The Year I Left

by Brae, Christine;

  She couldn’t have been more wrong. Since the day she left me on that island, I start and end my days with thoughts of her.

  “Will you remember this?” she’d asked me often enough. “What about this?”

  She had chronicled our time together. One only does that for things that are not meant to be taken for granted.

  At that thought, I am filled with anger. It had been her plan all along? To leave me eventually, carry on with life?

  That’s water under the bridge now. I’m here to live inside her for two days. I deserve this before I walk away. I deserve to breathe her in one more time. Before she becomes just a memory.

  Upon seeing her handwriting, tears fill my eyes. Tucked inside the tiny pocket is a picture of us. It was taken during our first month together, a selfie she’d insisted on while we sat on the sand watching the moon sweep over the sky. Her eyes sparkled blue, brighter than the ocean. Her hair, sun-kissed and light, her lips, her skin, her cheeks, smooth and perfect like a porcelain treasure. In my head, she speaks the words she had written:

  With gratitude and love to the one who brought me back to life.

  Because of you, I have heard the colors of the sky,

  Seen the rushing of the wind

  And tasted the sound of love’s sweet words.

  To you, I give all my life, all my love, my present and my past

  Whether together or apart. The one truth I will always have is you.

  Matias, whoever it is you become, whatever the future holds for you, know that it was, it is, it will always be—you.

  I cry.

  But it’s not enough.

  I pound my fists on the ground, but the physical pain won’t release my agony.

  My words, my actions, the fact that I begged for every minute, every second with her. In the end, they still led to this one big loss. What does it matter now that she’s gone?

  This book is my only link to the truth. Her words have comforted me, made me believe in what we had. But all that was erased in an instant when she turned her back to me and returned to her family.

  For a while I allow myself to get lost in my memories, associating every broken, dilapidated object on the porch to the days and months we’d called this our home. Before I know it, I’ve been there for four hours. The heat of the afternoon sun is slowly fading and the winds begin to grow colder. I’m in a debate with myself about staying the night. I have yet to enter the house, knowing there’d be nothing there but memories and empty promises.

  I look up to find a truck zigzagging its way toward our home. I don’t recognize it at first—a huge, black Ford 150 truck with an enclosed cabin in the back. The driver waves at me and I wave right back. Somehow, Diana looks different. Her hair is dyed a deep red-brown. It is now long and cascading down her shoulders. She is wearing makeup—I know this because her lips are red and her eyes look wide and awake. But her smile remains the same—warm, genuine and sincere.

  It takes a while for her to alight from the truck. Instead of stepping off it, she carefully slides down, sits on the end of the car floor before laying her feet on the sand.

  I see why as soon as she turns to me.

  “Hi!” I greet her, stepping toward her as she dusts the sand off her skirt. She is heavy with child, surely in her third trimester.

  Diana takes my arm with her left hand and keeps her right one on her stomach.

  “Congratulations!” I say, kissing her cheek.

  “Thank you.” She smiles. “Our fourth and fifth. Twins!”

  “Oh my! That is great.”

  She shuffles slowly across the sand and steps up onto the porch. I watch as she reaches into her pocket to pull out our keys. She unlocks the door and huffs loudly while pushing it open. A pocket of air escapes from the room.

  “It’s because I locked up all the windows,” she says, motioning me to come in. She steps in first, places the keys on the counter and settles on one of the dining room chairs. I make my way to the bedroom, eager to remember how we’d left it that day. I turn to Diana, who looks at me with pity, head bent, one hand on her chest.

  Since then, the sheets have been removed and folded neatly in the closet. But although the bed was empty, a few of our personal items still linger in their regular place. Carin’s alarm clock, her comb, her old, frayed copy of The Thornbirds laying neatly on her night table. My sneakers and my hiking boots are still leaning against the wall on the opposite end of the room.

  “Come to the kitchen,” Diana calls. “The things she wanted you to take home are here.”

  I leave the bedroom and take a seat on the couch. Its cushions had been wrapped in a tarp and tied neatly like a package. I have so many questions and I can no longer wait for her answers.

  “Have you heard from her?” I ask, looking directly at Diana while she looks right back at me. Her shyness is gone. It’s been replaced with conviction. The way she sits, the way she conducts herself. There is a shift in her attitude. Not toward me, but maybe toward what happened to me.

  “No, not directly. About three months after you both left, Trish, her sister, called me to let me know that she was slowly getting better.”

  “Better?”

  “Trish said that they confined her to a wellness facility, afraid she would try to hurt herself. When her sister called, Julia was already settled back at home with her family.”

  “With Jack?” I ask.

  “She didn’t say. It was mostly to assure me that Julia was recovering.”

  “Carin,” I reminded.

  “Julia, Carin. It’s the same person to me.” Diana keeps her gaze on me. We sit in silence, our eyes moving around the room and then resting on each other. “You look good, Roman. How has it been?”

  “You mean, how have I been since I went back home to Madrid?”

  “Yes.”

  I avoid it for as long as I can. “How are you, Diana? How is Ariel and the family?”

