Once Upon Another Time (9 page)

“No!  Don’t go!” I
blurted out.

Laura snapped her
briefcase shut and swung around to look at me.  “I thought we were done
talking?”

“No, that’s not
what I--I mean yes, go.”

She narrowed her
eyes.  “Are you sure everything is okay?” 

I shrugged my
shoulders.  “Everything’s fine.  Sorry I bothered you with something so silly.”

“Don’t worry about
it.  Hey, about yesterday, I didn’t mean to be harsh when I accused you of obsessing
over Matt, but enough years have passed.  You need to let go once and for all. 
I’m just trying to help.”

“I know,” I said
quietly as I left her office.  I just couldn’t understand why Matt kept telling
me to find him.  Find him where? 

I felt a little
like I was out at sea, as if I just couldn’t find the balance in my life.  I
couldn’t even tell my best friend what was happening.  Nor did I know how to
connect with Matt or when I’d see him next, which really spun my psychological
issues out of control.  Total control was the key to my existence, without it,
I didn’t know what would happen.  

As soon as I
stepped into my office, the phone rang.  The call was to inform me that Judge
Trudy Lopez would be hearing my next case.  It concerned my client, Mr. Peters,
whose former employee had filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.

Lopez, an
inviolable woman, had actually once proclaimed, “I have faith that there’s a
little Loraine Bobbit in every woman.” 

I braced myself
for another challenging day.

* * * *

As the long hand
of the clock inched its way toward six p.m., my mind crashed into sheer
exhaustion, which had nothing to do with the pile of work on my desk.  I’d
spent the day thinking about Matt, worried that he was lost between two worlds
for almost seven years.  My theory was he needed my help, maybe in guiding him
toward the light, like on that TV program where the young woman speaks to
ghosts and helps them.  However, it didn’t make sense that he’d wait so long.

While
straightening the clutter on my desk, lack of maternal responsibilities tugged
at my heart.  Calling Mother earlier that day to ask if Nicholas could spend
the night was difficult.  I didn’t like when my job kept me from tucking my son
into bed.  It was difficult enough for him growing up without a father. 
However, I did try to keep life for Nicholas as normal as possible, knowing
full well the effects of growing up in a less than normal environment.

As flower
children, my parents were free spirits who lived with the rhythms of the earth,
until their spirits one day guided them to open a tiny shop that sold lava
lamps, incense, and Patchouli candles.  Teaching me about purity of the
universe, my parents took me on long nature walks, and taught me how to make
soap, candles, and rose petal jam, while discussing cumulus clouds, mackerel
skies, and universal peace. 

Mother had always
been ubiquitous with boundless energy.  She had fluttered happily through life
barefoot in frayed-edged bellbottoms with a dog-eared first edition of “This
Season’s People” cradled to her chest.  However, not even as a child was there
any indication of me having a free spirit.  With my Judith Martin persona,
wheeling one’s free spirit meant mastering my first well-crafted,
passive-aggressive letter to a boy who had jilted me. 

I’ll admit that
stringing colorful beads for my closet doorway and painting my bedroom with big
rainbows and psychedelic designs that sometimes made me dizzy, was fun. 
Nevertheless, I had craved structure, neatness, and McDonald’s!  Instead, I
helped my parents scavenge landfills for automobile tires to make sandals,
dined on tofu casseroles, and had to explain to my friends why a life-sized
Jerry Garcia statue-slash-fountain stood in our front yard.

However, Nicholas
adored his grandparents and loved spending time with them at their gift shop
helping them with little chores.  The shop, unlike my parents who hadn’t
evolved much over the years, boasted expensive gift items and paintings from
local artists.

I shook my head as
my eyes traveled over the legal paperwork on my desk while thinking how
different I was from my parents.  Like my Cher-look-alike mother, my father had
always maintained his gentle seventies spirit.  He was a well-respected
businessman who subconsciously still bucked the establishment.  He never saw
the need to chop off his Willie Nelson-like hair or turn the volume down on Pink
Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” that he’d blare from his backyard speakers. 

A sudden knock on
the office wall of glass startled me.  I looked to see Laura, decked out in her
pink Nuala sports top, matching Capri sweat pants, and Marc Jacobs yoga matt
rolled up under her arm march into my office.

