by R. R. Banks
A splash of cold water against my ankle snapped me back into reality and I looked to the side to see that the tablecloth and greenery were no longer burning. The man who had met me in the driveway stood beside them, a hose in his hand.
"Are you just going to stand there and turn to ash with the rest of this mess?" he asked sharply.
In that moment, I hoped that I would.
"I'm sorry."
It was all I could manage to choke out past the tightness in my throat.
"I never should have let you in," he said. "Your lie wasn't good enough for me to even pretend that I believed it."
I wanted to laugh but I felt like the sound had died within me.
"You probably shouldn't have," I said, wiping away tears that I didn't realize were there until I tasted them on my lips. "I never should have come here."
"Not for this," he said.
He gestured around at the destroyed scene. Something about the way that he said it struck me and I took a slight step toward him.
"Why?" I asked. "Why not for this?"
He glanced up at me from where he had leaned over to shake the sodden tablecloth, pausing for a moment before straightening. His already somber face now looked etched from stone.
"Mr. Ford doesn't celebrate Christmas," he said. "He hasn't since the last year that he celebrated with his wife."
The statement crashed over me and for a moment I felt like I had left my feet. Everything seemed to fade in around me and I remembered nothing else until I was standing outside the door to my apartment, staring through my tears at the lock and not knowing what to do next.
Javi opened the door and in the next instant I was in his arms. I felt like I couldn't hold myself up, but he gathered me close, doing physically what he had always done emotionally as he held me and brought me into the apartment. I felt myself drop onto the couch and I drew in a breath that became a sob. It racked my body, hurting so deeply inside me that I didn't think I could take in another.
"What happened?" Javi demanded. "What's going on?"
I turned to him, seeing him through my tears, and saw hard planes and rough angles in his face that I hadn't seen in years. It was a face that rarely emerged, but one that I knew too well. That was the face that had seen me through the worst of my night terrors. It was the face that had forced me through the doors of the courthouse. It was the face that had been streaked with tears of its own when he sat beside me at a funeral that I pretended with everything I had inside me wasn't happening. Now it stared at me again, breaking me down even further, and there was nothing that I could keep from him anymore.
I poured everything out to Javi, turning our living room into my confessional. He listened silently, his expression not revealing anything until I was finished and had drawn in a breath. The air entering my lungs felt like the first in hours and I felt it stream through me, calming me. I had cried out everything and was empty now. All I could do was listen.
"How did you possibly go from turning him on with your Halloween costume to trying to burn the man's house down?" he asked.
"I didn't try to burn his house down," I protested. "I tried to plan a romantic Christmas celebration that would…"
"That would what?" Javi asked when my voice trailed off and all words failed me. "That would tell him how you feel about him? Do you even know how you feel about him?"
It was exactly what I had feared when I thought about talking to Javi about this. He had taken the same question that I had asked myself countless times before and somehow made it cut deeper than I ever could have. When I asked myself, I could hesitate, I could stop myself just short of really wanting to evaluate it or even really know. But when Javi asked, he didn't stop and I couldn't lie. I knew myself well enough to know when to hide. He knew me well enough to force me out.
"I have to admit when we first started, I really liked the mystery. I liked the excitement and feeling like we had a secret that no one else knew. It was an adrenaline rush. It made me feel beautiful and desired, but now I don't know."
"What don't you know?"
"If it's enough anymore."
"As deftly as you are trying to avoid answering my question, I haven't forgotten it. How do you feel about him?"
I looked at Javi beseechingly.
"I am so scared that I made the wrong choice."
"Because you had sex with your professor?"
"Because I lost my virginity to my professor on the desk in his office. Because he has since kept me tucked in his pocket refusing to acknowledge us to me, much less to anyone else."
"Darling, I bid farewell to my virginity so long ago I don't even send it Christmas cards. I don't even remember her name."
I looked up at Javi sharply, the shock startling me the rest of the way out of my fog.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Oh, don't act so surprised. You know I have danced the forbidden dance of womanly love," Javi said, giving a dismissive wave of his hand.
"I know, I just didn't realize you admitted it anymore."
"Well, when emergency strikes I have to take desperate measures."
I nodded.
"Go ahead."
"As a person who has chosen a somewhat more 'welcoming committee' approach to sex than you have, I can honestly say I admire you. Not that I regret my choices or think yours made a hell of a lot of sense, but I think it is really sweet you decided your Virginity – with the big V – mattered enough to hang on to it this long looking for the right person. You believed there is someone out there who was worth that much. That is amazing."
"The problem is that I don't know if Jude was that person."
"I have not seen you look like this ever. You obviously feel something for him."
"Something? Is feeling something enough?"
"Answer this for me. What did you always think that you needed in order to know you had found the right one? Did you want me to walk you down the aisle, everyone's eyes on the breathtaking, extravagant gown -- you wearing something nice, too -- the vows, the rings?"
