Lost In Rewind (Audio Fools #3) (2 page)

“
Who Wants To Live Forever
” by Queen

M
y eyes sting as the fresh New York City air assaults my face. The change in scenery clears my head, causing the actuality of the last two days to marginally evaporate, but it won’t last; I can’t escape my life. I cross the street in a calm state of panic while the sound of strangers going on with their lives, even as mine continues to fall apart, hits my ears and mocks me. I move farther and farther away from my house. I walk without turning around, requiring a physical distance from the truth, as if such a thing could ever be achieved. I walk faster, I run, to get away from the place I’ve once called home and pretend this never happened.

Everything will be okay. Everything will be fine.

I unlock my car and shuffle in like a burglar running away from the scene of the crime. I put the car into drive. All I need to do is press my foot on the gas and I’ll be gone—my troubles will be forgotten. Just move my damn foot from the brake and compress the gas pedal, but I’m frozen, motionless, and unresponsive to simple brain commands.
I’m Lost.
How did I get here? How in the world did I get here?

I close my eyes and take a deep breath as my whole life flashes before my eyes—Jacqueline, how we first met, and how we fell in love. I then see Sara, on the dance floor, in her room, and in the back of that taxi crying. I remember holding my kids for the first time, their sweet little faces—they’re my whole world.
Where am I going?
I’ve caused a sea of pain because I loved two women.
Enough!
I need to grow up and be the man I promised Jacqueline I’d be.

I open the glove compartment and retrieve the letter my wife wrote me. The letter she handed me on the night she died in my arms. She made me promise to only open it after she was gone. It’s the letter I read at least a hundred times as I held her lifeless body in my arms until I couldn’t pretend she would ever open her eyes again and look at me as if nothing bad could ever happen to us.

I replay that unbearable morning, three days ago, when I came into our bedroom after speaking to her doctor for the millionth time. I’m not an ignorant fool, I knew she wasn’t doing well for months, but the doctor verbalized all my greatest fears. He informed me that Jacky has been refusing treatment and that she has vowed to be finished with chemo, doctors, and hospitals for as long as she has left to live.

“Jacky, are you up? We need to talk for a bit?”
I’d said while I climbed into bed next to her. She had her eyes closed and I just lay there, letting her rest while I watched the frail, weak version of my wife for a few minutes. She looked thin, small, almost child-like, not like the sexy, curvy girl I used to lust over in college.

I tried to stay strong and keep my eyes focused and clear for as long as I could to delay the inevitable fear she would see in them.
“Jacky, my love, can you open your eyes?”
I whispered into her ear. She finally acknowledged my presence and turned toward me, arranging herself at my side. We always fit so well together.

“Are the kids dressed for school? Why are you not dressed for work?”

I was still in my pajama bottoms as she questioned me in a hushed tone, realizing how late in the morning it was. There was nowhere I needed to be other than right there, loving her.

“I’m not going to work this week,”
I declared with a fake, forced smile.
“You don’t need to pretend with me. Your doctor said we have to start chemo again. Don’t even think of arguing!”
I took hold of her face, wishing things were different.
“I’ve made arrangements, and I’ll be in the hospital with you. We’ll do it together like we did before. But, Jacky, you can’t stay home and refuse treatment. We need you to get better, baby,”
I stated calmly as I ran my fingers down her bony cheek. I tried to mask the horror etched in my heart ever since I had that conversation with Doctor Stein the night before. We both knew she would never get better … she was dying.

“Can I ask you for something?”
Her lips trembled as the words left her mouth.

“Anything, I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”

She had closed her eyes and smiled—I wished I could’ve made her smile more often. She slowly reached over to her nightstand and pulled out an envelope from the drawer with my full name handwritten on the front. She handed me the envelope, which I’d accepted, and then placed her fingers over my lips to silence me while she spoke.

“I want you to hold me today, all day. No talking, no crying, I just want to be in your arms for the rest of my life. Promise you’ll only read this letter when I’m gone.”

I’d shaken my head and tried to protest, but she pressed her weak fingers to my lips to stop me.

“
Can you promise me that?”

“I promise, my love.”

I’m in my fucking car, crying and having an emotional breakdown like a lunatic. I open the letter and read it again, reminding myself that she always knew exactly who I was all along.

To The Man I Owe My Life To,

Please don’t be sad that I’m gone, I don’t feel the pain anymore. I want you to know that I’m actually ready for what should’ve been my doomed fate to finally catch up to me. I will never pretend to understand why the universe allowed me to stay here with you and survive for as long as I have, but I did. I survived, and I lived. We thought we would only get a year together but we got over fourteen, and only now I feel as if the final countdown has at last begun.

I should’ve been smarter and not dragged you down to hell with me. I clearly recall refusing your ring at first because I didn’t want you to endure this—me, cancer, hospitals, chemo, death. But you didn’t care, you said you loved me and would make me happy. You promised to be by my side every day for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t going to get a better offer than that. I was selfish. I married you even though I knew somewhere in the back of my delusional dying mind that you were and always will be involved with another woman, but I was desperate, defeated and dying, so I chose to pretend. We both did. Thank you for being my selfish escape.

I promise you I always knew who lived in your heart. I’ve watched you quietly love someone else for over seventeen years, and yet, I pretended it would go away just like my cancer. If you only allow it, your head can make you believe lies until they stop being lies and start feeling like the truth. I allowed myself to be fooled because when you were with me, she disappeared, and I pretended you only loved me. When you looked at me, it was different than the look you wore when I knew you were daydreaming about her. I pretended she wasn’t real, just an intangible fantasy for you while I was your tangible home. But I always knew you were never really mine.

