by Carol Mason
We stand here, so many paces apart, like we’d be about to duel if either of us had strength for it.
My eyes fill with tears. I want to hit him, flail at him. I want to make him hurt in this one inadequate way for all the unremitting ways I am hurting. ‘I am trying not to make it bigger than it is, but I can’t lie. Knowing that at the lowest point of my life my husband was wending his way into a relationship with another woman is a hard thing to get past. I’m trying to see why it happened, but part of me feels it just makes a bit of a mockery of us.’
‘Wending my way? God, you’re such an exaggerator!’
‘You oaf!’ I don’t know where this comes from but I pick up a stone and pelt it at him. It’s actually bigger than a stone. More like a mini rock. It bounces off his shoulder and he says, ‘Ow! Shit! That hurts!’ So I pelt three more at him, bending fast and grabbing anything I can, holding nothing back in my aim.
‘Jesus!’ he squeals.
My heart thrashes. It’s that hot rush of indomitable anger that I’ve only ever experienced since I drove a car on my daughter’s birthday and I killed somebody with it, and lost everything in the process – more than I will ever be able to deal with, more than I can ever say. But I discover something too in my stone-pelting fit. Suddenly it’s her I’m angry at. Not Mark, or some other woman. Sarah. Mark was right. Why did she have to be so bloody irresponsible? How could a mother – a doctor of all people – be so careless about her own damned safety? Why did she have to be there at the precise moment I was passing? Why not the car behind? Why me? Why us? Why didn’t she live to be answerable for her utterly reckless behaviour? Mark thought of all this long before I have. Mark wasn’t cold toward Sarah. He was angry.
Two teenage girls are passing and they slow down to gawk at us. When they see me noticing them they splutter laughter, folding in on themselves and locking heads.
I try to calm down and stare after them while they walk off. My heart is a fiery ball of fury. It takes some doing. The only thing that balances me is the realisation that this is how Mark has felt all along. Finally, I understand him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my head reeling. I don’t even know what I’m apologising for. Except that somewhere in me I know he deserves it – more than I will ever be able to show him.
After a while he says, ‘It’s me who’s sorry. Everything you said you needed from me – I thought I was being all that. I honestly did. I realise your guilt was something you alone were carrying, not me. I was trying to understand that. But I have to admit it was very hard for me . . .’
For a moment he looks like he’s going to break down.
‘I just wished you had someone else you could talk to because I was being so very bad at it. A friend . . . anyone. I just wasn’t equipped for it, on top of everything else. I just didn’t know how to deal with it. It was too much.’
You were the friend I wanted to talk to, I think. You were the one person to whom I thought I could. But in a way this feels like bygones now.
He tilts his head back a little, lets his mouth fall open and closes his eyes. We are too old to persecute one another. There is enough wretchedness eating at us from things we can’t control, without inflicting that which we can.
I want to tell him that I know and that I understand. Because perhaps for the first time I really do. I want him to hold me and whisper assurances to me I know would be impossible to give, about how we will forget all this in time. But I know that won’t happen. If there’s one thing all this has done for me, it’s made me a realist. All I can do is draw upon Beth’s words. Heartbreak never truly goes away, you know. But it does get easier to navigate with time.
He looks at me now. ‘I am genuinely sorry I let you down . . .’ There is a crack in his voice that’s so pitiful it makes my ears hurt. ‘You and Jessica . . . you have both been my whole life. My world. I would have died for you both. I hope you know that. And if you don’t know that then I have let you down in ways that make my failure something I don’t want to live with.’
I stare at my feet in the sand, stare until my eyes sting with tears and their suppression makes me choke.
I married a good man, but I didn’t get to design a human being or I might have changed a few things. Expecting him to fight the exact battle I was fighting is the first time I’ve required him to do the impossible. He had his own.
I look up to find him steadily watching me. ‘Sorry I threw rocks at you,’ I say.
THIRTY-TWO
‘Have you seen Ned?’
