Cherry Blossoms

by KT Morrison

  He hadn’t been to the Park since, well, almost to this day, one year go. He coasted through the concrete pathways, under the stretching arms of the budding trees. When he got to the cherry blossoms, he swung a leg off his bike, stepped down and walked. It was overwhelming.

  He’d stood here a year ago, a proud man. In love with his beautiful wife, she was in love with him. He had a daughter that was his, who loved him more than anything and who he loved the same. Pictures were taken. Many, many pictures. They’d stayed his screensaver on all his devices up to eight months ago. That was when it was taken away from him. That was when he found out that everything he knew was a lie. The only thing he had left was the love he felt for a little eight-year-old girl who wasn’t his.

  Truth was, he never thought of it. It didn’t haunt him. Sometimes he would look at her face and he would see Dino but most of the time it didn’t enter his thoughts. Right now though, under the melancholy nostalgia of the fluttering pink and white cherry blossoms he wished for that day to be his again. The day when his family was whole. Nia had told him the night before they’d come here last that she was unfaithful. Just one time, Geoff. And like an uncomplicated man he celebrated this cacophony of burgeoning brilliant life with a dumb smile on his face, his forgiven wife the whole time smiling with him, her fingers propped behind his head, showing the cuckold’s horns. The product of her indiscretion swinging at his hip and calling him Daddy! He’d rather jive in happy lies than suffer in her truth.

  Dead centre on the path, turned away from him, there was a slender woman all in black. The angle of the hips, the tilt of the shoulder, her hair, her long legs: it was Nia. He hadn’t seen her this year at all. Saw her one time before Christmas, but briefly. Fuck, that was November. His eyes hadn’t touched on that shape in four months. It was easier that way. Odie hand-offs were handled by Rocco. Sometimes it was just her dropping out of his monster truck and running to her daddy. He’d spoken on the phone once or twice. Communicated with her weekly about Odie and her school, about travel plans and extracurriculars via impersonal email and texts.

  Now here she was. His best friend. That hot girl who he befriended and somehow tricked into loving him. He had so many memories with her and until last September they had all been good. From the moment their lips had touched there was no looking back. He was head over heels in love. She said the same. They were. They really were. Married, shared hopes and dreams, buying a house, success, the birth of Odie. It had been grand. But love didn’t last. Just had to look at his folks. They’d stayed together but somewhere along the way they’d become roommates.

  He hesitated. A small sliver of him, an old piece, granted a happy piece, had the urge to go to her and hold her. Dip her under the twinkling pink light on this beautiful day. He would look in her eyes and then inexorably their lips would come together and they would kiss as the petals floated around them. That Geoff existed in a different time. His voice was distant, and as hard as that Geoff screamed from the past, this Geoff no longer felt that way. He saw the woman who had destroyed him as a man.

  NIA

  One year ago she stood here and her life had been perfect. She had a beautiful daughter, the greatest husband and man she would ever know, a home and happiness. And peace. Most of all she had peace. Her life wasn't always easy. Geoff had taken care of her. He’d transformed her, shaped her into someone she never knew she could be. That day she had stood here, he had just the night before given her one of his greatest gifts. Absolution. A weight that she bore, that had pressed against the beat of her heart for so long, her infidelity—he lifted it. He let her be. She’d cheated on him and he never stopped loving her. She’d thought then that he might be indestructible. She’d revealed to him her horror and he hurt and he wailed but he never stopped loving her. But there was more to reveal.

  When she turned she saw him. She froze. Shrank in his gaze. Returned to her wilting, withered, rotten self. The one that was exposed on the roof of a houseboat while she wore nothing but other men’s semen. Her organs constringed, buckled and shrank, and she existed now as he saw her. She existed in shame.

