I realize now that it had to be that way. We were naive. We thought we were walking side by side, and I guess we were, for a while. But we couldn’t see the road forking up ahead, pushing us in opposite directions.
50
Despite all prognoses, Lucas’s father started to get better. A few days after we arrived in Madrid, they transferred him out of the ICU and into the cardiology unit. They’d need to continue monitoring him constantly. He needed help for almost everything, and Lucas started spending more and more time at the office.
He didn’t talk much about his family. Not with me, at least. But not with them, either, I’m pretty sure. It was as if they’d reached a tacit agreement to leave behind the past and start over. But it’s dangerous to start over when the wounds are still raw and words still burn, when mistakes weigh heavy andI trust youis still just a three-syllable phrase.
The ugliness doesn’t disappear just because you turn away from it. You can’t rub out mistakes with an eraser. And when you push all that stuff off into a corner, eventually it overflows. Or maybe it doesn’t, and that’s even worse. Because then that inertia takes you over. You close your eyes, cover your ears, bite your tongue, forget what your senses were even for, and you disconnect from life, surrounded by fog.
Then one day, your life ceases to belong to you, and others dictate to you what you should do.
And that’s when you disappear.
I could see that. I could see Lucas fading away at the edges. A little bit more every day.
And I was watching it happen. Motionless. And it was happening to me, too, and the person I was faded away like chalk streaks under rain.
51
I was trying and failing to screw on the top of the Moka pot when Lucas appeared in the kitchen. He stopped behind me, and I felt his lips on my shoulder.
“You want me to help you with that?”
I stepped aside to make room for him. “Yes, please.”
I nearly choked on these words as I saw how he was dressed: in a dark gray suit with a blue shirt, hair combed and gelled, taming his dark curls. He looked like another person. That was the first thing I thought. But then, he seemed so comfortable in those clothes that it was almost as if he’d been born in them.
He screwed the cap on deftly and placed the coffee maker on the stove. He’d told me the night before that he’d be going to a lawyer with his father to fill out a power of attorney for the business. Supposedly it couldn’t wait.
He’d be busy, but only for a few days. He had some meetings to attend, some documents to sign, and then he’d make sure everything at the business was running as it should. His father had asked him, and he couldn’t say no when the man was in such a delicate state. Besides, he knew how the company ran. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Stop staring at me that way,” Lucas said.
“I’m not!”
He turned and leaved against the counter. “Do I look that weird to you?”
“Your clothes are pressed. It’s unnatural.”
“My mother would die if she heard you.”
“She nearly died when she saw me,” I said.
He laughed and hugged me, and I didn’t resist. I loved having him close. Kissing him… All those things we barely did now, because we barely saw each other. And when we did find some time together, nothing was the same as before in Sorrento. Lucas talked less, laughed less. He was colder, more introverted.
And I…
All I could think about was how much I missed what we used to be.
I couldn’t say what would become of us.
I couldn’t even say what we were then.
It hurt me, feeling that way. Having those thoughts. Doing nothing about it. Because I wouldn’t tackle the issue and I had no idea what was stopping me.
Hours later, Lucas wrote me to let me know he’d be having lunch out with his father’s partner before heading back to the hospital. A part of me got angry with him. I knew it wasn’t fair, but emotions aren’t something you can control. They arise, they grow, they extend like roots, enveloping you and sucking all your energy. You can pretend you don’t feel them. You can convince yourself they don’t exist, but that won’t make them disappear. They are shadows with a life of their own. Run as far as you like, get as far away as you can, but they’ll still be there, clinging to your feet. Even on the darkest days.
That anger stayed with me the rest of the day, and grew when I thought of Sorrento, Giulio, Catalina, and everyone else. Of eveningsin the garden, days on the beach, nights curled up next to Lucas’s body. I wanted that life back more than anything. And losing it was killing me. There was no getting around it.