  “We are fine,” she answers. “I’ve made peace with my father. In fact, he is building us a home next to his so that the children can get to know him. We are moving off this island in a few months. Ariel would have loved to be here too, had he not needed to visit the construction site today.”

  I shake my head.

  She continues. “Julia taught me—”

  I raise my hand to correct her. “Her name is Carin.”

  She gives in, knowing she won’t be winning this fight. “Carin taught me that every moment in life needs to have meaning. She had enough courage to make sure that she lived her life that way. We were like two peas in a pod—we chose similar paths in the name of love.”

  “But you have it all.”

  “She needs time to get it all back,” Diana says. Her tone is defiant, unapologetic. She’s taking sides.

  I don’t hear her words. From the corner of my eye, I see another reminder, another ploy of hers to get me to remember the vivid details of what I’d lost. I reach for it. The blue bottle, its cork still in place, lay on the ground underneath the sink. I bring it up to my face to take a closer look. She’d placed a few more things inside it since I’d last seen it. Our rings were in there, some sand, a few shells. “It didn’t break—” I blurt out, devoid of all interaction with Diana. I remember throwing it during our fight. I turn selfish because I want my answers today. “Why did she do it, Diana? Why did she betray me like that?”

  “Matias, why do you call it a betrayal?”

  “Because all along, I thought she was here on this island with just me. That her time, her love, her attention was focused on flourishing what we had.”

  “She loved you. More than you will ever know. You wanted too much from her.”

  “Is she with Jack?”

  “I never asked.”

  There used to be days when that was all I believed. They’re gone now, those days. They’ve been dismissed as a foolish phase. “She knew this would eventually end. How could she not, when she was feeding information to her family the whole time
!”

  “She had a son! A son! No matter how much she wanted to deny that, she had a life she was responsible for. No matter how much she wanted it to be just you, Charlie deserved to know his mother didn’t die.”

  When I don’t answer, she finishes her thought. “One day when you have a child of your own, you will know exactly why she did what she did.” And then it dawns on her. The newspaper articles after we were found, the accolades for saving the young boy’s life, the press releases about how Isabella stood her ground and welcomed me back home despite my six-month falsehood. “And you? What’s next for you? I heard you may be getting married.”

  “Once you’ve lived the greatest love in your life, everything else is a practical choice.”

  “I don’t think you answered me.”

  “Yes, we are engaged. I’m making amends for my sin to my family by giving my parents their grandchildren.”

  “Huh.” Diana gets up from the chair and slowly waddles behind the kitchen counter. “I’ve done that before. Don’t try to make it right by making the wrong choices.” For a brief second, I can’t see her head. “Here,” she says, lifting up a frame and holding it above her head. “It was very important for Carin that you take this with you. She spent many weeks perfecting this portrait.”

  “Yes, because she was leaving me and wanted me to remember her.” I take it from her. It’s facing me, those big blue eyes full of promise and love. They stare right into me, extricating every beautiful memory I have of her. This painting epitomizes the love she so boldly gave me. Did I really expect a mother to abandon her child? My responsible, honorable Carin.

  No, I don’t think so.

  Clutching the canvas in both hands, I lean over to give Diana a kiss on her head. “You have been the best friend to both of us. I don’t ever want to lose touch with you.”

  “You won’t.” She smiles. We both walk back into the living room. “Listen—there’s a flight that leaves at eight tonight for the mainland. I’d be happy to take you to the airport from here.”

  I turn around and nod in understanding.

  “There are many more things I think you need to hear from her.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Why Not?

  “Excuse me, who are you waiting for?”

  Funny how much things have changed in the past year and a half. The office, although still in the sprawling grounds of a downtown Chicago location, looks completely different. Completely changed. Gone are the shelves laden with trophies and accomplishments displayed for the public to see. Also missing is the ostentatious receptionists’ bar that spanned from one end of the floor to the other. The executive offices have also disappeared. Everywhere you look there are rows and rows of rectangular picnic-like tables with benches and unassigned seats. In the middle of the common area are pod-like sofas and coffee tables where what seems like a younger generation of employees is congregated on their phones and laptops.

  “Carin Frost? The Chief Client Officer?”

  She gives me a blank look. Her eyes register nothing.

  “Who?” asks the floor coordinator. I see her ID and that’s exactly what her title says on the badge. “No one with that name works here.”

  “Is Jane around?” I ask. “Jane Wobler? She was her secretary.”

  The floor coordinator walks noiselessly across the brand new glass floor, picks up the phone and begins to converse with someone on the other line. She walks back toward me, noiselessly once again, to give me the news. “Jane is on her way up to see you.”

  I wait for ten minutes, listen in on the conversations of some of the young account executives. One of them complains of nonstop traveling to Asia for the new expansion project. The other one is asking to be assigned there since her fiancé works in Hong Kong. I also see what the floor coordinator has been waiting for.

  “Mr. Torres?” Jane is cautious at first, greeting me with barely a whisper. A smile breaks on her face once I stand to give her a stiff hug.

