First Comes Love (31 page)

“No.” He shakes his head. “Because I was in a hurry to go….That girl I was talking to was on her way outside…and I didn't want her to leave without me….”

“Was she gone?” I ask.

“Almost,” he says. “But I caught her on the way out the door….I went back to her apartment…and I had sex with her….And now?”

I squeeze his hand, giving him the strength to continue. “Now I can't even remember her goddamn name….”

O
n Sunday morning, I awaken to the sound of distant church chimes and a sharp chill in Ellen's simple whitewashed bedroom. Shivering, I pull the goose-down comforter up to my chin, rolling over to face the window. The curtains are drawn, but sheer enough for me to make out the silhouette of a ginkgo tree, its twisted, bare branches bending toward the windowpanes.

I wonder what time it is, but can't tell by the flat northern light. It could be as early as seven, as late as nine. I decide it doesn't matter, a realization that is more disorienting than liberating. So I reach for my phone, shocked to see that it is a few minutes past ten, about the latest I have slept since Harper was born, at least when neither of us is ill. The mere thought of her sets off a fresh quake of homesickness. No matter how surly she is in the morning, I am always happy to see her face first thing, her cheeks flushed, her hair a tangled mop. I close my eyes and can almost smell the odd maple-syrupy scent of her skin after a long sleep.

Suddenly desperate to hear her voice, I call Nolan. He doesn't answer, just as he didn't answer last night or yesterday afternoon, my only update coming from Josie when she texted me a photo of Harper embracing Rabby, along with the caption
Reunited and it feels so good!
My heart flooded with relief as I texted her back immediately, virtually begging for the details, adding extra exclamation points and question marks. But three hours passed before she wrote back a glib reply:
Found at Legoland. All's well that ends well. Enjoy your vacation
.

I call Nolan again, listening to the futile sound of ringing, followed by his chipper outgoing message. This time I leave a message. I calmly ask him to please call me back as soon as he can, doing my best to keep agitation out of my voice. I know I have little standing to be angry, yet I am anyway. Yes, I am the one on a boondoggle in Manhattan, but it all unfolded at
his
prodding. His virtual
insistence
. And now he is punishing me. Cutting me off. Making a point.
This is what your life will be like without me, without us.
I tell myself to get up, seize the day, and embrace my soul-searching sabbatical.

So after a quick shower, I change into my city uniform—jeans with a black sweater, a black leather jacket, and black boots. I put on oversize sunglasses, throw my hair into a utilitarian ponytail, and sail down four flights, out the heavy front door of the brownstone, into the crisp fall day. It is windier than I expected, more unpleasant than invigorating, but I tell myself I will warm up. I just need to keep moving.

For the next five hours, I aimlessly wander the city on foot and by subway, from the Village up to Chelsea and the far reaches of the Upper West Side, then across the park, down Fifth Avenue, and the whole way into SoHo. Along the way, I duck into coffee shops and browse boutiques, stopping whenever and wherever my fancy strikes. I sit on random benches, people watching. I speak only when necessary, to order a sandwich, ask a clerk a question, thank the man who slid down to make room for me on the subway. Otherwise, my inner monologue and urban solitude are uninterrupted, my life examined from every angle.

I think a lot about the past, particularly the years I lived here, feeling as disconnected from those memories and friends as I do from my college years and acting. I have no desire to get in touch with anyone I used to know, even to meet up for a drink, and I can't help but wonder what this says about me. I like to think of myself as merely introverted, but is it something stronger? Am I a pathological loner? An outright loser? If so, no wonder my marriage feels empty, like something's always missing. No wonder I can't get along with my sister. Maybe our turbulence is more my fault than hers. I think of how happy she looked the other night at her birthday dinner, how fun always follows her, how fiercely loyal her friends are to her, especially Gabe. I tell myself that I have Ellen, but deep down I know it's not the same, perhaps because Ellen has Andy, and that
he
is her best friend, the person to whom she is the most loyal.

By dusk, I am freezing, and my heels are beginning to blister, and all I want to do is go home and take a bath. But I stop at a Duane Reade on the outskirts of Chinatown, buy a Diet Snapple and a box of Band-Aids, then head back outside to hail a cab.

