In This Life

by Terri Herman-Poncé

“Your experience must have felt very lonely.”

  “‘Lonely’ is not the word I would have chosen. And my experience was very different from yours.”

  He dropped his head, burdened by remorse that he didn’t care to hide, and I marveled at the depth of emotion this man carried. David kept his feelings close to his heart, letting them out only when needed and with unconditional passion and intensity when he did. Galen wore his feelings like his clothes, visible to anyone who cared enough to pay attention.

  “Do you know your entire past life now?” I asked.

  “A good deal of it but not all of it.”

  He seemed disappointed by that, but not in a way I understood. “You make it sound as if learning about that other life was a mistake.”

  “In some ways it was.”

  “What happened to you?”

  Long seconds passed by before he responded, and even then it seemed obligatory and with shame. “It isn’t what happened to me but what happened to us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Galen pressed his lips together.

  I walked back to him and stood my ground. “I need to know, Galen. I have a feeling that what happened in my past is affecting decisions I’m making now. In fact, I get the feeling that it’s not just my decisions that are impacted but also my life overall. There are parallels between these two lives and the people within it, and I don’t understand what they mean.”

  “Because you are trying too hard.”

  In a single, fluid motion, Galen sat down on the sofa. His eyes met mine and I felt the familiar pull of his deep, extraordinary gaze. It seemed to hold so many secrets yet I sensed a distance in him that I couldn’t comprehend. I suspected he kept that distance by choice.

  “We were important to each other,” I said, reading into his silence.

  Galen nodded.

  I sat down beside him. “Did we love each other?”

  Galen didn’t answer but I felt drawn into the emotional hold he had on me. Some instinctive, baser part of me recognized him, and somewhere deeper inside I felt a stirring passion that flickered and teased, needing only the right spark for it to burn again.

  I searched his face, sifting through images and memories, the yearning and the desire, like the pages of a well-worn diary. In those soul-searching moments, a sudden awareness emerged and it was not the one I expected.

  “You’re the reason I can’t commit to David.”

  Galen sighed and nodded.

  “Because of an unresolved issue from long ago. From something I did with you.”

  “Yes.”

  I waited for more information but none came, and when I tried digging for the memories deeply buried inside me, the more out of reach they felt. It was like a cement wall had been erected, keeping me from what I needed to know.

  “I need your help, Galen. Please.”

  “You already see what you need to see. You only need to open your eyes to understand. Let go of your fear, Shemei.”

  “I’m not Shemei, Galen. Not anymore.”

  “And that is why you can’t move forward with your regression. You’re fighting the very person you are, deep inside.”

  The words seemed familiar, from a place that was lit with candles on a night that was filled with promise and unease. Galen had told me that I had lost Bakari to war, and I had invited him to my chamber wanting to forget the pain. Wanting to erase Bakari from my memory.

  At least, that’s what I had kept telling myself.

  But once Kemnebi arrived, I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision. I wanted him to leave but I couldn’t bring myself to make him go. In silence and solitude I stood near the bed I had only shared with Bakari, questioning what I’d done to anger the gods so much that they thought it necessary to take away the man I loved.

  I felt Kemnebi’s warm breath on my neck.

  “Shemei,” he whispered.

  I turned to him and swayed on my feet as the first effects of the wine and the lotus took hold.

  “Push me away, Shemei.” His voice, as intoxicating as the flower and wine, flowed through my body. “Do it, or I will make the decision for us.”

  He pressed against me as his hands traveled lower. I felt the hunger and urgency in his body and when his mouth claimed mine, I tensed at the foreign taste of his tongue. The unfamiliar feel of his body on top of mine.

  A body that was now Galen’s.

  “Galen!” I struggled beneath him, trying to break free. “Galen, please stop!”

  Galen watched me through a clouded, faraway look and didn’t respond. I wrestled out from under him, the shoulder strap ripping from my dress as I pulled free. He got up, swayed and moved for me again. I scrambled to my feet and shoved him, hoping to startle him out of his haze.

  It didn’t work.

  “Galen!” I pushed him hard, then harder still. “Galen, snap out of it!”

  I gave him one last push and slapped him, and Galen blinked as his cheek blossomed bright red. After a drawn out moment, he looked at me with clear eyes and sat back down on the sofa.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  I forced him to focus on me, and the one question that still needed to be answered. “Tell me what happened, Galen. I see something with David, with Bakari, and a sword. I know that sword ties in to you and me. Tell me what it means.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I do then I will tell you only what I want you to know, and that’s just as bad as the lie I told you to make you think Bakari had died in battle.”

  “But I remember you giving me Bakari’s sword after the war. You told me that he didn’t make it.”

  “I told you he didn’t make it but I didn’t say that he died. You assumed that he did.”

  I stilled as the realization of what Kemnebi had done sank in. “You manipulated me and used me, knowing I would misunderstand your words when you returned from war.”

