Moondance (5 page)

The visions frightened him. Whatever was inside of him was beginning to have a life of its own.

Something clearly wanted out.

He could see the red, white and blue prescription bag on the seat beside him in his peripheral vision.

“The antidepressants will stimulate your dreams,” Dr. Reynolds said. “After you start, if you do remember a dream, even a fragment, write it down and we can discuss it next time.”

Write it down. Sure thing
. After that session, he wasn’t sure that there was going to be a next time.

He pulled past a bright orange tractor with its hazard lights on and adjusted his sun visor to block the late afternoon sun. The only thing keeping him sane was that in few weeks, he would start his MBA at the Rotman School of Management. The course would be intense, he’d be meeting new people, and the work would ground him. When he moved out, he’d need that.

He turned, one intersection closer to the inevitable, the startled-looking russet haired woman fading from his memory. The white bag beside him beckoned.
The first one’s free
. His mind flickered.

As he drove, a grey heaviness settled behind his eyes and he wished he could pull over and sleep. Instead, he thought about life without Lara, and for a second imagined what it would be like to unleash what was mounting in his head and in his heart.

He drove, turning the feeling around, viewing it from all angles, like a collectible that he wasn’t sure he wanted to buy.

chapter 5

ALTHEA TURNED INTO HER driveway, exhausted, almost rear-ending a car that was blocking her entrance. A friend of the other tenants. She swore, and drove around the block until she found a place to park on the street.

Getting home had been a nightmare. The garage the Lexus guy had described as a mile down the road apparently did such good business, it was closed for three weeks for holidays. Numb, her feet blistered and her head aching, she stumbled to the next station a few miles further on. It was open. The mechanic had gone home, but she was able to call roadside assistance. Ninety minutes later, she was heading home.

She sat in her parked car, her eyes blank. The adrenaline that for the past hours had kept her from running her car off the road was subsiding. As she opened the car door, a biker cycled past, startling her. The letter to Kevin that had been in her back pocket fell out on the pavement. She ripped it into pieces. Each step she took toward their apartment brought her grief closer to the surface, unrefined and raw. An aching heaviness settled in her throat and chest.

Her voice mail message light was flashing. A call from Kingston. She picked up the message, her hand shaking, holding the handset away from her ear as she pushed the keys to delete it. She unplugged the phone. She was awake and exhausted, and moving mindlessly, not unlike how she felt when she had to meet a late-night deadline. She wanted to sleep, to forget, but couldn’t. She wanted to do anything but feel what threatened to break through. As long as she kept moving, she could hang on. She took a shower, cooling the water gradually until the cold forced her awake. She put bandages on her blistered feet and covered them with thick, clean socks and her most comfortable running shoes. She looked in her fridge, staring. The phone rang, then stopped. Her cell phone on the counter rang. She had to get out of the apartment. Now.

“Milk, coffee, aspirin,” she said, as she locked the door behind her. Her chest ached, a solid mass of pain. Her feet felt like clubs. She fought the tears.
Not yet
.

She barely noticed the sky as she crossed the quiet street. It was the dusk of late summer. The streetlights had just come on and the houses around her were receding into grey. It started to rain, gentle at first, then harder. She made no attempt to cover herself.

She was across from a 24-hour grocery store. The light turned red and she stopped. Her cotton t-shirt was now soaked to the skin and her hair dripped. A group of teenagers waited impatiently on the other side of the street, huddling under a storefront, darting out into the rain, then stepping back. A tall figure with a long coat stepped past them into the street. She squinted into the rain. The figure moved gracefully, like a dancer, and when she felt him coming close, she moved to get out of his way. He stopped a few feet away. She could feel him staring. Her eyes darted toward him, looking for an indication of what he wanted from her — directions? Change?

She caught a glimpse of his eyes, which were impossibly green and almond shaped. A flash of fair skin. Shoulder length dark wavy hair.
Something not quite right
.

Their eyes locked. She couldn’t move and he smiled at her, silent. A hot flush moved up her face despite the cool air. She didn’t know him. Was he with those kids? She looked up. The light was still red and the kids were hopping as they hid from the rain, hands deep in the pockets of their baggy jeans.

He extended his hand to her. She turned away, walking fast, stepping off the curb as the light turned green, her heart beating quickly. She crossed the street and turned toward the grocery store, glancing behind her. He was still there, standing still under the dim streetlight with his arm raised toward her in a still wave. Anxiety tickled her belly as her city instincts kicked in. She entered the store.

What was it about him?

“Your change, ma’am. Have a nice day.”

Her heart felt tight. She stuffed her change into her damp jeans pocket.
Kevin’s arm’s moving under Tori’s shirt, his lips on her breasts
. Pain crept toward the surface.

She felt the anger, pushed away everything else. Maybe if the man was still there, he’d come home with her tonight, help her forget. Her heart turned cold. She felt sexually aroused, reckless, on the edge.

“Don’t forget your bags.”

She looked back at the cashier blankly and picked up her groceries. She emerged from the store, her chest tight with anticipation. She scanned the sidewalks, slick and wet, dotted with circular flashes of falling drops.

He had disappeared.

Her desire dissipated into irrational disappointment. She wished he had waited for her. She wanted him to help her forget.

I’m here to help you remember
.

The thought came from nowhere.
Something not quite right
. He had been
standing in the teaming rain, and his hair was completely dry — just past his shoulders, dark, wavy, and completely dry. She was sure of it.