I should’ve stepped aside and left you alone or made you leave me and go to her. I tried to send you away; I gave you the freedom to go to her often, but I just wasn’t convincing enough … because the truth was I couldn’t let you go. I thought that I would unburden you years ago and you could finally stop choosing me. I don’t understand why you chose me and not her for so many years. I know you never got over her, you never moved on, or un-loved her. I think that the years you’ve been apart only made you love her that much more. I don’t know why you stayed with me for this long, but I need for you to believe I don’t feel cheated on; I understand the choices you’ve made and don’t ever think for one second that I didn’t feel loved. Thank you for never abandoning me and helping me fight every step of the way.

I may be sick, but I’m not bitter, I swear. I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world for being granted time to see those perfect little humans grow up for the past seven years. When they get older, I hope they won’t hate me for being the reason their real mother and father were kept apart for all these years.

You were, and still are, the most magnificent thing I’ve ever known, and the only man to make me feel alive with just a smile. Nothing about you is ordinary; those distinctive dual-colored eyes staring back at me is what I’ll see in my mind as I take my last breath. Most people live a whole lifetime without feeling what I’ve felt in my short life because of you. Don’t let anyone make you feel like a bad guy, they don’t know. Only I know. I understand why you had to be two different people—my Jeff and her Jeffery—in order to survive the nightmare I pulled you into. I was always relieved knowing that you had her as an escape to alleviate the hell we had to live through. It may sound silly but I know you loved us both, and no matter how far away, who she’s with, or how much time goes by, you will never recover from Sara Klein, and if I wanted to be Jacqueline Rossi, I needed to be okay with that. And I was. I never imagined I’d stand in your way of loving her openly for as many years as we’ve been together, because in my wildest dreams, I didn’t imagine I’d survive this long. One year turned into two years and then five and ten. Maybe if I were on my own, I’d have died years ago. I ask myself every day: why am I still here? How did I get so lucky to have him love me and never leave? I sometimes suppose that the only reason I stayed alive and beat cancer for so long was because I was never alone and you were always by my side. Thank you for being my reason to live and the drug that kept me alive.

I couldn’t ask for a person to love me more and care and support me through this horrific ordeal as much as you have. And as I lay here spending the last days on this earth, I can’t even wish that you only loved me. Once I’m gone and I leave you, our children, my parents, and all our friends … it gives me solace to know that you and our babies will have someone like her to pick up the broken pieces I’ve left behind. And that has always been the reason I never asked you to stop loving her, never gave you an ultimatum, because I knew this day would eventually come and I didn’t want you to choose me and burn the shaky bridge you two have built. I know how much you love me, and that if I asked, you would end all ties with her and choose me, because you would never hurt your best friend. You would suffer and endure not being with her, like you do now. If I only said the word, I know you would do that for me. But I guess I love you too much to make you suffer more than you already have.

I remember us in law school—you and I were only supposed to be secret lovers; that was my plan. I was okay with being your best friend, your behind-the-scenes lover, and her fill-in. I came to terms with being jealous of Sara, the imaginary, unattainable schoolgirl from New York. It was a given that you two would end up together once school ended. I will never forget that mute fortuneteller who sat upstairs at that bar we all used to go to after our exams. You went upstairs to the bathroom and after twenty minutes, I came to see what was taking you so long. You were sitting behind the curtain talking to that old woman—the fortuneteller. You didn’t know I was there, but I’ve always been there. I heard what that old woman told you and I saw your face. She was right, wasn’t she? Her prophecy of you and Sara will finally come true once I’m gone. You’ve worn the key she gave you around your neck for far too long—it’s time for your life to begin, Jeff.

I wish stupidly we could make love one last time. It’s been years since I felt you like I did when we were young. I wish it didn’t hurt to breathe knowing I may not see you again. I’m scared and I don’t want to leave you and the babies, but I can’t keep suffering like this. God needs to finally let me and all the people around me have some long awaited peace. Jeff, please don’t feel sorry for the hand I was dealt in life, don’t cry for what could’ve or should’ve been. I want you to smile and remember all the beautiful stolen years I’ve had with you, how I cheated death, and for a moment in time, I had a family of my own. Please tell our kids what they meant to me and that I loved them and refused to die because of them. And I want you to know that I always knew who their real mother was. I took you away from her, but I made sure to give her a part of you I could never have. I wanted our children to come from love and not just a test tube. I don’t blame her for loving you. I hold no resentment toward Sara; I owe her my family. I thank both of you for allowing me to be Juliet and Jacob’s mother for a blink of an eye.

This is the end of my battle and our story. You’re about to inherit a new kind of freedom, and you’re about to begin a new kind of struggle. You’ll need to go to war and try and bring back your rightful wife, the one whose name you have carved in your heart and etched on your skin. The girl you’ve patiently waited for. The woman that fate withheld from you for all these years.

Godspeed, my love. Please forgive me for all the pain I brought into your world. I pray for the music in your life to finally begin.

With all my love,

Jacqueline Rossi

I fold back the letter I know by heart and retrieve a key from inside the envelope. I remove the leather cord from around my neck and add this key to the one already hanging from it. The new bright key shines with unexploited pristine. It makes the old one I’ve worn around my neck for fourteen years look tainted and abused. I can still feel my beautiful wife in my arms, and I let the memory of her soothe the war inside.
She always knew; she always knew everything.
I open my eyes, and my vision is blurred, but gradually, everything becomes crystal clear. I need to go after my prophecy and find the girl who is my destiny.