I shook my head, the heavy feeling returning to my chest.
"It's not about marriage. That is never what it was about. I just thought that there would be something more when I found the right person, not just passion."
"What more is there than passion? Do you love him?"
I shrugged helplessly.
"Even if I do have feelings for him, even if I am falling in love with him, does that mean anything? He has never admitted to having any feelings for me, and he's actively avoided letting anyone know that there is anything more between us than grading papers and wrangling cheating students. Then I try to do something to show him how I thought I was feeling." I hesitated, feeling the rush of pain and embarrassment that I had felt when I was standing outside of Jude's house hit me again. I shook my head. "I didn't even know that he was married before."
"Have you stopped to consider that might have something to do with all of this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Not telling you that he was married before isn't an oversight. That obviously had something to do with the way that he acted when he realized that he had walked onto the set of a Hallmark Countdown to Christmas special. Don't you think that it might with the rest of his behavior?"
Thank God for Javi. Thank God for every heart he had broken and every time his heart had been broken. Thank God mine was always the one that he was willing to try to fix.
"She was beautiful."
The words streamed out of me with my exhalation, as if the breath had caught the thought as it formed in my mind and carried it out of my mouth without me realizing it.
"She was."
Javi touched his finger to the screen of my computer, moving the article up so that we could continue to read. The movement nearly concealed the black and white image of Jude's wife, but then revealed the top of another. I moved the screen the rest of the way to look at it. This picture was in color, revealing a stunning woman with pale blond hai
r and deep green eyes. She was locked in a laugh, the image capturing her forever in a moment of happiness as she hung on the shoulders of a much younger Jude. There was no gray in his hair in the picture. No lines around his eyes. There was more color in his cheeks and more life in his gaze.
"'Ellery was always smiling, a friend remembered,'" Javi read. "'The world is darker without that smile.'"
"She was 23," I whispered. I felt like I couldn't get my voice any louder. "What could have happened to her?"
Javi shook his head.
"It doesn't say anything about an illness or an accident," he said. "It just says that she died unexpectedly after a recent tragedy. It doesn't explain what the tragedy was, though, or what it had to do with her death."
Left this life. Those were the words that the first line of the article had used. Ellery Ford, wife of Jude Ford, left this life Tuesday. I felt in the pit of my stomach that I knew what those words meant, but I didn't want to think it. I didn't want to imagine Jude in that kind of pain.
Chapter Fourteen
Jude
I couldn't concentrate on the words on the page in front of me. Even though I had read the book a dozen times before, I felt like I was lost somewhere in the story and didn't know what was going to happen or what had already been said. Only the faint bursting of fireworks somewhere in the distance made me sure that time was actually passing as I sat in my favorite chair in my library. I hadn't noticed the chiming of the grandfather clock that marked midnight, but the fireworks told me that it must have happened. It was a new day, a new month, a new year. But nothing felt different. Nothing had really changed.
I was still wracked with guilt about the way I had treated Veronica just before Christmas. I hadn't intended to act that way, but seeing everything that she had done had hit me with emotion and pain that rocked me to my core. I had never told her where I lived and I was angry with her for overstepping her bounds by not only seeking out my address, but actually coming to my home and somehow convincing my staff to let her through the security gate without my consent. But it wasn't just that that had caused the reaction. Instead, it was the site of the Christmas tree and the lights, the smell of the fire and the peppermint, the pine-scented memories and glistening nostalgia that had immediately taken over when I stepped into the courtyard.
It has been years since there had been any sign of Christmas anywhere near my home. At least that I had to see on a daily basis. It was possible that the living members of my staff decorated their own quarters, but since I never ventured into those areas of the home I never had to see the signs of the season that filled others with such joy and only gave me emptiness and devastation. In the years since I had celebrated Christmas, my home had been a refuge, source of protection against the music and the lights, the decorations and the greetings. There was little that I could do to prevent having to face the reality of the season when I was away from home, but when I returned to my house I didn't have to deal with any of it. I could close the door behind me and be embraced by the silence in the shadows in the rooms. Veronica had taken that from me. Without realizing it, she had shattered that protection, that safety that I relied on. She forced me to confront what I dreaded and stepped beyond the boundaries that I had crafted to a place where no one was welcome.
I knew that she had intended no harm. She wanted to do something wonderful for me. She thought that she was bringing happiness and giving me the opportunity to celebrate a holiday after I told her that I had no family to celebrate with and that I spent these days of the year alone. She didn't realize that when I told her that I enjoyed the solitude, I didn't mean it as a consolation, that I wasn't resigned to the reality that it was my only option. Instead, it was my choice. It was what I wanted.
