The People We Meet Along The Way

by Beth Rinyu

  Theo shook his head and looked down at me. “It’s not your fault. You have to stop thinking that way or else it’s going to eat away at you for the rest of your life.”

  “I just…I shouldn’t have told him. I should’ve just—”

  “Should’ve what? Had this secret between the two of you? Regardless if you were going to try and make a go of your marriage or not, you did the right thing by being honest.”

  “I feel like such a horrible person for running to the first guy who showed me some attention instead of my husband. I promised on the day I married him that I would be faithful to him. He always put me on a pedestal. He wouldn’t even give another woman a second look, and I did the worst thing imaginable.”

  “Look, I’m the last person to pass judgment. I kind of know how you’re feeling in one aspect, but luckily for my ex, she ended up getting out of our marriage fairly unscathed and got something better out of it. So, I can’t say I know how you’re feeling over the losing-your-husband part of it.”

  “It’s just so unfair. It happened so quickly. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to hear him say he hates my guts or how angry he was at me…anything. I would’ve taken anything just to hear his voice again.”

  Theo sighed deeply and backed away, staring back at the water once again. “I don’t know, sometimes I think it’s less cruel to have someone we love taken away from us quickly instead of watching them wither away over time. Kind of like ripping a Band-Aid off. It hurts badly at first, but it allows us to deal with our grief all at once instead of every single day. Every time you look at the person, you know their fate, and what makes it worse is they know their fate too. So not only do you have to be strong for yourself, but for them too.”

  Now it was me who was offering him comfort. I placed my hand on his arm while he remained silent. “Is someone you care about sick?”

  He nodded, still keeping his gaze straight ahead before slowly turning to me and whispering, “It’s Kate.”

  My stomach clenched and all the pain I was feeling just moments ago talking about Evan engulfed me once again, shifting to Kate and Theo. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I immediately thought of how attentive Theo was to his sister, so worried about her well-being. Then I thought about Kate and how stoic she was each time I had seen her, being my shoulder to cry on when she was the one who needed a shoulder herself. “What’s—”

  “Cancer,” he answered before I could get the rest of the words out. “She was first diagnosed when she was at university and it went into remission after her treatments. So much time went by and she thought she beat it. She hadn’t been feeling well, and when she went to the doctor, she found out it was back and it had spread.”

  “Is she going to have treatments again?”

  “Her doctor’s prognosis wasn’t very positive even with the chemo. It’s metastasized.”

  I wasn’t an expert on cancer by any means, but I was familiar with that word metastasized, and I knew it wasn’t good.

  “I told her she needs to get a second opinion and even a third for that matter. They’re making new progress every day with cancer treatments. She has to try, if not for herself, then for Thomas. I just feel like she’s giving up. She was so adamant that she take this trip, almost like she thinks this is the last time she’ll ever...” His shoulders slouched and he sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep his emotions as bay. “Almost like this is her last holiday. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to her. She’s my little—” He turned his back so I wouldn’t see him breaking down, but the pain in his voice was betraying him. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “I feel so helpless. Her entire life, I’ve been the one to take care of her, making sure she was okay. But I can’t make this okay.”

  He turned to face me, and I took his hands in mine. “You can’t make it go away, but you can make it okay. As okay for her as it’s going to get by being there for her just like you’ve always been. Be there for her and her little boy, and know that she’s still living. You yourself said, we can get hit by a car or get shot on the street tomorrow. The only difference is Kate knows she’s sick and the possibility of her fate, and I’m sure she’s trying to come to terms with that every single day and every waking moment. But she’s still living… The last thing she probably wants right now is to be treated like she’s dying.” He nodded and exhaled deeply. My heart was aching for him, for Kate, and for her son.

  “I’ve just been holding it all in for so long. I try my hardest to stay positive for her. Some days, I think I’m doing fairly well, and then there are times like these where I feel as if I’m just ready to give up along with her.”

  I knew those feelings all too well, trying so desperately to hold it together when all you wanted to do was fall apart. “One day at a time.” I reverted back to my old adage. “That’s all you can do. She’ll have good days and bad days, be there for her for both. Celebrate her good days, and be a shoulder to cry on during the bad ones.”

  “But each day we’re getting through is one less day I may have her in my life,” he murmured.

  “You can’t think like that. I know it’s hard, but you can’t. Focus on the quality of time you have with her, not the quantity.”

  “Jillian, thank you so much for listening. I’m so sorry to unload on you like this. Kate didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “And you have my word, I won’t say anything to her.”

  “Thank you,” Theo mouthed the words, as a break in the fog lit up his features, outlining his red-rimmed eyes.

  “Anytime,” I whispered back, wondering if he had felt that same strong sense of affinity pass between us that I had in that moment.

  CHAPTER 9

  CHRISTMAS HAD COME and gone, and my mind was still in vacation mode. It had been almost a month since I had returned, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful places I had seen and all the wonderful people I had met. I had lunch with DeAndre during the week between Christmas and New Year, and I had been keeping in touch with Kate and Theo via email and Facebook. I had quite a few video chats with Kate since I had returned home, and she hadn’t mentioned a word to me about her cancer. It was only through Theo that I had been kept up to date on her condition. The few times I spoke to him, I could hear the pain in his voice, and it tore me apart inside as well.

