In This Life Read online

  He squeezed my hands firmly in affirmation. “Well then, you need to start figuring things out on your own. Although it looks painfully obvious to me. You have one month before you have to go back.”

  And those were the final words he spoke on the matter.

  Suddenly, Max popped up from the corner of the kitchen, Anna standing uncomfortably next to him, visibly shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

  “HI, IT’S ME,” I said over the speaker on my phone. “Call me, please. I’ve left so many messages, and I’m worried about you.”

  Six days had passed since I took Anna home following the dinner at my parents’ place. She hadn’t said a word as we drove home that night, and she kept her gaze out the window.

  “Would you mind if you dropped me off at home?” Those were the only words she said to me that night. I assumed that meeting my family had totally overwhelmed her, so I wanted to give her some space. Six days later, I still hadn’t heard back. I knew she was fine because I stopped by the hospital and checked on her through the nurse Melinda. I feared that Dante had returned and that she would soon cut off all ties with me. That, in the end, it would be Anna’s departure and not mine that would shred me into pieces.

  I answered my phone immediately after it rang without checking the information on the caller ID.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi, Jude. It’s Melinda. Just checking in. I thought you’d want to know that Anna is off call now. I saw her heading home.”

  “Oh. Hi, Melinda.” I didn’t bother hiding the disappointment in my voice. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “She said something about meeting her friend Maggie for dinner and drinks.” She had my full attention.

  “Did she say where?” I asked excitedly.

  “No, not really.”

  I didn’t even know where to start looking. “Huh. Thank you, Melinda. I really appreciate it.” I heard her say something just as I removed the phone from my ear.

  “Wait! Jude, are you still there?”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering whether you wanted to meet up for a drink tonight. You know, get to know more about each other. I feel like I’ve known you for a while, seeing you at the ER for all these months.”

  “Sorry, Melinda, I can’t. I’m with Anna.” I’m with Anna. I’m with her. Whether or not she forsakes me. I. Am. With Her.

  That’s what had happened. Anna was upset.

  A few days before we drove to Scarsdale, she had challenged me about coming out in the open with her. And I had denied her. At the hospital and even with my family.

  I had to find her. We only had twenty-seven more days. I decided to call Maggie.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Maggie. It’s Jude.”

  “Jude.”

  “Are you seeing Anna tonight?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to speak to her, please. Where will you guys be?”

  “Is she avoiding you? If she is, why would I betray her confidence?”

  “Because I don’t have much time. I have to see her, I have to explain what happened.”

  “No deal.” And then the phone went dead.

  FOUR HOURS LATER we were in Manhattan, throwing the keys at the valet as we left the Rover in his dependable hands. Two hours later, we were lined up at a Latin dance club called Copacabana. It was all Peter’s idea, all he could do to stop me from sulking around the apartment.

  “Do you think we should check out the second floor?” Peter asked as we crisscrossed our way through groups of people. “I think the second floor is the pure Latin floor. That’s what the guide said.”

  “What does pure Latin even mean?” I asked, utterly agitated.

  “Latin, man! As in hot Latin chicks!” He blurted excitedly.

  We moved quickly through the lobby and up the long flight of stairs. A group of women stopped us as we reached the landing, two of them latching on to Peter while another two tried to lead me to the dance floor.

  “Party pooper,” Peter said accusingly as we careened through the heavy traffic of dancers, looking left and right. We finally located the bar. I squeezed myself in between two couples and signaled the bartender for a drink.

  “Go ahead and have fun,” I said. “Leave me here, I’ll be okay.”

  I OPENED MY eyes to a dimly lit hallway in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar people. With distorted vision, I could barely make out the woman who sat in front of me on the floor. But it was Maggie, with her long blond hair and dark blue eyes, examining me closely.

  “He’s waking up,” she said as Anna’s face came into view. I couldn’t move a muscle; I felt like someone had left a ten ton boulder on my back. She brought her face close to mine.

  “Shh. I’m here. It’s okay, baby, I’m here.”

  Baby. I felt like I was in high school, deciphering the meaning behind every word she said. There was a softness to her tone that made me feel a shift in her attitude towards me. Had I died and gone to heaven? Because her love was my heaven, and at that moment, it seemed well within my reach.

  “You didn’t answer the door,” I said in barely a whisper. My lips couldn’t form the words correctly. I did remember staggering outside the club and dragging Peter along with me, shoving him into a taxicab that took us to Maggie’s place on Park Avenue.

  “So you decided to sleep in the hallway?” she smiled.

  “Where’s Peter?”

  “He’s here, in the living room.” She was all made up, dressed to the nines in a red leather outfit but with no shoes. “Oh Jude, you’re a mess. Let’s get you inside.”

  My sides hurt. My head hurt. There was a slicing pain right below my nose. I tried again. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  “Why were you upset?” I asked, despite the fact that I wasn’t sure whether she could make out the words coming from my swollen lips.

  “Long story. Can we talk about it tomorrow? You should rest now. Come inside.” She sat on her knees and tried to lift me up by the shoulders. We stood up at the same time and she led me through the house, up the stairs and into a lavishly decorated guest bedroom. Gently, she pushed me down on the bed, laid my head on a pile of pillows and began to tuck the covers around me.

