The Remedy for Regret (7 page)

I
am barefoot on a deserted street on Terceira. In one hand I hold my canvas bag, in the other, the smaller hand of my half-brother, Zane. I am young. Too young to have the canvas bag that I carry as an adult and too young to have a little brother named Zane. I realize both of these things at the same moment that I drop the bag and pull Zane close to me.

“Watch out!” I yell as the pounding of hooves fills my dream.

I pull Zane away from the bulls as they race past us down the empty street, angry and afraid. The sound of my voice yelling out a warning to Zane wakes me. The pounding of hooves is replaced by a pounding at my hotel room door.

“Pizza delivery!” I hear someone yell from the other side, perhaps not for the first time.

I am disoriented as I grab my wallet out of my bag on the bed beside me. I make my way to the door and open it.

“Sorry,” I mutter to the young man standing there holding a flat box with a spinach, black olive and feta cheese pizza inside it. I hand him fifteen dollars for the nine-dollar small pizza, telling him to keep the change and hoping my generous tip will make up for my slow response. He pretends not to be surprised by it.

“Have a good evening,” he says as he stuffs the bills in his pocket and hands me a receipt.

“You do the same.” I close the door as he walks away.

The bottle of water I’d brought with me on the plane is warm and half-empty but I don’t feel like leaving the room to get ice or a fresh drink. I fill the bottle the rest of the way with tap water from the bathroom.

I eat the pizza slowly, trying to clear my head. I dismiss the dream and concentrate my thoughts, as I chew, on making the call to Simon. When the small pizza is half-gone and I feel somewhat satisfied, I close the lid on the pizza box and push it away from me. I hold my cell phone for several minutes before pressing the button that will speed dial my phone at home in Chicago.

I can’t seem to shake the dread I feel. I’m afraid that Simon won’t be there and equally afraid that he will be. I’m painfully aware that the last spoken words between us were unkind words. Words meant to wound.

“Don’t let him leave me,” I whisper to no one as I press the button.

I nearly collapse in relief as Simon answers the phone by saying my name as if he’s been waiting to say it all day. I know caller ID has allowed him to see I’m calling, that he answers by saying my name because he knew it was me, not because he hoped that it would be. But it sounds like there is hope in his voice and I have not heard such a thing in quite awhile.

“Oh, it is good to hear your voice,” I say to him, because it is.

“Is everything all right? Are you with Blair?”

“No and no.” I relax back on the headboard of the bed. “I’m actually at a Holiday Inn by the airport. Brad died half an hour before I got here. His employer got this room for me. I won’t be seeing Blair until tomorrow. She’s sedated right now.”

“Oh, Tess,” he says, but nothing else. We are both weary of bad news.

“I feel so bad for Blair,” I continue without thinking. “She’s so young to be a widow.”

But of course Simon doesn’t want to contemplate Blair’s future without her husband. It must surely remind him of the man whose wife and daughter died when Simon’s phone-fumbling and ill-timed pass sent them to their deaths. I am wishing I could take back what I just said. I am about to apologize when Simon asks me how long I think I will be gone. I am only too happy to change the subject.

“I’m not sure yet, Simon. If Blair wants me to stay through the funeral, well, I think I should.”

“Yeah, I suppose that would be the right thing to do,” he says, and I can tell he wants me to come home but I can’t tell why. I decide I cannot bear another moment not knowing.

“Simon, is it good news or bad news?” I ask.

“What?”

“Whatever it is that you want to talk with me about,” I answer. “Does it have to do with us?”

He pauses for a moment. I hold my breath.

“Well, yes,” he replies.

I close my eyes as if that will keep me from hearing whatever it is he will say next.

“Tell me,” I am able to say.

I can sense that he’s thinking of how to say what is on his mind. I hold onto the bedspread under me like it is the handle of a roller coaster car.

“Tess,” he begins. “I think I know what’s wrong with us.”

I grip it tighter.

“Wrong with us?”

“Yeah. I think I know why you don’t want to get married yet. Why I pretend it doesn’t matter. Why you still grieve for your mother. Why I can’t seem to forgive myself for what I did to that family.”

