by Nancy Adams
Jenna looked up from the ground at Sam and snarled, “After five years you do this to me. After five years of me throwing everything I ever worked for away, you do this. Five years of living like a ghost just to be with you and you throw it all away for THAT!”
She pointed viciously at Claire, who was still sitting on the ground after her blow.
“Yes,” Sam said vindictively. “I was going to tell you everything tomorrow. But now you may as well know. I guess you’ve made it all easier for me. That girl you so wrongfully referred to as ‘that’ is my great love. Do you hear that?”
“Your great love!?” Jenna exclaimed, the anger in her voice breaking into sadness. “How long has it been going on? I mean, how long have you been cheating on me?”
“We met again only two weeks ago and it was then that I realized that it was all over between me and you.”
“Two weeks ago!? You met only two weeks ago and she’s your great love!”
“No, we knew each other before. We met again two weeks ago.”
“Met again!? What do you mean by met again? When did you first meet?”
Sam bowed his head and closed his eyes, feeling his little girl sobbing into his side.
“The girl I told you about all those years ago,” he said solemnly without opening his eyes. “It’s her.”
“Her!?” Jenna burst out. “The girl you cheated on Marya with!?”
“JENNA!” Sam shouted at her, instantly looking down at Jess, whom he had his arms around. “Please, think about what you’re saying.”
“Think about what I’m saying!? Why should I? For five years I’ve thought about what I should say, scared that I’d lose you if I said the wrong thing. But now I’ve lost you anyway.”
“Who is she, Daddy?” Jess asked her father, looking up at him as she did. “That woman, who is she?”
“Not now, Jess,” he replied in his softest tone. “I’ll explain everything someday to you, but at the moment you’re too young.”
Jess turned her sad look to Jenna and asked, “Who is she, Jenna?”
Jenna gazed up from the floor at the little girl, her anger prodding her on to tell the girl and destroy the father. But as she was about to open her mouth, the sight of Jess’s sad eyes dissolved her fury and she felt unable to say anything to her.
“I’m sorry, Jess, it’s not up to me to tell you.”
But the little girl wouldn’t be deterred and she shot her sad look at Claire and repeated, “Who are you? I recognize you. I’m sure I’ve seen you before.”
Claire, though, was unable to answer. She simply looked at the girl and felt completely ashamed under Jess’s glare. Having received nothing thus far, Jess looked away from Claire and up at her father. Sam winced as he saw an anger upon her features that he had never witnessed in his daughter before.
“It’s her,” she said up to him. “I knew I recognized her. She was at the hospice. That’s what Jenna meant when she said you’d cheated on Mommy.”
Sam looked down at her and his heart sank. Everything was spinning in his head. None of it was supposed to happen like this. He’d planned it so differently and now all of those plans were going up in flames.
“Jess, I need you to go into one of the other rooms and wait for me.”
“No,” the girl replied sharply as she pulled herself away from him, stepping back from her father and glaring into his eyes all the time.
“Please, Jess, go to another room,” he repeated, more forcefully this time.
“What did you mean when you said to Jenna: ‘the girl I told you about all those years ago’?” Jess asked.
Sam stayed silent for a moment, so Jess turned to Jenna and added, “What did he mean?”
Jenna gave the girl a benevolent look and answered, “Jess, it’s not up to me to tell you. As much as I hate your father right now, I realize that I have no right to tell you.”
“WHAT DID YOU MEAN?” the little girl screamed with all her might, almost jumping on the spot, her little fists screwed up, tears pouring out of her eyes, her face red and furrowed. “Did you cheat on Mommy?” Jess asked her father.
“Jess, please, let me speak to Jenna in private. We have a lot to discuss and then I’ll tell you everything in the morning. Okay? I promise I’ll tell you everything. I just need you to leave us now.”
All this time, Claire merely sat on the floor, the whole side of her face where Jenna had struck it feeling completely numb and still buzzing from the blow. Worse than that, however, was the pain she felt in her heart at the sight of it all. Her eyes steamed with tears and she felt utterly wretched on that floor, a deep shame filling her up where only the light of Sam had existed earlier. With all her will she wanted the ground to swallow her up whole and take her far away from this place. In the scene that played out in front of her involving a scorned lover and a grief-stricken ten-year-old, Claire saw herself as the villain of the piece. Their tears were her fault and she felt utterly ashamed of this.
“Jess, you should do as your father tells you,” Jenna told the little girl after a moment.
Jess turned her tear-stained eyes to Jenna and replied, “But Jenna I have to know.”
“Please, Jess. Let me sort things out with your father.”
Jess flashed glances between Jenna and her father, feeling sadness and compassion for one, and utter contempt for the other.
“Please, Jess,” Jenna repeated.
The little girl gave her one last look and then stormed out of the room. A second or two later, they all heard the loud bang of a slammed door. Afterward, Jenna gingerly got up from the floor and made her way to the couch. As she did, Sam swooped forward and offered her assistance, but she shrugged him off, darting her furious eyes at him.
Once she was on the couch, she turned to Sam, who stood gazing at her and said, “It’s okay. I’m not so angry now. You can tell her to come and sit with us. We have much to talk about, all three of us.”
