The Light in the Wound

by Christine Brae

  “That’s not fair. You know I can’t!”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I turned my back to him and walked up the stairs to my room.

  Betty came over that evening after she called the house and Mellie informed her that I was not taking any calls. She burst into my room and found me in bed in my mismatched pajamas with my bangs clipped back, holding a box of Kleenex.

  “Wanna know why you suck?” She plopped herself down on the left side of my bed.

  I sniffled and shook my head.

  “Because you’re the only girl I know who still manages to look gorgeous despite drowning in your own sea of tears.”

  “Oh, Betty, he won’t give her up for me. I was waiting to hear him offer to take a different flight, distance himself from her, anything. I would have found an excuse to accept it and stay. But he wouldn’t say it.”

  “Don’t you get it, Isa? He’s confused!”

  “He said he didn’t care about her, and somehow I believed him.”

  “He doesn’t care about Katrina Edwards. Not her. His primary focus is on his career and his ability to make decisions related to the goals he has set without having to worry about hurting your feelings. He also wants his freedom. He wants to test the waters.” She was telling me to let him go. “Isa, I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it’s going to be, but I’m here for you. We’ll get through this.”

  “I love him so much. The pain is unbearable. What am I going to do without him?” I hugged my knees against my chest and sobbed.

  “You’re going to live your life,” she said as she handed me my buzzing cell phone.

  TEXT FROM ALEX: Are you ok? Betty says you’re back.

  ME: Yes I am. Just resting. I’ll call after my nap.

  “B, please don’t tell Alex. I’m just so glad he’s back in my life. I don’t want to bring him into this drama just yet.”

  “Eeeeeks. I already called him from the car before I got here.”

  Good thing I didn’t miss when I threw a pillow and aimed it directly for her head.

  The next day, I went to have dinner with my grandparents. I was exhausted from the events from the day before and was trying to find things to do just to keep me busy. My grandmother and grandfather were in the dining room by the time I arrived. I walked up to them and kissed them both on the cheeks.

  One of the maids pulled a seat back for me. “Thanks. Iced tea, please.” I took a seat next to my grandmother.

  “Isabel, how have you been? Why are your eyes so puffy?”

  “I’m just so tired, Grandma. I was at Karen Michell’s beach house over the weekend.”

  “With whom?”

  “Oh, just a group of friends.” I evaded her eyes as I reached over to spoon a serving of rice on my plate.

  “That house was featured in the local edition of Architectural Digest a few months ago. Bobby Mason was the one who designed it.”

  Bobby was a permanent fixture in my grandmother’s life. He was an interior decorator who did all of her homes, even the ones abroad.

  “It is beautiful, Grandmother. They have a lush orchid garden by the pool area. Just like ours, but I was surprised that they got it to flourish so close to the sea.”

  “Yes, Karen Michell’s mother orders them from the same place we do in Hong Kong. Speaking of Hong Kong, Grandpa and I still haven’t given you your graduation present.”

  Oh yes you have. You got me my new job. “Oh my, you have done so much for me, I really wasn’t expecting anything,” I answered absentmindedly.

  “Well, your grandfather and I want you to take a little trip for a few days. Get away from here, take a break and clear your head before entering the working world.”

  Her personal assistant suddenly appeared out of nowhere to hand me an envelope with cash and two round trip tickets to Hong Kong.

  “Go shopping for your new work clothes. Take Betty with you. Have fun.”

  “Thank you so much, Grandma and Grandpa. I think I’ll take Alicia with me if someone is available to watch the kids. I haven’t spent any time with her for a while, and I miss her terribly.”

  “Let Carol here know whose name to add to the ticket, and she will schedule your flights and hotel when the office opens tomorrow.”

  “Isabel, what happened to Jesse Cain?” My grandmother. Never Jesse. Or even that boyfriend of yours. She always referred to his full name. He never did grow on her like I had hoped he would.

  “It didn’t work out, Grandma.” My eyes must have reflected the wound in my soul for her to clearly see because she looked back at me with such pity and sadness that it almost made me cry.

  The rest of the evening was uneventful. We caught up on my mother, who my grandmother notified me had moved on from her fourth husband to a fifth.

  “Grandma, I don’t think she got married. I knew she had met someone else, but if she had gotten married, I would have heard from her by now.”

  “Don’t you worry, Isabel. With that mother of yours, it’s only a matter of time before she gets remarried. She should have been named Elizabeth Taylor.”

  “A special spark rises from the sorrow of a burning heart. Have you ever heard how the sigh of a broken heart touches the beloved?”

  —Rumi

  The next two weeks went by fairly quickly. I tried my best to keep busy by planning my days and filling my time up with non-stop activity. The day after I left my grandmother’s house, I received a call from a popular woman’s magazine inviting me to join a pictorial for an article they were going to feature on “Society’s Beautiful Daughters.” It was going to be a photo shoot involving a few girls my age who had mothers who were models or famous socialites in their own time. Luckily, Betty’s mother was also a former model, so we were able to enjoy this experience together. We had quite a lot of fun getting our hair and makeup done, as well as modeling all sorts of outfits for the day of the photo shoot. We rolled our eyes and giggled the whole time, making fun of the seriousness of the photographers and the poses they made us do. In the end, they chose to feature me on the front page, with the other daughters each with their own article on half a page of the magazine. I was proud to say that the picture that was published clearly reflected the way I looked. They respected the fact that I wanted to look simple and without all that face paint. The best part of this whole experience was that Betty and I got to keep the designer clothes we wore for the pictorial that day.

