In This Life (32 page)

You’ll forget soon enough. It wasn’t long enough, Anna. You’ll get over it.

He was just a friend. That’s all he was. He was a friend you met in Thailand.

Take your meds, they will heal you. Drink your wine, it will make you forget.

Come party with us, meet other people. Look! That guy thinks you’re hot!

You’ll be fine, Anna. You’ll be okay.

I knew full well how it was to die alone. I could only wish that Dante knew how much he was loved. By me, by everyone else. I hoped he died right away. I hoped that death did nothing to take his dignity away.

I stopped by the hospital to speak to Afihsa, who managed the process of transporting Dante’s body back home. I knew she would take part in his autopsy. Aside from that, I wanted to tie up loose ends, take some time off and be there to help Mikey get through our loss. Maggie had dropped me off and was going to try to convince Dante’s family to allow me to see him.

I proceeded directly to the public bathroom on my way to Afihsa’s office to relieve myself of the bile that kept rising in my throat. During our drive to the hospital, I had kept it in, tried to ignore it, swallowed it repeatedly, and willed it to stay down. But then I decided to purge it completely from my body before walking in and taking charge of my situation. I pulled my hair back and rinsed my face off before brushing my teeth. I needed to ask her for some medication to treat whatever had been bothering my stomach lately. I was sure that it was a simple case of gastroenteritis, a virus I probably picked up on the plane which had caused me to come down with a bad case of the stomach flu.

She didn’t look surprised when she saw me sitting in one of the uncomfortable green chairs in the waiting room of her office.

“Anna,” she whispered as she pulled me into her arms. I started to cry. “Come, let’s go into my office.” She shut the door behind her and kept hold of my hand. We sat facing each other on the two seats adjacent to her desk. She pulled a Kleenex from the box on her shelf and handed it to me. “Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Tell me what happened,” I said, tears still streaming down my face. They were red and thick, mixed with the blood from my open wound.

Blood and tears. The miraculous Madonna that cried blood for the sins of the world. All consuming pain transformed into rivulets of sorrow.

“I will,” she responded. “But what happened to your face? It looks like you need stitches. The blood hasn’t clotted and your Band-Aid is soaked.”

She pulled open the cabinet by the sink and spread out her instruments before motioning for me to move to the exam table. We stayed silent as she worked on me, her hands deft and light like butterfly touches on my skin. She was a skilled surgeon with a steady hand. When she was done, I urged her to continue with our conversation.

“How did he die?” I asked. “Did he suffer any pain?”

“The autopsy hasn’t been conducted yet, it’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. I’m told there were massive internal injuries.”

“But he’s here?” I sniffed. “Can I see him?”

“I don’t know,” she started off, clasping my hands in hers. “You know it’s against the rules, and the family… Well, you know, there’s still a lot of resentment about the reason he was in Thailand.”

“But,” I sobbed. “But I never got the chance to say goodbye! Please. I’m begging you. Five minutes, two minutes, anything! I’ll die without ever seeing him again. He was my life for so long.” I blew my nose and stood up to throw the Kleenex in the trash.

She shook her head and forced out a sigh before arising to retrieve a pile of papers from her desk. “Well, technically, you’re still his wife.” She sifted through them while tracing the small print with her fingers. “See here,” she pointed to a spreadsheet on one of the pages. “They will keep him here until the morning and then send him to the funeral home. I don’t imagine his family will be here very late. Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you when the coast is clear? Go directly to the 7th floor, room 7221.”

She ran towards me as I burst into tears.

“Listen, I’ll do everything I can for you, you name it. What do you want to do in the meantime?” she asked.

“There’s nothing anyone can do,” I cried.

“Oh, Anna. You both loved each other very much. Make that fact a comfort to you in this time.” She tightened her arms around me.

“I left him for another man,” I sobbed breathlessly.

“You left him out of respect. Out of honesty. That was a very courageous thing to do.”

I nodded my head, cried a little bit more and then pulled away from her, out of breath but not out of tears.

“There’s one more thing you need to know,” she added.

My eyes grew wide, I was filled with trepidation.

“His optometrist recommended that he see me. He had an abnormal growth on the right side of the brain. He told me he would come in for a biopsy after Germany.”

What kind of a God would be so determined to watch you suffer death by a thousand cuts?
I covered my face with my hands. There were no more tears left. And so instead, I wanted to bleed, to hurt, to riddle myself with the pain I deserved.

“Take some time off, Anna, okay? Take a leave of absence.”

I nodded my head again.

“I’ll take care of bringing it up at tomorrow’s board meeting. Will you be able to afford it?”

I had thought about all of this during the long flight home from Thailand. I wouldn’t need much. Mikey remained my priority and I had a few months’ savings to tide us over. I nodded my head again.

“Anything you need, Anna,” she said kindly.

“Thank you.” I wiped my tears and checked my face in the mirror before straightening up to leave. My legs were stuck to the floor. My knees refused to unfold, my vision began to fade in and out. There were fire trucks and sirens screeching in my ear and a knife began to dig itself into my heart. My arms became leaden posts anchored to the ground. I couldn’t lift them up to save my life.

“Anna?” She looked at me, her eyes crossed in puzzlement as she reached out to stroke my arm. “Are you all right?”

“I-I can’t—”

I could no longer hear her voice. In fact, I didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t see anything, never felt anything.

