Is that telling? I wonder, anguished. Had he moved those photos because he was redecorating a little or was he beginning internally to sever ties with the world and was afraid gazing at loved ones would cause him to second-guess his terrible plan?
What I don’t see is any kind of farewell note.
I quickly turn and duck into the small, white-tiled kitchen. Somehow, it’s even more painful for me here, since Jamie always loved being in this room, whether he was firing up the Nespresso machine with the towel from his morning shower still tied around his waist, or making us dinner, something he did frequently.
You up for turkey chili?he might ask and then lift his eyebrows.Or are you pining for something truly gourmet?
The kitchen, like the living room, is neat as a pin. On impulse, I open the dishwasher and peek inside. The only item in it is an espresso cup on the top rack, obviously placed there on his last morning in the city.
And then as crazy as I feel doing it, I tug out the expresso cup and press the rim to my lips. Another sob catches in my throat.Oh, Jamie, I wonder,what were you thinking as you brought this to your own lips? How terrible of a problem could you have been facing?
So far, nothing I’ve seen here is giving me any indication.
As I turn to leave the room, I spot Cody’s leash on the hook by the door and my heart squeezes at the sight. Obviously, Jamie couldn’t bring himself to part with it.
I head next to the second bedroom, a space Jamie had set up initially as a home office for himself and then, when I moved in, for the two of us. My desk is missing, of course. That’s the one thing I’d brought with me and then hauled away when I left. In its former location is a new, waist-high bookcase. I stoop down to peruse the thirty or so books that have been arranged in an orderly fashion on the shelves. Irecognize most of them as biographies and popular histories, including the six Vic wrote before his latest. While I lived here, these books all had homes on different shelves or tabletops around the apartment, so it seems Jamie was suddenly eager to fill the space. Maybe he didn’t want to be reminded of my absence.
I turn back around and walk toward his sleek wooden desk. My eyes focus immediately on the mango-colored Post-it note stuck to the desktop. Stepping closer, I recognize Jamie’s handwriting and see that he’d scrawled the wordschargers,contact lenses,weights, obviously a reminder to pack those items for his monthlong stay in Connecticut.
The rest of the items on top of the desk are simply the usual suspects: a black mesh container for pens and pencils, a stapler, a tape dispenser. Nothing that tells me anything. There’s no laptop, of course. He would have taken it with him.
I reach down and tug open the single built-in file drawer. Though the idea of looking through Jamie’s files makes me queasy—I would never have even considered doing it when we were together—I realize that if I’m going to find any hints to the source of his troubles, they’re probably not likely to be in plain view. Jamie stored almost everything digitally, but he did keep a few paper files.
At first glance, nothing seems revelatory. The tabs on the files are all totally mundane: “Medical,” “Vet bills,” “Mortgage,” and so on. When I thumb through one or two, I see that the paperwork is from the aughts, meaning much of what’s in here is from a period before statements and notices were sent electronically.
One file tab does grab my attention: “Active.” I tug it from the drawer and flip it open.
To my disappointment, it’s almost empty. Is that revealing in itself? Was there no need for an “active” file because he wasn’t planning on a future? I lower myself into the desk chair and pick up the first item.
It’s a ragged piece of white butcher paper, torn off, I would guess, from one of those table coverings in bistro-style restaurants. “Duolingo,” it says, in feminine-looking handwriting. “Online Spanish lesson app. Fun!”
Improving his Spanish had been one of Jamie’s New Year’s resolutions, and it appears that someone he’d had a recent meal with had recommended a resource for it. Was she a client? Or maybe a date, a woman he’d begun seeing here in the city?
The second item is a renewal form for the New York Historical Society Museum and Library and the last is a sheet of lined yellow legal paper with a list of addresses—nine altogether—scribbled down in Jamie’s handwriting. There’s a variety of towns represented, and all but two of the town names are ones I recognize as being in Connecticut, within thirty or so miles of the house Jamie was renting when I met him.
My first thought is that they must be houses Jamie looked at before he settled on his latest rental. Or perhaps he was even in the market to buy. Since I was out of the picture and we were no longer purchasing an apartment in Manhattan, he might have decided to try to invest in a weekend home after years of renting.
But the last two addresses, I suddenly notice, are in Florida. Maybe as an alternative, he saw himself snagging a winter getaway.
Regardless, if hewastoying with buying a second home—either in Connecticut or Florida—it certainly doesn’t jibe with him wanting to exit the world.
I take a photo of the page and then stick the file back in the drawer. As I rise from the chair, a brief noise tears me from my thoughts. It seems to have come from the living room—was it the sound of a door clicking shut? My heart skips. Is someone else inside the apartment?
I sneak a nervous peek into the corridor and after hearing nothing else, I tiptoe back toward the front. There’s no one in the living roomor the foyer. I stand stock-still, with my ears perked. After a couple of seconds, I hear the sound again, and realize it’s the ice maker in the fridge, dropping cubes into the compartment below. I lived here for a year, so I should have known.
It’s a reminder, though, that if I intend to be gone by four, I need to get my ass in gear. But there’s still one more space I haven’t entered: the bedroom. I return to the hallway beyond the arch and force myself in that direction. Oddly, the door is closed, and I hold my breath as I push it open.
There’s a change in here, too, which presents itself at first glance. Jamie has removed the sage-green duvet I helped him pick out and replaced it with a cream-colored one. Had he never liked that duvet as much as he said he did—or was it simply too much of a reminder of our time together?
I take a quick look around the tidy space and en suite bathroom but find nothing significant. I could look further—into bedroom drawers and bathroom cabinets—but that feels way too intrusive.
Without really thinking, I lower myself onto the bed. How many times did Jamie and I make love in this room? Surely hundreds, in the two and a half years we were together.
I’d been physically attracted to him the instant I laid eyes on him. We’d “met cute,” arriving simultaneously at a Citi Bike rack where only one bike remained.
“You take it,” he’d said gallantly, smiling his full-wattage Jamie smile.
“Wow, so chivalry isn’t dead,” I’d replied. “Thank you.”
