Ordinary World (33 page)

            We squeezed into the second to last pew; the church was packed. It was small in comparison to the cathedral-like structure I’d attended growing up. The pews were made of dark walnut and lined up in two rows of no more than thirty each, parted by the aisle like the Red Sea. Each pew was adorned with a wreath facing the aisle. The altar was decked out in poinsettias and a live Douglas fir with white lights and homemade ornaments and a large crèche off to the side. Bright red carpet and gilt trim and stain glass windows outfitted the rest of the church. A choir rang bells and sang carols and the procession to the altar was grand. And yet, the mass itself was simple, humble even. The celebrant walked to the center of the altar, away from the lectern, and talked
to
the parishioners rather than
at
them. He shared rather than preached, making me feel welcomed back rather than judged for having been away for so long. David was right about this not being the mass we grew up with.

            We held hands throughout most of the mass. I watched him intently as the liturgy progressed, trying not to stare at him, but I couldn’t help it. I watched him make the sign of the cross, recite each prayer, sing the responsorial Psalm, sit and stand with purpose as opposed to obligation or involuntary habit. I watched him listen intently to the readings and the homily, and as the organ played “What Child is This,” and the choir sang so angelically, and celebrant prepared the consecration of the Eucharist, I watched David, the peaceful gleam in his eyes—he was so present—and realized I was
falling in love
with him. What I had previously thought to be falling in love, when he was Devin, was a lie, I had decided long ago. No doubt, I’d loved him all this time, but this was different. It felt different from the way I felt when I fell in love with Sam, but I knew what I was feeling in that church, and it simultaneously terrified and touched me at the same time.

            A long time ago I questioned whether it was possible to be in love with two men. What if Marta was right, and Sam had orchestrated this whole thing from heaven (or wherever he ended up), and David was the guy with whom I had always belonged? But Marta had also said something about my needing to be alone, to not need him or anyone else.

            I closed my eyes and prayed:

           
Dear God, help me! Show me what to do. Show me where I need to go and who I need to be with. Dearest, Darling Sam, forgive me. Forgive me for falling in love with another man, and sleeping with him. If you come back to me, I’ll leave him. I’ll leave him this instant if you appear to me. It never would’ve happened had you not died. I swear to you, Sam, I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life with you—you know that, don’t you? Please…

            David leaned in and whispered to me, “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

            I stiffened.

No. He wasn’t allowed to call me that.

I ached to beat it out of there at that moment, but couldn’t move. How could I possibly be in love with David? How could there ever be anyone other than Sam? If there was a loving God, then how could he mess with me like this? What the hell kind of answer to a prayer was that?

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry…

            When the mass ended, I practically pulled David out of the pew, my knees feeling weak, legs momentarily unsure of how to move on their own. During our rushed walk down deserted streets in the dark, cold night, I was oblivious as David rambled on about the service, the choir, the lights, and so on.

            Finally, I spoke. “Don’t ever call me that again, okay?”

            “Call you what?”

            “Sweetheart.”

            “When did I call you Sweetheart?”

            “In the church—don’t you remember?”

            “I honestly didn’t realize I said it. Are you okay? One minute you looked fine—well, actually you looked tense throughout most of the mass. But then you closed your eyes and went white as a sheet, and then you just sat there trembling for the rest of the service.”

            “It was just—forget it. Just don’t call me that, okay?”

            “I’m sorry. I guess it was too much to ask you to do this tonight.”

“It’s okay,” I said.

It was almost two in the morning when David came into the living room with two cups of hot chocolate. The room glowed in the gold lights on the Christmas tree we’d put up together a week following Thanksgiving. (I still couldn’t bear to have one in my house.) In addition to the lights, we hung Crate and Barrel and Pier One Imports ornaments as well as delicate baubles that he had bought from Italy, Spain, France, and Mexico.

He wanted to exchange gifts, but I was too tired.

“Please? Just one present each?” he pleaded like a six-year-old. I could barely keep my eyes open, but gave in.

“Okay, Dev. You first.”

I handed him a gift; his face lit up with delight as he examined it from all sides in the shimmer of the tree lights. He ripped the paper and pulled off several layers of bubble wrap to discover the piece of artwork I had bought for him in Peru. You’d think I gave him a Mr. Potato Head.

“I’m gonna play with it for real tomorrow,” he said mischievously.

“It
is
tomorrow.”

“Good. Then I can get to it sooner. Your turn.” He reached under the tree and handed me a meticulously wrapped, medium-sized box. I looked at it, then him, my insides quivering; he was all smiles. Slowly and carefully, I slid the silky bow and tore the shiny paper. The suspense was killing him, I could tell. I opened the box to find clouds of tissue paper. Fumbling through, my hand felt something solid, like sifting through the sand to find the buried treasure—and everything in my gut told me that this was buried treasure.

I lifted the find: a petite velvet box. My stomach leapt into my chest, while my heart started pounding loudly.

Oh God.