It took several days for me to fully calm down and be able to evaluate the situation as it unfolded. As the initial pain eased and I was able to see clearly again, I realized just how aggressive I had been toward her and how much it must have hurt her. Aaron had come to me to apologize for letting her through the gate, telling me that he knew she was lying when she concocted a story for why she needed to set up the scene in the courtyard. He hadn't known fully what she had in mind, and if he had, he wouldn't have let her do it. He knew the pain it would cause and he regretted not watching her more closely and stopping her when he realized what she was doing. He showed more emotion in those moments than I was accustomed to ever seeing in him, and I reassured him that I wasn't angry with him. I knew that he wouldn't have let just anyone onto the grounds and he must have realized somehow that Veronica did play some kind of role in my life even if he wasn't sure what that role was. After so many years, I couldn't really blame him for wondering if I had finally taken a step out of the stage of mourning that had become my constant reality.
It had been nearly two weeks now and I hadn't heard from Veronica since that evening. Aaron had helped her gather up what had survived and she had left, just as I told her to. I hadn't reached out to her since then and every day that passed I became more and more aware of her absence in my life. It wasn't something that I wanted to acknowledge. It wasn't something that I wanted to experience. But I couldn't deny it. I felt the lack of her in nearly everything that I did. I found myself wondering what she was doing and if her thoughts ever came to me. I knew that I would deserve it if they never did. It would be my own fault if she had fully cut off any acknowledgment of me after what I had done to her. She had opened herself to me in a way that I had never expected and though my reaction was mine and mine alone, genuine in every breath, it wasn't what she deserved.
In the quiet that followed the explosions of celebration outside, I could hear my wife's voice. The note that she had left had been the last words that she had wanted to give me and as I read them they had formed in my mind in her voice, fully realized as though she were standing beside me, whispering them into my ear. I often imagined that the rope had taken them out of her, that she had breathed them out with that last breath so that it split into air and memory. Those words were a part of the house now and there were so many moments, moments like this when I could hear them again as if the breeze moving through had found them in the corners and tucked against the rafters and washed them over me again.
Please don't be alone. Find someone to take care of you.
I knew that I still couldn't give that to her. I still wasn't in that place. But as the quiet of the house was broken again by a new round of fireworks outside I wondered if it was possible to take that next step. I might not be able to give to Veronica what I had pledged to my wife decades before and I may never be able to reawaken the part inside of me that she had kept alive, but that didn't mean there couldn't be more. I could bring Veronica closer. I could let myself experience something more from her. The concept of a future might still be untouchable and abstract to me, but the importance of her companionship wasn't. It had become real and tangible as soon as I had lost it and I was ready to get it back. I knew that I needed to go to her, to make amends and to hope that she was still willing to hear me.
I walked into the rehearsal space and let my eyes scan the stage. I didn't see Veronica and I left, heading toward the next space and then the next. I had gone to every rehearsal space and studio where I had seen her, but I couldn't find her. Her phone went immediately to voicemail and none of the messages I left her were returned. I considered checking her address in her student file and going to her house, but I realized that that would be the exact same thing that I had lashed out at her for, and couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I continued to scour the campus and the area around it, visiting all the places that we had gone to together and those that she had mentioned to me during the weeks that we had spent getting to know each other. This is how I found myself at a tiny bar that we had visited on a few occasions, tucking ourselves into the darkest back corner and watching the lives of the very edges of campus society unfold in front of us.
As I walked into the bar I noticed that it was nearly empty.
Only one of the tables had anyone sitting at it and it appeared to be one of the waitresses counting out tips. There was a single figure sitting at the bar. It wasn't Veronica.
It was Javi.
I had only seen him once and it was in a picture on Veronica's phone. He had sent it to her to show off what appeared to be a slightly revised rendition of a Vegas showgirl costume that he had chosen to wear to yet another of the parties that seemed to define the majority of his life. Though he was now dressed in dark pants and a sweater, the image of that picture had been burned in my mind and I knew that I would recognize Javi anywhere.
There was a determination in my step as I walked up to Javi's raised chair and flattened my hand on the bar beside him. Javi looked up at me and jumped, his facial expression shifting from looking as though he was preparing to flirt with a next man who walked up to him to seeming as if he was scanning the perimeter for the closest fire exit.
"I'm Jude Ford," I said. "I know Veronica."
"I know who you are," he said.
There was a tone in his voice that I hadn't expected and I wondered how much Veronica had told him. I decided there was no need for small talk or pleasantries. I was here for one reason and one reason only.
"Where is she, Javi?" I demanded.
This changed Javi's expression to one of indignation and anger.
"If she wanted you to know, she would have told you herself."
"You tell me."
Javi rolled his eyes at me, turned back to the multi-colored cocktail in his hand and put the swizzle stick in his mouth.
"Maybe she doesn't want you to know where she is. Maybe she doesn't want to talk to you."
Anger swelled in my chest, but now it was mixed with something that felt like desperation. From what Veronica had told me about Javi, calm was rarely a good emotion for him to have. It meant he was either very serious about something or that he had given up on a situation and had no more need for involvement. If he had resigned himself to Veronica not wanting anything to do with me, then maybe she had, too.