  The man she loved stood—thinner than ever—in slim clothes, tousled hair fluttering in the breeze, two hands on the worn cork tape of his father’s bicycle. He’d been changed. His eyes had lost their charm. His cheeks were hollow. His beard was long and frightening. Her mouth fell. Everything in her wanted to run to him and feel his arms around her, to know that wonderful love he’d held. The man she saw didn’t have that anymore. Her heart ached for what she’d done. She wished she could put it back.

  She nodded her head to him curtly, her mouth knocked to one side.

  “Hey,” he said, nodding back.

  Her head rolled, looking at the cherry blossoms that were all around them, filling the trees and coming almost right to the ground. “What a coincidence,” she said.

  “Yeah, I was early,” he shrugged.

  “Me too. Can I get you a coffee?”

  They walked together, side by side, but she was too pained to say anything. The gears of his bike buzzed and her heels clicked. Joggers passed them, moms and nannies with strollers. She wore a black knitted poncho and she thrust her hands in hidden pockets. Soon they were at the Grenadier Café again, walking a concrete slope lined with black guardrails. The ash trees were budding, their pale branches stretching for the sky, twinkling with new chartreuse life. Geoff locked his bike to a metal rail and she stood quietly watching him. His hair was longer, falling and swinging while he bent to thread the chain through the frame.

  GEOFF

  Nia said, “Let me get it, Geoff.”

  They stood in line at the café, under the stretching branches of the indoor tree. Nia stood ahead of him, he saw her profile ahead of her thick black hair tumbling to her poncho. Her face had been left marked. All the bruises and scratches had healed but her pretty aquiline nose was left with a tiny bump.

  “That’s okay, Nia,” he said.

  “Please, Geoff...you want a bagel? A donut?”

  “Just a coffee, thanks,” he said as he stepped out of the way of other customers and stood to wait for her by the gas fireplace.

  She brought two tall paper cups and she nodded her head towards the back deck.

  “You want to sit outside?” he asked her.

  “It’s nice today,” she said as she handed him his cup.

  They went out into the sun and they sat at a table that looked out over the park. There was an umbrella set in the centre of the table but it was closed and tied. They sat with the sun in their faces.

  “How’s Odie?” he asked her, pulling the plastic tab from the lid of his coffee.

  “She’s fine,” she said, nodding. She opened her coffee too, and took a sip. They looked out over the park at the people strolling its paths, just beyond the wooden deck railing. He played with the torn away tab, flexing it between his fingers.

  “God, Geoff,” she said, reaching across the table, “look at your beard...it’s so long...”

  He pulled his head away and she brought her hand back awkwardly, surprised by his reaction.

  Her hands went under the table and her shoulders slumped. She said, “Odie told me Jenny moved in with you.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to say that.”

  “Why not? Are you hiding it from me?”

  “There’s some things I’d like to keep to myself.”

  “You can tell me. I want to know.”

  “Why would you want to know?”

  “I guess...I don’t know. I care.”

  “She moved in with me a few weeks ago.”

  “It’s serious?”

  “Serious enough that we moved in together,” he sighed and sat back in the chair, draped an arm over its back and crossed a leg between them.

  “Remember I said you would make a cute couple?”

  “I do. If she came on to me what would I do...”

  “Yeah. If she pulled her panties down...”

  “
She has a really cute pussy.”

  Nia went rigid, her eyes hurting, her lips trembled, tightly pursed. He saw her eyes go red right in front of him and tears welled along the lower lip, spilling into her long lashes. She nodded and she lowered her head to wipe her eyes.

  He instantly felt like the world’s biggest asshole. Saying the worst thing because he wanted to hurt her so badly. But that was juvenile, fucking immature, and that was between him and Jenny and he didn’t need to drag her into this mess. “Sorry. That was really shitty. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “You’re mad. It’s okay,” she sniffed. She pulled a tissue from her purse and she dabbed at her eyes. “Did you like her then?”

  “Back then?”

  “Yeah, when we talked about her.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t ever fantasize about her?”

  “Never.”

  “How’d you get together?”

  “Oh, Nia. It’s...”

  “You can tell me.”