The boatyard guy is staining the hull of a canoe and gives me the most cursory of glances. ‘No.’ His paintbrush resumes after a brief pause.
‘I understood he was going to be doing some work for you.’
‘He was supposed to stop by this morning but he didn’t show.’ He squints at me from a web of smoker’s wrinkles. ‘Want me to tell him you’re looking for him, if he does?’
‘No.’ The wind has left my sails. ‘That’s OK. Thanks.’
I walk by his house for the second time, staring in but being sure to keep moving. Then I think, You’ve kissed him, slept in his bed, you’ve told him things you’ve never told a living soul, surely you can knock on his door? So I venture up the path. There isn’t a doorbell, so after much ado, I give three hard raps. Nothing. I sneak over to the window and attempt to see in through the half-closed blinds but that’s not very fruitful. I have the oddest sense that he’s in there. Not that I have any real reason to think he would avoid me. Just as I’m about to head back down the steps I notice there’s a footpath that leads to a door around the side – presumably the upstairs tenants’ entrance. I follow it and knock. I wait a moment or two but there is neither sight nor sound of life. I’m just turning to walk away when I hear the door open. When I look over my shoulder there is a woman, probably my mother’s age. She seems groggy, like she might have been napping. I ask her if she’s seen Ned in the last few days. I explain that I’m a friend and he hasn’t shown up to a couple of appointments.
‘Can’t say I have,’ she says, after a wary hesitation. She glances me over, seeming fascinated by my hot pink ballet flats. ‘He’s a quiet type, though. We don’t always hear him anyway.’ She talks to my shoes. ‘We’re both deaf in one ear.’
I’m just about to say, Sorry to have bothered you, when she says, ‘We sometimes hear his nightmares though. We’re both very light sleepers.’ She glances me over one more time, then shuts her door.
My spine tingles with an unpleasant sense of foreboding. I try to imagine him just having disappeared. Though why would he? A few days ago he was telling me he’d just accepted some work. But now that the thought has lift-off, I can’t seem to shake it. And it hits me how much I couldn’t bear it if I never saw him again. I’ve some scrap paper in my bag so I sit on one of the steps and scribble a short note.
Ned. Been looking for you for a day or two. Hope all is OK. Please give me a call. Hope you are coming to the CC tomorrow night. Olivia.
I write my phone number just in case he’s lost it. Then I pop it in his mailbox, taking pains to stand it up so it won’t get swallowed by all the marketing flyers.
When I get back to the house I am ill at ease and can’t sit down. One more try of his number.
Phone switched off.
I sit at the kitchen table but spring back up again. I pace the floor, pour a lemonade, stand and drink it while watching a hummingbird arrive at my feeder. To try to conquer the restlessness I go into the living room, get my laptop and plug his name into Google – not that Google is going to tell me his present whereabouts.
There are lots of Ned Parkers. Then I realise it’s mainly the same guy – a journalist. His picture pops up alongside his byline. The Ned I know seems to have no visible online profile. Nonetheless, for want of something better to do I keep scrolling. But then around page eleven the words Navy Cross still my hand. The article is from Military Times. Aware of the quickening of my heart I open it, read. The story details
several SEALs who were awarded the military’s second highest decoration for valour in combat in a secret ceremony – Ned being one of them. I can’t pull my eyes away from his name. The recognition he received was for saving the lives of eighteen US embassy personnel in Kabul. There’s a small picture of him sitting against what looks like a padded wall – maybe the inside of an aircraft or bunker – wearing dark glasses, a beard and a hat with large ear muffs attached. He is dressed in army fatigues. I wouldn’t have known him. In fact, I can’t get over how different he looks and it makes me think of how he said there was his civilian life and then his job – the two Neds. The article quotes him as saying, ‘I accept this award not for myself but for my two teammates who made the ultimate sacrifice that day.’
What did he say to me? I’m no hero. I’m no better than any guy and no braver.