  Jesse called from the airport the day he left for Boston. He sounded sad, but resigned. I held on to every word he said on the phone, hoping for a hint of regret for what he had chosen over me. In the end, I didn’t even believe that he had ever loved me.

  “Iss, it’s me.” Please God. Make him come back.

  “Hi Jesse.”

  “I’m boarding in a few minutes. I couldn’t leave without hearing your voice. I miss you. Nothing’s changed. Nothing ever will. I know I’ll figure everything out eventually. I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “But you did. And now you won’t fight for me.” My voice was shaking.

  “Why is it a choice, Isabel? Why are you making me choose?”

  Once again, I managed to aggravate him. “Because I deserve the truth from you.” I staunchly kept my stand.

  “And what do you think is the truth?”

  “You want to be free. And you want me. But you can’t have both.” And with that, I hung up the phone. I wondered if I could ever speak to him without sobbing or bawling my eyes out. His words just tore the Band-Aid off my wound and poured kerosene all over it. He hadn’t even given it a chance to grow a scab to heal and protect it.

  Alicia and I left for our three-day trip to Hong Kong the following day. She was lethargic and quiet during the first day of the trip. I managed to coax her back into her normal self after a full day of shopping and eating at all of our favorite places. Every single step of our trip made me think of Jesse. He would have loved this bed, he would have loved this cool shower, he
would have loved this food, he would have looked great in this shirt. Alicia tried to cheer me up, but like me, she was convinced that we needed this time apart from each other.

  “Ali, what’s wrong? You just don’t seem like yourself, and you’re being overly cynical about things.”

  “Nothing’s wrong, Isabel. I just think that you should move on from that self-serving, selfish asshole.”

  All in all, we really enjoyed our trip together. The three-hour delay at the Customs line served to remind us of just how much damage we had done while shopping through the streets of Hong Kong together.

  Alex and I were also in constant communication with each other. Betty was away on a European trip with Leigh and her parents. I think she left him in charge of me because somehow, he had a plan of action every single day. He was a man on a mission to help me kill time. He hung out with me at the club almost every single day. Well, I hung out at the club and he constantly stalked me. Not that I really minded. He was the most caring friend anyone who has had her heart torn out of her chest could have ever asked for.

  On the day the magazine cover was published, Alex thought it would be funny to walk into the house with 100 copies all wrapped up in a big red bow. I ran down the stairs as he excitedly stood by the door with a huge bundle of magazines in his arms.

  “Oh my gosh! What’d you do?”

  “I would’ve bought more, but the lady down the street only had 100 of them. Come see how beautiful you are.”

  “Ha. A little overboard, don’t you think? I’m sure we could’ve shared a copy between the two of us. And maybe one to send my mom and Evie. You could’ve just released all those copies out into the world.”

  “What? And let the whole world see my best kept secret?” We stood facing each other, separated merely by his outstretched arms still holding the bundle of magazines.

  “What secret?”

  “You.”

  As soon as he said that, an overwhelming tightness formed in my chest.

  “What does it matter when the person I want doesn’t want me?” I reached over to take the pile from him and laid it on the table.

  As weeks passed, I finally decided to get back on the horse. No, literally. The first time I did it, Alex had offered to lend me one of his family’s Polo horses. I was excited to try Wendy late one night for a quick run around the field. I wasn’t aware that Wendy had been exhausted from a Polo match earlier that afternoon and wasn’t too happy about being ridden again after only a few hours. She let me mount her, but once I was strapped in and ready to go, Wendy was on her heels galloping faster than I had ever experienced, trying to throw me off in retaliation for placing her back on the field. The horse groomsmen were poised to run down the arena to help me control her. They feared that Wendy would buck me off during her wild run and throw me down on the grassy ground. Riders were never afraid of the fall. It was the possibility of being trampled on that posed the risk. My helmet flew off as she galloped and no matter how hard I pulled at the reins, I had totally lost control. It took quite a few minutes, but my yanking on the reins and squeezing with my legs finally got her calm enough to slow down to a canter and then to a trot and ultimately to a walk. I was crying by the time the groomsmen reached me to help me dismount from a very perturbed Wendy. While they thought it was because the horse’s bad behavior had spooked me, my tears were more for myself and for Jesse. In getting back on the horse, I had done what he had forbidden me to do when we first started our relationship years ago. This was my way of finally saying goodbye to him.

