by Paloma Meir
“What’s so funny man? Go back to sleep. I’ll get you some soup later.” He stood up and walked out of my room with a swagger I hoped I was imagining in my feverish state.
…
I woke the next morning filthy with the sweat of the fever breaking. I got out of bed a little unsteady having skipped Serge’s soup, jumped in the shower meaning to be in and out quickly but the hot water streaming over my weak body held me captive. Drying off and putting my clothes on was painful. My muscles were sore. I went into the kitchen and looked into the near empty refrigerator needing food.
The bell rang. The door wasn’t far away but I couldn’t get to it without eating something first, or at least having some juice, even one of Serge’s vegetable shakes if there was any leftover from the day before. The bug had knocked me out hard. I had to get to Zelda.
“Serge could you get the door?" I yelled out as I held on to the refrigerator door for balance.
”Sure bro.” I watched as he ran out of his room jumping up and down, pulling the wetsuit up. I noticed how similar he and Zelda really were to each other, with their skinny bodies and big eyes.
“Sign here.” I heard the voice from outside say as I took a bottle of apple juice out of the refrigerator.
“It’s probably the papers from the escrow.” I shouted out as I sat down on the barstool at the kitchen counter.
“It’s for me. Why would she send me a letter by courier?" He mumbled to himself.
I poured myself a glass of the juice and drank it down fast. I wouldn’t say it felt good going down my throat that was raw from throwing–up but I couldn’t get it enough of it. I refilled my cup as Serge read his letter.
His hand came out of nowhere knocking my glass off the counter, across the room, breaking it against the wall and the juice spraying everywhere. I looked up at him through my haze of drossiness, shocked. His face was red and full of anger, his body tensed up as if ready to kill me.
“What did you say to her? Don’t you fucking lie to me. What did you say to her?” He bounced back and forth on his feet like a boxer before the final knockout.
“It’s between me and her. I’m going up there right now to make it right.” I slumped down on my stool too weak to speak, to do anything.
“Good luck with that. She’s gone. You idiot. Your baby is gone with her.” He flew across the kitchen to the refrigerator, taking the letter off the top and throwing it at me. “Eight months this letter has been sitting there. I thought she was stupid or weak for not telling you straight out," He shook his head forcefully. “Eight months it sits there because it hurt your big baby feelings that she went away? Did you know you had a baby? Do you know why she went away? The answer was sitting in front of you the whole time.” He picked up the empty apple juice bottle and threw it against the wall, shattering it.
“What baby? What are you talking about?” I put my head in my hands. The headache was coming back strong.
“Louisa is your baby. I’m not going to tell you about it. Sit down and read that letter or I will beat you down. I don’t care if you’re sick. Read the letter she wrote eight months ago.” He banged his hand on the counter, jolting me off the stool, “She’s gone. You did this.” His voice was low and booming with anger.
I sat back down, opened the dust-covered letter and read. Louisa was mine. Her words rang through my head from the night she was here with me, something beautiful came from that night, we already are your family. She always spoke in such a figurative way. How could I have known that what she meant was real?
“Why did she think I would be mad at her? She keeps apologizing.” I looked down, burying myself in her letter. I didn’t want to look at him.
“How would I know that? She just told me yesterday morning.” He sat on the floor, knees up and his head in his hands. “She felt guilty about Paolo. Choices. I don’t know. Finish the letter.”
“Where are they?” I put the letter down, my head hurt and my body felt broken inside.
“I don’t know." He looked over at me and screamed, “It’s a big world out there. She has enough money to travel it for a long time. Finish the letter.”
“I’m going to go and get them. Let me read your letter.” I got up off the stool, a little shaky but ready to go.
“You come near me and I’ll rip your head off. Finish reading the letter she wrote you eight months ago. This letter is to me, not you.” He didn’t even bother to look up at me, but his tone was aggressive, threatening. I sat back down, too out of it to argue or do anything other than finish reading her letter.
She went to Paris so that she could be with me without regrets. She had wanted me to come out and be a part of it with her and Louisa. She wanted to come home and have baby after baby, follow me around and make me happy. She had wanted to be a whole person, not scared anymore. That was it. She had never left me ever. I knew I had abandoned her. Forget about her ever not being scared anymore.
“I read it. Now I’m going to go find her.” I got up the wooziness was strong, but I didn’t care.
“What did you say to her? What did you say to make her want to raise Louisa alone?” He stared straight ahead, his voice calmer but pained.
“You don’t want to know Serge.” I picked up my car keys.
“I would love for you to get into your car right now and go out in a ball of fire but tell me what you said to her before you do that. You owe me that.” The anger was back.
“I don’t owe you anything Serge.”