Every word from his lips pokes at me. I feel afraid, like the roller coaster ride has started but I can’t see the tracks ahead. I don’t know where we are headed.

“What are you saying?” I manage to say.

“I am saying I think we need help, Tess. Both of us.”

I’m not sure what he means but I’m beginning to think that he’s not planning to leave me.

“Help?” I echo.

“We’re going nowhere, Tess. We’re just spinning in circles. I didn’t realize how bad off we were until my accident and I finally understood how debilitating it is to live without peace.”

“Peace?”

I cannot seem to stop myself from sounding like a parrot, repeating everything he says. I would laugh if I weren’t so stunned.

“Tess, last night when… when I left the apartment, I walked around for a long time. I had maybe walked two or three miles when I suddenly knew that if I didn’t do something, the guilt I was feeling was going to kill me. I had to do something
to try and make it right.”

The face of Corinthia rises up before me, behind my closed eyes, as he says this. I can see her bending over a basket of wet laundry, picking up a limp dish towel and saying, “Well, you know what the remedy for regret is, don’t you?”

I want to say now like I wanted to say then that there are limits. You cannot put a broken egg, or a broken mirror or a broken window back together again. You can’t. Some hardships cannot be made right, no matter how much you desire it.

“I went to Brian Guthrie’s house last night,” Simon says, when I do not immediately respond.

At this I am truly speechless. Brian Guthrie is the man whose wife and child died in the accident. Simon’s accident.

“Tess, are you there?”

“Y… yes. You went to his house? How did you… how did you know where he lives?”

“He’s in the phone book. It wasn’t that hard. I hailed a taxi and just went over there.”

“But, Simon,” I say. “Was that really wise? I mean, he might have hurt you.”

“Well, I wanted him to,” Simon replies easily. “When I rang the doorbell, I wanted him to see that it was me. I wanted him to open the door with a shotgun in his hand. I wanted him to blast me to hell where I thought I belonged.”

I taste bile in my throat. The roller coaster car is tumbling down a cold, cavernous valley, gathering speed as it rushes forward in the darkness. I cannot comprehend what I’m hearing.

“Simon.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I can’t keep back the image of Simon lying on a Chicago porch with a chest full of lead. I can’t finish.

“Tess, it’s what I
thought
I wanted to happen, but that’s not what happened.”

I wait for the image to fade before asking him what did happen.

“Well, he was surprised to see me and his first reaction was disgust.”

I wait.

“But he didn’t hurt me like I wanted him to, Tess. And when he didn’t hurt me physically, I wanted him to curse me to my face. I wanted him to damn me to the Devil. But he didn’t.”

The ride seems to be slowing. I use the moment to catch my breath. “What did he do?”

“The longer I stood there mumbling about how sorry I was, the more his face softened,” Simon replies. “The disgust faded away and what I saw instead was sadness. When I finally realized he wasn’t going to give me what I deserved, I began to weep right there on his doorstep. Right in front of him.”

Simon’s voice is beginning to falter. To weaken. I, too, am feeling very weak. The ride has slowed to a steady creep.

“What happened next?”

“He invited me in. I refused at first, but he kept insisting, so I went in. He sat me down on his couch, got me a drink of water and then called his pastor.”

“His pastor?” I said, immediately thinking of tall Samuel Mayhew.

“Brian told me there was no way he could help me, but he knew someone who could,” Simon continues. “Brian said only God could heal a wound as big and deep as the one I carry—as big and deep as the wound he also carries.”

Simon is not leaving me but I feel like he’s pulling away from me nonetheless. He is moving in a direction that is unfamiliar to me. I feel him edging away, toward a God I barely know and have never understood.

“I think he’s right,” Simon is saying. “What Brian said is true. I can’t fix this on my own. It’s too big and deep, just like what you carry is too big and deep for you.”

He gives me a moment to digest this but it is nowhere near enough time.

“Tess, Brian’s pastor brought me over to his house. I talked with him and his wife until two a.m. His name is Jim. His wife’s name is Emily. We talked about everything; the accident, you and me, my whole life…”

“You talked about me?” I feel a twinge of anger.

