Authors: Katherine Owen
"Take your time. I'll go clean up the kitchen," she says.
I listen as she slides on her jeans. I hear the sound of her distant footsteps in the hall. By the determined tap of her high heels, I imagine she's pissed that we didn't finish what we started, while I feel this profound, inexplicable relief. I breathe deep. Maybe, my body is trying to tell me something. I dress more slowly, then spend an inordinate amount of time in search of my cell phone and eventually make a few phone calls.
≈ ≈
Pots and pans clatter together as I enter the kitchen.
I ignore Kate's anger as she continues to clang dishes and silverware with conspiring silence. I'm reminded of my father. I wince. Henry Wainwright's attitude for anything out of the ordinary, including my mother's temper, is to ignore it completely.
When did I become like him?
I fumble in the blackness into a tall kitchen chair and slide onto it.
"This was a bad idea," Kate says after a few moments.
"Yeah," I say. "For what it's worth; I''m sorry."
"Sorry for what? This is my fault. I took an oath. I have a job to do and you're a patient."
"
Former
patient." I lift my head in defiance in the general direction of her voice and curse the darkness and the sudden silence.
"It never should have happened," she finally whispers.
"Nothing happened. That's the fucking problem," I say with a harsh laugh. "I guess I'm not ready for all of this." I extend my arms around and then attempt nonchalance with a shrug, while inside I shake in real fear at my nonperformance status. "I changed my flight to tonight. I can go it alone."
She audibly sighs. With disappointment and frustration. I smile toward the sound.
"I'll take you to the airport," she finally says.
"I was hoping you would."
We leave everything else unsaid.
I swim in the darkness and allow her to guide me out to her car.
≈ ≈
On the way to Dulles, I begin to feel the familiar sensation as if I'm drowning, while Kate seems to stew in the protracted silence between us.
"I thought I'd be able to help you," she says as we park the car.
"Is that what we were doing at your apartment? You were
helping
me?"
"No," she says. "That was career suicide."
She sounds lost, confused. I reach out to her, trace her jaw and trail my fingers along her collar bone. She moans and climbs into my lap. This fear takes hold. Am I going to have the same non-reaction as before?
"I really like you, Brock," she says. I hear the uncertainty in her voice.
She kisses me slowly and I kiss her back. My mind is a blank slate for once. Kissing Kate is like a passing glimpse at my old life—a free pass.
I smile beneath her lips and luxuriate within her quest for seduction. My mouth explores hers and my body starts to respond. I breathe a sigh of extreme relief. I feel her smile beneath my lips. The sound of a car door being slammed closed right next to us brings us back. We pull apart. Guilty.
"Maybe, next time," she says, sliding off of me.
"I think you
did
help me, just not in the way we thought you would." I reach across and trace her lips. "Thank you, Kate.
I take a moment to control my breathing, leave the thoughts of the failed seduction of Kate behind, and begin to focus upon getting onto the airplane and not making a fool of myself on the way there.
We walk in companionable silence, side-by-side. I'm reminded of Ethan's funeral. Kate Richards has been my lifeline for the past several months. I owe her a great deal; yet, I struggle to put it all into words. My lack of performance from earlier at her place looms again. I''m reminded of my failures. There's too many of them now.
"Here. We can sit here until your flight is called."
I grip the edge of a chair she puts my hand onto and slide down into it. Then, I fumble around for her hand. I bring it to my lips and kiss it. She sighs. "Kate," I say. "Thank you for everything you've done for me."
"I wish I could have done
more
." Her emphasis on the word more makes me cringe, but I force myself to smile.
"You did
plenty.
Write to me. Call me. Maybe, everything will be different in a few months." I reach out awkwardly and touch her hair, running a few strands of it through my fingers. It's shorter than Jordan's by a good eight inches.
Why do I always compare Kate to Jordan?
I slip my hands in my pockets.
Kate guides me to the security line and stays with me until I reach the front. She talks with authority to the TSA officials. One of them grabs my arm, prepared to escort me to the plane.
My humiliation for this day is complete.
"I'll call you in a few days after you're settled," Kate says.
"I'll see you soon." My sarcasm fails like everything else has this day.
*≈*≈*
Chapter 8. Gravity
Jordan
His emails had stopped coming. It was the one and only sign. The man wrote me without fail, regardless of circumstances. He'd written to me every day for over three years. And, the emails had stopped coming. He''d written to me for more than a thousand days, whenever we were apart. Without fail.
And, then? Nothing. For more than two days.
Nothing.
Ethan's silence signaled his death, long before the Navy graced my doorstep to tell me he was gone.
Months later, and I am still pretending that everything is okay, that nothing has changed. I go on with my life and perform the most ordinary of tasks, as if, somehow, by doing so, I can change the outcome of what I already know: he's gone.
Ethan's gone.
And, I carry my darkest thought, deep inside, the one I've kept secret all these years: I knew he would die someday.
Who thinks that way?
At this juncture, it doesn't matter that I abided this incalculable foreboding and saw this outcome for him. In the end, it doesn't matter whether I ever overcame my fear of losing him or not.
In the end, it didn't save him.
He isn't here.
I am.
Aren't I?
For more than five months, almost six, and counting, I pretend that everything is okay and that nothing has changed. But, we all know it has.