  He groaned impulsively. Sat forward again, elbows on the table and his feet on the deck. A squirrel hopped out from under a juniper in the garden next to the table picking up seed husks and checking for remaining contents.

  “She helped me. Saw how bad I was hurting.” He looked in her eyes for the first time in ages, those black orbs quivering and darting between his. “She got me living again.”

  Tissue was pressed again and she said into the table, “You pushed me away. I wanted to be th—”

  “No, Nia. You don’t know...you can’t know what I felt...”

  “You’re right…I know.”

  Her tentative hand crept across the table. Frightened and trembling, afraid of rejection but tramping along, her long tan fingers extending from the black cashmere edge of her sweater that ended at her knuckles. Her mottled gold-turquoise Goddess Stone reflected spring light. It crossed the dented but polished honey surface of the table, passed the midway point, the point of no return now. He could reject her. He wanted to hurt her. Told her how pretty his girlfriend’s pussy was. But that was hair-trigger, a primal snarling hatred of her. He didn’t hate her. Wouldn’t willfully hurt her. He gave her his hand. Lightly, curved his palm so she could drape her pretty fingers over the edge. The relief in her was palpable. His thumb pressed her ring.

  “He doesn’t mind you wearing that?”

  Her eyes opened and lowered to their connected hands. “He does. I still wear this…” She lifted her other hand, clutching a tissue, and showed him her wedding ring. “He doesn’t like that either.”

  His left hand flexed self-consciously, his eyes avoiding, her eyes avoiding too. He did not still wear his.

  “How was Italy?” he said, bringing his hand back, folding his forearms on the edge of the table and leaning forward.

  “It was good,” she said.

  Rocco took her to Italy for almost six weeks. She’d asked to bring Odie, just for one week, and he’d fucking lost it on her. A real fucking asshole about it, but there was no way she was going to go. Odie was already calling him Papa Rocco, and every time she said it, his heart was crushed. They could fuck each other senseless all over fucking Europe, he didn’t need his daughter seeing it. Nia had backed right off, didn’t press it, and in the end he’d felt bad about how he acted. Odie saw Nia and Rocco together when they were home and in the end all he did was prevent his daughter from seeing Italy.

  “You look very healthy,” he said. She did, her sharp features softened with some weight, her skin clear and glowing. She carried herself, though, with a burden. There was a slope to her shoulders, a hunch to her back.

  “I gained some pounds.”

  “Olives?” he said.

  She smiled, a wistful sort of look passed her face before she lowered her eyes. She nodded.

  “Odie says work is going well...”

  “She did?” he said.

  “Yeah, she said you were happy.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s going well.”

  “I saw the bank statement.”

  “I guessed you would.”

  “That’s so much money, Geoff.”

  “I know. When Karla called I was in the kitchen, I slid down the cupboards and had to sit on the floor.” Choo had been a bestseller. Still was. This time around he had royalties. The first instalment had come a month ago and it was staggering. About three times what he’d estimated. Mid-six figures. And with the advance from Sparrow House their bank account had become laughable. There was a period, ten years ago, they would time their showers, Nia used to cut his hair and cut coupons for Odie’s baby food, and he rotated three pairs of underwear.

  “Want me to do your books?” she asked.

  “I got someone else.”

  “I figured. That’s okay.”

  He sighed, feeling that time with her, that newlywed time, so far away. Wondered briefly if that was why she cheated on him. She was scared of their future.

  He said, “You need money?”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “It’s yours too.”

  “No.”

  “I guess you’ve got Rocco’s money.”

  “Geoff, I’m not...I’m not with Rocco.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “I’m with Rocco because I’m not with you.”

  He’d been so jealous of her in the maddening fall, the time he’d come so close to getting unhinged. He was alone, but she wasn’t. “Too much of a coward to cry yourself blind, alone in your house like I did?”

  “Geoff,” she gasped, her mouth buttoning up and bowing down. She pressed the tissue again.