“Yes, Tess, I did. I love you. I want to marry you. You can’t keep living with your open wound just like I can’t keep living with mine.”

In my mind I hear Corinthia’s voice. She is standing above me, placing a clothespin on a dishtowel and hanging it on a clothesline.

“Find a way to make it right,” she is saying.

I am sitting on the grass next to her laundry basket.

“What if there is no way I can make it right?” I am saying back to her.

“Well, can you live with it?” she is saying, bending down to look at me.

“No,” I am saying, because I don’t want to believe that I can.

“Then find someone who
can
make it right,” she says, with her strong arms on my trembling shoulders.

I let the voice fade away. It’s just not that simple.

“Tess?” Simon is saying.

“There is no way either one of us can make
these
things right,” I tell him and I cannot mask the anger in my voice.

“That’s right, Tess,” Simon says boldly. “You and I can’t. But Jim told me God can put things to right, no matter how big they are. He can carry what we can’t carry.”

“Even God has limitations,” I say softly, quoting my father though I don’t want to.

“I used to think so, too,” Simon says in reply. “I think we’ve been wrong about that, Tess.”

I am starting to get a headache.

“I don’t see what this has to do with us,” I say, though I think I really do.

“Because, Tess, you are just like me, only worse off. I have been struggling with this open wound for just two weeks. You’ve been suffering with yours for years.”

I wince at this, not because it is news to me but because it hurts to hear the truth sometimes.

“And it’s not even the wound you think it is, Tess.”

Now he has thrown me for a loop. “What?”

“Maybe we should continue this when you get home,” he says after a momentary pause.

“What do you mean it’s not even the wound I think it is?”

“Never mind, Tess. I shouldn’t have brought it up right now.”

“Brought
what
up?”

“It’s… it’s just your dad and I had an argument on the phone tonight, before you called. I got a little angry. I’d really rather talk about this when you get home.”

“You talked to my dad?” I asked, thoroughly perplexed.

“He wanted to make sure we got the message about Shelley’s surprise party because you hadn’t called him back.”

“What did you argue about?” I am having a hard time picturing my dad and Simon having a conversation lasting more than ten minutes. They’ve seen each other maybe three times in three years. But Simon doesn’t answer my question.

“Are you going to call him back tonight?” he says instead.

“I don’t know,” I answer in a huff. “I haven’t had a minute to think about Shelley’s birthday and you and I haven’t even talked about it.”

“If you call him tonight, see if he mentions talking with me, Tess,” Simon says and it’s obvious he’s confident my dad
won’t
mention it. I don’t know what to make of this. Something is going on and I don’t know what it is.

“Didn’t you tell him where I was?” I say.

“I did,” Simon assures me. “He’s not expecting you to call back tonight.”

“Then I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Okay. But when you do, don’t mention that you know he and I talked. See if he brings it up first. Will you do that?”

What on earth did you argue about?
is all I can think of to say, but I know Simon will not tell me until I try his little experiment.

“All right, I will,” I say wearily.

“Tess?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going back to work tomorrow.”

For the first time since we began this conversation tonight I am starting to feel a little of the hope that his voice sounds saturated with.

“You are?”

“Yes. Just half-days at first. We’ll see how it goes.”

“Simon, that’s… that’s wonderful.”

“Yeah. The more I think about it the more I am feeling ready. Call me tomorrow night after you talk to your dad. But don’t call until after ten. I am going over to Jim and Emily’s for dinner.”

“Oh, okay.” I wonder if he can sense my unease.

“Give my condolences to Blair, would you?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Goodnight, Tess. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I reply. And I do. But I feel very alone.

I lay my phone on the bedside table and rub my throbbing temples. I’d dreaded making that call for no reason, but I feel scared nonetheless. I decide a hot bath will ease some of the tension I am feeling.

It does, but only while I am in it.

Fifty minutes later when I am lying alone in bed, a gallery of images begin to parade around in my head—racing bulls, Brad lying dead on a hospital bed, Simon weeping on the porch of a stranger, Corinthia hanging up her laundry to dry. They vie for my attention and sleep eludes me until after midnight.