by Malena Lott
My father stood to cut the turkey. “Let's eat this bird before he catches a cold.”
I kissed my sons on the cheek. After we had begun eating, the clank of silverware and china, a familiar symphony of family togetherness, was when the doorbell rang again. I tried not to think about the ramifications of my son's confession. What did it matter now? If da Vinci had been nudged along by tiny cupids, he hadn't gone kicking and screaming. He was a willing partner. Did I mind that he may have said a few things or done a few things in the name of keeping me on the hook a while longer? It wasn't as if he used me, exactly. In fact, I had used him just as much. We had leaned on each other, propped each other up, fledglings now ready to fly on our own.
The doorbell rang again, and I excused myself to answer it. Cortland stood on the porch with a pumpkin pie in his hands. I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.
“It's my mom's. It's not homemade, but don't tell your mother. She's got a rep to keep.”
“I'm sure it's delicious. But now's not a good time. Rachel's upset and da Vinci won't come for dinner and William's mad at me.”
“What would Thanksgiving be without a little dysfunction? At least your Uncle Louie didn't throw up on the new Persian rug.”
Cortland had a way of putting everything in perspective.
“Well, I can just come back later, then.”
Barbara came up behind me. “What's taking so long? Cortland! I'm so glad you could make it. Do come in.”
“Mom, I was just telling him that we got a late start.”
“Oh, we've got room.” She led him by the hand, and when Cortland saw Joel's picture on the plate at the only empty seat, he backed away. “I'll just go grab a chair from the kitchen.”
I held my breath. The crowd looked at me and then Judith, who stood and plucked the frame from the plate. “It's fine, darling. Joel wouldn't mind. In fact, I'm quite sure he would've liked you. Don't you agree, Ramona?”
Cortland held my gaze. I nodded, and he took Joel's seat. Rachel stuck her nose up in the air. I considered pulling my mother aside to tell her Rachel and Cortland had broken up, but thought it might make an even bigger scene.
While Noble and Cortland talked golf and Judith tried to convince Zoya to visit Life Church that weekend, I noticed a familiar car pulling up in front of the house.
“Daddy!” Zoe squealed.
Rachel peered outside and slammed her fist on the table, rattling the china. “Wait a minute. Is that someone in the car with him? It is! It's a woman.” She threw down her napkin and shot up from her chair.
I opened the curtain and saw Anh slinking in the front seat and Michael trying to convince her to get out. This wouldn't end well.
“We'll make room,” Noble said cheerfully. “The more the merrier, right, dear?”
“We'll do no such thing,” Rachel said, following her daughter out the door.
Anh was resting against the passenger door and Vi was still in her carseat in the back when I reached them.
Zoe rushed to hug her father, and Rachel stopped in her tracks on the sidewalk. “ You! ”
Anh glanced up sheepishly and fingered a wave to Rachel. Michael beamed, oblivious to his ex-wife's reaction. “Great. Everybody's here. But I guess introductions aren't necessary.”
Rachel spun on her heel and glared at me. “You knew all along, didn't you? Your best friend was sleeping with my husband and you didn't have the decency to tell me about it. What kind of sister are you?”
Michael took Anh's hand and stared at his ex-wife. “Would it kill you to be happy for me?”
Rachel stuck her nose into the air. “Be nice! Ha! You'll be sorry you ever crossed me! And don't even think about asking me back! I wouldn't take you back if you were the last human on earth!”
Michael smirked. “I don't think that will be a problem. Come on, let's not ruin a perfectly good holiday.”
“ Good? What do I have to be thankful for? A jackass husband and a lying, conniving sister who keeps secrets behind my back? Yes, Happy Thanksgiving, indeed! While you're busy ruining my life, is there anything else I should know about?” Rachel stared at me, then Cortland, and back again.
Cortland began to raise his hand, when I slapped it down. “No, I think that will do it for today.”
Rachel stomped back into the house. Anh got Vi out of the car seat while Michael began walking up the steps with his daughter. I stayed back and waited for Anh. “For some reason, I thought she'd take the news better.”
Anh walked in stride beside me. “Kill me now,” she muttered.
Cortland grabbed my fingers, pulling me back so we were the last in line to reach the front porch. “So Rachel broke up with me last night, just before I got the chance.”
“So I heard.”
“So have you told her you'd like to start seeing me?”
“I don't know if I'd like to start seeing you. Are all doctors this presumptuous, or is it just you?”
He put his hand on my waist, and his forearm next to my head, pushing me back against the brick of the house. “Well, I think you should know our duck house passed inspection. With flying feathers, you might say. I close tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? That's awfully soon, isn't it?”
“When you know what you want, why wait?”
“I suppose I could bake you some cookies as a housewarming gift. To welcome you to the neighborhood and all.”
“Cookies? I had something else in mind.”
“My father always said patience was a virtue.”
“British origin, right? The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble or suffering without getting angry or upset. Yeah, I pretty much suck at that.”
“What are you, some kind of walking dictionary?”
“No, but I'm pretty good at defining what I want. Getting it is the tough part.”
Our eyes lingered, and I touched his cheek as he leaned in closer. “We better get inside,” I said, my hand pressed against his chest.