It then goes on to say how, less than a couple of hours after the rescue op, he was blown up in a Humvee and two of his teammates died in the explosion. As for how this has left him: ‘I struggle with a lot of what I saw in war, more than with what I now see in the mirror. It exists along with me. I don’t think it will ever cease to be there in my head. I’ve accepted it’s just a part of who I am and how I’ll be. I ask myself endlessly if I could have done things differently. And there are days when that is alarmingly hard to live with.’
This last part chimes in me. I hadn’t known it at the time, but in listening to my story he was hearing echoes of his own.
Alarmingly hard to live with.
I bolt up from the table again and grab my phone.
The main drag is busy this afternoon. I pull over and pop into the grocery store just for long enough to know he’s not in it. I poke my head into Books and Beans. ‘You haven’t seen Ned, have you?’ I say to Beth, who is scrubbing the counter.
She looks puzzled for a moment. ‘No.’
I tell her that if she does she must call me, then I hurry out of there. I doubt he’ll be in the bar but suddenly I get a vision of him drinking himself to oblivion, so I duck in there too. Lastly, the crab shack where we ate dinner. I stare at the booth where we sat.
Now what?
I can’t go home. I don’t feel there’s any point in going back to his place. So I find myself driving along the route he told me he sometimes runs though I know this is not his running time of day. With each passing mile it gets more and more fruitless but somehow my mind comes down from its state of panic.
When I get back to the house I sit in the chair by the window, feeling a little worn out. If someone doesn’t want to be found you have to respect that. I, of all people, should know this. And yet I just can’t shake this feeling that something bad might have happened.
THIRTY-THREE
Dear Amy,
Amy stands before us, breathless, and she has barely started reading it yet. I didn’t feel like coming here tonight. I came for one reason only: to see if Ned would be here.
I would very much like to applaud you for the three letters you’ve written to me and Bernie. Forgive me for not getting back to you sooner – your letters all said the same thing, so I was waiting to see if the next one might add anything different before I composed a reply. The other unfortunate thing is that I don’t write all that well. Even when I have to sign my name at the bank I prefer to mark the space with an X. And Bernie’s talents in this department are also virtually non-existent. So rather than waste any more postage stamps, I have a better idea. Why don’t we meet for a drink like two civilised adults and get to know one another a little? Once you realise Bernie and I are both in fact decent human beings, it might aid in us finding an effective resolution to this ongoing matter of Bernie’s bark. Sound like a plan? If you re-post this letter through my mailbox then I’ll know we have a date.
Sincerely,
Lucas and Bernie, your friendly neighbours
‘What are you going to do?’ Beth asks her.
I only half hear her giddy reply. All I can do is stare at a single empty chair. The more I gaze at the vacant space where Ned usually sits, the less I am able to connect with being here. And yet something tells me to believe what he said that morning. If you’re worried about me then don’t be. It’ll come out OK in the end.
I pull out a sheet of my Florentine paper and my beautiful fountain pen. Dear Eloise. Since Mark told me what he told me, I have felt horribly guilty that all this time has passed and I have never delivered any sort of explanation or apology. But my brain can’t seem to shape thoughts into the words I want to say. That’s the thing with writing the old-fashioned way: it’s a cue to mine the recesses of your heart, to set down that which has true worth with a certain grace and decorum. It feels big. But then I realise I don’t have to overblow it. Anything I might say is better than silence. And, when in doubt, best to be simple. So I begin.
I am sorry it has taken me this long to thank you for all that you tried to do for me. I am sure in time you and I can sit down over a cup of tea, and it will all feel so much easier to talk about. But for now, please know I am thinking about you and sending you my thanks and my love.
From Liv
When everyone has left, Beth asks if I would like another cup of tea. I am in no immediate rush to get home, so I curl into the comfy chair by the window that looks out on to a black sea while she brews one for us. Once we’re halfway through the pot she shows me the letter she wrote tonight. The one to Veronica telling her that her husband fathered a son.
‘Do you think I should send it?’ she asks, after a steady pause.