“You took my time away. We had more time.” He spread his arms out and lay down on the floor, staring straight up at the ceiling.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I put the keys down and went to the refrigerator, took out the cold soup and drank it. I wasn’t going to get anywhere without food.
“It’s not your business. Tell me what you said to her.” He yelled for what my throbbing head hoped would be the last time.
“I told her I never loved her, that nobody could ever love her. I told her she was worthless and a desperate sex addict. I purposely used words that trigger her to push over the edge. I used everything I knew about her to hurt her. I wanted to send her back to the worst part of her life. That’s it. I’m not telling you the words I used. That was the message. We good?” I sat down on the stool again not knowing what to do or where to go.
“We’ll never be good again but thanks for telling me.” He got up off the floor, went into the kitchen, grabbed the garbage bags from under the sink and took them into his room. I watched as he threw what few possessions he had and his clothes into the plastic bags. He carried them out of his room, stopped to look over at me, nodded his head and walked to the door.
“Where are you going? Let me read the letter she wrote you. I don’t know how to find her.” I stood up again and managed a few steps in his direction.
“Leave her alone. You failed. Your sick plan, I hate that word, didn’t work. She’ll be fine.” He put the bags down, “Seriously stay away from her.”
“I’m going to go get her Serge. I love her and she has our daughter who she is not going to raise alone.” I could feel my body coming back to life.
“Take all your power moves and go fixate on someone else. She’s too sweet for a sick fuck like you.” His anger was back strong and his hands, one of which held her note were balled up into tight fists.
I grabbed the letter from his hand before he realized what was going on and ran to my bedroom, slammed the door and leaned against it to read it. Second time in two days I had behaved like a twelve year old.
“I can’t believe you did that. I would like it back when you’re done. There isn’t any information about where she’s going. I told you that already.” He yelled through the door.
Serge,
I’m drinking a large glass of water while I write this letter and think of you. Let me first say that I’m sorry that this won’t be that kind of letter. If only I had time.
Almost everything I’ve sai
d to you this morning has been a lie. Danny made it very clear last night that he does not want me in his life. Louisa has been raised with love. I can’t have her around a man who has hate in his heart.
I know I will be depriving his parents of their granddaughter but I feel they would understand my decision if they knew the circumstances.
I’m leaving today. I don’t know my ultimate destination. Nothing feels like home.
As you pointed out letters aren’t the best form of communication. I’ll email you when I figure out where I am to live with my family of Louisa and Astrid. I’ve crushed my phone and my old work email is unavailable due to Silviana changing the website. I’ll set up a new account when we land somewhere in this big world.
I don’t know what I would have done without you last night. You make everything better and brighter. I’ll miss our game. Please don’t be too mad at me.
Enclosed are the keys to my house. The lease is paid up until July 1st. Living here might make your commute easier. I left a few things that need to go to my storage unit, and some things for the Goodwill. Could you take care of that for me?
ZM
“You’re going to tell me when she emails you and we are going to her house right now. What’s up with her and the water?” I opened the door, and that’s when Serge broke my nose.
“That felt good.” Serge smiled as he stretched his hand. He went into the kitchen and returned with an old dishtowel. He put his fingers around my nose, twisted it painfully, put the rag over it and sat down next to me. “That’s how we fix it in Peru. Third world, no doctors around.”
He looked triumphant as we sat on the floor against the wall together. I felt sick, beaten and alone.
“You’re not going to go after her. Do you understand me?”
“I’m going to go to the hospital, at this point probably overnight then I will go find her. It’s not that big of a world.”
“Think about what you did. You know Carolina saw what happened. Everybody forgets that she was just a kid too. You want to hear what my sister saw?”
“Fuck off Serge.”
“Zelda, the one you claim to love? Her face was beaten, blood dripped down from the gash on her scalp, the black eye... What really stayed with Carolina were her legs though. Blood smeared all over them, hand-print bruises on her legs I guess from her trying to keep her legs closed while he forced them apart, the bloody condom on the floor, her crying for you. She’s never shook the image out of her head. But you don’t care about that part, what’s Carolina to you right? What’s anyone to you?”
He put his head back against the wall and looked up.
“You know I never bought into the myth of you saving her. She was going down quickly. Someone else would have had her put away the next day. Stealing the little liquor bottles from the store down the street, flunking out of school, her trail of destruction was over. If my mom hadn’t been doing her own little death dance I would have had her put away.”
“Thanks. I’m going to the hospital now.” I tried to get up but dizziness overcame me. I sat back down.
“I’ll get to my point. I never bought in to her thinking of you as a hero until that day when the two of us were sitting talking up on Mulholland.”
“Just shut-up Serge.” The nausea was back.
“You’re right I’m not giving you credit for anything. This is why you’re not going to go on an epic quest for her. You wanted to take her back to that day. You sexually humiliated a rape victim. You did that. That’s in you. You wanted her to feel bleeding and abused on a dirty bed. Do you understand why you’re going to leave her alone?”