Cortland stepped back. “I'm going to take off. I've got Lindsey for the weekend. She's going to help me move in.”
“Okay, then. I'll see you around.”
Cortland began walking down the sidewalk, when he turned back. “You know when you said that I put people to sleep for a living?”
“I recall something of the sort.”
“Well, just remember that I wake them up, too.”
Chapter 23
“ Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. ”
– Kahlil Gibran
ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGISTS, 95 percent of people think about sex at least once a day. I belonged squarely within the freakish 5 percent that didn't. Until da Vinci. After that, I thought about sex a dozen times a day-nothing compared to a man, but often for a woman. As I finished up my dissertation to hand in to my professor, I realized I hadn't been missing the physical act of sex. Sure, I'd been missing pleasure, but what I'd missed most was the golden triangle of sex, love and communication. I missed a real-thing relationship. I thought After, I'd never be real with anyone again, settling within the uncomfortable typecast of a melancholy widow. It was only after I stepped back into the world of the living again that I could consider loving again.
Author Josh McDowell claims that “I love you” can be interpreted several different ways. One meaning is “I love you if,” based on what the other person does. My sister could love Cortland if he lived in a mansion with a heated pool. Another meaning is “I love you because,” based on what the other person is: attractive, strong, intelligent. Da Vinci believed he loved me because I was kind to him in a strange new world. Because I took him in. Because I made him feel safe and warm and wanted.
I wondered if Joel loved Monica solely because she was beautiful, but a part of me believed Joel had loved Monica the third way-the same way he'd loved me: unconditionally. She was the one who had betrayed him, had loved him because he was the safe choice, the opposite of her equal partner Jonathon. Perhaps Joe
l loved her despite her being beautiful. For so long I had wanted Joel to love me more, better, longer, deeper, but after all that's happened, I knew how one could love differently and have it mean as much as the other.
The best and hardest love to achieve is unconditional. I love you, period. I love you when you gain twenty pounds, make a mess around the house, and grow black hairs from your moles. I don't just love you until someone better comes along. I love you forever.
I knew I had this kind of love with Joel. He didn't just love me until Monica was ready to return to him. He never would've jeopardized what we had. I was ashamed I had thought that he would leave me so easily.
I wanted to release Monica of her guilt before Christmas. Whatever she had to get off of her chest, I was ready and willing to listen. It was the second week of December, the first snowfall salting the earth as I drove to her office to meet her. She was busy as usual, squeezing me in between two appointments. My dissertation was tucked neatly in my portfolio, ready to hand over to the professor after I met with Monica.
I entered the building, visualizing the lines Joel had sketched in creating his work of art. Most architects use computers now, but Joel had been old school. He loved nothing more than his drafting table and a freshly sharpened pencil. I could feel Joel's presence with me as I made my way through the marble corridor to the stainless steel elevator. Monica Blevins, top floor. Of course. Corner office. Nothing but the best.
Her assistant showed me into her office where she was bent over paperwork, black framed glasses on her pretty face, lips as red as beets. She smiled upon seeing me and rose to greet me. “Thanks so much for coming,” she said warmly. “I'm sorry we have to meet in a stuffy law office.” I admired the exquisite décor and breathtaking view from her floor-to-ceiling window-nothing stuffy about it. I wondered if Joel had known which office would be Monica's, if he had spec'ed in special accommodations for her. It seemed like the sort of thing he would do.
Monica came around the large ebony desk to sit next to me in a matching leather chair. She crossed her legs, long runner's legs with calves that probably sent most men into salivation. She wore four-inch heels, something I'd never even attempted. She kept her gaze on me, and then I noticed her eyes watered. “How have you been?”
I folded my hands into my lap, no longer ashamed that she made me look like a fashion imbecile. I was being me, pressed khakis, a taupe cardigan and one new addition of red patent leather loafers, which remarkably gave me some pep in my step.
“Love the shoes,” Monica said, admiring them. “I wouldn't have taken you for a red shoe girl.”
“Me, neither,” I said. “I've discovered it about myself. I've always been afraid to wear red, so the shoes… well, it's a start.”
“A wise choice.” Monica said, probably considering whether or not to chitchat. There was so much we could talk about this time of year-holiday plans, what the kids want for Christmas-but I was glad she got right to the point. I'd expect no less of a good lawyer.
“Jonathon told me he saw you,” she said evenly.
“He did? Well, I'm glad for that. I wouldn't want to lie.”
“Of course you wouldn't. I'm the only liar here. I lied to myself for years. Don't assume that comes with the occupation. I lied to myself about Joel. I thought he would make me a better woman because of who he was. Give me a better life if I stuck with him.”
If. Because. I resisted the smile pressing at the corners of my mouth.
“I thought Jonathon could be no more than a fling. But you know what? He loved me even though I repeatedly told him I loved Joel and was going to marry him. He said, 'I don't care what you tell me. I'll never stop loving you. You could lose your looks and get fat and be a five-foot housewife who runs around in a robe all day and I'd still love you.'”
“Not that you would ever do that.”