  I got to meet Thomas through the screen of my laptop. He was a rambunctious, adorable toddler, so full of life and so unaware of what was happening to the person who loved him most. I wondered if Kate would tell his father about him now, given her condition. I wanted to be there for her, to offer support, but I wouldn’t break my word to Theo by letting on that I knew anything. I figured when and if she wanted me to know, then she would tell me.

  I sat in my office, looking at the calendar. January, the longest, dreariest month of the year under normal circumstances, and this year it would be even worse. My mind was still heavily weighed down with thoughts of Evan as well as my budding friendship with Kate and my genuine concern for her. As I grabbed the framed photo of Evan and me sitting on my desk, I pulled it closer, remembering the day it was taken so vividly in my mind.

  “Surprise!” everyone shouted as Evan walked through the front door. I had spent the entire morning cooking, baking, and decorating while Evan’s friend kept him busy golfing to keep him out of the house.

  Evan’s face reddened. He hated being the center of attention. “Wow! This certainly is a surprise.” He smiled. He greeted everyone as he made his way in while I ran around the kitchen, making sure all the food was just so. I was arranging my homemade mini quiches on the platter when Evan finally made his way to me. I jumped when he wrapped his arm around my waist. “You know I’m gonna get you back for this,” he whispered, lifting my hair and pressing his lips on my neck.

  “Well, you only turn thirty once!” I turned around and moved a stray piece of his hair from his forehead, then kissed him on the lips just as his mother snapped a picture of us. />
  As I stared at that photo in my hand, I shook my head. That was the beginning of the end. Once I had turned thirty, three months later, my want to have a child became greater. It turned in from the mindset of if it happens it happens to an obsession.

  I raised my head at the light tap on my office door. “Jonathan,” I whispered, clumsily putting the photo back in its place on my desk. My face heated, laying eyes on him for the first time since I had made the biggest mistake of my life. Jonathan Schroeder was one of the agency’s top clients and the man I slept with at the lowest point of my life. Jonathan wasn’t a bad person. I was. I didn’t blame him for the mistake I had made. He had been someone to confide in. Someone who I felt comfortable talking to about my problems. Did he take advantage of the state of mind I was in? Absolutely. But I could’ve have stopped it from happening at any time.

  His hands were in his pockets as he took a few wary steps inside my office. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”

  I shook my head and looked back at the photo, blinking away the tears.

  “I’m sorry to hear about—”

  “Don’t, please don’t say it.” I held my hand up to stop him. Hearing my husband’s name come off his lips seemed like another betrayal to Evan.

  He nodded as if he understood. “How was your trip? I was in town a month ago and Martin said you went to Europe.”

  “It was nice.”

  He cautiously took a seat on the other side of my desk, and I wished he hadn’t. I hadn’t returned his calls or his texts in the past few months. I was hoping that would be enough of a hint, but as he sat there with his dark brown eyes pinned on me, I realized it wasn’t. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”

  “I can’t, Jonathan. What we did. What I did was wrong. I loved…I love my husband. I was in a really bad place, and it should’ve never happened.”

  “I just thought that maybe you’d need a friend.”

  “I appreciate that, but I think we both know that you and I can’t be friends anymore.”

  “Understood,” he said with a reluctant sigh as he stood up and pushed his chair in. “If you change your mind, you know I’m here.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, lowering my head to my desk until he walked out the door.

  _______________

  I arrived home, mentally drained and happy the workday was over. It was Thursday, which meant tomorrow I didn’t have to go back into that place. Fridays were always spent working from home. I had settled on a new routine of two days at the office and three days working from home. Friday was always a given, but the other two were always up in the air depending on what we had going on. I was wishing today was one of the days I had chosen not to go in. Just seeing Jonathan reopened a gaping wound that was starting to close ever so slightly. I hadn’t really been back in the land of the living, but at least I had felt like I was starting to thrive somewhat, until he showed up.

  I took a seat at the kitchen table and painstakingly went over the pile of mail I’d been ignoring for the past few days while I waited for my pasta water to boil on the stove. Bills, advertisements, nothing out of the norm, until I came to the last envelope from Life Alliance Donor Family Services Program. A painful reminder of the selfless choice Evan had made to donate his organs upon his death. “None of those things will be doing me any good when I’m gone. Why not give someone who’s still living and needs them another chance?” Evan would always counter when I’d say I didn’t want to think about anyone else having his organs inside of their bodies. Hesitation came over me for a moment, afraid of what was inside, but then I quickly tore it open, realizing how foolish I was being. My husband was dead. What could possibly be in that envelope that was worse than that? I laid the piece of paper flat on the table instead of trying to steady it in my shaking hand.

