You Were There Too

by Colleen Oakley

  “I’ve got to go. Bathroom.”

  “Mm-hm,” she says, knowingly, and I don’t have time to worry about what she thinks.

  I slip out of the banquet room into the red-diamond-carpeted hallway. When the heavy door thuds shut behind me, everything goes still, the din of the party muffled by the thick doors. I spy a water fountain and suddenly feel parched. I walk toward it, bend over and let the cool water wet my mouth, then I splash some onto my face. As I stand up, patting my cheeks dry with my bare hands—“Mia.”

  I straighten my back and turn toward his voice slowly, willing my heart to slow. But if anything, it picks up when I see him steadily walking toward me. I keep my hand on the water fountain for balance.

  “Hi,” I say. He stops within a few feet of me and I realize I could reach out and touch him, if I wanted. We are alone, even though yards away there are hundreds of people. And something about that is intimate. Exhilarating. Terrifying. Every one of my nerve endings is on fire, alerting me to his nearness.

  “What are you doing here?” he breathes.

  “You just texted me,” I deadpan, trying to defuse the tension. “Did you forget?”

  He doesn’t crack.

  I relent. “I went to school here. I’ve known Prisha for years.”

  “Someone else we have in common.” He levels his gaze at me, as if daring me to challenge him, to say it’s a coincidence.

  And I remember. “Oh my god—is that the one piece of art you own?”

  He nods. “I missed opening night at one of her exhibitions. Years ago. It was hammering down rain and the record store flooded. I was stuck trying to save the records, clean up the muck. Next day, I went and bought one of her photos to make it up to her. Cost me nearly a whole paycheck.”

  I feel faint. “Which opening night?” I ask, even though I know. I’ll never forget that rainstorm. That night.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it her very first one? That tiny gallery on Fourth Street?”

  “Yes,” he says, and then shakes his head as if believing but not believing: “You were there.”

  I nod because I can’t form words. My head is blurry. I put my hand out behind me to grip the water fountain again, but it comes in contact with the wall instead. Was the wall always this close? Was Oliver? Only inches separate us.

  “It’s actually—” My voice cracks. “That’s the night—” I stop. My heart feels as though it’s beating outside of my chest. On display.

  “The night what?”

  I swallow. “It’s the night I met my husband.”

  He takes a small step back, as if I’ve lobbed the words at him, a bowling ball that takes effort to catch. He shoves his fingers in his hair and I know what he’s thinking because I’m thinking the same thing.

  “Too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence,” I whisper.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  He give you baby.

  It’s all I can hear. That and the blood rushing through my head. And I don’t know if it’s how close he’s standing to me or his words or the four glasses of champagne I downed in the past hour, but suddenly I’m dizzy.

  “I need to sit.”

  When I stumble forward, Oliver grabs my arm, sending shock waves through my body, but I don’t jerk away. I let him lead me to a bench and my skirt billows out as I sink onto it.

  Oliver takes off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders. It’s only then I realize I’m shivering. I stare at the floor, my mind a broken movie reel of memories, Isak’s words playing over and over and over.

  He give you baby.

  He give you baby.

  He give you baby.

  “Mia,” Oliver says. “Are you OK?”

  I shake my head yes and then no. “I don’t know,” I say. Tears spring to my eyes, and then one rolls down my cheek. I don’t bother wiping it away.

  “You know,” he says, his voice so low, I have to lean in closer to hear it. So close I can feel the heat of his breath on my ear. “I don’t believe in anything. My great aunt Cici was Presbyterian. Made us go to church every Sunday. Was always saying things like, You’ll see your mom again one day. And I always thought it was just a kind lie; a way to make it not as sad that she was dead. I don’t believe in God. Not really. Or aliens. Or Bigfoot. Although—to be honest I don’t think that’s as far-fetched as people make it out to be. A huge, hairy man hiding out in the deep forests of Canada.”

  I tilt my head to look at him, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. He reaches for my hand and part of me wants to snatch it back from him while the other part wants to interlace my fingers with his and never let go. I do neither, and my hand lies limp in his grip.

  “I don’t know why I started dreaming about you. Or why I met you. Or why our lives seem to be circling each other like water around a drain. Maybe it is quantum physics or something just too big and complicated for me to wrap my head around. But I don’t think it’s nothing.”

  My breathing is shallow.

  “I know you’re married. And it’s messy and—God, believe me when I say this is the last thing I thought I would ever be doing, but . . . I believe that this all means something. That there’s something here—” He gestures with his free hand, from me to him. As if it’s as easy as that. A straight line that connects us. Point A to Point B. “I don’t think I’m imagining it.”

  He drops his head and, still clutching my hand, gently rubs his thumb over my wrist, my tattoo. And I think of Harrison.

  “Am I?” he asks, his voice plaintive, raw.

  I want to tell him no, he’s not imagining it, that I feel it, too. But I can’t bring myself to say the words.

  “I’m so confused,” I say instead, the tears coming in earnest now.

  His thumb stills on my wrist. “Do you want me to go?” he says gently.

  “No,” I tell him, only because I don’t think I can take anyone else leaving me just this second.

