Veronica and I both decided to go to San Francisco for college, against our parents’ urging, especially after the big earthquake. We tried to convince Monica to join us, but she wasn’t ready to leave Willows, meaning she didn’t want to leave Phil, but they eventually moved to San Francisco too for career opportunities.
I didn’t want to leave Johnny back then either, but I was very ready to leave Willows. Johnny preferred to stay close to his father, not wanting to leave him alone, which I understood. We continued our relationship for a few years, seeing each other only on weekends and holidays. We grew to love each other very much, but I was surprised that we lasted as long as we did due to the long distance. Looking back, I think we were both just afraid to be without each other more than anything.
As my college graduation approached, I decided it would be best to break it off with him. I loved him, but I didn’t love him enough. I was ready to move on, and I didn’t want to continue to lead him on. I was already dreaming of my plans to travel and was beginning to crave some independence.
Johnny didn’t take the break-up well. He became very depressed and constantly tried to convince me to take him back. It broke my heart. Not only that, but it tempted me to give in, and I knew I would regret it. Eventually, I had to stop returning his calls, and he finally stopped contacting me.
We had only seen each other a few times since then when I would be in town. I always asked about him, though, getting various information about how he was doing from my friends and family. I asked because I still cared about him and always would, but also because I never completely got over him, despite my not wanting to be with him.
Even seeing him now was bittersweet. I was so happy for him that he had finally moved on, found love and started a family. At the same time…I wasn’t jealous, but I couldn’t help wondering sometimes whether or not I made the right decision years ago.
He was a good man. I could have been happy with him. I often would picture a life with him that would be very satisfying, but I wanted more. I could never shake the feeling that something would always be missing. I would never love him, or any other man, the way that I loved Ethan. My memory of Ethan was the inescapable road block that affected all of my relationships, although I would not admit it.
I was relieved to finally arrive at Veronica’s mother’s house so that I would be forced away from my thoughts. However, her house would often bring back other memories that I was always trying to shove away.
Veronica’s mom, who insisted that I call her by her first name, Madelon, answered the door. Zelda had retired many years ago and moved back to New Orleans and then to Texas after hurricane Katrina. Madelon was now working out of her home as an interior designer, often working with Veronica on projects. She still looked beautiful after all these years. She was dressed in a long sundress and had long, dark wavy hair. She wore little make-up, but her skin looked great.
“Bonjour, Sarah!” she said as she opened the door and kissed both of my cheeks. “Come on in!”
I followed her into the dining room. “You look so cute dressed like that,” she told me. I was still wearing my old jeans and t-shirt that I threw on in the morning. “You still look like a teenager,” she told me.
I laughed. “Not quite, but thanks.”
“You want something to drink?” she asked as she headed to the kitchen. “A cup of tea?”
“No,” I said too quickly. “Just a glass of water, please.”
I couldn’t help glancing out at the pool while I waited, and then I looked away and tried to distract my mind.
She soon came back in and handed me the glass.
“I’d love to sit out by the pool, but it looks like it’s about to rain,” she said.
“That’s OK.”
She lightly hit her head as if just remembering. “Sorry. I keep forgetting that you don’t like to get near that pool. Can’t say I blame you.”
Madelon believed that I had almost drowned in her pool, a story that Veronica and I had fabricated after the ‘incident’, which we always called it. We took a seat in the living room instead.
“So, you liked my sister’s apartment?” she asked.
“I loved it! Thank you so much. If your sister ever needs anything…”
She threw her hand. “Don’t mention it. Besides, she loved that painting you left her.”
I smiled brightly. “Thanks.”
“Who’s the artist?”
I pointed at myself.
“Really? It’s magnificent! She e-mailed me a picture of it. I’m continually amazed by your talent, Sarah!”
“Thank you. I have a drawing for you too, so don’t let me forget.”
We continued to talk for a while, until I realized how late it was getting and how much worse the sky looked.
About half way home, the sky darkened more. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of a torrential downpour. Being the careful driver that I was, the storm was making me very nervous. It was raining so heavily that I could no longer see out of my windshield, even with my wipers on full speed. The thunder and lightning would not let up either. Even though I was so close to my parents’ house, I decided to pull over in front of the park and wait a few minutes for the rain to slow down.
I turned off the engine and let out a deep breath of frustration as the rain pounded onto my van. I surely didn’t need this at the moment. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts after so much of the past had resurfaced at once.
It’s not like there weren’t memories in San Francisco too, for instance, every time I looked at the Golden Gate Bridge. But being in Willows was different. Too much of the bad stuff happened here, and most of the day had been a painful reminder; waking up in my old room where so much of my relationship with Ethan took place, seeing Alexis’ pictures all over my parents’ house, running into Johnny, and ending with my visit to Madelon’s house. All it took was one sight of the pool for it all to come rushing back. Now I was alone and stuck in a storm with just the memory of that day…
“Sarah. Sarah, are you awake?” he asked as I drifted in and out of consciousness.