She walked back to her apartment without getting lost, except in the caverns of her mind. First, she was held captive by a thread of memory
green
that clutched at her heart, her anxiety, her arousal and
dry hair in a rainstorm
.

By the time she turned onto her street, the grief and exhaustion flowing into her body, she had analyzed it, questioned it, rejected it, and finally, transformed the encounter into pure imagination.

She entered her apartment. Kevin was waiting for her in the darkness.

chapter 6

AFTER HE LEFT THE red-headed woman by the side of the road, Michael’s afternoon didn’t turn out the way he imagined.

It turned out worse.

Five minutes from his in-laws, his cell phone rang, and he knew it was Lara. He ignored it. She had been at her parents place since last night, and had already called him four times without leaving messages. He looked at his watch. He was running about forty-five minutes late. Talking to her wouldn’t get him there faster.

Time awareness was one of those details in life that slipped by him now. Decisions, no matter how small, had become complex. It was becoming more difficult to sleep, but when he did sleep, he
slept deeply, time passing in an instant, waking early, his memory wiped clean.

He pulled into his in-laws’ winding lane, which was lined with a thick nest of pines and spruce. He and Lara had chosen their Christmas trees here. The small pond on his left shimmered as the wind passed over it.

He had already recorded each detail of his in-laws’ property like an archivist, knowing that after today, it was unlikely he would see this place again. He was too tired to care. He parked the car in a place reserved for guests and sat quietly, the dread welling up through the fatigue, tugging at his limbs. He stared at the white bag beside him. Impulsively, he ripped open the bag, opened the container and swallowed a tablet dry.
No better place than here. No better time than now
.

He walked to the front of the house, and rang the bell. Though he had known the Bradshaws for over ten years, he’d never walked into their home unannounced. He heard two quick footsteps on the other side of the door, and was surprised when Lara opened it, even more surprised when she put her hand on his chest, and pushed him back outside.

“Come with me, okay? I want to talk.”

She took his hand and led him past the drive and toward a gazebo overlooking the pond. At first, he thought she was angry with him.
I’m not that late. Even if I am, then what are you going to do, leave me?
Her usually calm face was strained. She sat down on a bench inside the gazebo. One shriveled yellow balloon bobbed in the wind, remnants of their last birthday gathering. A white wooden rowboat was docked just a few feet away. The Bradshaws weren’t boaters. Michael had brought the boat from his childhood cottage.

Lara was talking. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the shriveled balloon. She stopped talking. Michael looked at her and her pale blue eyes searched for his acknowledgement.

“I said I don’t want to talk to my parents today,” she said. “There’s a reason. I’ve told them I’m not feeling well, so we can leave now and talk on the way home.”

He didn’t understand, but he did what he always did: he went along with her, in part because he was too tired to fight. Mostly, because his wife looked more distraught, more fragile than he had ever seen her and that frightened him.

• • •

AFTER SOME AWKWARD GOODBYES, Michael and Lara were on the road heading home. The sun was sinking into red.

“Thanks,” Lara said. Her voice was small and childlike. Michael,
usually so talkative, said nothing. He had never seen her this way before.
She was the strong one, cool, calm and refined in any situation. This Lara was foreign to him. Part of him wanted the old Lara back, the strong Lara, even the Lara who was leaving him. Instead, her breaths were labored sighs, and she ritually clutched and un-clutched a tissue in her shaking hands.

“Talk to me.” His voice was soft. She had always been strong, yet he was the one that initiated the emotional discussions. He usually had a sixth sense about how she was feeling.

“This is going to be hard, Michael. Really hard.”

A chill passed over him. “Okay,” he lied.

“I’m pregnant. Two months. The child may not be yours.”

He did his best to stay calm, though he felt like he had been pushed spinning into viscous, black water.
So this is how it ends?
Their entire relationship, more than ten years, all leading up to this moment.

“But I don’t want to raise the child with Jack. I want to raise her with you.”

Jack
. The name came at him from the depths, floating there, then rising just out of reach. Her words seemed far away, and came out in a disjointed stream.
Jack
.

“First, I didn’t want to tell anyone and I decided to terminate. Then, when I made the appointment, I just couldn’t, and then I thought I’d have her on my own, without anyone, Jack already has grown kids, he wouldn’t want to have another anyway, and then I didn’t want him to ... not that way ... and you, we always talked about it someday, but I didn’t know whether I could even ask you, had the right to ... it’s so fucked up.”

That much out, she cried, a soft moaning sound.

Jack
.

Michael assumed she meant Jack Kincaid, president of the investment bank where Lara worked: tall, slightly balding, white blond, Nordic,
a brilliant academic, with what Michael and Lara used to call the salesman’s twinkle. The twinkle that could charm you one minute, and stab you in the back the next.

Kincaid inside Lara
.

Michael was swimming backward in rushing water, drowning. He stifled the urge to pull over, grab the bottle of antidepressants and down them all.
What happens when you OD on Prozac? You die. But you’re really okay with that
.

Lara was still talking and she sounded far away. Her words blended together, took on a pleading tone. He knew his silence must be unnerving to her, so uncharacteristic of him. The longer he was silent, the more rapidly she spoke. Her voice tuned in and out.

“... then I was thinking that maybe if we chose to have this child, raise her together, you could put the MBA on hold until we adjusted, just for a year.”

Put the MBA on hold. The one thing that he thought might help him get back on track.

“Please talk to me. Say something, Michael, anything.”

“I don’t —” he said.
Know what I want,
what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, whether I’ll be able to keep driving
.