by Ava Zavora
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:14 PM
To: Adam -
No! Not withdrawing. Just, I don't know. I'm beginning to forget things at work and at home. I forgot that it was my brother's birthday and only remembered when my mom reminded me. I'm not blogging as much or reading as much as I did. All I want is to be with you.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22, at 2:15 PM
To: Eden E
Now I'm worried. It sounds like I'm getting in the way of your life.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:18 PM
To: Adam -
You're not, Adam. Please don't be worried. I'm just not used to all this. How strongly I feel about you. It's like someone who rarely drinks suddenly consumes a whole bottle of wine.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22, at 2:19 PM
To: Eden E
I'm not used to it either but all I want to do is dive in deeper with you, every day. I love how it's so intense and we're so wrapped up in each other.
You're doing something to me. I'm changing because of you, because of our relationship.
I hope you don't want to turn back because I feel, at least for me, there is no turning back.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:21 PM
To: Adam -
I'm not going away from you, Adam. I thought we're building our life together. Aren't we?
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:21 PM
To: Eden E
Yes we are.
I don't want to interfere with your life - I want to be your life.
It's just you sounded like you wanted to get a handle on it so that we didn't affect your life, is all. I hope you don't think you're becoming too invested in us.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:28 PM
To: Adam -
Adam, please don't be upset. I just don't know how to dive very well. But I'm still diving in.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:29 PM
To: Eden E
You've been diving perfectly so far!
I'm so confused.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:34 PM
To: Adam -
Adam, I'm not changing my mind about anything. My intensity, desire, and commitment is not lessening - it is increasing. Nothing has changed for me. Do you understand that?
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:47 PM
To: Eden E
When you say things like wanting us too much or struggling with diving in when you have been doing so well at it, it upsets me.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:49 PM
To: Adam -
I'm sorry. It came out wrong. I'm not pulling back from us at all. Don't be upset, darling, please.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:51 PM
To: Eden E
One of the things I love about us is the lack of boundaries and our mutual desire to be so intense and always jump in further together holding hands.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:53 PM
To: Adam -
I have no walls with you. Do you know that? I have with everyone else. But not with you. And you can tell, too, every time, they start building up - you know it even before I do - and then you make them go back down.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:54 PM
To: Eden E
OK, I hope I do. I feel like we're two halves of one whole.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:57 PM
To: Adam -
We belong together - of that I have no doubt.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:57 PM
To: Eden E
You have other doubts?
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:00 PM
To: Adam -
Adam - what's wrong? We were just talking about our life together and now you seem to think I'm doubt-ridden and pulling back.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:03 PM
To: Eden E
I don't know when you said about wanting us too much, it threw me and I'm upset about all that.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:04 PM
To: Adam -
Please don't be upset. There's no need to be when I'm yours in every way.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:13 PM
To: Eden E
I'm sorry if I'm being insecure and needy.
All my life, most of the people I've ever truly cared about have either changed or died or left. I feel like we have something incredible and I want to keep hold of it and for us to take every step together.
I just need to hear your voice, I think. I miss you so much.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:19 PM
To: Adam -
Darling - I'm not leaving. What I feel for you will never change.
I feel the same way. You know this right?
You must be tired - I've made you stay up for weeks and weeks now and you've gotten barely any sleep. I'm sorry, but I'm selfish. I want as much time as I can get with you.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:20 PM
To: Eden E
I'm so desperate for you.
I want us to always remember that we are fortunate, because most people are lucky if they get 1/3 of what we've got in their entire lifetime.
And to think, if I hadn't wanted to look up a book online on a particular day, on a particular time, we wouldn't be here. That I might have spent the rest of my life not knowing you, not knowing this.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:53 PM
To: Adam -
Not for a second have I not been grateful that you found me - that you're in my life. Sometimes I still can't believe it until I hear your voice and I reassure myself that you're real. I know I could never have this with anyone else.
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From: Adam -
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:55 PM
To: Eden E
I know and I feel the same, that this is completely unique to us, and it's what we both need; therefore, we must be the one for each other.
I can't wait for you to come home.
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From: Eden E
Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 4:00 PM
To: Adam -
You're the one for me, Adam.
I will hurry home as fast I can to be with you.
As soon as she walked in the door, Eden logged into her Skype account and called Adam. He was usually so calm and composed but today he sounded upset, worried that she was pulling back. She wanted to reassure him by voice as soon as possible.
The Skype jingle kept playing. Adam wasn't picking up. She ended the call and tried again. Still no answer. She tried seven more times in the next 1/2 hour, without success. He had never forgotten or been unavailable for their talks. He was a stickler for it. The Skype jingle, which usually seemed happy and made her feel excited with anticipation now seemed to mock her.
"Darling, I've been trying to call you," she wrote in her iMessage, "Where are you?"
She forced herself to stop calling and decided to make dinner for Dante.
"Are you alright, mom?" Dante asked her when she came down from her bedroom looking troubled.
"Yes, honey," she reassured. She gave him a peck on his cheek. "Just thinking about -"
"Adam?" Her son looked worried.
Guilt flooded her. When was the last time she had spent real quality time with her son? When her mind wasn't somewhere else, with someone else? She had asked rote questions, mechanically - about how he was, how work was - but it was absentminded. She was becoming a creature she despised, an emotionally distracted mother. What kind of example was she setting for her child?
She shook her head. "Just work, honey. Lots of cases going to trial so we're very busy."
She decided to stay home from boxing that night so she could spend a leisurely dinner with Dante, instead of rushing to cook and eat like she usually did.
