winter. I opened the door, stepped out in my bare feet, and inhaled.

“Are you crazy?” Patrick said from the kitchen. “Close the door.”

I took a deep breath again. The freshness of the white morning made me smile. I love winter like most people love spring. Something about icicles dangling from bare branches makes me feel like living.

A figure caught my eye in the vacant house across the street. I took a step.

“You coming?” Patrick said. 

“Yeah.” I squinted. The figure backed away from the window.

I went back inside and sat across from Patrick. He took a bite and complimented my cooking. I looked around him to the front windows.

“Everything okay?” he said. “Are you that enamored with the snow?”

“I saw someone in the house over there. Looking at me.”

“You’re freaking out over nothing. Get those dreams out of your head.”

“The house is supposed to be vacant right now. No one lives there.”

“It’s probably a realtor or something.”

“Maybe.” I dipped my crunchy French toast in maple syrup and took a bite. “Maybe I am crazy.”

“Probably.” He smiled.

“Or maybe I’m not.” I looked around the room, then whispered, “Andy was in trouble with some people before he died. I can’t say anything else, but my fears are legitimate.”

Patrick stopped chewing and set his fork down. “Are you kidding me? What is this? A James Bond movie?”

“It’s not like that, but it involved a scandal and some money and, I don’t know, Andy got really into conspiracy theories the last year of his life and I think his paranoia is rubbing off on me.”

“What? You think the man behind the curtain is out to get you?”

“Don’t make fun of me.” I looked down. “I’m serious.”

He touched my hand from across the table. The hand that still wore Andy’s ring.

“Sorry.” He smiled. “I just have a hard time believing in nightmares. Try to forget about it. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t alone in a big house with an infant most of the day. My own shadow made me jump nowadays.

We finished breakfast and I left when he did. At his request. He told me to get out of the house and visit some friends. I called Miranda, my friend Matt’s sister. She moved to Philly not too long ago and we became close really fast. Maybe because the other girls were married, but also because Lydia was too girly and Ella lived in Lancaster, almost two hours away. I couldn’t spend too much time around her without feeling jealous, so I kept it to a minimum. I know that sounds bad, but I didn’t want anymore reasons to be discontent. I needed to be happy for Riley.

Miranda and I met at a small coffee shop in the city. I didn’t recognize her at first. Last week her hair was the color of a plum, now bright blue. 

“Doesn’t that dye ruin your hair?” I said, sitting down across from her.

“Tons of coconut oil and mayonnaise keeps it healthy,” she said in her pretend Irish accent. “Well, healthy-ish.”

“Why blue?”

“Haven’t tried blue yet. Thought I would.” She sipped from a steamy mug and nodded to the drink in front of me. “Got your favorite for you.”

“Thank you.” I warmed my hands with the cup. “How’s your brother?”

“Matt? He’s good. Work is good. Lydia is good. Baby in the belly is good.”

“What about Derek? Are you guys still talking?”

She smiled. “We’re friends.”

“Friends like you and me? Or friends like Patrick and me?”

“To be determined. I think I’m too much for him. He’s so normal.”

I laughed. “And we all know you can’t handle normal.”

“No, but Matt tells me it may be what I need, whether I can handle it or not. What about you? How’s Riley’s leg? What’s it called again?”

“Fibular hemimelia.” I smiled at Riley. Such a content and peaceful baby. “I won’t have another appointment until it comes time for her first surgery. In the summer.”

“What will they do for the first one?”

“Fix her ankle and foot, maybe lengthen a little bit. Then she’ll have another surgery when she’s almost three. That’s when they will start lengthening it more.” My eyes glazed over. “I’m really dreading it. I wake up every day wondering why her. What did I do wrong? I just want it to magically heal and be better. I can’t imagine putting her through all of this.”

“It will be okay. You have a lot of good friends now. What’s going on with Patrick?”

“He told me he loves me.”

“Wow. About time. And?”

“I never said anything back. I can’t.” I held up my hand. The ring glistened in the sunlight. “I’m still married.”

“Man, people think I’m nuts. How long will you spend your life being faithful to a dead man?”

“I said I would forever. I said no man would be worth taking these rings off.”

“Patrick isn’t worth it?”

I took a drink, ignored her question. She let me ignore it and we filled up the rest of our time with meaningless conversation. Which I needed. Too many serious things in my life. My mind needed a rest.