  “Not any more than you manipulated me that night.”

  I shook my head, adamant. “What I did was not the same.”

  “Look past your own ego and you will see that it is.”

  “You overpowered me. I stood little chance of fighting back.”

  “You fought well enough and you enjoyed it. Your despair over losing Bakari was just as strong as your desire for me.”

  “Bakari was my world.”

  Galen fixed me with a long, meaningful look. “Was he?”

  I pulled back. “How could you even question such a thing?”

  “You enjoyed the attentions I had always given you. You invited me back to your chamber the same night after you discovered Bakari was gone. If Bakari was your world, why did you encourage me? Why not wait until you had at least taken some time to grieve? Or at least ask the questions to confirm that Bakari was indeed dead?”

  I couldn’t answer because I didn’t want to.

  “It was all an excuse.” Galen let that truth linger then added, “And I believe you’re looking for another excuse now.”

  “I don’t intend to sleep with you, Galen.”

  “Because Bellotti is your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you cannot commit to him. Partly because of me but mostly because of you.”

  “I don’t intend to betray David. I’m here for information, Galen, and to piece together memories. To find out what this all means. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  “Look at me and say that again like you mean it. I hear the words, Shemei, but they don’t sound very convincing.”

  “You believe that because we slept together in a past life that we’ll do it again?”

  Galen moved in until we were breaths apart. “I believe you are fighting your attraction now as you did then.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “If it is, then why do you flush every time you’re near me? Why do you work harder at learning about your regression with me,
and the life the three of us shared, and not with Bellotti? If you truly believe that Bellotti is your world,” he asked, “then why did you invite me into yours?”

  “I already told you why,” I said.

  “We are who we are. You’re attracted to me as I was attracted to you back then, and you’re still finding excuses to deny how you really feel.” Galen leaned in and brought his lips to my ear. “We were very good together,” he whispered. “Imagine what we could be if we had more time.”

  His voice was deep and rich and full of promise. His body was close. His mouth closer still. Vivid memories of the two of us came hard and fast. Our bodies moving together. An explosive climax. An insatiable physical addiction that drove us to near madness.

  Galen was right. We were very good together. More than good together. And we could have those very same things again now. I only had to make the same decision I had made before.

  It scared me that I could think such a thing, that I could even consider choosing someone other than David after all we had been through. It frightened me more how much I wanted it, how right and wrong it all felt, how my body felt so in tune with Galen’s.

  I only had to say yes.

  Yes.

  I cleared my throat, grabbed my bag, and left.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was late afternoon by the time I pulled in my driveway, and I sat in David’s SUV wondering if he was home and what his reaction might be once he saw my torn dress. Knowing I couldn’t put off the inevitable, I unbuckled, turned off the engine, and headed inside.

  I dropped David’s keys near mine on the desk and saw no sign of David having been in the kitchen. No evidence that he’d even started the evening meal. The den also looked undisturbed and just as it did when we left earlier that day. Magazines and David’s tablet were on the coffee table. The remote was on the sofa. The television was off.

  Hefting my handbag over my shoulder, I headed into the foyer and for the stairs and considered calling David’s cell when I heard a floorboard creak on the second story landing. I looked up and David looked down and we both stood in silence. He gave me the once-over before focusing on my ripped dress, where his eyes lingered for far too long. He frowned, pressed his lips together, and headed to our bedroom.

  I stared at the empty space David had just occupied, thinking of all the different ways I could explain what he’d probably never believe. In the end, I decided maybe I shouldn’t say anything at all. Sometimes people, especially those who needed to control, handled situations better when not encouraged to react, and this was one fire I didn’t want to fuel.

  By the time I reached the bedroom, David had disappeared. I dumped my bag on the bed and pulled out an orange tank top and white shorts from my dresser. David emerged from the walk-in closet just as I unzipped my dress and dropped it to the floor. He paused, mid-stride, his gaze moving from my face to my lace bra to my lace panties and back up to the bra again. A day or two ago he would have made a suggestive comment, or maneuvered me to the bed and seduced me. Today, judging by the look of disapproval on his face, I was the last person he wanted to see.

  I held back a sigh. Maybe my decision not to bring up the dress had been the wrong one, and I would have said something about it but my attention went to the jeans and Nike shirts in his hands and the duffel bag on the floor.

  “Are you packing?” I asked.

  David turned from me and pulled out sport socks from the dresser along with several black tees. “Yes.”

  All the air escaped from my lungs and my knees gave out, and I sank onto the edge of the bed. Numbed by shock, I watched him pack until I could form only the simplest question in my mind.

  “Why?”

  He turned and looked at me again. “Please put on some clothes.” He started shoving the tees into the duffel bag and zipped it closed.

  I refused to let this happen. “We need to talk, David.”

  He sat on his haunches with his back to me and his shoulders slumped as if a crushing weight pressed down on him. “We’ve been doing a lot of that lately and it isn’t getting us anywhere. There really isn’t much left to say.”