“Aubrey, you
haven’t even changed your clothes yet.  Come on, I don’t want to walk into
class late again.”

“Sorry, you’re
going to have to go to yoga without me tonight.  I’ve got far too much work to
catch up on.”

Her eyes gravitated
toward the stacks of file folders on my desk.  “Okay, but try not to stay too
late,” she said, as she turned to leave and smacked right into Mr. Davis, the superintendent/maintenance
man. 

“Oh, I’m sorry Mr.
Davis.  I wasn’t watching where I was going.” 

“Don’t worry about
it,” he said, in a voice that sounded identical to the smooth baritone of James
Earl Jones. 

Other than my
father, Mr. Davis was the kindest man I’d ever known.  At sixty-seven years
old, with skin the color of dark rich coffee and gentle eyes, he always seemed
to have a warm glow around him. 

We’d gotten to
know each other well during the five years he worked in the building.  His wife
had died in childbirth when he was just twenty-eight years old.  His baby died
in his arms six hours later, a little girl he named Coco Rose for the delicate
color of her skin and the sweet fragrance of her tiny body.  It was sad he
never remarried.  He was like a kindred spirit, the only person who could truly
relate to the pain I had felt when Matt died.

Mr. Davis walked
toward my desk shaking his head disapprovingly.  “Working late again?” 

“I’m afraid so.”

“Hmm,” he
muttered, as he pulled at his chin.  “Did your mama tell you I stopped by the
gift shop a couple of days ago?”

“She did.  She said
you decided on those beautiful silver candlesticks with the Mother of Pearl
detailing.  That’ll make a great wedding gift for your niece.  She’ll love
them.”

“I’m sure she
will.  By the way, saw Nicholas, too.  That boy’s all legs.”

“I know.  I have a
feeling he’s going to grow up tall like my father.”

“For sure.  And
speaking about Nicholas, you gonna make it home in time to read him a bedtime
story?”

“No,” I said,
casting my eyes down at the desk and picking up a pen.  “He’s staying with my
parents tonight.”

“Hmm, don’t mean
to preach, but you have to slow down Ms. Aubrey.  A boy needs his mama, and you
need to learn to relax a bit.  Like my mama used to say to me while sipping
from a mason jar of sweet cider, ‘Life is not going to catch up to you; you
have to catch up with it.’”

“Your mother was a
very wise woman,” I said looking him in the eye and nodding in agreement. 

He picked up the
wastepaper basket to the side of the credenza behind my desk and dumped its
contents into his trash bag.  He motioned with an upward nod toward my desk. 
“That Chinese take-out ready for the trash?”

“Oh, yes.  Almost
forgot about that.”  I grabbed the food container and dumped it into his trash
bag.

“Well, you take
care now and try to remember to bring your pace down a couple of notches,” he
said with a wink.  His caramel eyes showed specs of gold, his skin mildly lined
beneath his silver hair.

“I’ll try.” 

“I hope so,” he
said and moseyed out the door. 

I sifted through
papers and file folders, organizing them in neat piles on my desk, while
thinking about the book that was lying on the floor in the study the night
before.  In the novel, the woman told the young man her son and his wife and
daughter died in a tragic accident, and her husband had died a few years later. 
The young man was dealing with his own problems, but recognized that the woman,
despite the pain of losing the people she loved, was brave and unwilling to be
beaten down by what had happened.  She told him she learned from her sorrow.

I rested my head
in my hands and closed my eyes picturing the day I told Matt I was pregnant.  I
told him to hold out his hand and close his eyes and that I had a present for
him.  He asked what it was and I took his hand and placed it on my belly.  He
opened his eyes and had the most incredible look of wonder, joy, and love, and
lifted me off my feet and swung me around. 

Was Matt now
trying to tell me I needed to be strong despite the pain of my son never having
known his father and me not knowing exactly what had happened the day he died? 
Aside from knowing fairytale dreams can get shattered when you least expect,
was I supposed to learn something else?

The thought
tumbled over in my mind and landed like a thud.

“Aubrey?”

