Remember Our Song (14 page)

I wiped at my eyes again and then yanked on the steering wheel when I discovered I’d been wandering into the next lane.  I was so tired, but the adrenaline had not eased off in the slightest, I felt like I could keep going forever if I had to, tired or not.

How could I have thought of him as just a rich and powerful man?  He was both of those things, but so much more.  His money enabled him to do those grand gestures like building me my own recording studio, but he knew his money didn’t mean anything to me.

It was those little things like the time I had hopped into bed with the world’s coldest feet and he had let me warm them up on his legs with only minor protests, it was how he always knew how to make me laugh and turn the crappiest days into the best ones.  He never treated me like he was royalty and I was a commoner, he’d made me his confidante, and he was mine.

The memory of his cologne passed through my mind, I could have almost sworn I could actually smell it.  It was hard to believe that after everything that had happened, it was that smell that had brought down the wall blocking off my memories.  The cologne I had bought him for his birthday. 

His birthday.  When was his birthday, anyway?  I thought hard for a moment and then pulled over to the side of the road, unable to hold myself back from hunching over with my head resting on the steering wheel, sobbing uncontrollably.  Jeremy’s birthday was the day after mine.

The year before last I had bought him that little bottle of Clive Christian 1872, and presented it to him over a candle lit dinner that I had made all by myself.  He’d smiled when he opened the present and told me he loved it.  Then we’d sat in front of the fireplace, our first fire of the season, and talked until after midnight over a few glasses of wine and some bourbon and cokes.

Last year for his birthday I had packed up my stuff, left town without telling him, sent him a letter saying I didn’t want any contact and that we had to move on with our lives and then not talked to him for months.  I couldn’t take it back, and that thought left me gripping the steering wheel, staring down at the floor for several more minutes while the sobs shook my body.

Eventually I looked up at the road ahead and got on the move once more.  I couldn’t take it back, but I could fix it.  I could fix everything.  I drove for hours and hours until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and pulled into a gas station.  It was still dark and the gas station was closed, I told myself I’d just wind the seat back and rest my eyes while I waited for sunrise.

Chapter 14

I woke from a nightmare with a gasp, dripping in sweat.  The sun was streaming in through the windows, already well clear of the horizon, heating up my car like a greenhouse.  Cars were parked on either side of mine and the gas station was in full swing.

Lurching out of the door I sucked in the cool morning air
with a parched groan and felt a welcome breeze on my skin.  My head was pounding like I had a hangover and I felt kind of dizzy when I stood.  I needed gas, but I needed to top myself up first.

Squinting against the bright light of the sun, I made my way to the gas station and went inside, heading straight for the refrigerated drinks.  I winced slightly after rubbing at my bleary sleep-eyes, they were still tender from all the crying and wiping the previous night.

I grabbed three energy drinks and then looked across their few shelves for something a bit more on the solid side of things.  All meals would be taken on the road today, and I was happy to stumble across some aspirin.  The man behind the counter eyed me suspiciously as I brought everything up.

“Any gas?”

“Uh… yes.  I haven’t filled up yet though.”

“You the lady was sleeping in the car?”

“Yeah, uh… I…”

“This ain’t no
trailer park, lady.”

“Oh… yeah, of course, sorry.”

“You been doing the drugs?”

“No.”

He didn’t look like he believed me but his expression eased when, at the very least, my card wasn’t declined.  I gathered my things and went back to my car, taking a huge gulp of my bright blue ‘electrolyte-loaded’ drink before rolling the half-empty but still chilled bottle across my forehead and popping a couple of pills.

I filled my tank up and went back in to pay, enduring another
scrutinizing scan from the attendant, before going back to my car and double checking my phone.  No call, no message, no nothing from Jeremy.  I tried his phone again and once more it went straight through to voicemail so, with a growl of exasperation, I set the phone down in the center console where I would hear it if it went off and pointed the car to the south once more.

I drove all day, pushing the car and the law as far as I dared, but I still didn’t make it before I was practically delirious with lack of sleep.  Waiting at the airport back in Seattle was beginning to look like a much better option when I saw that I was entering Stockton and decided I had to stop for a while.

Learning from my mistake of the car-sleep, I booked in at the same motel I had on the way north the previous year, and by coincidence even got the same room and the same lackluster shower.  I was asleep in record time, possibly a few microseconds before my head actually made contact with the pillow, but my dreams were haunted by that same sense of impending doom that had struck me back in Seattle when my memories started coming back.

