“Ready for the big day?” the guy behind the counter said.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” Vasili leaned on the counter and pointed to something in the glass case. “Looking for a gift for her. She wanted to exchange something after the rehearsal dinner.”
“Then off to Paris with a hot mama you go.” The guy smirked.
I sunk further into the clothes and something fell.
“Everything okay back there, miss?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, in a more high-pitch voice.
Vasili walked toward the clothing rack. I panicked and wedged my body inside the clothes. As he came around the back I slipped through the front of the rack, but something caught my shirt.
I tugged on it, but it wouldn’t even rip. The guy at the front raised his eyebrows at me and grinned. Then Vasili came around the rack and stopped.
We stared at each other for a few seconds without speaking, but he didn’t look too happy to see me. His brow lowered toward his nose and his mouth didn’t have the slightest hint of a smile. I yanked my shirt and apologized, then jogged out the front door.
He didn’t follow, thankfully.
I stopped at the corner of King and Prince and decided to get my nails done. He’d never expect me to go in there, which meant he’d never find me.
I sat down in front of an old woman who smelled of Marlboro Lights and burnt hair, like my great grandmother. Her hands shook as she gave me a French manicure. I laughed inside as the nail polish dripped down my fingers more than my nails. She tried to avoid my face and pretended not to notice the compression garments around my wrists, but people always seemed more obvious when they pretended not to look.
“I was burned in a campfire accident,” I said casually. “I was in a coma for months and it still hurts when I wake up to this day.”
She fumbled over the nail polish container as she said something under her breath, still refusing to look me in the face. The other people in the room, however, were staring right at both of us.
“You can look at me,” I said. “I’m still a person like any other.” I looked at the other women. “Actually I’m a better person now. Less afraid to get hurt and more willing to do what’s right, no matter what it costs me. Nearly dying and then waking up looking like this can really change the way you see life.”
No one said a word. Eyes blinked at me to the sound of cars whooshing by outside. The woman still wouldn’t look at me.
“Am I that ugly that you can’t even say hello to my face? Why is this world so bent on looks, looks, looks?” I stood. “I’m still a normal woman.”
The woman finally peered up at me, her eyes heavy and sagging into puffy circles. “It’s not you.” She shook her head and looked away again. “My husband was a fire fighter. His crew saved a family, but the kids screamed and cried for their dog. He ran back inside to save that damn dog and the roof collapsed. He burned over 97% of his body and when his crew found him he said, ‘Tell Penny to let me die. I don’t want to live like this. I love her too much to put her through this.’”
At first, my mind retreated to thinking, Yes, poor me. I don’t deserve to be a wife when I can barely open a jar of almond butter on my own. But I didn’t allow myself to go there. Instead, I put my arm around the woman and squeezed.
She pat my hand. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“I’m sorry you lost your husband,” I said. “Sometimes I wished to die too, but I’m okay now. One day at a time. It’s a very difficult and painful thing to endure. In a sense, I’m glad your husband was spared.”
“He died anyway. On the way to the hospital his heart stopped and they couldn’t get him back.” She stood in front of me, held my hands, and looked right into my eyes. “He didn’t fight to live. He fought for all of those other people, but not for me. Not for us.”
I held onto her hands, speechless. She stopped speaking as well, but her eyes locked into my own as though she needed to tell me something, or hear me say something, but neither of us had anything to give.
I forced a smile into the awkward scene, then placed my hand on her cheek. “I needed to find a reason to live too. I think I’m still trying to figure that out. Honestly, I don’t think love is everything. It’s not enough motivation to fight such a painful battle. Your husband knew that. I don’t know what that is yet, but if I figure it out I’ll let you know.”
I laughed a little as I left all of the women to get back to their nails. When I turned to look back, they were all staring at me. Disbelief still widening their eyes. I waved and crossed the street.
As I passed strangers I smiled at them. Even better, I noticed them. The world didn’t revolve around Sarah Jordan and it would keep spinning without this tiny little life.
So I noticed each passing face. I smiled and asked God to brighten their lives in some small way. Then I saw him.
Leaning against my car with his arms crossed, he refused to break eye contact. So I did.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said without moving a single body part except his lips. I wanted to uncross his arms and put them at his sides. Carefree like the time we played in the snow. I didn’t like seeing him so serious and stern.
“How could you, Sarah?” He stepped onto the curb and stood beside me. “You, of all people. I can’t believe it.”
My pulse raced to the panic attack finish line. I hated conflict. Especially when it was somehow because of me.
“Do you have anything to say?” he said.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“The letter you sent. You could’ve at least told me to my face.” He paced the sidewalk with his hand on his chin, then stood inches from me. “How am I supposed to break the news to her this close to our wedding?”
A wild assortment of conflicting emotions wrestled for the front row seat in my heart. I let confusion win. “I don’t know what to say. I can’t help the way I feel. It just happened.”