“Ethan, I can barely…hear you,” I said softly.
“Sarah, get up!” he said louder. “You can’t fall asleep yet!”
I wasn’t trying to, but something was making me. I asked why I was so tired, but he just told me that I needed to listen to him.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, and I hope that you’ll never forget how much I love you. Nothing can take that away from us,” he told me.
“Forgive you for what?” I asked.
“I have to go now, Sarah.”
“Go where?”
I noticed then that he was crying…and then I knew. No. My heart was beating wildly, and I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I felt so sedated. I begged God at that moment not to take him from me. I wanted to scream at God, No! You can’t do this to me! Not again!
“I have to, Sarah. You know that.”
“Not today!”
“You’ll say the same thing tomorrow.”
“No!”
“We only have a few minutes. So if there’s anything you want to say to me, say it now.”
I was crying uncontrollably as I grabbed onto him.
“Ethan! What am I going to do without you?”
“You’re going to do everything you promised me you would do.”
I could feel myself slipping away as I struggled to hold on. “I don’t…want to live without you,” I told him.
“Don’t ever say that, Sarah!”
He lifted my chin up and looked into my eyes. “Promise me you’re going to do all those things we talked about. Remember? College? Europe? All of your dreams. You have to promise me you’ll make them come true, or in any case, you’ll choose to be happy. Promise me, Sarah. I’ll always be there for you. I’ll be waiting for you, but I don’t want to see you for about 80 years.”
“I love you,” I said. It was the most important thing that I wanted him to re
member for eternity.
“I love you so much that I have to do this. It is for the best, and we both know it.”
He put my face in his hands and kissed me, slowly and softly. I tried to kiss him back with everything I had. He had to know how much I loved him. He had to realize that he was wrong to leave me. Only he broke away. He was forcing me to lie back down. He wanted me to go to sleep. He kissed me again quickly and then let go of my hand. Everything was so bright behind him. He became just a silhouette that I could barely see.
“Keep your promise to me, Sarah,” he told me. “I’ll love you forever.”
I felt utterly helpless. I could no longer speak. All I could do was beg for him to stay with my eyes, but it wasn’t working. I watched him turn away from me and into the light until he faded away.
When I woke up that day, I was confused at first, wondering how long I had been sleeping and what had happened. I was lying on the lounge chair, covered up with a blanket and a pillow behind my head. Veronica was staring at me with concern. We were out by the pool. I remembered that it was the day after Christmas. Ethan and I had come to see Veronica and get his guitar, and then Veronica and I had exchanged gifts.
“Veronica,” I smiled, still drowsy.
She was silent. Her face still looked worried.
“Where’s Ethan?”
She didn’t answer.
“Veronica, where’s Ethan?” I asked again, starting to panic.
“Sarah…You don’t remember anything?” she asked quietly.
I thought back as the visions and the words came to me little by little, like when you wake up after being drunk the night before and the memories slowly seep into your brain. Then my thoughts jolted me awake, as if I had been touched by ice.
I threw the blanket off of me and stood up abruptly. I walked past Veronica as she tried to gently grab my hand. “Sarah…” she said softly. I ignored her and ran to the back of the yard.
“Ethan!” I yelled into the air. If he could hear me, then maybe he could still come back to me. He had to come back to me. “Ethan!” I screamed as loudly as I could into the air. I looked all around me, hoping to see the light again so I could beg him to walk out of it. “Ethan!” I cried out again, tears gushing out of my eyes. I noticed an elderly lady next door staring at me, wondering what was wrong. I didn’t care what I looked like. I ran around frantically as I cried.
I gasped as I felt Veronica’s arms go around me, trying to calm me down. I jerked away from her.
She was sobbing as she told me. “He’s gone, Sarah. You can’t bring him back.”
I ignored her comment. “He will come back! You don’t know what you’re talking about! He left me before, but he came back.”
Veronica rubbed my arm. “I don’t think so. Not this time. I’m sorry.”
“You saw him leave? Why didn’t you try to stop him?”
Veronica was silent, and the look on her face displayed guilt for some reason. I reviewed my memory of my last moments with Ethan. I didn’t remember seeing Veronica there, but she knew what happened. She stared at the ground as the realization hit me.
“You knew what he was going to do,” I affirmed.
She bit her lip and still couldn’t look me in the eyes. She couldn’t lie to me, so she didn’t answer.
I replayed everything in my mind again as I walked back over to the table by the pool.
“So you invited me over here, knowing what he was going to do?” I asked with hurt.
“He asked for my help. He convinced me that it was the right thing to do for the both of you. You’re my friend, Sarah. I just want you to be happy.”
“So you tricked me!”
“It’s not like that, Sarah.”
“It’s not?” I asked again as I felt anger rising in me uncontrollably.