“He knows me too well. But he said it, you know? And I just wanted you to know that I'm sorry if whatever I did in Joel's past messed things up between you two. I would understand if he had trust issues or kept himself from truly letting go and loving again.”
I shook my head. “You know what? It wasn't that way at all. I don't think he held back. It was me that always wondered. I was jealous. I mean, look at you. But I was wrong to think you were a problem.”
“I'm glad you're saying that, because I did try to get in the way of you two. When Joel was designing this building.”
My throat tightened, and I held onto my knees to brace myself for the news. “Just say it.”
She held my gaze, never wavering. “I kissed him.”
I exhaled. “And?”
“And that's all. I kissed him one night after a dinner meeting to see if there was anything left between us.”
Imagining the two of them in a soul kiss, made me stomach turn. “And?”
“Nothing. Joel told me he loved you and you were the one he was always meant to be with.”
I could feel a tear trail down my cheek. “He said that?”
“He said he never knew how good a life could be. All because of you and the boys.”
I nodded, my lips pressed together to keep from going into the ugly cry.
“I'm sorry I kissed him,” Monica said.
“I'm not. Maybe your kissing him made him realize the words he was telling you. Maybe you did the right thing by doing the wrong thing.”
Monica squeezed my hand. “I never thought of it that way. One last thing before you go. I wanted to give you some kind of proof about Joel-occupational hazard, perhaps-and I remembered I had kept a card he sent me.”
I took the opened envelope from her, afraid to put it in my purse, for fear it would disappear. “I never thought I'd be saying this, but thank you, Monica. For everything.”
I left her office, my free hand fingering the walls as I did, like a child who couldn't keep her hands to herself, as if touching them were somehow touching Joel. I ran my hands along the hallway, the doors, as the partners looked at me strangely, I turned in circles in the elevator as I touched it, too, while the elderly gentlemen in the three-piece suit grinned. “You must be in love,” he said to me as the doors swished open. I put my hand to my heart. “Very much so.”
I waited until I was seated in the car to open the envelope. My heart raced at the sight of Joel's neat penmanship.
Dearest Monica,
I write this because I felt you deserved more than an e-mail or a cold voice mail message. Our past was what it was, but I would not change it. That feels odd to say, but I am in such a good place in my life, and you are obviously happy with Jonathon. I realize now that looking back, you two were always more comfortable together than you and I ever were. Now that I am with the love of my life, I know what it all means. Because Ramona means everything to me, I must respectfully remove myself from the project, but know that you are in good hands with my partners and personally, you are in very good hands with Jonathon. Everything works out for the best.
Love, Joel
I held the open card to my chest, his words pressing against my heart. “I love you, too, Joel. I'll always love you.” And instead of looking up into the sky, I looked beside me, where I imagined him sitting in the passenger seat, fiddling with my stereo buttons. He winked at me, and I continued to speak to him. “I'm sorry I ever doubted you. And I promise to be open to feeling you in my life, guiding us, loving us, watching over us.”
“You should've known you couldn't get rid of me that easily,” he said, and he was gone.
I found Dr. Roberts on the stage, gathering up his notes as the swarm of students exited the auditorium. He was a legend-"Word Doc,” they called him-with a radio show on NPR and a blog read by thousands each day. Not bad for a man in his seventies.
Clutching my dissertation, I made my way down the aisle until I was looking up at him, my neck craned back. From that vantage point, he did look like some sort of language god, larger than life. My last living mentor, save for Panchal.
“ Ciao,
Ramona. A che cosa devo l'onore? ”
Doc was fluent in eleven languages and conversational in twenty-two-something that made nice cocktail conversation, but that wasn't nearly as impressive to most Americans as it was to me. It was a game we liked to play, one of us started speaking in one language and you answered in another, until finally Doc broke into Swahili or a dead language no one spoke anymore-something only word nerds like us would enjoy.
I presented him with the dissertation, fifty typed pages.
“ A língua do amor? ”
Portuguese. Nice move. I responded in German, “ Für dein Lesevergnügen. ”
He laughed, his white beard catching the lights of the stage. “My reading pleasure, eh? I'll be the judge of that.”
I walked up the steps and we hugged. “Look out there, Ramona. Take a good, long look.”
My eyes moved from one end of the auditorium to the other, empty seats except for one sad sap who hadn't even woken up after class was dismissed. “Don't tell me. You bored him to death?”
“ Muy gracioso, señora. Very funny.”
“What am I looking at?”
Doc inhaled and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Your future. When I retire next spring, we'll need a new Word Doc in town. I've already spoken to the dean.”
“But I've never taught in a college setting.”
He tucked my dissertation in his ratty leather briefcase, the same one he'd had when I was his student seventeen years earlier. “Rubbish. I've spoken to Panchal. We've run the numbers. Did you know that you've taught seven hundred immigrants how to speak English?”
I brushed it off. “Well, that's my job.”
Doc led me down the stairs and poked at the sleeping student, who wiped drool from his mouth and scurried off like a mouse running from a cat. Doc slung his worn leather strap over his shoulder. “We both know it's more than a job and you've done more than just teaching them to speak English. You've given them the sword.”