“What about?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have at least some idea as to why I wasted the last five years of my life.”
Sam came and sat down on the couch. From across the room, Claire watched the two with a worried expression. So much drama had already occurred and she wondered how much more would take place.
“Come,” Jenna said looking over at her. “I’m okay. I’m not going to hit you anymore. I needed to get my animalism out of me and now it’s gone.”
Claire gingerly got up and sheepishly came over to them, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Jenna, Sam between them.
“So this is the girl you met in the hospice all those years ago then?” Jenna put to Sam.
“Yes.”
“And you’ve met back up again. How did that happen?”
“At the exhibition here in New York two weeks ago.”
“And what, don’t tell me, your eyes met from across the room.”
Sam sat in silence with his head bowed, blankly gazing at the space of floor between his feet.
Jenna began laughing bitterly.
“You’re joking, surely,” she giggled mockingly.
“I spotted her in the crowd and asked her backstage,” he began. “It was there that I gave her my number. Claire did nothing to encourage this.”
“Except call you up. Because why else would you be sitting together in this room now?”
“I did call him,” Claire said, breaking her silence.
“Ah! She speaks!” Jenna exclaimed, turning her eyes to Claire.
“I called him because I love him,” Claire continued confidently. “I’ve loved him every second of every day for the past five-and-a-half years. I loved him the first moment that I saw him. I loved him the day I told him that I never wanted to see him again. I loved him when I lay in bed with my boyfriend. I can’t stop loving him. When we met the other night, it was like a fuel was being poured over a fire that has always burned in my soul, igniting it into a bright wonder that I couldn’t ign
ore any longer.”
Jenna gave her a sarcastic frown and commented, “How poetically put. And you, Sam,” she added, turning her attention to her ex-boyfriend, “did you see a fire burning brightly?”
“I too,” he went, turning to her as he did and meeting her eyes with his own, a sincerity burning in them, “have loved Claire for every second of every day.”
“Even when you were in bed with your girlfriend?”
Not taking his eyes off of her, he said sternly, “Yes. Even when I lay in bed with you.”
Jenna instinctively brought her hand up to her mouth and gasped, fresh tears flowing from her eyes. Such a terribly cold, icy dagger had been thrust into her heart then and she momentarily felt absolutely worthless, like she were no more than an indiscriminate grain of sand upon a desert. She had thrown so much of herself into this relationship and now she was being told that it had all been in vain. Not just lately, when it had corroded from its former glory, but back then when it was in full flower. Even then it was nothing but a husk of what she thought it was. All that time, he had lied to her. Heck, he’d clearly lied to himself.
“So all these years,” she wept, “has been nothing but a sham?”
“Not a sham,” he replied softly, realizing how hurt and vulnerable she was. “I did have feelings for you.”
“But not love. Not what really mattered, what I really wanted.”
“I loved you in a way.”
“In a way!? Fuck! You make me feel so honored. I went through the indignity of having the world see me having sex so that you could keep your company, just so I could be loved ‘in a way.’ I gave up my entire career and slipped into nothingness so that I could be loved ‘in a way.’ Fuck you, Sam. You don’t get to hurt people like that. You don’t…”
Jenna broke into desperate tears, stood up sharply and marched out of the room. Sam and Claire watched her go and then heard the front door open and slam shut behind her. At that moment, they heard another door open and Sam jumped up from the chair.
When he reached the hallway, he found Jess coming toward him, her face still wet with tears.
“Where’s Jenna?” she tearfully asked.
“She’s gone, Jess.”
The girl’s face became even more distraught and she dashed to the door, but Sam beat her to it and stood in the way.
“Let me go,” she cried out at him, trying to barge past him.
He took her by the shoulders and she immediately attempted to shrug him off.
“Jess, please,” he begged her as he tried to contain her struggles as delicately as he could.
“Let go of me,” she continued to scream at him as they fought by the door.
Eventually, she ceded and slumped in his arms, her legs giving way as she fell into morbid weeping. Sam slowly moved down onto the floor with her and she took hold of him fiercely, desperately crying into him.
“How could you do this?” she sobbed into his breast. “You’re a cheat.”
Claire, who up until now had remained impassive on the couch in shock, got up and began walking to the hallway herself. When she reached them, she felt even worse—father and daughter embracing on the ground, sadness consuming them, all because of her.
“I have to leave,” she said in a trembling voice.
Sam looked up at her from the ground, his melancholy eyes filled with tears, a frantic look on his face.
“Please, stay?” he pleaded.
“I don’t think I should. You and your daughter need time, Sam. Plus…” She stumbled here, the act of forming the words in her mind bringing a hollow pang to her heart. “Plus, I think I need some time.”
“No,” Sam cried, his face becoming worse, his mouth drawn into a terrible grimace of suffering. “Please…”
A tremble moved through Claire like the kick of a horse and, with her heart racing and her breathing desperate, she thrust herself toward the door, opened it and fled the apartment, almost running to the elevator.
Sam watched her go from the floor with sad eyes, holding his daughter as she cried wretchedly into him.