  Except goodbye.

  I quickly pulled on my tee and shorts and went over to him, ready to fight for us. “You couldn’t be more wrong and you’re assuming too much. We need to talk about you and me and Galen.”

  I watched David’s back expand and contract with every deep breath he drew in. After what felt like too many drawn out seconds, he rose to his full height and faced me. “We’ve been through this already, Lottie.”

  “Yes, and I don’t seem to be getting through.”

  “There’s nothing to get through.”

  Like fine desert sand, I felt our relationship slipping through my fingers and scattering in all directions under the wind, with no hope of pulling it back into its original form.

  Still, I wasn’t going down without a fight. “How can I make you see? What can I do or say to make you understand that this is one miscommunication after another?”

  He shook his head and let out a small, humorless laugh. “I see very well what’s going on and I understand more than you give me credit for. In fact, I think I understand this situation better than you do.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “I don’t want to fight about this, David. I just want to make things right between us again. Galen is — ”

  “Important to you.”

  I shook my head. “Not in the way you think.”

  David made a face that said it all. I wasn’t fooling him even though I was trying to fool myself. He moved in closer and paused.

  “You need to figure out who you are and what you want. That’s all it comes down to and that’s why I need to leave.”

  He had made his decision and I couldn’t change it. I swallowed over the growing knot in my stomach. “How long will you be gone?”

  “A few days at least, maybe longer. It all depends.” On you went unsaid. “I already know what I want and I’ve known for a long while now. The biggest disappointment for me is that I thought I knew what you wanted, too.”

  “Marriage.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Me.”

  A dozen arguments surfaced in my head but David gave me no time to voice even one.

  “At first I thought you didn’t want marriage because of what happened with your birth parents,” he said. “Or that maybe what you went through in foster care had scarred you. As much as not being married bothered me, it wasn’t until Galen showed up that I realized it was much more than that.”

  With every word David spoke, I felt smaller and smaller still. The truth, painful as it was to hear, was still always the truth. In hindsight, maybe I knew this day was coming and maybe Galen had been the trigger after all but that knowledge didn’t lessen the heartache I felt now. David and I had shared a lifetime together, as friends and as lovers, through our absolute best and sickening worst, and now that had all been ripped out from inside me. I shivered as the first chill of emptiness swept through.

  “Figure out what you need to do,” he said. “If it’s a phase, then get it out of your system. If it’s not, then at least we’ll know. But I can’t be a part of a relationship that’s uncertain or that’ll lead to resentment. We’ll be worse off because of it and neither one of us deserves that.”

  “David, it’s not that I want someone else.”

  “I think you do. And I also think you’re afraid to admit it.”

  His jaw clenched and he glanced away and I watched him battle the very same emotions I was. Worse, our decades-long relationship had been reduced to little more than awkward words and fast-fading hope in less than a day.

  “This is a mistake,” I told him. “You can’t give up on us. I won’t let this happen.”

  David cleared his throat and swung his attention back to me. “Nat’s agreed to stay with you in my absence,” he said, ignoring what I’d just said. “At leas
t until we figure Logan out.”

  “David — ”

  “The cops took him in but I’m not too sure where that’s going to lead.”

  “Wait. What?” My head and heart were still wrapped around David leaving, and I was having trouble keeping up with the abrupt change in topic.

  “I ran after Logan but I saw the cops before he did, and I was able to dodge them before they saw me,” David said. “But I guess Logan got their radar humming, and they nabbed him and dumped him into their patrol car.”

  “David, denial and ignorance aren’t going to help us any. If you want resentment in our relationship, refusing to face what’s ahead of us is a surefire way of giving it a head start. Logan isn’t what we should be talking about.”

  “I don’t know how long they’ll keep him in custody, but I’m not willing to take any chances with you.”

  “David, stop!”

  “Did you know Logan’s a drug dealer?”

  “Of course, I did — ”

  “Did you know he’s been accused of stalking?”

  “What?” I faltered. “No.”

  “Did you know he was also accused of being an accessory to murder eighteen months ago? My intel told me that the case against him was dismissed and that his file was sealed.”

  My head felt stuffed up and full of too much information that I couldn’t process. “You’re throwing too much at me too fast and I can’t get a handle on all of it. You have to slow down.”

  “Then maybe this will help.” David dug into his back jeans pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Logan may have friends in high places who can cover for him, but on his own he’s clumsy. He dropped this when I ran after him, and I think you’ll be very interested in what you’ll find on there.”

  He handed me the phone and I stared at it, not sure what to think anymore.

  “Is it Logan’s?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. It was on him.”

  The downstairs doorbell rang, I heard the front door open, and Nat’s voice followed right after. “Avon calling!”

  David picked up his duffel bag and started for the door.

  “Hello?” Nat shouted out.

  “Be right down!” David shouted back.