Losing Julia (54 page)

DANIEL?

WE SPENT
three hours standing before various paintings and statues and reading from Margaret’s guidebook, but all I could see was Julia with her green eyes filled with tears as she fled from the Louvre.

After we were done Charlotte and Margaret wanted to stop for a drink but I told them I’d meet them back at the hotel. Once I got around the corner I ran all the way to Julia’s hotel but she had already checked out. The concierge said she left in a hurry.

Two days later we sailed for New York.

I could hardly breathe.

IS THAT YOU,
Daniel?

Yes, it’s me. How are you, Patrick?

But it can’t be you. Shit, I’m so confused.

Did you tell Julia?

Tell her what? That you… that you died? Daniel, I couldn’t find her. Not until I saw her at the memorial.

She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Patrick?

Oh God, yes. And you have a daughter.

A girl?

Robin. I’m so sorry, Daniel. You should have lived, not—

That wasn’t for us to decide.

But I’ve made such a mess of things.

You love Julia, don’t you?

Yes, yes I do, Daniel. But I didn’t mean to—

My dear Julia.

She misses you so. If you could have seen her. The look in her eyes. She was just like you described, only sadder.

But you lost her too?

Yes, I lost her too.

I WAITED
ten months to get a letter from Julia. The envelope was postmarked New York but there was no return address. The letter itself was short and formal; I assumed she feared it might fall into Charlotte’s hands. It read:

Dear Patrick:
Perhaps you’ll remember me: I’m the woman you met briefly at the dedication to the memorial. You were a close friend of Daniel’s, the father of my child. Anyway, I thought you should know that I’m engaged to marry. He’s a wonderful man and I’m sure he’ll make a good father to my daughter Robin.
I hope this letter finds you and your family in the best of health and thank you again for all your kindness.
Sincerely yours,
Julia

Married.

I stood by our mailbox at the end of our walkway, steadying myself.

Married.

I folded the letter, placed it back in the envelope and put it in my pocket.

Married.

I began walking down the sidewalk, away from our house. I could hear Sean’s laughter in the backyard, then Charlotte calling for him.

Married.

I said the word out loud.

Married.

So that was it, the end of any hope. And so quickly. Not even a return address. No way to reply.

I carried the letter around with me for several days, studying the words and handwriting for something more, then burned it in the fireplace.

Married.

She’d found somebody. Somebody she could talk to. Someone who understood her. Someone like Daniel.

I was devastated.

A YEAR LATER
Kelly was born. I guess I’d resigned myself to make the most of what I had; what Charlotte and I had. I also needed another person to love and to hold. Each day as I came home from work I couldn’t wait to see Kelly and Sean and hug them and roll on the carpet with them, and as I walked down the sidewalk toward our house I’d promise myself to draw closer to Charlotte, to concentrate on the things that we did have and not on the things that we didn’t.

Sometimes at night I would stand in the children’s bedrooms and watch them sleep and wonder if I could ever have left them for Julia and the answer was always no, I couldn’t have. At least not until they were much older. Then I would look at Charlotte while she slept and I would wonder if I could ever stop thinking about all the parts that were missing—the things I’d felt with Julia—and I knew that the answer to that was no as well.

I’m not sure if there is an exact moment when you realize that you married the wrong person or whether the realization just creeps up on you, stalking you occasionally at first and then relentlessly until you can no longer deny that there is a feeling even more lonely than being all alone. But once the feeling starts, it grows like ivy over every thought and gesture. I don’t think Charlotte ever figured out what happened. She just withdrew and grew angry and eventually made her own plans. I don’t know how long I would have lasted if she hadn’t asked for a divorce when Kelly was two. She had found a wealthy real estate agent named Amie with shiny blond hair and a large empty house in Florida. When I asked her for the children she burst into tears and screamed and told me she would fight. So I stayed up all night thinking and crying and drinking and in the morning I told her they belonged with their mother.

I visited Sean and Kelly three times a week up until the day they moved to Fort Lauderdale. I promised Charlotte I’d sell the house for her and after they drove off I sat on the barren living room floor crying as I searched the empty walls for all the laughter and tears and birthdays and Thanksgivings and Christmases.

Before I left I went upstairs, stopping first in our bedroom, which still smelled of Charlotte. I closed my eyes and inhaled, picturing her before the mirror in the bathroom. Then suddenly I laughed through my tears. Charlotte never did smell right. Even just out of the bath her skin and hair smelled all wrong, at least to me. It didn’t matter what perfume she wore, her own smell always came though. It always does. I think if the smell of a person is wrong, if the pheromones aren’t right, you can just about forget the rest of the relationship and save a lot of grief.

I walked down the hallway to the children’s bedrooms and stood in each one studying the crayon marks and the stickers on the walls and the stray pieces of Lincoln Logs and little blocks still littering the closet floors. When grief overwhelmed me I hurried out and drove for three hours before returning to the small one-bedroom apartment I had rented. Six weeks later I sold the house and sent Charlotte the money. Then I quit my job at the accounting firm—business was so bad then that there wasn’t enough work for me anyway—and took six months off to drive across the Depression-wracked country, wondering what to do with the rest of my life.

If I drank too much, which was seldom then, I would question whether Julia had ever really existed at all, or whether she had just risen from the mist temporarily like the Angel at Mons; a vision confined to soldiers in need. That’s when I started writing letters to her, unsent letters that I wrote in my journal telling her all the things I wanted to say but couldn’t. Writing page after page late into the night was the closest I could come to her, though it wasn’t very close at all, especially after I turned out the light.

DEAR JULIA,
What do I say to you tonight, another night when I wonder where you are and if you really are happy and if you ever still think about our days together in France. I quit my job, Julia, did I tell you that? You’d be proud of me, I think. I’ve got a job starting in the fall teaching history at a small high school in Vermont. Remember how Daniel used to say there were only three noble pursuits in life? Well, you know I’m no artist and I don’t feel strong enough for charity work right now so I’ve gone into teaching. You’d be pleased, wouldn’t you? And did I tell you that I’ll be able to take Sean and Kelly for the summer now? They hate the heat in Florida and I’ll have a small cottage right near campus with plenty for them to do. I do miss them so and I often wonder how your family is and whether Robin now has a brother or sister.
Please take care of yourself.
Good night, Julia.

WHAT A CRISP,
clear memory today! July 1955, and I was just about to start teaching a class on European history when a headline in the newspaper on my desk caught my eye. A tremendous underground explosion in Belgium near Messines: one of two massive mines that never detonated on June 7, 1917, when British tunnelers mined the German lines, killing ten thousand outright. One more mine remains. Waiting.

Did Julia hear about it? She would have thought of me. She must have. The class stared at me, waiting. I spent the hour talking about the mines at Messines.