She put away the iPod with some difficulty. She had gotten so used to having it always within reach when she was at home in case Adam called or messaged her. The little device represented her most tangible link to him and it exerted a magnetic and almost irresistible pull.
She made Dante's favorite, chicken parmigiana, with a big salad and lots of garlicky bread. He seemed pleased. They sat down to dinner, which lasted almost an hour because she wanted to catch up with everything that was going on with him. He was going to be a senior this year, she remembered with a pang. The last year he was going to be "her baby." In truth, he had been very independent for quite some time but she had steadfastly held onto the delusion that she had him until he turned 18 and became a legal adult. Tears almost came to her eyes as she thought of him moving out, going to college in nine months. Blink and she would miss it - that magical, once-in-a-lifetime moment when her boy becomes a man.
Perhaps Dante had been missing her presence too, though he would never say so, because he invited her to watch his favorite sitcoms with him. They spent a pleasant hour sitting on the couch and laughing together. In the middle of it all, she cast a sidelong glance at her son, again getting teary-eyed. She wanted to tell him, "I wouldn't miss this for the world, honey."
She felt less guilty when she went up back up to her room, vowing to be more present for Dante. As she walked through the door, she heard the Skype jingle. Her iPod was lit up in the dark and vibrating on the bed.
“Hello.”
“What happened? Where were you?” Adam was upset, almost breathless. It was a marked change from his usual calm voice.
“I’ve been home. I called you eight times. Didn’t you see?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Eden. I must have fallen asleep waiting for you to get home and didn’t realize I turned the ringer off.” He coughed.
“I was afraid of this happening. Night after night of you staying up until three, four, sometimes five in the morning. Perhaps we should limit our talks.”
“No!” he said, almost violently. “I fall asleep one time and all of a sudden you want to pull back.”
“Adam, I’m not pulling back. I’m just concerned that you might get sick. It’s past six o’clock in the morning there now and didn’t you say you have a meeting at 10?”
“I’m fine,” he said in a low growl. “They’re my employees. I can always reschedule.”
“But you wouldn’t like that. You don’t like to keep people waiting. You’d be disappointed in yourself if you weren’t punctual.”
“This is more important.”
“We can talk tonight, Adam.”
“You sound different. Even in your mails today, you sounded different.”
“You wrote that I was changing you. Maybe it’s true. And maybe it’s for the worse.”
“Not for the worse. For the better.”
“Maybe we need to pause and reevaluate.”
He drew in his breath.
“You are pulling back. I knew it. I don’t understand. What have I done?” His anguished voice was barely above a whisper.
Eden sank down to the floor and drew her knees up. She was helpless, falling so fast, falling so hard, she was losing her grip on everything that was substantial in her life.
“Adam, do you know what I realized when I couldn’t reach you tonight? How easily you could disappear from my life if you wanted to. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know how to get a hold of you outside of Skype and e-mail. If you shut those accounts down, then I would have nothing at all. I could pass you on the street and not know it was you!”
“I missed one phone call. And already you’re pushing me away. Eden, I’d do anything to prove to you I’m here to stay. I would never just disappear from your life. Between the two of us, it would be you who would leave me.”
“Do you care for me?”
“My god, you know I do.”
“You would do anything?”
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.
“So if I asked you right now to send me a picture, to video call – you’d do it?”
There was silence on the other end. Her heart instantly felt leaden.
When he spoke, it was with despair. “If it came to that, I suppose I would have to find a way to do it.”
Eden slumped in defeat. “No, Adam. I would never force you to do it, knowing how much pain it would cause you. I would hate myself if I did that to you.”
She started crying.
“Eden,” he pleaded. “I’ll get a phone number you can call so if you can’t reach me through Skype, you’ll have another way.”
“Get a phone number? What about the number you have now?”
“This number will be yours alone. The others are for business acquaintances, friends. Those who don’t mean as much to me.”
“You have more than one number?”
“I have four.”
“Four. You know who else has multiple phones? Criminals. Drug dealers.”
“It’s not for illegal purposes. I have a phone number for people I only do business with. One for friends and relatives. One for people I don’t want to hear from but I’m forced to be in contact with occasionally. And I still have my UK number. So that makes four. It will be five when I get the one that’s just for you.”
Eden shook her head. “It’s like you’re giving me a temporary number so that if we don’t work out, you can just dispose of it and you won’t lose all your other contacts.”
“That’s not true. I wish I could explain to you better but I can’t. Please understand that it’s for your own good.”
“My own good,” she repeated. She felt drained all of a sudden. “When will we meet, Adam? You’re talking about building a life but we still haven’t made plans to meet. Is it all just a fantasy?”
“Eden, we’ve been through this before. We have to be patient. We aren’t merely talking about building a life. Every day we are doing just that. Why do you think I’ve cleared my calendar? Except for work, I spend my time with you or doing things in preparation for being with you, for ou
r future. You don’t even know how seriously I’ve taken my promise. All the steps I’ve taken behind the scenes to make our life a reality.”
“I can come see you next month,” she said in a hopeful rush. “You have to stay in Sicily because of your business. I understand that. So I’ll fly to you. I have a one-week window at work and my dad can come over and stay with Dante. Since I didn’t take a vacation this year, I have a little bit of money for plane fare and a hotel. I’ll fly coach and stay somewhere reasonable.”
Again there was silence on the other end.
“Alright,” he said slowly, seemingly stunned. As though he had come up against an unforeseen problem. “But are you simply coming over here to see if I’ve been truthful?”