I spent the entire night running from something I couldn’t see, just
knowing
it was right behind me, and woke up with a gasp when it was still dark outside but the eastern sky was beginning to turn to a lighter shade of blue.  I jumped out of bed and got dressed in a hurry, the thoughts of being chased by my nightmares quickly being replaced by thoughts of chasing my dreams.

Today was the day.  Today I was going to save our future.  I was probably going to arrive at Jeremy’s house,
our
house until the one by Lake Oroitz was finished, sometime in the early afternoon and the daydreams of running into his arms were so vivid they almost felt real.  I could see the surprise and relief on his face, feel the warmth of his body.  I was home.

My phone still showed no sign that that Jeremy had received my messages but I tried to call him again, with no change in the results.  I left him another voicemail message saying I’d be there today, to wait for me, as I left my room and went to the reception, which was closed.  There was a little slot for returning keys and I threw them down in a rush before heading back to my car.

The engine took a couple minutes grinding away as if saying ‘Again?  Go back to sleep!’ before finally catching and reluctantly spluttering to life.  Even in the dim light of the yet-to-rise sun and the poorly lit car park I could see smoke billowing out the back and had to hope the car would get me through just one more day.

With great mechanical protests it took me out on to the road and I began the final leg of my trip home.  Once warmed up, the car ran much more smoothly and I stopped worrying about it, concentrating on what I would do, what I would say to Jeremy when I saw him.

I bounced back and forth between joy and terror for a couple of hours before stopping for more gas and energy drinks.  My stomach gave a painful rumble while I downed another bottle on the road, whether from lack of proper food, stress or a combination of the two I had no idea, and I didn’t give a damn.

I was just passing the turnoff that would take me to Lake Oroitz when a painful thought entered my head.  What if I arrived at Jeremy’s house and… there was another woman there?  I covered my mouth with one hand and forced myself to keep driving.  What if I’d pushed him so far away that he couldn’t come back?  What if somebody else had picked up his heart where I’d dropped it?

No.  There was no way.  No way in hell… but if there was then what?  It didn’t bear thinking about, but the possibility nagged at me as I rolled closer and closer to my final destination.  How could I go on, knowing what I’d lost?

It was just after twelve o’clock when I pulled up in Jeremy’s driveway in front of his gates.  The security guard eyed my beaten up piece of crap car suspiciously as I slowed to a halt outside his little shack and rolled down my window.

“I wasn’t aware of any visitors expected today, what’s your business here… uh… Mrs. Holt!  Is that you?”

I struggled to remember the man’s name and finally dragged it through one of the gaps in that pesky iron curtain in my mind, still standing but in serious disrepair.

“Yes, Nelson, it’s me!  Is Jeremy home?”

“No Ma’am, he went somewhere this morning and hasn’t come back yet.”

“When is he coming back?  He’s not going out of town or anything is he?”

Nelson’s smile slowly dropped from his face and he stood a little taller, the tone of his voice sounding more professional and automated after the short break when he
recognized me.

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I can’t divulge that information.”

“Come on, Nelson, it’s
me
.”

“Things are different now, Ma’am.  You don’t live here, haven’t in quite some time.  I can’t tell you anything, I’m afraid.”

“Well, where’s he gone?  He’s not answering his phone.”

“Maybe he’s got his reasons for that, Ma’am.  I’m going to have to ask you to move your… car… from the driveway.”

“Open the gates up and let me in, I’ll wait for him.”

“Can’t do that either, you’ll have to park at the side of the road over there,” Nelson paused and looked at something under the little counter inside his shack.  “There is one thing though…”

“What?”

“Mr. Holt, he gave me this just before he left,” Nelson held up a thick envelope with my name and Seattle address written on the front. “Told me to make sure it got sent to you when I finished my shift today.  I mean
technically
it’s against the rules too, he did tell me to get it FedExed out.  But as, you know, you’re right
here
…”

Nelson held the envelope out of the little window and I reached out to take it, already having a good idea of what was inside.  The burly security guard gave an apologetic smile and gestured back towards the street, his tone much less formal but still unyielding.

“It was good to see you again for what it’s worth, Beatrice, but if you don’t mind?”

“OK, OK.  I’ll be just over there.  I’m not going anywhere, you understand?  If you think of anything you can tell me, I’ll be there.  Nobody would need to know you said anything… I just really need to see him.  Thank you, Nelson, it was good to see you again too.”