  “Jane, hi.”

  “Hi.” She rubs my back as if comforting me in a motherly fashion.

  “The woman over there, she has no idea who Carin is.” I pull back but remain standing. We are face-to-face. There is a ruckus going on in the other corner of the room. I see now what the coordinator had been waiting for. There is a young man, a famous actor, being escorted around by a group of men in black suits. He looks like me, dark hair, dark eyes, bearded. Only much younger. At least in years of experience. And suffering.

  “Carin never came back here after—”

  “Oh.” I am disappointed. She sees it in my face because she reaches out to touch my shoulder.

  “But if you asked for her using her other name, they would have known who she was. She’s made a name for herself in the city doing other things.”

  The irony of the world hasn’t been lost on me in the year that’s gone by. I’m living it again today, sitting in another reception area that is the antithesis of the one I’d just been in. Jane told me where to go and well, here I am, waiting to see her. This time, I’m sitting in a plastic chair, one of three leaning against a cold brick wall in the basement of a two-story building in the East Pilsen neighborhood. When I walked in, I was greeted by three kindly men who called her Miss Carin. The first floor was an open gymnasium where adults and children were playing basketball. Directly across from it was a cafeteria full of people, women in hairnets and a long line of people with metal trays and paper utensils.

  I see her walking in my direction and that familiar rush courses through me. She looks exactly the same as the first day I met her. She’s got her natural hair color back and it’s longer than I remember, tied back neatly in a ponytail. The image I have of her in a suit is replaced by a long-sleeved blouse and jeans. And sneakers.

  She sees me and skids to a stop; her eyes grow wide, her lips pull apart. But then she collects herself, squares her shoulders, and continues on toward me. I stand right as she approaches me.

  “Matias,” she says. We don’t touch. I nod before following her into her office. It’s the door right next to me with a large window looking out into the hallway. She takes a seat at her desk and gestures at the chair across from her.

  “Please, sit.”

  Sit? Just like that. Sit.

  I resist the urge to touch her. Any part of her.

  I see the nameplate right away. She’s using her maiden name. Carin Miller.

  “How long have you been in Chicago?”

  “Landed at eight this morning. Jane told me where to find you.”

  “Jane,” she says with a smile. “She always tells you where to find me.”

  “So, you’re here now? This is your job?”

  “No. I volunteer here. I run it. This homeless shelter. I’m the director.”

  “You mean it’s not a job. So you don’t work.”

  She leans back in her chair. “We don’t have to work, you and I.”

  The way she says it angers me. Not because of its arrogance, but because I sense a benevolence that I have yet to find in myself.

  She keeps smiling. Why am I not seeing any pain? Why isn’t she sharing my pain?

  I decide to go for it. I’ve got a flight to catch at ten this evening, and my mother thinks I’m on an out of town business trip. It was the only way for my family to accept my leaving two weeks before the big day.

  “You’re using your maiden name.”

  “That is my name, yes.” I notice her fingers clasped together as they rest under the desk. I can’t make out a ring since I can’t see anything.

  “You’re not with Jack anymore?

  “Would you forgive me, if I’d done that to you? Can you blame him? Of course not. I’m divorced.”

  “And Charlie?”

  “He’s doing really well. He and I are in therapy together. He tells me he understands why I did what I did, but he’s a child. He has unconditional love for his parents.”

  I can’t take my eyes off her. It feels like I
’m noticing things for the first time. Like I’m falling in love all over again. Did I even know that her one front tooth was slightly crooked and that her dimples were that deep? That her eyes light up the room, any room. Even in this dark and abysmal place, we didn’t need any light.

  When I stay silent, she continues. “There are days when all hell breaks loose and things look hopeless. He screams at me, reminds me about what I had done. But those days are slowly dissipating. Most times, he forgives.” She smiles weakly, her eyes misting with tears. As if in disbelief, she shakes her head and smiles to herself. “Do you know he told me on that helicopter that he knew I was alive? Such a smart kid. Even before Trish heard from me, he knew. He wrote me letters, every Friday after school. Even if Trish didn’t know where I was, he wrote them and kept them for me.” Her chin trembles and her jaw tightens. “He said—” She tries her best to stop from weeping, but her face is crumpled up in pain. “He said he didn’t want me to miss a single thing during the year I left!”

  God help me. I want to hold her more than anything in the world. But she has quickly composed herself, lightly dabbing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

  “Did the therapy help you too?” I ask.

  “They said I had severe clinical depression. You know, suicidal thoughts and all that. But I don’t even see a psychiatrist anymore. I’m doing well.”

  “At least one of us is,” I say. “So if you had sought professional help before we met, it would have saved you the trouble.” I puff up my chest, try to ease the pain.

  She leans in toward me and locks me in a stare. “That’s not true.” I still get lost in them. I still see my dreams through her eyes. “It was more than that. Even before I got so sad.” We both feel the tension cut through the air. I think she can still see right through me because she puts her happy face back on and lightens her tone. “I would have gone to the end of the earth with you. Sickness or no sickness.”