  He watched her, her slim shoulders shake a little as she cried into her Kleenex. She bent forward and hid her face from him.

  The tissue dabbed her eyes again as she straightened, sniffed, cleared her throat. She slumped again took a sip of coffee with a shaky hand. She said, “Are we going to divorce?”

  “I think we should...we should think about it.”

  “We should?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t?” he said, angry and bewildered.

  “Geoff, don’t be mad,” she cried.

  He shook his head and had to look away. He said, “Can we just go? Do this? I have a lot of work to do.”

  NIA

  They walked up the tall flight of concrete steps at the back of the house they bought together eight years ago when they were alive with hopes and dreams. Geoff unlocked the door and she walked into their darkened kitchen. Her hand swept the light and it did nothing. She gripped the switch between thumb and forefinger and she flicked it up and down.

  “I turned the power off at the mains. Don’t need to pay for electricity.”

  “Oh,” she said. When she looked over her shoulder, he was there, watching. Behind him, the roof of the studio/garage where he’d built up his happy empire. Over his other shoulder, the patch of grass where they would watch Odie practice tumbling. The spot where he and Odie had pitched a tent and made a space for her to come and lay.

  Her vision narrowed like she was watching him the wrong way through a magnifying glass, suddenly so small and distant. What they’d shared was supposed to be eternal. It always felt that way. Now in the empty space that had held their life she knew it was gone. It wasn’t her actions of the last summer that did them in. It was her lies creaking out of the coffin in her buried past.

  She faced the kitchen. On her left was the nook. The booth where Geoff would serve her breakfast. On the right, the kitchen where he would make it. Their home was bare. Everything that had been in it that made it theirs was gone. She stumbled ahead. Her eyes spilling tears and her vision blurred with warbling wet. She fell to her knees.

  “Oh, you okay?” Geoff said, and she felt his hand on her back.

  “So dark,” she cried.

  When his hand touched her, his palm warm and caring, soothing her from shoulder to shoulder, she sobbed.

  “N
ia,” he sighed.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He helped her to stand, and she straightened her poncho, tossed her purse back over her hip. “I’m okay.”

  “You sure you want to do this? We just need to do the paperwork.”

  “I’m sure. You don’t have to come with.”

  She went through the kitchen and he followed her, making her glad. In the hall, she forced happy thoughts, the times she carried her Odele as a baby, swaddled, held to her chest. Pushed away the most recent and vibrant image of herself on her back looking up at Maria’s hammering fist.

  Their empty dining room, the spot where she would sometimes work on books but rarely ever had served a meal. The quiet, reserved living room, the family room where she and Geoff and Odie had spent most of their time. For seven years she’d been free and happy, raising a little girl, a hard-working husband an arm’s breadth away in his studio—they’d congregate here and eat and watch TV. Stairs creaked behind her as Geoff headed to the second floor.

  “Geoff,” she whispered. “Geoff, I can’t...”

  “You don’t want to see the bedroom?”

  Her head shook vigorously. No, the bedroom was weighted with the dreadful things they’d done. She could see Dino leaning on the window sill, asking if she liked the neighbourhood. Her husband away, her all alone. The dirty things her husband watched that man do to her. Worse—the thing that frightened her the most—was that little girl’s room. Not because of what she and Rocco had done, but because she was worried about what might still be there. The tree Geoff had drawn. Their Odie was just a baby and he’d drawn a beautiful oak tree in perfect white that would protect her. Its strong arms wrapping around her bed—her crib then—spreading out to stop any bad from befalling that little baby angel. She remembered that day, holding O, Geoff in a pair of faded chinos and a white undershirt, so zealously decorating. He was on his knees on a spattered drop-cloth when she’d walked in. He looked to her with happiness and she’d thought, for the first time ever, The bad may already have happened to Odie. She’d always thought Odie was Geoff’s but that day she saw in her husband’s innocence a deadly vulnerability. Odie belonged to Geoff, but for a brief second she understood the consequences if she was wrong.