“Who else am I supposed to find now?” He finally stood still and looked at me. “I’m sorry. This wedding is way bigger than I ever wanted and it’s turning me into Groomrilla.”
I held back a laugh. “You mean Groomzilla?”
“Isn’t it a guerrilla?” He threw his hands into his pockets. “If I talk her into letting you do the photography, are you still up for that?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, then it hit me. We were talking about different letters. My friend was going to do the wedding with me and when I backed out she took over, but she got nervous and said she didn’t feel comfortable, so I wrote them to explain.
“I have another friend,” I said. “Didn’t you finish the letter? He’ll be there and he knows the plan.”
He stepped closer to me. That smell of his playing games with my heart.
“I want you there.” He took my hand.
I jerked away and clasped my hands behind my back. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what? I’ll talk to her. Even if you don’t take pictures, I need you there.”
“Need? You can’t poss—”
“Need.”
I shook my head and unlocked my car. When I stepped down from the curb, he did.
“Please, Sarah. Your friendship means so much to me.”
“I can’t. Please stop. You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.”
I moved to sit in my car, but he stood in the way. “But you get me. I thought we were close.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. Natalie trusted me. If I ruined their wedding I’d never forgive myself. He deserves better, I kept saying inside, but when I brushed against his shoulder to sit in my car I couldn’t help it anymore. I said loud enough for everyone around to hear, “I love you, Vasili.” People turned. I sat in my car and looked up at him before closing it. “I fell in love
with you. I can’t watch you get married, okay? It’s too much. Please. Let me go now. Be happy. Enjoy your life. Just try to let me be. It’s hard enough.”
He stepped back to the curb as I turned the car on and shifted into drive.
That’s it? I thought as he stood there watching me drive away.
He let me have the last words. And I didn’t want them.
The next day I stopped by Sophia’s house when I knew Vasili was at work. I drove by his office to make sure.
Sophia made my favorite tea and a pot of coffee for herself. We sat at the dining room table and talked about little things for a while, then I pulled a gift from my bag and set it in front of her.
“Could you give this to Vasili?” I said. “It’s my wedding gift for him.”
“You aren’t going? What about the photography? What happened?”
“Ask your brother.” I sipped my tea. “So, you said you were going to clear Anastasia’s room. Did you finish?”
She focused on the fake tulips on the table. “I can’t. Not yet.”
We finished our drinks in silence, placed our cups in the sink, and she led me to Anastasia’s room. I stood quietly as she searched through a drawer of papers.
The bed, unmade, almost showed the imprint of where her body once rested. Her IV no longer stood beside her bed. Her chest, rising and falling beside her parents, fell for good and lay alone under the ground.
I wiped my face, but couldn’t look away from her bed. I could so easily see her waking up and trying to smile for her mother.
Sophia held a paper. It crinkled as it trembled in her hands.
“The worst part,” she said, “is that she never told me the truth. She pretended to be strong for my sake, but that entire time she slept there in that bed I’d cry and cry. Not because I was afraid to lose her, although that was part of it. I just wanted to be needed. She was always so strong growing up. When she got sick she would take care of herself. Whenever she fell and skinned her knee she’d have a bandage on before I knew it happened. Selfishly, I wanted my little girl to need me.” She smoothed her palm along the sheets and smelled the pillow. “The thing that bothers me the most is that she feared hurting me, so she didn’t tell me how much she really needed me. She felt like a burden or like it was her fault we were upset. But if I had just been honest with her, if I had just said, ‘Sweetie, I want to hold you and make the pain go away,’ then everything would’ve been different. I feel like my baby died alone because I couldn’t be the bigger person and open up to her.” She sat on the bed. “I didn’t want to admit it though. Yanni and me. Neither of us wanted to believe it.”
She handed me a drawing. Anastasia signed the bottom in blue. The picture made me smile. She drew Sophia and Yanni holding her as a baby. The sun shined to the left, birds flew to the right, and an owl sat in a tree beneath the birds.
“Look at the back,” Sophia said.
I turned it over.
Vasili and Sarah, my Nono and Nona with my cousin.
(They better not name her after me.)
I flipped it over, looked at the picture, then read the words again. Sophia smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back. For some reason, it frustrated me.
“I’m not going to say anything else,” Sophia said. “Either way, you are always going to be part of our family.”
“How did everyone know?”
“How did we not?”
I shrugged. “Well, I told him yesterday. He didn’t say anything and the wedding is tomorrow. This isn’t a Hollywood rom-com where I ruin a bride’s day by stealing the groom and then ride off into the sunset as she stands humiliated in front of her family and friends. I can’t do that.” I shook my head. “He knows the truth and the truth is....”
“Go on.”
“The truth is life isn’t about love and romance. It’s not even about tallying up good works and feeding the poor. Life is about everything ... everything except nothing. I know I’m not the most religious, but—”
“Sure you are.”
“No, I’m really not.”