  “Harrison and I—” My voice cracks. “We’ve been struggling.”

  He straightens his spine, listening.

  I wipe my face and take a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just—I want a baby. So bad. We’ve . . . lost three. And now he doesn’t want to try anymore.”

  “Mia,” he whispers. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  I nod my head and take my hand from his, to wipe beneath both eyes with the tips of my fingers. I stare at his profile, the familiar visage, hair, ears, lips that I feel like I’ve inexplicably been looking at forever. He’s rubbing the palms of his hands on his pants, and it tugs my heart, how vulnerable he looks. I take a deep breath.

  “You’re not imagining it,” I say. He jerks his head up. “I feel . . . something, too.”

  “You do?”

  “Mostly guilty and confused.” I offer a sad smile. “But . . . other things.”

  We stare at each other, and God help me, I imagine what it would be like to kiss him.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow. For Finland.”

  “What?” The world shrinks, my mind focusing on that one sentence.

  “My flight leaves at noon.”

  “Oh,” I say, my breath catching in my throat.

  “I don’t have to go,” he says. “If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.”

  “You would?” I peer at him. “You’d stay for me.” I remember our conversation in the bar, about his ex-girlfriend. How he left even when she asked him not to.

  He nods. “I would.” He sits up straighter, energy humming off him. “Or you could go with me. We could travel the world—didn’t you say you wanted that? We could be like . . . Hemingway and Gellhorn.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Didn’t he kill himself?”

  He laughs. “Before that.”

  I stare at him, consider how enticing that sounds. To just drop every
thing and run away. Like Harrison did.

  “I don’t . . . This is all so . . .”

  “I know,” he says, slumping back over. “Sorry, that was ridiculous . . .”

  “No, it’s—it’s nice. I just need time. I need to think.”

  He nods. “I’ll be at Caroline’s in the morning to drop off Willy, if you . . . need me. Need anything. Just to talk.” He pauses, searches my eyes. I wonder if he can see the desire pooling in them. Even though I’m not saying anything, I feel like I’m laid bare—that he can see everything I’m thinking. He drops his eyes to my lips, just a glance, but I catch it, and then his eyes are back on mine. We stare at each other, my heart galloping in my chest, neither one of us moving a muscle. It feels like our entire lives are wrapped up in this one moment. Maybe they are.

  “I’m gonna go,” he says, not breaking our gaze.

  I look away first, and bite my lip to keep from asking him to stay. And then I hear muted applause coming from the other side of the double doors and I remember where we are. “What about Prisha? The award.”

  He smooths his tie, one hand over the other. “She’ll understand.”

  He hesitates and then leans over, pressing his lips to my forehead and standing up so quickly I don’t even have time to register what happened, how it felt, to relish the warmth of his breath on my hairline.

  “Wait,” I say. “Your jacket.” I move to shrug it off my shoulders, but he holds a hand up.

  “Keep it,” he says. “Just give it to me next time I see you.”

  I take it for what it is, or what I think he means it to be—a guarantee that we’ll see each other again.

  I watch his back as he walks down the hall, never breaking his stride, until he turns the corner and I can’t see him anymore.

  I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath for hours and collapse against the wall. I should go back in to the dinner, but I can’t will myself to move. So I just sit there, as seconds tick by, minutes, hours. And then, at some point, Raya appears. “There you are,” she says. And at those three words, I start to cry all over again.

  * * *

  “Do you really believe what you said a few weeks ago?” I ask Raya.

  “Which thing? I say a lot of crazy shit.” We’re back on her couch, both changed out of our gala clothes. She still has a full face of makeup, and it’s incongruent with her tank and boxer shorts.

  “About when the universe tries to tell us something, we have to listen.” I can’t stop thinking about what Oliver said, that the dreams, the near misses, our lives circling each other like water down a drain, everything points to one conclusion—that we’re supposed to be together. I lean my head back on the throw pillow, grind the balls of my feet into the sofa cushion. I’m drained. Exhausted. And my brain is just as cluttered and confused as ever.

  “Well, sure, I guess. I mean, I do think the universe talks to us all the time. But how we interpret what it’s saying—well, there’s the rub, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that there’s a lot of room for human error.” She takes a delicate sip of whiskey from the glass she’s holding. “I mean, take any painting, any sculpture. Put two people in front of it and ask them what it’s about, what the artist was trying to say. Nine times out of ten, they’re going to tell you two different things. Everyone has their own perspective, right? Their own life experience, breadth of knowledge, emotions, whatever they happen to be going through in that moment—it all informs their responses.”

  I gape at her.

  “What?”

  “That might be one of the most intelligent things I’ve ever heard you say.”

  She tosses a pillow at me, smacking me in the head.

  “Well, buckle up, this one might beat it.”

  I wait.

  She takes another sip of her whiskey, then fixes her eyes on mine. “Look. Ever since this started, ever since you saw Oliver, you’ve been talking in suppositions—what all of this is supposed to mean, that Oliver was supposed to be at this place or that, who you’re supposed to be with. But Mia, that’s not you.”

  I tilt my head at her. “What do you mean?”