“We were sitting here, having tea and cookies and then…then I starting to feel drunk or something, like I didn’t have any control, and then you went inside.” I paused for a moment. “Ethan followed you in there for something,” I could see the images in my head. “When he came back out, he told me not to go to sleep yet, like he knew what was happening to me.”
I remembered eating some cookies, out of a brand new pack that I had opened, and drinking some tea that Veronica insisted I try, Zelda’s recipe. “Oh my God.”
Veronica hesitantly started to speak again. “Sarah, I’m so…”
“You drugged me! It was the tea! Why did you do that to me?” I yelled. I had never in my life felt so betrayed.
I could tell that she was trying to think of the right words. She must not have thought far enough ahead to determine how she would clean up this mess. Did she really think that I wouldn’t figure it out?
“Why, Veronica? I thought you were my friend!”
“I am your friend,” she cried. “But Ethan…”
“Screw Ethan! I hate both of you!”
“You don’t mean that, Sarah.”
“Why did you do this to me?”
She tried to calm herself down and took a deep breath before she answered. “So you would stay calm, and so you couldn’t stop him.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I laughed out sarcastically. “So I couldn’t stop him? How could I have stopped him?”
“By talking him out of it, pulling him back, screaming at the light maybe. Don’t you realize how hard it was for him to leave? Even though he knew he had to? Trying to keep him from going into the light would be like trying to defy God or fate or whatever it is that was always after him. You’ll realize later that it was the right thing.”
“You had no right to interfere!” I screamed at her.
“Neither did you.”
This sent me into a rage again. I noticed the tea still sitting there, and without thinking I overturned the glass table, not bothering to look back as I heard the glass shatter on the concrete. I ran into the house and grabbed my purse, slamming the front door behind me as I bolted to my car. It was locked. I looked for my keys, but I couldn’t find them. I went back inside and looked all over but they were nowhere to be found, even after I dumped everything out of my purse onto the floor. I had to go ask Veronica if she knew where they were, even though I couldn’t stand the sight of her at that moment.
She was calmly walking around the pool, still crying when I approached her. “Where are my keys?” I asked, glaring at her.
“You’re in no condition to be driving right now. It would be like drunk driving, and I know you wouldn’t want to do that.”
“I want to leave!”
“Not until you calm down. I promised Ethan that I would take care of you after he left.”
That was it. I screamed out as I ran at her, knocking her over and sending us both flying into the pool. We both sank to the bottom before we came up again, gasping for air. We swam over to the edge, both of us trying to calm down.
Veronica was still crying when she spoke to me, still trying to catch her breath. “I’m so sorry, Sarah. I hated doing this. I wanted you and Ethan to be together forever, but I can’t see how it would have worked. I agreed with him.”
I was silent. I wasn’t sure that I could ever forgive her, but I didn’t have the energy to fight with her. I swam over to the pool steps, and she followed me, taking a seat close to my side.
“He kept his promise, though. He didn’t leave while you were sleeping.”
“I might as well have been.”
“Well, it’s a good thing there was water in this pool,” Veronica joked.
I couldn’t help smiling a little. “Good thing it’s heated.”
Veronica chuckled.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” I said, not really asking.
Tears filling my eyes again as Veronica put her arm around me.
“I know you don’t believe me, but you’ll get through this,” she said.
“I just want Ethan,” I cried.
A moment later, Veronica’s mother came home. Veronica brilliantly made
up the story that I fell, knocking over the table and falling into the pool, and then Veronica jumped in to save me.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice that the rain had stopped. I glanced in the mirror. It was very obvious that I’d been crying. I couldn’t go back to my parents’ house yet, not like this.
I searched my purse for my cigarettes that were hidden in the side pocket. I had been doing a good job of keeping my nasty, occasional habit a secret, even from my friends and co-workers. I stepped out of my van and lit one up as I leaned against the door. I noticed that the sun was peeking its way through the clouds again, reminding me that I too needed to come out of my dark place.
31. Relic
“Give me that!” cried Monica’s little girl, Cynthia. She was five years old, about to start kindergarten already. Her blonde curls were back in a pony tail, and she was wearing a blue plaid sundress. Her little three-year-old brother was running off with her Barbie doll and grinning.
“Philip, give it back to Cynthia now!” Monica yelled after him.
“I’m playing with it!” he said back.
“I was playing with it first!” whined Cynthia.
Monica rolled her eyes. “I’ll be right back,” she told me.
She returned with Philip in her arms and set him on her lap at the kitchen table, in front of his paper and crayons. “I thought you were going to show Aunt Sarah how good you can draw. Remember all the pretty pictures in her gallery?”
He smiled at me. “I can draw a dinosaur!”
“Really? Let’s see,” I told him with excitement.
Monica smiled at me as he began drawing away. “Anyway, where were we? You went to Willows last week, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “Remind me never to go there again.”
Sarah's Solace Page 26