“Where to?” the driver asks as I slide into the taxi, which reeks of artificial evergreen.

“I don't know yet,” I tell him. “Could you just drive, please?”

He nods, indifferent as long as his meter is ticking, while I study the bridge of his nose, forehead, and eyes in the rearview mirror, trying to determine his ethnicity based on his features and last name—Abrama. He could be Mexican, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Israeli, the possibilities as endless as my potential destinations.

“Where are you from?” I finally ask, caving to the curiosity.

He raises his chin, answering proudly. “I'm Calabrese,” he says in the way people from home tell you they are third- or fourth-generation Atlantan.

“Oh. Beautiful,” I say, though I've never been to that part of Italy. “That's the toe of the boot, right?” I ask him, reminding myself of my sister and how she always chats with strangers.

Mr. Abrama nods again, unimpressed by my command of world geography.

A few minutes pass before he asks, “Did you decide?”

“Decide what?” I say, thinking of Nolan.

“Where you want to go?”

I clear my throat, then say, “Yes. Could you please take me to Times Square?”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER,
I pay my fare and am deposited one block away from the pulsing neon heart of the city. I head directly for the TKTS booth under the red steps, suddenly craving a live performance. I'm in the mood for low-key and talky, not slinky or razzle-dazzle, but it is nearly seven o'clock, so I take what I can get, ending up with a ticket to
Chicago,
a show I've seen twice before and don't particularly love. Still, as I make my way to the Ambassador Theatre and settle into my balcony seat, waiting for the curtains to part, I feel something come alive inside me.

By intermission, I feel like a new person—or maybe just my old self. I check my phone in the theater lobby and see that I finally have a missed call from Nolan. I press myself into a reasonably quiet corner and call him back.

“Hi,” he says, his voice barely audible. “Where are you?”

“At a show,” I say.

“With who?”

“I'm alone.”

“Oh…Are you having fun?”

“I wouldn't call it ‘fun'…but it's nice….How are you? How is Harper?”

“We're fine,” he says. “We got Rabby back.”

“I heard,” I say. “Josie told me.”

“Oh. Right,” he says.

“Can I talk to Harper?” I ask, though the second warning to return to our seats has just been issued.

“She's asleep,” he says. “She has school tomorrow. I'm taking off for her Halloween parade.”

“Oh. That's great….So, what else is going on?” I say as the lobby empties.

“Well…Josie and I went to the cemetery yesterday. With Harper. We took flowers.”

“
Josie
went?” I ask, more than a little shocked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow. I take it that was your idea?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It was…but she went…and we had a really good talk.”

“About Daniel?”

“Yes,” he says.

I shake my head, thinking of how many times I've tried to get my sister to go to the cemetery or have a substantive conversation about our brother. Never to any avail. Resentment builds inside me—toward both my husband and my sister. “Well, thanks for the call. I need to go…intermission's over,” I say, thinking of how he, annoyingly, always calls it
halftime
.

“No problem,” Nolan quickly says. “Enjoy the show.”

F
or several days following my conversation with Nolan, I try to delude myself, a skill I've honed over the years. I keep telling myself that my actions were just
one
piece of a giant, tragic puzzle, and that a hundred little things had to happen for Daniel to die. A
thousand
. If you back up far enough,
tens
of thousands.

Take, for example, Scott Donahue, the driver of the Denali that hit Daniel. I have never laid eyes on the man, but somehow I know his part of the story. I know that on the night of the accident, he was headed to Walgreens to buy cough medicine for his three-year-old son. So right there alone, I can see that Mr. Donahue and his wife had to meet, marry, and conceive that particular child, who would then get sick that very week in December (perhaps picking up a virus at one of those bouncy venues that Meredith despises); that the Donahues had to be out of children's cough medicine (maybe they both forgot to pick it up earlier that day); and that Mr. Donahue had to go out precisely when he did (perhaps he stalled a few minutes to watch news coverage of the shoe bomber, the big story that broke that day). And on and on and on.