CHAPTER SIX
“I’m so terribly afraid, Jules,” Juliette said softly as she sat alongside him in the doctor’s waiting room.
“It’s okay, my love,” he replied, placing his arm tenderly around her. “They’re just gonna do a few tests and see where we’re at.”
“But everything’s so confusing for me at the moment. I’m scared that they’ll take me away somewhere.”
“No one’s taking you away.”
It had been five days since Juliette had been brought home by the LAPD and she was about to see a doctor for the first time regarding everything. Jules had only made the appointment the day before, because all week he’d battled Juliette to get her to agree to go. She was terrified, and wasn’t willing to allow herself to be tested. She had a history of suspicion when it came to medicine—probably as a result of her gypsy upbringing—and it was always Jules who took David to the doctors. On this particular occasion, Juliette didn’t like the idea of being classified and labeled. She feared it could give people the right to take her away from her family if they felt she wasn’t mentally fit to be a mother. She feared that she would lose David out of this.
Soon they were called in to see Dr. Smith and the couple were shown into his office by the receptionist. There they found the doctor sitting behind his desk, a stiff effort of a smile on his face as he greeted the pair. They sat themselves down in front of his desk and the receptionist closed the door behind her as she left. While Juliette sat there nervously, she got a good look at the doctor. He was middle-aged with short, graying hair and a pair of ordinary-looking glasses resting upon the bridge of his thin nose, and was of a rather plain appearance, the skin of his cheeks gray from years of relentless shaving. The only other thing to describe about him was his rather blank expression and tone of voice, which encompassed his general aura of blankness.
“So Mrs. Lee,” the doctor began after a few seconds of silence between them all, “your husband told my office over the phone that you’ve recently been experiencing problems with remembering things. Can you tell me about that?”
Juliette sat gazing at the doctor and playing with her trembling hands on her lap. Jules turned to her and observed her sad expression. He moved his hand across and warmly covered her own. Glancing at him, she gripped his fingers tightly and gave a withered smile.
Having gotten encouragement from her love’s warmth, Juliette turned back to the doctor and began in a soft voice, “It’s been happening on and off for about a month, I think. I mean, I can’t be sure. I’ve always been a little forgetful. Even when I was a girl they used to joke at Marcos that I would forget my ass if it wasn’t nailed on!”
The doctor’s blank face creased into an amused smile at her joke.
“But lately it’s worse?” he offered.
“Yes,” she replied sadly. “Lately, it gets like there’s a storm in my head and I just can’t think.”
“Your husband told me that you got lost some days ago and the police found you. Tell me about that?”
“I can’t really remember a lot, but what I do is that I’d gone to fetch David from his school.” She closed her eyes, spurring her cloudy memory on, trying to envisage the events she was about to recount. “I was walking along the street thinking about something,” she went on. “I don’t know what it was, but as I was thinking about it, the thought got jumbled up and then so did everything else and before I knew it I didn’t recognize where I was. I looked all around me and the streets, the houses and the people all looked odd, like I’d never seen them before. I tried to think where I was going, but I couldn’t recall that either. I racked my brain to think, but I was completely lost. So I just kept walking along and, as I did, I began to panic. I was walking along with my head down, scared to look at anyone, scared to speak. I just kept walking. But the farther I went, the worse it got, until I thought I was trying to get back to my old house in Colo
rado.”
She stopped and Jules observed a tear emerge from one of her closed eyes and float down her cheek.
“I was trying to get back to Danny,” she continued.
“Is that your son?”
“It’s our other son,” Jules informed him. “Our eldest boy. He passed away some years ago.”
“Even when the police officer took me back,” she was saying, “I thought that it would be Danny waiting for me at home. It felt so odd when I saw David.”
Dr. Smith sat rubbing his gray chin for a moment, gazing benevolently at Juliette. The old woman filled him with compassion. He’d seen a lot of dementia in his years and it never failed to sadden him. For all his empty mannerisms, Dr. Smith was a very compassionate person.
“Okay,” he said after a while, “I’m going to get Juliette to perform some simple cognitive tests and see what’s up.”
The doctor got up from his desk and walked to the other end of the room where he took a flat table on wheels and brought it over to Juliette. Placing it in front of her, he went and got some cards, paper and a pencil from his desk. After that, Jules watched as the doctor presented Juliette with some memory and cognitive tests. One of the tests involved showing Juliette a card with the simple face of a clock pictured on it. The hands were at half past three and Juliette was given ten seconds to gaze at it. Once the ten seconds were up, the card was turned over and Juliette was asked to draw the face with the correct time. Now Jules expected her to nail this one. After all, she’d seen countless clock faces in her life, so repeating one from general memory shouldn’t be difficult.
When it came to Juliette starting the picture, however, she froze, holding the pencil over the sheet of paper and glaring confusedly down at it. Almost a minute of inaction followed until she eventually drew an elongated oval. Jules was confused—he’d drawn with her countless times and had seen her produce perfect circles before, not this ghostly loop. His confusion then increased to mortification when it came to the hands of the clock. Instead of having them in the center, she drew them off to the side of the stretched oval, one at the top and one near the bottom.