  Nighttime was the most difficult part of my day. The silence in the large house was deafening. I thought about my mother and wondered whether this was how one got addicted to sleep medication. Did the nights get so unbearable that you tried to find ways to bridge the gap to daylight? Jesse’s family had also become a huge part of my life and I missed them terribly. In the years we were together, Bernard would drop me off to have dinner at their house after class whenever Jesse was busy with his council meetings. His father filled a gap in my life that I never realized existed. I wondered what they thought of me now and whether they were missing me too. Jesse did mention to me weeks ago that his father and mother had blatantly told him that letting me go was the wrong decision.

  Somehow I managed to find a way to combat the stillness that plagued my nights by cranking up the central stereo system throughout the house and dancing around in my bedroom and up and down the staircase until I was so tired that I would roll right into bed after a hot shower. I thought of it as my mini-workout, and the loud music somewhat helped me to remember that there still was much living to do outside of my loneliness. Last week, I failed to hear the intercom buzzing and was dancing around so furiously that I actually bumped into Alex, who was standing by my doorway. He immediately folded me into his arms, and we stood in the noise for five minutes while he held me. By the time the song was over, I had soaked up another one of his designer shirts with the usual waterworks.

  I finally gathered the strength to take down the pictures of Jesse and me that were scattered at various points around my bedroom. Mellie and I filled a large box up with mementos and picture frames, as well as four large handmade scrapbooks. This was where the past six years of my life had ended up. In a box to be sealed and stored away. I wished that my heart were that easy to pack up. Once again, my thoughts brought me to my mother and all of her subsequent marriages. How was it so easy for her to pack her previous husband away and move on to the next one?

  If there was one singular remembrance of our relationship that signified the love I had for this man, it was this: a picture taken by Ryan at a party years ago. I was seated on a bench, with my legs crossed, my right hand on my lap and my left arm extended upwards. Jesse was standing with his back toward me as he was in conversation with someone else. His right hand was holding mine. There was a distance between us the length of his extended arm, and yet, I was looking at him with so much love and adoration, patiently waiting until he turned back to me. Something in me had changed since then. Postponing my future for him was no longer an option.

  A few days later, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a knock on the door. Mellie handed me the cordless telephone. “Your mom is on the phone,” she whispered as she covered the mouthpiece of the handset. I switched on the bed lamp and sat up against the headboard.

  “Hi Mom,” I croaked.

  “Isabel Francesca. How have you been?”

  “Mom, it’s 3 in the morning here. Is everything okay?”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry to have woken you up.” Somehow her impulsive personality reminded me that she wasn’t really sorry.

  “Francesca, I heard from Evie that you’re not doing so well. What happened between you and Jesse?”

  “We’re just taking a break, Mom. He left for Boston two weeks ago and will be there for three months. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants out of his life.” My voice faltered, but I was determined to keep an even tone.

  “I’m so sorry, darling, I know how hurt you must feel. Try to be strong. Keep busy. Of all my girls, you are the strongest one. The one who always does the right thing. Don’t let your heart rule out this one. Think of your future. You’re so beautiful, you will fall in love again in no time.”

  More than anyone in the world, she should know that being beautiful means nothing when the boy you love doesn’t love you. “Mom, I don’t want anybody else. It hurts so much!” I sobbed and shook as all the pain came gushing out of me.

  “I know, baby girl, believe me. But you’ll figure it out. No man is worth hurting yourself over. Remember that, Isabel. You gave up too much for him. Don’t do it again. There is nothing wrong with who you are and where you came from. Someday when the time comes, you will realize that being socially different shouldn’t matter when someone loves you.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I hiccupped.

  “Isa, I need to tell you what is happening in my life. I met a wonderful man. Someone I knew from high s
chool who has come back into my life. I think this is it. He makes me very happy. I am working on marrying him but need my annulment and legal papers from there in order to file with the courts over here. Could you go into the safe and retrieve them for me? Just send me copies for now via FedEx.”

  “Of course, Mom. I’ll have them sent out first thing in the morning.”

  “Thanks, honey. You know, we were just talking about you the other day. I was telling Gracie how funny and self-confident you were when you were her age. Do you remember that t-shirt you had me buy for you that said “Pretty and Perfect”? You wore that shirt day in and day out and told everyone you met that you were pretty and perfect. It wouldn’t hurt to get that self-confidence back, Isabel.”

  “I know. I’m trying to work things out. It’s just pretty lonely here in this big house.”

  “I hear from Alex’s mom that you wouldn’t be alone if he had a choice in the matter.”

  “MOM! He is a really good friend, that’s it.”

  “A really good friend who’s crazy about you and who Gracie thinks is so hot!”

  I was pensive for a moment. I smiled warmly at the thought of Alex. “Hmm. That he is.” I smiled.

  “Okay, Isa. Call me once in a while. I miss you and love you and will pray that all goes well. Pray for me too. I’m really happy. You and your sisters will all get to meet him someday soon.”

  “Thanks, Mom. Take care and don’t worry. I’ll send those papers tomorrow. Love you too. Kiss Gracie for me.”

  “Bye. Oh ... wait, Isa?”

  “Yes?”

  “No need to sift through all those documents to find what I need. Just batch them up and ship them all to me and I’ll take care of looking through them. This way, you can send them out as early as tomorrow.”

  And then the line went dead.