“I’ll leave her alone. Take me to the hospital.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
We were on the Bucharest/Istanbul Express when everything fell apart. Louisa was no longer my bubbly little girl but a crying sweaty mess who couldn’t stay in her seat. Astrid had stopped talking to me somewhere in Croatia.
We had been roaming Europe for over three months. England, Ireland, back up to Denmark. Over a dozen countries we had traveled to in the previous ninety days. The countries ran together. The cultures that had all seem so defined blended into a mass of people who didn’t share a common language or accent with us. All the five star hotels began to fuse together like an endless buffet of luxury. We were all so sick of travel but kept moving to find a home.
The beauty and hospitality of Amsterdam almost captured us until I noticed the amount of sex tourists it attracted. Louisa had loved Geneva, but it was too dull for me. Astrid didn’t care where we settled as long as it wasn’t Germany or Austria.
In each city we would shop for clothes taking on the subtle differences each place offered. Our two suitcase rule had expanded to three. The reliance on porters and drivers was overwhelming. Too many languages, too many different mannerisms, I couldn’t keep up anymore. We were playing a losing game of Goldilocks.
Louisa lay in the aisle of the Istanbul Express screaming, kicking the floor. She hurled her sweet little hands at my face as I tried to pick her up off the floor. I looked over to Astrid for help. Her eyes had an expression of tremendous aggravation then she looked away. The other passengers stared at me, some sympathetically, most with annoyance.
How had we gotten to this place? I had always been proud of how well behaved Louisa was with people and in public. Now she acted as if she had grown up in front of a TV while living on cheese puffs in some tacky American town.
Astrid finally took sympathy on me. She swiftly and firmly lifted my unhappy girl up and placed her on her lap while holding her head against her chest. She sang to her in German. Louisa put her thumb in her mouth, a habit she had given up months before and fell asleep.
“Thank you Astrid.”
“We need to go home now Zelda. Too many trains, too many people...” She patted Louisa’s back.
“I don’t have a home.” I wanted to curl up and cry but I couldn’t, I was the leader of our little family. “I give up. I’m so sorry Astrid. I thought this would be easy. Pick a country. Live our lives.”
She stared out the window not wanting to talk to me.
“Astrid I’m sorry. I give up. Should we get off at the next stop? Wherever that may be and stay? We could be our own little country. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? Say it we’ll go there. I don’t care anymore. We can go back to Los Angeles if that’s what you would like.” If she said Los Angeles I would do it but die a little inside.
“No not the next stop, very dangerous.” She smiled for the first time in days. “Hawaii.”
“Well that’s a bit predictable but fine. Good. I’m sure it’s lovely. Anything is better than this. When does this train get into to Istanbul? Let me use your phone I’ll book us on the first flight out of there.” I laughed manically, “Do you know how long the flight is going to be?” I could barely breath from laughing, “And how many stops, with many connections only being in coach? I fell on to her shoulder trying to catch my breath. “My poor Astrid, my poor Louisa, this will be the most hellish part, going to our new home. I am so sorry Astrid. Thank you for always sticking by me.”
“Go to sleep Zelda.” She patted my head, and I fell asleep.
Four days and three flights later we arrived to a hot day in Honolulu. Louisa hated me, which was understandable. Astrid was grateful practically kissing the stone floor of the baggage claim area. No more travel. The air was humid, the scent sweet. Hawaii wasn’t as tacky as I thought it would be, it was rather beautiful. Maybe I had been too hard on my motherland. It was great to be home.
“All right Astrid, we’re here. Where are we going? We need a house. I don’t ever want to eat room service again in my life.” I said to her as we got into the private car at the airport.
“Make a left.” She said to the driver, and that’s how we found our home.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She had been gone nine months, long enough for us to have another baby. Louisa would be almost two and half yea
rs old. Growing up without her father. She would probably be better off for it. Still I thought about them, wondering where they called home, not that I would ever invade their world. Serge had been right.
Serge had dropped me off at the hospital. I had bacterial infection from surfing out in the bay. IV antibiotics for a couple days and then I was well enough to go home to my empty house. Serge long gone to Zelda’s old house. I hadn’t seen him since. Funny thing when the doctors looked at my nose they said Serge had set it perfectly. They put a hard plastic bandage over it to keep in place. I threw it away when I got home. I didn’t care what my nose looked like.
My houses on the beach were torn down. The new home was near completion. All I had done over the previous few months was supervise the construction, stay on top of the workers and keep the cost down. That was my skill set, control freak. I looked for other properties but didn’t really care one way or another. My existence was lackluster. I missed Serge as much as Zelda and my daughter that I would never met.