With the box nestled in the palm of one hand, I creaked it open with the other. The square-shaped diamond dazzled even in the dimness of the room, just like David’s eyes, while the pure platinum band seemed to be struggling to hold its weight.

Shit, man.

“Oh, Devin,” I uttered under my breath.

Shit! Of all the times to slip!

“David.”

I looked up at him; his look of anticipation and excitement had faded.

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It’s absolutely stunning,” I answered, breathless.

“I know it’s probably too soon, but I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now.”

“So, it is…” I couldn’t even bring myself to finish.

“Andi, I love you and I want to marry you,” he spat out, his words wobbly. “Believe it or not, I knew it when we were together in Rome. But obviously, there was no way I could say anything then.”

I took my eyes off the ring long enough to see him—really see him—completely vulnerable and wide open, exposing his heart to be sabotaged. Don’t do it, man, I wanted to warn him. I can’t guarantee your safety.

“I don’t know what to say, except that I didn’t know. I mean, I didn’t realize—”

“I understand.” He moved in even closer to me and took my hand, still clutching the box. “Andrea,” he said softly. His hand was shaking fiercely—I’d never seen him like this before. “Will you…”

I yanked my hand away and backed off as if he were some guy making an unwanted pass at me.

He looked wounded, the arrow hitting him right in the heart. Bull’s-eye.

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry,” I said. I couldn’t bear to see the look of bitter disappointment in his eyes.

I started to cry more out of guilt than anything else—guilt for betraying Sam, for hurting David, for always taking one step forward and two steps back. As I buried my face into my hands, I could feel the weight of the rings on my left hand, and Sam’s wedding band on a gold chain around my neck, close to my heart. And then I looked at them: the diamond and sapphire engagement ring and engraved wedding band perfectly nestled together. To remove them would be to steal a precious stone from its glass case in a museum, or the Baby Jesus from the crèche.

I had taken steps to move beyond Sam in every way that I could: I laughed out loud; I traveled alone; I picked up where he left off in the novel; I let a man into my body and my life and my house; I grieved and grieved and grieved.

But those rings weren’t going anywhere.

“I can’t take these off,” I cried, showing David my hand, my voice full of remorse. The hurt that was creeping into his body was torturous to watch, as if I was making actual stab wounds with blood gushing out.

“I mean, I
won’t
. It’s not that I don’t love you—in fact, I think I’ve finally fallen
in love
with you. But
this
,” I said, holding up the box, “this scares the hell out of me and I don’t know if I can truly move beyond my husband and give you what you so deserve, which is one hundred percent of me. I don’t think there’s one hundred percent of me to give anyone ever again.”

David leaned in close to me. “Look, I know it’s Christmas and I know you’re tired and scared and we probably should’ve talked about this first. But don’t say no yet—please don’t say no. Just think about it—can you do that?

“You don’t have to wear this ring. You can keep Sam’s rings on. In fact, we don’t even have to get married at all—”

“—Are you listening to yourself?”

“Please Andi,
please!
I can’t lose you again! I just can’t. Less than one hundred percent of you is ten times more than any other woman.”

 “No! Don’t settle. I used to settle. Look where it got me. It made me cling to men who left me at the first sign of dissatisfaction. It made them disrespect me and me resent them. It made me need to hire an escort to teach me all the things I should’ve learned when I was a teenager.”

He stood up. “You make it sound like you’re ashamed of what we did together. Like I’m one of those guys.”

I stood up as well. “You were! Look how long it took for you to let me in. By the time you did it was too late. In the meantime, however, you knew how I felt and you strung me along. You never let me be who I wanted to be, who I actually was.”

“That is so untrue. Especially since Rome. Andi, I’ve let you be afraid, distant, guarded, confused, a total mess, and I’ve let you run away and come back more times than I care to count.”

“And why in the world would you want to spend your life with a basket case like that?”

“Because I love that basket case! I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you. Talk about never getting over something, about never moving on… why do you think I’ve had nothing but short-lived flings and one-night stands for the last god-knows-how-long? Hell, why do you think I moved to
Boston
? Because when you went to Sam, I missed the boat and I knew it.”

What was he saying? Had he really moved to Boston to somehow be closer to me? The confession was too much to take in at the moment.

“I think you love the fact that I give you the same payoff all those women gave you for so many years. They needed you to fill something in them that they couldn’t fill for themselves, and you took pleasure in giving it to them. But you never gave them
everything
. You just did a good job of making them think you did. You never gave them the thing
you
needed most yourself. I never could figure out who or what you were trying to save, but it was
you
, wasn’t it. You never could fill
you
.”

Tears filled his eyes. He crossed to the other side of the room, and I followed him.

“Your father never loved and accepted you the way you needed him to. And yet, you tried so hard to give it to the
women
. What did you see in them that you so related to? Did your sisters never approve of you, either? Your mom? Or was it that
they
never came to your rescue when your father dismissed you the way he did?”