Yet no matter how I slice it, or what other factors may have been at play on that fateful night (and in the weeks, months, and years leading up to it), the inescapable, bottom-line, stone-cold truth remains: Daniel would be alive today had I not gotten drunk—no,
wasted
—on the night of December 22, 2001.

Obviously, there is nothing I can do about the past except live with it, but my agonizing dilemma becomes what to do moving forward. Do I make a joint decision with Nolan to tell Meredith what really happened that night? Do I confess to Meredith on my own, regardless of what he decides? Do I tell my family the truth simply because they deserve to know every detail of Daniel's final hours—or will telling them only burden them with more heartache? I think about the repercussions of a confession and worry that my father might blame himself for my excessive drinking. I can certainly see my mother feeling that way. I can also see her lamenting that she hadn't been stricter during my teenaged years. Most of all, I know beyond a doubt that a confession will only further poison my relationship with Meredith, perhaps end it altogether, and that it might also be the death knell for her marriage. I know my sister, and I just can't imagine her forgiving either one of us for keeping such an enormous secret.

After several torturous days and restless nights, I decide to talk to the one person I can always trust. So I knock on Gabe's door late one evening, finally catching him alone, without Leslie.

“Yeah?” he calls out, sounding exhausted.

I open the door a crack and peer into his darkened room. “Sorry. Were you asleep?”

“Nah,” he says, rolling from his back onto his side to look at me. “I just got in bed….You okay?”

“Yeah…yeah….I just wanted to talk….”

“Well, come on in,” he says.

I hesitate one beat, then take a deep breath, climb onto his bed, and talk as quickly as I can, before I can change my mind, spilling my whole disjointed, raw confession.

“Well, you always thought this might be the case….” he says after I'm finished, his tone sympathetic yet matter-of-fact.

“Yeah,” I say, nodding as I hug my knees. “But I also always hoped I was wrong.”

“I know,” he murmurs.

“It sucks,” I say.

“Yeah…but aren't you just a little relieved to
know
?” he asks. “Now you don't have to wonder anymore?”

I nod, impressed with his usual insightfulness. “Yeah. I guess. Maybe a little…I probably should have talked to Nolan a long time ago.”

“He should have talked to you, too,” Gabe says, loyally shifting the blame. “And I really can't
believe
he never told Meredith….
Wow
.”

“Well, I kept a secret from her, too.”

“Yeah, but you aren't
married
to her.”

I nod.

“Besides,” Gabe continues. “Nolan
knew
the truth. You only
suspected
it….”

“I guess,” I say, having considered all of these angles as I searched for ways to absolve myself, or at least mitigate my culpability. “But we're still
both
to blame for what happened.”

Gabe props himself up, cradling his head in his left hand. “Nobody is to
blame,
Josie. It's not like someone was drunk
driving
here….It was an
accident
…an accident
nobody
could have foreseen.”

“Still,” I say.

“Still
what
?” he says, his brow furrowed.

“I
still
played a role in it…and I still have to tell my family. They deserve to know the truth….” I stare into Gabe's eyes, hoping he'll talk me out of it, tell me there's no point—or at least no upside. “Don't you agree?” I ask, holding my breath.

He hesitates, then slowly nods. “Yeah…I think you're probably right….But I think you need to tell them for
your
sake more than theirs…so that
you
can move on—”

“But I
have
moved on,” I say, cutting him off, thinking that is a large part of my guilt—the fact that I moved on with my life so effortlessly, never visiting my brother's grave until last week, barely even mentioning him to friends
or
family.

Gabe shakes his head. “No. You haven't, Josie. You haven't moved on at
all
. You carry this with you everywhere.”

I stare at him, knowing that he's right, and wondering how he can tell.

“And look what it's done to you,” he finishes softly.

“What's it done to me?” I ask, lowering my eyes, afraid of his reply, his always brutal honesty.

“Well, for one,” he says, “you didn't tell your boyfriend why I was in your bed that night.”

“So?” I say, bristling at the mention of Will.

“
So?
You would rather have had him think you
cheated
on him than know the truth about the night your brother died. What does that tell you?”

“Are you saying I
should
have told Will? That I could be married to him if I'd told him the truth about why you were in my bed? About everything?” It is a thought that has occurred to me countless times over the years, and even more in the last few days.