  “When I met you that first week at Moore, you told me your dad didn’t want you to go to art school, because you’d never make any money at it.”

  I scoff. “He was eerily prescient.”

  She doesn’t crack at my joke. “But you didn’t care what he thought. You went to Moore because you wanted to. You knew in your gut it was your path. And no one was going to veer you from it.”

  “But that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you! I don’t know what my gut is saying or what my path is. I’m confused.”

  “I don’t think you are.”

  “What? Of course I am.”

  “No. I think your brain’s confused. You keep trying to figure out what you’re supposed to do. Like life is some big game show with right and wrong answers. It doesn’t work like that. You have to put all that aside and really ask yourself: What do you want? It’s simple as that. Who do you love? Who do you want to be with? Forget everything else.”

  I stare at her. And then I stare at her some more. I replay her words over and over as I lie on the couch trying to sleep and then, when I can’t sleep, on my drive all the way home to Hope Springs. When I walk in the front door of my house, I know exactly what I’m going to do, my mind clearer than it’s been in months.

  And I start to pack.

  Chapter 26

  Sunday morning, I stand on the familiar porch, holding my suitcase.

  I knock, and then when minutes go by with no answer, I rap on the wooden panel again, my heart thudding in my chest. Am I too late?

  Finally, the door creaks open, but instead of him, it’s her, peering out at me grimly, brown curls hanging loose around her face.

  Harrison’s mother.

  I have a sudden flash of the first time I met her, on this porch, when we came home for Thanksgiving. I had spent weeks with Rosetta Stone, wanting to speak to his mother in her native language—or at least say a few words. “Hola, Señora Graydon. Encantada de conocerte,” I said, when Harrison introduced me.

  She appraised me with an intense gaze that was unnerving. Her face was wide, her cheeks high and full, her eyebrows drawn in with a thick brown line. And then she said: “I speak English—”

  “Oh, I know,” I jumped in, slightly mortified. “I was just—”

  She held up a hand and stopped me. “Better than you speak Spanish. So we’ll speak English.” Harrison didn’t bother concealing his smile.

  “Hi, Del,” I say now.

  She examines me, her penciled-in eyebrows arched in judgment, as I hold my breath, waiting. Then she grunts and mutters something in Spanish, and for a moment panic grips me. Is she going to turn me away? Does Harrison not want to see me? I’ve been on the road since three a.m. and can’t bear the thought of coming here for nothing.

  But then the stern line of her mouth turns up and she steps out onto the porch, embracing me in her thick arms. “He’s in the back,” she says, after leaving her mauve lipstick print on my cheek.

  I walk through the house, marveling at how it hasn’t changed in the eight years since I first came for Thanksgiving, though the laminate tile in the kitchen shows slightly more wear, the fashions in the family pictures hanging on the walls even more out of date. When I reach the sunporch, I see the same brown wicker furniture with pink cushions, bleached even paler by the sun. Harrison is huddled under a quilt on the longer settee, staring at a television in the corner, where Jane Pauley is welcoming viewers to CBS This Morning.

  He turns his head, eyes registering surprise when he sees me.

  “Mia,” he says, sitting up. “What are you doing here?”

  I think of everything I wanted to say to him—sorting through all the thou
ghts I had on the way here, how I did get distracted by Oliver, how sorry I am, what a terrible wife I’ve been—but there’s time for all of that, so I lead with the most important truth, the one in my gut. “I love you.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t just the “listen to your gut” advice that struck me when Raya was talking the night before. It was the “supposition” bit. The idea that I kept circling back to—that Oliver was supposed to be there, at Beau’s wedding, the night I met Harrison. And it was on a strip of dark highway somewhere between Philadelphia and Hope Springs early this morning that it struck me: All of the places that Oliver was supposed to be, he wasn’t.

  Oliver wasn’t there.

  Harrison was.

  And then I thought of everything else Oliver wasn’t there for. Every moment in the past eight years that I’ve shared with Harrison: the small ones, like when I have paint in my hair and on my chin and I catch Harrison staring at me, a small smile on his lips; or when someone says “intents and purposes” in conversation and we share a secret laugh, remembering the fight we got into when I swore it was “intensive purposes”; or how some mornings when he thinks I’m sleeping, he hovers over me, gently palming my face between his hands, his face inches from mine, and whispers, “I love you, Mia Graydon,” and then doesn’t let go right away. And the big ones, like how I walked toward him, down a trodden footpath on an old dairy farm just outside of Buffalo in front of a handful of our friends and family to the Peter Cetera and Cher song “After All”; or how his smile stretched across his face when I reached him and he mouthed, “Worst song ever”; or how he vowed to love me even when I ignore him for days in one of my manic artistic episodes and I vowed to love him even when he corrects me on my vocabulary.

  And I thought of our first real date.

  The night after we met in the art gallery and kissed under a dry cleaner’s awning—I told Harrison what I made clear to all my first dates: I had no desire to ever get married. As a product of divorced parents, I didn’t see the point. Most guys shrugged or even looked relieved, anticipating an easy fling. But not Harrison. “I bet you will,” he said, his gaze clamped on mine, over a pitcher of sangria and a plate of patatas bravas.