I stare at the tiny, tight handwriting, navy on cream, words crowding the page. ‘Good heavens, I mean, it’s not my place to say . . . In fact, I’d hate to influence you either way.’
‘But if I’m asking you . . . What’s your feeling? Be honest.’
There is an intensity and desperation in the way she is looking at me, and I know what that degree of helplessness feels like. So I think about it, seriously, before I reply. ‘Well, my mother always used to say let sleeping dogs lie, and in many ways I believe that. Little good comes from raking up the past . . . But I think you have to ask yourself, what do you hope to achieve? Is it some kind of atonement? Is it to hurt back? Do you want a reconnection? Because if you do, the letter might not accomplish that. She might well think, Why is she telling me this now? and believe you’re just trying to sully her dead husband’s name.’
‘I’ve thought of all that. I certainly have no wish to hurt her again. And it’s not really for a reconnection. I feel that would open up more wounds than it might close. I’ve often contemplated how I would feel if I were to die knowing the last time I saw her was under those circumstances in that living room . . . It’s a horrible question. She’s my sister, after all, despite the fact that we never got along.’ She stares off to the side of my head, melancholy. ‘I suppose I don’t really know what I want to achieve.’
‘What about the letter you were going to write to Thomas?’ I ask. I can’t help but feel this one would be the more productive.
I’m waiting to hear her say, I’m not sending any letter to Thomas, but she gets up and goes into the back room. When she emerges she is holding out a piece of folded paper. She hands it to me and I read.
Dear Thomas,
I often try to think of all the things I’d want to tell you if we could talk face to face. The reality is, I am not your mother. You have a mother. Nor do I really expect you to understand how I could give birth to you and give you away. No one has told you my reasons, and this is why more than anything I’d like to tell you now because I think you are owed that. So, for what it’s worth to you, and I hope it will be worth something, here is my story . . .
There are eight pages. I read to the end. Much of it I know and yet I’m as moved as though for the first time. When I look up she is watching me with anticipation.
‘After you and I talked that night I went home buoyed up on wine, port and courage, and I wrote to his parents.’ She tries a small laugh. ‘I recei
ved a reply by email. His mother said that Thomas had been curious about me when he became an older teenager. She said she didn’t know how he felt about things now that he was married and had two children of his own. The email ended rather abruptly there . . . But then, curiously, a day later I received a second one from her. All she wrote in this one was his address.’
This lights me up. ‘She’d thought about what it must be like to be in your shoes.’
‘I suppose. Or perhaps what it must be like in his.’
I feel myself becoming emotional. ‘So you’re going to send it to him?’ I am so excited for her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You wrote it, so you must want to.’ But as I say this I know it’s not strictly true. One thing I have learned is letters are cathartic. We write to get beyond what we think we can’t get over. There doesn’t have to be a destination; it’s the journey writing takes us on that is often enough.
‘It could upend his world,’ she says. ‘And if he doesn’t reply . . .’
‘It’ll upend yours.’
She stares into the near distance, sits very still, then nods.
‘You have a child, Beth. You have a son. Nothing can take that away from you. Don’t you think you owe it to both of you to at least let him see how much his life means to you? Surely whatever chance you might have of being in his life, in whatever shape or form, you need to take it?’
She meets my eyes and smiles.
THIRTY-FOUR
The letter is in my mailbox next morning.
Dear Olivia,
Three days ago my son had a fall that put him in hospital with a bad concussion. He’s fine, but for this reason I have decided to head back to Florida. They probably don’t need me there, but neither do they need me here, at the other end of the country. It was a wake-up call, I suppose.
Olivia, I am trying to think what I would have said to you if there had been another chance. Maybe it’d be something I’ve said before. I think it comes down to this issue of walking forward. Life doesn’t stop and neither must we. No matter what burden we carry, we owe it to this life we’ve been given, and the family who love us, to just keep walking forward. If we do, eventually we will be in a better place than we are today. Please think carefully about your marriage. Don’t expect him to understand what he can’t. Even if he could, it would change very little for you. There are just some things we’re in alone.