  Dear Mrs. O’Rourke,

  We have been contacted by two of the recipients of your husband’s organs who would like to contact you and possibly meet with you. Please know that we hold the personal information of all of our donors, recipients, and their family members to the highest level of privacy. We understand this is a very personal matter for you and respect whatever decision you choose.

  If you have any questions or would like to schedule a time to meet with these individuals, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via the email address and/or telephone number above.

  Sincerely,

  Janet Seigel

  The bile rose in my throat, thinking of pieces of Evan scattered among other people. I knew it was selfish of me, but I was still dealing with the fact that he was gone. I couldn’t make peace with the fact that parts of him saved others when they couldn’t save him. Why did he have to die for them to go on living? Tears were falling down my face faster than I could wipe them away.

  The water from the pot overflowed, hissing when it hit the stovetop, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and turn off the burner. I just stared at that letter, wondering who these people were, and who all the others were. Could some random stranger that I ran into on the street have his heart or his kidneys? I hated that I couldn’t be happy for them and proud of my husband for doing such a noble thing.

  I placed the letter back in the envelope, standing up on wobbly legs, and shoved it in the junk drawer with all the other papers I deemed somewhat important but unable to deal with. My mind finally drifted back to the stovetop, and I rushed over to turn down the temperature before throwing my pasta in the water. I’d deal with the burned-on liquid later, just like I seemed to be dealing with everything else in life—later.

  My iPad rang from the kitchen table, signaling a Facebook Messenger chat. I had all about removed myself from Facebook but was thankful I hadn’t taken the final step of deactivating my account. The Messenger feature and video chat proved to be a great way to keep in touch with Kate and Theo. I rushed over to see who it was, surprised to find Theo’s name popping across the screen. It was well after 6:00 p.m. my time, which meant it was almost midnight in England.

  “Theo!” I answered, as his face filled the screen.

  “Hey there!” He seemed wide awake for the hour of the night it was in his time zone. I noticed right away that his hair seemed more closely cropped and his beautiful curls a little more manageable.

  “Did you get a haircut?” I suddenly thought about my own appearance, forgetting with modern-day technology, the person on the other end of the line could actually see me. I had pushed my hair back in a thick headband the moment I walked in the door, so I could wash off what little makeup I was wearing. I was certain my face was red and blotchy and my eyes puffy from just crying. I was thankful that I could hold the iPad up enough so he couldn’t see that I looked like a bag lady, wearing Evan’s oversized Carhartt hoodie.

  I relaxed my grip on the tablet and lowered it, realizing how silly I was being. This was Theo, the man who had women beating down his door at home. The appearance of a girl who was thousands of miles away meant nothing to him. This was just a chat between two friends. Two friends whose friendship probably wouldn’t go beyond the screen of a phone or a tablet. It saddened me a bit to think that maybe I’d never see Kate or Theo in person again. But when I thought of the alternative, I would’ve never even known they existed if I hadn’t gone on a vacation that I didn’t even want to take. So, I would take what I could get, because I had to admit, my outlook did become a little brighter since they came into my life, whatever form it was in.

  “Oh yeah. I did,” he replied nonchalantly.

  “So how are things? How’s Kate?” I was hoping she wasn’t the reason for his late-night call. I had spoken with her two days prior and she seemed to be fine.

  “Good. Kate is good. She’s going next week to get a second opinion.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so happy to hear that. I wish she’d confide in me so I could be some support to her. You will keep me posted on how it goes, won’t you?”

  “I sure will.” I knew he meant it. Theo
talking to me about Kate’s sickness not only kept me abreast of the situation, but it also was an outlet for him to unload.

  I held up my index finger to the screen. “Hang on one second. I have to drain my pasta.” I got up from the chair and walked over to the stove, dumping the pot of boiling pasta into the strainer in the sink. “Okay, I’m back!” I announced, and his grin widened. “Can’t sleep?”

  He cinched his eyebrows in confusion.

  “Isn’t almost midnight there?” I clarified.

  “Oh...that,” he replied, finally catching on to my statement. “Actually, that was the whole reasoning for my call, but then you got so caught up on my hair.” He chuckled, then stood up and the screen went blurry with his movement. He turned the camera around and I was staring at the Lower Manhattan skyline.

  “Theo! Are you in New York?” I couldn’t contain my excitement.

  “I am. I had a very last-minute business meeting scheduled. So last-minute that I didn’t even know I was headed here when I woke up this morning.”

  Theo was in New York, and to think just a few seconds ago I was tossing up the idea that I may never see him or Kate again.

  “So, how long are you here for?”

  “Well, my meeting is tomorrow, so I’m free to go home any time after that, but I suppose I could extend my time a little longer. I was hoping to find a tour guide...someone once said coming to New York and not seeing the Empire State Building was like going to London and not seeing Big Ben.”

  I couldn’t contain my smile. “You mean, you’ve never—”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, I’d be happy to show it to you and all the other clichéd touristy things. Just let me know when, and I’ll be there.”

  Funny how just a few moments ago, I was feeling so alone. Depressed over the letter I had received in the mail. Angry over my visit from Jonathan. Now here I was unable to wipe the ridiculous grin from my face.