“No,” Gabe replies, adamant. “That's not what I'm saying at all….I think if Will had been right for you, he would have believed you when you told him nothing happened with us….”

“Yes. But it did look pretty bad,” I say, wondering why I'm still defending Will after all these years.

Gabe shakes his head, his voice becoming louder, passionate. “So
what
? So it looked bad? Nothing happened.”

“Well, jeez, Gabe. I
know
that….I tried to tell him that many,
many
times,” I say, getting sickening flashbacks to our final few escalating fights and the lonely, empty aftermath, when it slowly began to dawn on me that he wasn't coming back. Ever.

“You could have done a much better job of convincing him, and you
know
it. If he had been your soul mate,” Gabe says, using a term I've never heard him use before, “you would have confided in him…or he would have taken your word and trusted you. You would have trusted
him
enough to tell him everything….Instead, you let him think the worst about you….So he did.”

“Killing my brother is worse than cheating on Will.”

Gabe cringes, dropping his head back to his pillow. “You didn't
kill
your brother, Jo. Don't ever say that again.”

“Well, it feels like I did….Do you know how many times Daniel gave me lectures about drinking? About how I needed to be more careful because of our dad? Jesus, Gabe, just a couple days before, he talked to me about it…and I brushed him off.”

“You were a college kid, Josie. Lots of college kids drink too much.”

“He never did,” I say. “Meredith doesn't, either.”

“Well,
you're
not
them,
” he says. “And you're not your father. You're
you
. Did you have too much to drink that night? Absolutely. Did you drink too much the other night when you made out with Pete at Johnny's?” He smiles, clearly trying to cheer me up.

“We didn't
make out,
” I say, quibbling with his verb, but he raises his hand and continues.

“The point is, I don't think you've ever had a drinking problem. Maybe an attitude and behavior problem,” he says, smiling again. “But not a drinking problem.”

“Well, my behavior, along with my drinking, resulted in my brother's death,” I insist. “Whether directly or indirectly, it did. And…”

“And what?”

“And I deserved to lose Will because of it,” I finish decisively, truly believing this.

“As your punishment?” Gabe asks.

“Yes,” I say. “As my punishment.”

Gabe shakes his head. “I disagree. I
strongly
disagree….You and Will broke up because he wasn't right for you, Josie….That was clear….Hell, that was clear to me long
before
you broke up….You were never yourself around him….You were…a fake Josie…and you haven't loved anyone since Will because you won't let yourself.”

“That's not true,” I say, thinking of all the guys I've gone out with, and slept with, and tried to love, and tried to make love me.

“It
is
true. And you need to stop punishing yourself.” Gabe stares up at me with a mixture of pity and love, before reaching out to gently touch my arm. The gesture, along with the feel of his skin on mine, instantly floods my eyes with tears.

“Aww, Jo. Don't cry,” he says. “C'mere.”

“Where?” I say, desperately needing a hug, even from one of the world's most awkward huggers.

“Right here,” he says, patting his chest twice before pulling me down beside him, wrapping both arms around me.

“I'm so sad,” I say, as it occurs to me that we are lying together exactly the way Will found us all those years ago—and that nothing has really changed since that night.

“I know,” Gabe says, his breath warm in my hair. “But you need to forgive yourself. It's time, Jo.”

“But what if my family doesn't forgive me?”

“They will.”

“But what if they don't?” I say, thinking specifically of my sister.

“Well, then…
I'll
be your family.”

“You mean my baby daddy?” I ask, smiling, only partly kidding.

“Yeah, that, too,” he says with a little laugh.

“Are you really serious about that?” I ask. “Would you
really
do that for me?”

“Of course I would, Josie….I'd do
anything
for you,” he says.

I try to thank him, and tell him that I feel the same, but can't get out the words, too overwhelmed with gratitude. Besides, I know he doesn't expect a reply, that he's simply stating a fact I already know. Instead, I close my eyes and let myself drift off in his arms, doing my best to memorize the moment I will one day tell my son or daughter about….
That was the moment I made my decision. The moment I picked your father. The moment I knew
.