I reversed my car down the driveway and back on to the street before parking it in plain view of the security shack.  With a flick of my fingers I switched it off and rubbed my eyes, torn between the pain of having sat in the seat of my car for so many consecutive hours that made me want to get up and walk around, and the exhaustion that came from the emotional rollercoaster of the past few days, which made me want to curl up and sleep, to take whatever rest I could while I waited for Jeremy.

After a brief deliberation, I opened the door and stepped out for a big stretch.  I felt like I’d completed a marathon over the past few days, just drained and weary, my muscles prot
esting at the mild exertion.  I did a couple of laps of my car, feeling better with every step as my muscles and joints loosened up a bit.

On my third lap I glanced in at the passenger seat where the envelope was sitting and felt a wave of relief.  If there was any silver lining to the journey so far, it was finding out that Jeremy hadn’t signed the divorce papers and given them back to his lawyer, or sent the papers to my lawyer, which he was apparently supposed to do.  A tiny smile touched the corners of my mouth, that was one less fire I had to try to put out in order to sort this whole mess, we could get through this without having to get remarried at least.

That was a bit odd, though, why was he sending the papers to me?  By the time that question flashed up in my mind I was back by the driver’s door and I opened it up, sitting down in the seat that had been my home for the past couple of days.  I had to make sure these actually
were
the divorce papers, and not something else.

I opened the envelope up and pulled out a wad of papers held together with a bulldog clip.  Flipping through it I saw that it was, indeed, the divorce papers with Jeremy’s newly added signature next to mine and his initials on every page also next to mine.  Hopefully this document could safely go into the next fireplace I saw, but that didn’t solve the question of why he was sending it to me.

When opening the envelope to put the papers back in I saw another sheet that hadn’t been attached by the clip to the rest of the document and fished it out.  This one was a hand-written note, printed in Jeremy’s tightly-packed scrawl, the entire page used from top to bottom.

Any trace of the faint smile that had touched my lips a few minutes ago was wiped from my face as I read Jeremy’s note with growing horror.  By the time I reached the final lines my heart was booming in my ears and I felt a sheen of sweat across my forehead as my face burned with a rush of blood and goose-bumps stood out on my forearms.

Dear Bea,

In this package you will find the divorce papers your lawyer sent me, signed as you requested.  I know I was supposed to send them back to your lawyer, but as this might be my last chance to send you a message, I’m going to send them directly.

It’s been hard, this past year.  I feel like I don’t even know where the ground is sometimes, like I’m back in that helicopter spinning around and around with nothing but our screams to listen to.  That sound… it follows me into my dreams.  I can’t sleep.

I want you to promise me something, Bea, it would mean a lot.  Everything, really.  You’ve got copies of all our pictures, all those little pieces of us.  I want you to take them out and look at them every now and then.  Not all the time, I know you’ve got a life to lead, but just sometimes, OK?

You don’t know the man in the photos, but I swear you once filled his world with love and he mattered.  I was never happier, more grounded, more sure of myself, than when you were looking at me, cutting through all of the bullshit that mattered to everybody else, and really seeing me.  I’d like to think that, just once in a while, your eyes see that man again.

I wish this hadn’t happened.  How do I say goodbye to my wife?  I promised you forever, Bea, I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.  I died in the water after the crash, when you were all limp and bleeding, thinking I’d killed you and you’d never come back.  I can’t describe the relief I felt when your eyes fluttered open again… but when you came back you were gone.  Now that I’ve accepted you can’t remember us and need to move on, I’ve died again.

So, I’ve decided to play the game just one last time, I know how I can stop the pain.  I’ve made arrangements with my lawyer to make sure you get everything I have once I’m gone.  I know you think money is the root of all evil now, so if you don’t want it just donate it to a charity or something.

I can’t believe the
brightest star in my sky was flicked off like a light switch, I thought it was going to shine until the end of time.  That’s the way it goes, Bumble Bea.  I guess that’s all there is to say.  I love you so much, remember to be a star, OK?

Jeremy

My hands shook as the blood continued to thunder in my ears, I looked all around as if searching for some hint that the words on the page weren’t true.  My hand shot out and twisted the car keys, the engine struggling to turn over a couple of times before I realized I had no idea where to go.  I reached for my phone before I realized that he hadn’t been answering in the last few days and was unlikely to start now, maybe his number had changed.

“Oh my God…”