“OH GOD, NO.
What happened now?” I looked around to find myself in Afihsa’s examination room.

“You fainted.” she said, smiling.

“And?” I asked, annoyed that she seemed to know something that I didn’t.

She drew the curtains back and waved a thin white stick in the air. “Are you strong enough to stand up, Anna? I need you to pee on this stick,” she said.

“You’re crazy,” I barked. “I’m not peeing on a stick. I didn’t have lunch and my blood sugar probably went crazy.”

She turned around and wheeled an ultrasound machine next to my bed. “Then we’re just going to have to find out this way,” she said calmly.

Afihsa’s goofy grin remained pasted on her face. She continued on by lifting up my blouse, inch by inch, careful not to upset me.

“Wait! Stop! I’m not doing this. Stop!” I yelled, holding her hand down tightly against my belly.

“Anna, when was the last time you had your period?”

“I’m not answering you,” I said defensively. “I’m fine now. Just have them get me some food. Besides, I used to be on Ortho Novum. I only stopped when Dante and I—” I paused to glare at her. If I had any ounce of energy left in me, I would have smacked that grin right off her face.

“When, Anna?” she asked again.

“November, but… I’ve been under a lot of stress.”

She inched my blouse up again and this time I let her. There was no stopping this foolishness until I proved her wrong. She squirted the warm jelly on my stomach and pressed the round end of the sonar probe on my skin.

“Yup, just as I suspected. Listen!” she ordered while punching some information into the ultrasound machine.

The sound of bubbles, steady gurgling, pulsating beats among a swishing sound of water overpowered the silence of the room.

I was too shocked to say a word. My eyes were fixed on the screen.

“Oh wait. Listen,” Afihsa said as she slid the sonar to the opposite end of my belly. “Another one. Two heartbeats!”

She wasn’t going to hear a single peep out of me. I was too busy staring at the ceiling, counting the days between Dante and Jude in my head. “And by the looks of this,” Afihsa continued, “I would say that you are… let’s see,” she moved the probe around some more, “you are eight weeks pregnant. This baby—I mean these babies, were conceived around Christmas.”

December 26th. That was when I had barged into his apartment and ended up in his bed.

“That’s impossible!” I shrieked. “I’ve been on the pill!”

“Shit happens, Anna,” Afihsa said indifferently. “And this is good shit, not bad shit. You’re pregnant with twins.”

I was caught up in distress over what was right in front of me. Instead of mourning the loss of my love, there we were, graciously celebrating another man’s child, another man’s victory. Gradually I began to piece together the events of the past few days. Something for something. God was preparing me for a life without Dante. Like a father giving his daughter away on her wedding day.

And then I thought of Jude. I felt the pain of missing him in my bones. What an excellent father he would have been.

“Thank you,” was all I could say.

Afihsa quickly changed the subject. “Dr. Malcolm’s office is on the second floor. I suggest you still go and see him so you can get formally tested and assessed. He can also give you your exact due date. Congratulations!” She pushed the ultrasound machine back and took a seat on the bed next to me. “This is your reason to fight. Fight to go on, Anna. A new life is waiting. And no matter what happens from this day forward, don’t ever, ever lose faith.”

IT WAS LATE
into the night by the time I received a text from Afihsa that the coast was clear.

Come on over,
she had said
. Use your keycard to enter the room. His family left about an hour ago.

It took me two hours to gather up the courage to drive back to the hospital. Seeing him would put an end to the years we had together, to the time that he stayed in my life. I wasn’t ready for the finality of it all. There were pockets in my mind that still fooled me into thinking that this was all a mistake. A dream. That in a few hours, he would saunter back into the apartment, laugh at me and then take me in his arms and assure me that this was all just a big joke. A test.

I’m back now,
I would tell him
. You never know what you have until you’ve lost it. I know now, I would say. I don’t ever want to be away from you. Don’t do this to me again.

I held the keycard tightly in my hand as I stepped out of the elevator and stumbled along the whitewashed corridor, using all my strength to stay the course, to keep walking towards my destination. This wasn’t the basement, the morgue. I knew that special arrangements must have been made to keep him in a room for the day. The Leolas were benefactors of this hospital, and this was no doubt one of the special favors that were called in for this circumstance. I was a prisoner on death row walking towards my fate. Walking in to confirm my fate. For it had been decided for me less than one week ago.

Seconds later, I stood outside the door of room 7221, awash with unspeakable fear and unimaginable sadness. How did I want to remember him? Do I want to linger in my last memory of him? The day I saw him in his office, before he left for Germany? Didn’t we say goodbye then?

“Anna, what are you doing here?” he’d asked, his eyes lighting up as he saw me sitting on the chair opposite his desk. He had rushed in after cutting short a meeting once his secretary told him I was waiting.

Everything in that office was Dante personified. The leather desk with its matching accessories, couches and end tables and the tall, seamless windows overlooking the Hudson River. He wore a grey suit with a light blue button down shirt and a rose colored tie. He looked powerful, invincible, not anything like the broken man in my bed the night before. Snippets of his successful career adorned the brick walls that surrounded us. Certificates, awards, life-sized paintings of New York graffiti art in graphic colors and shapes, golf clubs, an Artus turntable worth hundreds of thousands of dollars surrounded by vinyl records from every era. He took a seat and leaned back on his chair. We were interrupted by the clicking of high heels and a forced clearing of the throat.