“We’re all religious about something. It’s devotion, that’s all. Devoted to God, to music, our careers, ourselves. We’re all religious. Every last one of us.”
“Well, either way, I realized through all of this that the secret to everything isn’t in love and relationships, or charity and virtue. It’s inside of us. We can choose to see the world and all of its sorrows and scars as something beautiful, or we can dwell in criticism and pick apart things until we see ugliness in beauty. Life ... for me, I love your brother, I do, but even if I married him I could lose him tomorrow. Do you see what I’m saying? It hurts so bad to let him go, but it’s not the end of me. It’s all for the best. You’ll see.”
You’ll see, I said to myself again and again. You’ll see.
Thirty
I slept in the morning of their wedding, then got cleaned up, dressed, and curled back into my bed. Ella and Gavin visited Philly for the day, so I had the house to myself, but I chose to stay in my room anyway.
I imagined scenarios. Crazy things like me trying to look nice for once and showing up just as they said their vows. Or Vasili discovering his love for me and showing up at my door.
Nothing like that happened. I wanted to erase every romantic movie from my memory and stop entertaining such impossibilities.
I decided to turn my phone back on. Kind of torturous, but I asked Sophia to text me pictures. I couldn’t bear taking pictures or being in the pews, but I loved him and missing it altogether felt wrong.
She hadn’t sent anything yet. I passed time by replaying memories, trying to figure out exactly how and when I fell for him. It’s not like me to fall for someone so easily, but maybe it wasn’t easy. I couldn’t pinpoint an exact moment. Like a natural progression, I grew to love him.
The comfort his presence brought. The way he cared for Anastasia. The gentle kisses he gave his mother. Every time I caught him looking at me as though I didn’t have any scars. His inspiring view of life and love. The way he’d give up anything, including his own happiness, for the one he loved.
How could I not do the same?
A text finally came in. Sure enough, from Sophia.
About to go into the sanctuary.
Then a picture came through. Handsome Vasili all dressed up sitting by a window. I zoomed in and traced his jaw with my finger, then I realized he was holding my gift to him. He looked down at it with a slight smile. A photograph of Anastasia in her garden. On the card I wrote:
Third and last photo in the “Out of Adversity” series. I thought this completed it well. The artist sends her love and wishes you the best.
Once again, I imagined him calling it all off and running to me, but I didn’t hear back from Sophia and no one knocked on the door.
A few hours later the sun disappeared. I managed to go downstairs and force myself to eat, then Sophia finally texted me. As soon as I read it, I dropped my apple and opened the floodgates.
All she said was: I’m home now. Are you okay?
I couldn’t respond. I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter and gained control of my emotions.
“All for the best,” I whispered aloud. “You’ll see.”
I kept whispering to myself and within a few minutes the pain subsided. Then, under my breath, I laughed. A soft, quiet laugh. How did the girl who never gave anyone the keys to her heart slip them into the hands of someone who couldn’t keep them?
Sometimes life is like a movie. And there are times when the actors go off script and the camera breaks and the lights go down and all we can do is sit back on the set, take a look around, and laugh.
Vasili taught me that.
There’s an emptiness you feel when you wake up alone after a breakup, whether you loved the person or not. A part o
f your life is over. For good. A chapter has ended and the next page is blank, ready for new love. Then, there’s the emptiness you feel when you wake up knowing the one you love is flying to Paris to make love to his gorgeous bride as the Eiffel Tower sparkles in the moonlight. You finish the chapter, turn the page, read the first few lines of the next chapter, then roll over in bed and hope someone throws the book out the window before you open your eyes again.
I can’t say I wanted to wake up, but I did. Ella didn’t ask. She knew me well enough to know I’d open up when I was ready. I showered, got dressed, and picked up the letter from Anastasia. Months ago she made me promise to read it on her birthday and not a day sooner.
The day had come.
I managed to slip out of the house unnoticed. Before heading to the cemetery, I stopped into the local florist and picked up my order. Two dozen teal blue roses—Anastasia’s favorite color—complete with thorns.
“Thank you.” I smiled at the cashier and slipped a hundred dollar bill into her tip jar when she turned away. “Have a wonderful day.”
I used Pandora on my phone to listen to music on the way to the grave. When I parked Bruce Springteen’s Secret Garden song came on. I unplugged my phone, but kept the song playing as I walked through rows of headstones, until I finally stood before the freshly engraved “Anastasia Sophia Koursaris - Papa’s Little Girl.” Thinking of her sweet face, I knelt down beside the teddy bears and flowers and opened her letter.
Dearest Nona,
I knew you would marry my Nono before I even met you. The way he talked about you, I could just tell. I’m sad that I won’t be alive to see it. I love Natalie, but they don’t look at each other like you two.
I considered you my Nona from the start, even though you aren’t part of our church. Maybe one day you will be? Well, I guess if you marry my uncle hehehe :)
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