  “My father succeeded in real estate. He did well for himself and for our family. Pete owns the Jeep and the Rover is mine.”

  “I know.”

  “None of that matters to me. I gave it all up when I decided to live my life in service to others. In fact, my dad asked me to join his business but that’s not what I want out of my life.”

  She smiled at me. There was a look of tenderness in her eyes, of pride, of recognition.

  “I know,” she repeated.

  My eyelids felt heavy. I wasn’t going to be able to stay awake much longer. “Why were you upset?” I asked again.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “Try to get some sleep.”

  “Stay. Don’t leave. Please don’t leave again.” I tugged at her arms like a child desperate to hang on to his mother.

  “Never. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I could have died that night with those last words. I could have died and heaven would have been in those words. In twenty-seven days, when this is over, I would take those words with me.

  THE ROOM WOULD have been pitch dark if not for a small crack in the curtain. A tiny slice of light seeped through the window, allowing me to see the outline of Anna’s hair as she slept soundly next to me. I glanced at the clock by the bedside and wasn’t surprised to see that it was already noon. I didn’t think we got back to the house until almost four in the morning.

  I still felt bruised and battered, but somehow the tingling feeling was gone, and the swelling of my face and lips had somewhat dissipated. I turned to my side to face her, remembering the last time I had the luxury of watching her sleep. I watched as her shoulders rose and fell with every breath she took; I smo
othed the strands of hair that fell down her back and lightly twirled them around my fingers. I longed to reach out and touch her, but wanted to give her more time to rest. And so I waited. I shut my eyes and basked in our closeness until I felt the light brush of her fingers on my face.

  “Hi,” she whispered, her voice thin and weary. She turned her body towards me, one hand tucked under her head and the other against my face.

  “Hi,” I said, reaching out to feel her lips.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. But I still have some kind of a headache.”

  “Let’s elevate your head a little bit.” She pushed another pillow under my neck with both hands. We remained with our faces only inches away from each other. My eyes fell out of my head when I noticed that she wore a lacy nightgown that peeked out from under the blanket. Her cleavage was deep and inviting.

  “Can we talk about why you were upset?” I asked in a hushed tone, mindful of the two people that were sleeping outside the room and the fact that the door to our bedroom was cracked open. She probably did that on purpose.

  “Jude.”

  I trailed my finger along the tip of her nose.

  “Aren’t you tired of all the questions and the answers and the discussions we’ve been having? It wasn’t supposed to be this taxing.”

  “Love is worth everything, Anna.”

  She puffed out a whiff of air. “I was overwhelmed,” she answered. “And hurt. And I felt guilty.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “Dante hadn’t called for three weeks and I missed him. Not because I want him back. I felt so much guilt and blame about having let him down. And then I met your family and fell in love with them. I saw how great an influence they all were in your life. I thought about Mikey and wished he could have met them. And then when you had that conversation in the kitchen…”

  I took her hand and rested her palm flat against my cheek. “You heard us?”

  Her dancing eyes matched the soft smile on her face. “I love the feel of this.” She rubbed the rough stubble below my ears. “Yes, I heard everything. Max wanted to color on the floor next to the kitchen entrance.”

  “I’m so sorry. I panicked. I was trying to maintain my composure. I didn’t want them to think that I was weak and indifferent. I wanted to let them know that my decision wasn’t going to be one out of impulse.”

  “It made your leaving more of a reality to me, and I decided that I wasn’t going to play this game anymore. Of all the denials you’d made about us, that one hurt me the most,” she admitted with tears in her eyes. “I kept on putting off what I wanted to tell you when you left me at the hut that day, five years ago. And then right when I think I’ve accepted the fact that you’ll be gone in twenty-six days, something happens to fill me with this profound fear of never seeing you again.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “We haven’t decided that yet,” she said with a sniff.

  I didn’t answer her because she couldn’t know yet. It all depended on whether or not she had fallen in love with me. This was decided long ago. It was a matter of aligning my head with my heart.

  “I go to bed with the thought of you. I wake up with a deep longing for you. I’m back to where I was five years ago. I guess the mind has a way of compensating for loss, of moving on.”

  “Oh, Anna!” I exclaimed as I pulled her towards me and kissed her. “What about Dante?”

  “I miss him. He’s a huge part of my life and my heart. But he knows that I’m not in love with him.”

  I noticed something wrapped around her right wrist. I lifted it up and brought it closer to my face. It was the rosary that I had left in the palm of her hand years ago. The beads looked worn, overused.

  “I wear it at night when I pray,” she said, embarrassed. “Dante got me a new one, but I don’t think that one has a direct line to God like this one.” She smiled, and then her face turned serious. “Jude, I’m not going to fight Him for you. He found you first, and so it’s only fair that He gets to keep you. But when you go, at least you should know that I loved you. When you left me a lifetime ago, I saved these words close to my heart. I thought that if I kept them close to me, I would guard them and keep them until I saw you again. And I don’t want to regret not ever saying those words, because everything I had felt, everything I wanted five years ago, is right here in front of me. Again.”