Friday. The first Friday in August. My mind automatically performs the calculations. Ethan has been dead for one hundred and fifty-nine days. My obsession with time persists. I shudder, thinking of what the day, not too far in the future, will be like, when I mark the number of days he's been dead and connect it with the number of days we spent together in total.
"Momma?"
I glance up at the rear-view mirror and take in the startling blue eyes of my son that mirror Ethan's. We're on our way to a play date with his friend, Davey. As always, my precocious son vies for my attention which is still vaguely absent so much of the time most days. I wanly smile as I negotiate the route to his friend's house and mechanically answer his questions.
"Yes, the clouds looked like marshmallows today. Yes, I see the elephant's trunk. No, I'm not sure why elephants are grey. Yes, I can see that some of the leaves are yellow. Yes, summer is almost over and then it will be fall."
"Can Daddy see the leaves turning?" Max asks, during a lull in our conversation.
I hesitate, debating how to answer. "I don't know," I finally say in a faraway voice. "I hope so."
He nods with an enthusiastic dip of his chin and I force myself to smile, while this overwhelming sadness tries to smother me.
What should I be telling Max? What should I be telling myself?
I swipe away a tear and try to focus on the road.
Minutes later, I catch his intense gaze at me in the car's rearview mirror. His forehead is wrinkled as if he's in deep thought.
"Will we ever see him again?"
"I don't know."
My throat closes up. I glance at the traffic up ahead and then focus back on him via the rearview mirror again. He leans back in his car seat and closes his eyes.
"Sometimes, I can see him when I close my eyes. Like this," Max says softly.
I blink back tears and smile at the same time at his thoughtful words. His simple outlook buoys my spirit just a little.
"That's when I see him, too," I finally say. The car is silent, except for the purr of the engine. Then, I accelerate with the green light.
"Momma," he says. "You'll always be here; won't you?"
I look at him intently in the rearview mirror. "I'll always be here, Max. Always."
He nods, seemingly reassured by my answer. He takes a deep breath. Then, he's looking out the window and up at the blue sky, while I'm quaking deep inside with a memory of my mother telling me the same thing when I was about six.
Why do we make these promises we can't keep?
A flash of Brock Wainwright comes to mind. Guilt stabs at me. Why did I expect him to keep his promise to keep Ethan safe when I cannot even believe in the one I just uttered to Max?
A car honks. I reconnect to the drive ahead of me, shudder, and take an unsteady breath.
"Why do elephants mostly live in Africa instead of here?"
I wanly smile at my Max's ability to switch from the heart-wrenching questions to the easy ones. Then, I launch into a long dissertation about Africa and elephants as much for Max's benefit as my own.
≈ ≈
At the restaurant, I consult with Louis and spend an inordinate amount of time with the maitre d', Monica Lee. I laser in on the importance of tonight's private event for the Maston's anniversary. Everything needs to be perfect I reiterate to the entire staff more than once. Louis and Monica exchange looks of concern, but I choose to ignore them. I don't normally tell any of the staff how to do their jobs. As head chef, I believe in their capabilities and allow them the freedom to execute the religious experience of dining at Le Reve all on their own. I trust them.
Normally.
"Everything, okay, Jordan?" Louis finally asks.
He absently touches his suit lapel as he speaks, belying his frustration with my continuous speech in detailing the finer points about the Maston's party. It's something I would normally leave to the staff's discretion, but my unfulfilled need to control something,
anything
, countermands it.
"Everything's fine." I contrive a bright smile, but it lacks true sentiment. Louis seems to notice.
"Max. He's good?" His French accent gets more distinct.
"Max is great."
I shrug my shoulders and start to turn away. He grabs my arm.
"And you, Jordan? You are okay, too?" His friendly tone is etched with concern and leaves little room for me to argue his point. I hang my head a little and reluctantly follow him to the private office we share. The place is littered with paperwork——piles of it—that I have neglected for months. Delivery orders, bills, even Max's scattered artwork seems to indict me from all corners of this small space.
Louis's constant soliloquy about looking at the documents that have piled up, a foot high, physically confronts me as we enter. As his head chef, he lets me run things my own way, but I have a feeling that is about to change.
I feel a twinge of guilt because I have put off the estate document discussion with Brock for the past month or so, too. We never did have that promised conversation about Ethan's estate. Like a petulant child, I have again ignored his phone calls and messages for the past six weeks even though I promised him I wouldn't.
Promises are made to be broken.
The bitter thought pulls at me, even as I cajole myself to push thoughts of Brock Wainwright to the back of my mind. Instead, I bleakly stare at the mess in front of me and blink back tears for the third time this afternoon.
Louis pushes the largest pile to one side of the desk and sits on the edge of it. More alert to his actions, I watch as he takes a deep breath and shakes his head side-to-side.
I cringe inward, knowing this particular discussion has been building for months. We both know it. I'm somewhat relieved that this showdown is finally taking place and watch in fascination as he retraces his steps, shuts the door with a decisive click, and closes the blinds. This action effectively shuts out the curious onlookers of the kitchen staff much to their recognizable disappointment.
Louis retakes his perch on the edge of my desk. His black mustache twitches as he prepares himself for what he, apparently, has to say. I lift my head and defiantly glare at him, though my insides tremble a little. Louis treats me like a daughter; it is rare that he loses his temper with me.
Am I getting fired?
Is my blowup last week at the truck driver for delivering the wrong order with our herb supplier finally going to be addressed? Is the time I locked myself in the cooler, where Monica found me two hours later, crying going to be discussed?