My eyes snapped
open.  Melanie Hatcher, the firm’s paralegal, stood at my desk with a file
folder in hand.  The woman had exceptional talent for uncovering more hidden
facts than the CIA and had helped crack some difficult cases for the law firm. 
You’d think she graduated from the Lieutenant Columbo School of Detectives, as
opposed to Duke University where she graduated with honors. 

She was brilliant,
yet was incapable of understanding that reputable cosmetic surgeons don’t
market their clinics with clip out coupons, hence her chipmunk cheeks and trout
lips.  Nevertheless, she was very pretty and at forty-four, you’d never guess
she was a day over thirty with a honey brown head of ringlets and under thick
dark lashes, her expressive blue eyes smiled even before she’d speak.
 

“You okay to go
over the Jenkins case with me?”

As I focused on
the stiffness of her face, the movement of her lips resembling the Clutch Cargo
cartoon characters of the sixties, I sighed with relief.

“Yes, of course,”
I said, thankful for the opportunity to have my mind distracted by something
that didn’t relate to some type of parallel universe. 

It was nine-thirty
when I got home that evening.  As I drove my SUV up the cobblestone patterned
driveway, it struck me that in all the years I’d lived in the house I’d never
really examined its exterior in detail.  The coach lamps on either side of the
arched front porch threw a yellow wash of light across the stucco walls, which
had me thinking about the memories Matt and I made living there.  We gutted the
interior and gave it the warmth of a French country cottage. 

I thought about
the novel I’d found on the floor alongside my desk and the words I’d read on
the dog-eared page.  The house the woman loved brought her comfort just like
the old Tudor brought comfort to my life.  My house was a place filled with love,
happiness, and precious memories of Matt and the joyous memories I’d made with
our son.

Suddenly,
something clicked in my head.  I pulled my vehicle into the garage and rushed
into the kitchen.  I dropped my purse and briefcase on the granite countertop,
and stood still, not moving a muscle, just listening.  Slowly, I began to move,
running my hand over the cocoa glazed cream-colored cabinets, the cold granite
surface on the large center island, and even the smooth chestnut floors.  My
eyes followed the furnishing into the other rooms of the house.  Creams and
French blues and yellows and toile, checks and stripes, and high ceilings with
thick rough beams. 

I felt possessed
as I stepped into the family room filled with antiques and touched each one.  I
laid a hand on the massive stone fireplace feeling the coolness of the stone on
my palm, while staring at the reclaimed giant rustic beams overhead.  I darted
toward the dining room with its patina chandelier and linen shades, a French
white built-in china cabinet, rich cherry dining table, blue stripe fabric
chairs, and rooster centerpiece.  Bolting into the study, filled with a
kaleidoscope of photographs, books, treasured pieces of art from our honeymoon and
trip to France and places we traveled, I touched items, while cradling a
photograph of Matt to my chest.  It was all there.  This was the home we made
our own and filled it with love. 

The week before,
thinking a new start would help fix some things in my life, I’d contemplated
selling the house and moving downtown to be closer to work.  Was reading that latest
passage from the book a coincidence?  Or was Matt directly telling me I didn’t
have to sell the house and give up the memories we made in order to make a new
start?

I clattered up the
stairs to the master bedroom.  The answer was somewhere in the house, perhaps
in the cherry wood furnishings or the blue toile upholstered headboard that
Matt used to lean back on while reading, as I lay my head in his lap staring up
at him.  The antique cabinet filled with a perfume bottle collection, a gift
from my grandmother, caught my eye.  The answer to what happened the day Matt
died was in the very core of the house he gutted and refurbished with his own
two hands.  I just had to find the trigger that would jog my memory of what
happened on Block Island.

* * * *

After a long, hot
shower, I slipped into a short cotton nightgown and padded downstairs to the
kitchen where I poured myself a glass of wine.  While locating my lighter on
the top of the refrigerator, Buster sauntered into the kitchen and meowed
loudly. 

If you don’t
feed me soon I’ll waste away before your very eyes,
his expression warned
pitifully, as he circled my feet and butted his head against my legs at every
revolution.  After pouring some kibbles into a bowl and setting it on the
floor, I rooted through the freezer and found the pack of cigarettes I’d hidden
behind a frozen turkey.