  “Tell me, Anna. I want to hear them from your lips. I want to feel them from your heart.”

  “I love you, Jude. I’m in love with you.” She was choked up with emotion and her eyes began to moisten; the rain was about to fall once again. All I wanted was to touch her, to feel her. I wanted nothing more than to kiss her and be inside her so badly.

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you.” This time the words flowed easily.

  I planted tiny kisses along her chin, down to her neck, lower and lower until my head could no longer be seen under the covers.

  “Jude—” she gasped, shivering. She pushed the sheets down so she could watch me.

  “Let me see you, Anna. Please, let me look at you.”

  Slowly, she slipped the straps of her gown off from her shoulders and revealed herself to me. Her breasts were the most exquisite works of art, perfectly shaped, perfect for me. This gesture. It meant the world to me.

  Her lips, her mouth, her tongue began tenderly showing me the love that she had earlier admitted. I was bursting with emotion. No other feeling in the world would compare to the way your heart soared, your ears rang, your body shook simply from the touch of the only woman you had ever loved in your life.

  “Come away with me, Blue,” I said, panting in the middle of tender kisses and frantic touches.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled at the sudden proposition.

  “Let’s just throw caution to the wind and go back to where we started. We only have three weeks left. I need more time with you, Blue. Please. Will you do it for me?”

  THE PASSENGER CABIN shook vigorously as the plane touched its wheels to the ground. Not even the loud thump of their weight on the asphalt nor the screeching of the brakes could rouse Anna from her sleep. I had spent the last four hours of our eighteen hour flight just watching her as she remained in a deep slumber. I thought about the past thirty-seven days and how my views on life had changed since then. I hadn’t lost my faith or my conviction; in fact, I believed more than ever that Anna was a part of God’s plan for me. Above all, I felt the power of His love for me, the depth of my certainty only reinforced by the harmony that now existed within the confines of both my heart and my soul.

  And so there we were, back in paradise and looking like two honeymooners with a whole lifetime ahead of us. Only we didn’t have a lifetime. We had twenty-one days. She opened her eyes to me and I saw the deep blue sea. I saw the sky and the sun and the heavenly clouds even before we stepped foot on the ground.

  “Are we here?” She covered a yawn before stretching her arms straight up in the air.

  “Yes, sleepyhead. We just lost two days getting here,” I said worriedly.

  “That’s okay. We were together.” She paused before laughing. “Even if I slept through it all. Gosh, I’m so sorry, those shifts at the hospital really killed me.”

  One hour later, we were in a white stretch limo on the way to the resort. She had no idea where we were going, and neither did I for that matter. We drove on a winding highway along the coast to the southernmost tip of Phuket.

  “Where are we headed?” she asked sleepily. I was beginning to learn that she snoozed easily on any moving object. The limo was large and spacious, and yet we were scrunched together facing forward near the rear door. She leaned her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes.

  “No idea. I think it’s a resort called Sri Panwa. Katie made the arrangements for me.” I chastised myself for allowing those words to leave my lips. “It’s about an hour away still, so more sleeping time for you.”

  �
��Katie?” she asked, concerned. “Oh no. Your family is going to freak.”

  “Katie has my back, don’t worry about it. She only wants me to be happy.”

  She nodded her head casually. “We’ll talk about it, right? No matter what happens, you and I, we will find our peace after this trip.” Her dainty fingers lovingly outlined the top of my lip. The sharp pain was gone, but the bruising and the numbness persisted. “It’s healing very nicely and it’s been less than a week.”

  I tilted her chin up and kissed her. “We’re back in business,” I announced as she covered her mouth to stifle another yawn. “Go back to sleep, Blue. You’re going to need all your energy for tonight.”

  I was certain that my words were lost on her; she was out like a light in two seconds flat.

  “WOW. THIS PLACE.” She took a deep breath as she admired the one bedroom villa we had just checked into. The bellman had deposited our bags by the front door and had since left us alone. Check in time was three in the afternoon, but it was almost sunset by the time we arrived in our room. She took my hand excitedly as we toured the place together. “Look!” she exclaimed as she pointed to the splendid view of the Andaman Sea directly below us. We stood in the master bedroom surrounded by glass doors that led directly to an infinity pool overlooking a lush and abundant forest. “Where’s the bath—” She spread open two slatted wooden doors to reveal a teak bathroom with two sinks made out of stone and a large Jacuzzi in the center. “Ah, here it is.”

  “Come look at this,” I called out to her.

  She followed my path through a side door and out onto a wooden deck connecting the master bedroom to the living area.

  “An outdoor shower,” she said as she entered the second set of doors and walked over to the L-shaped sofa. “I can just sit and watch the view from here.”

  “If there’s anyone going to be doing any watching, I think it’s going to be me.”

  She moved close to where I sat and settled herself on my lap. I pulled her face to mine and kissed her. We kissed for several minutes, lightly at first, until I was overcome with the need to claim her mouth as mine. Once I took all that I could from her, I moved my lips down towards her neck, intent on repeating the same process of exacting her for my own.