Caroline offered to give me a week or so off from work, but I
knew there was still so much to get done before the broadcast. So when she
refused to drive me—not that I complained—I hailed a cab most of the way and
walked the rest. I needed to do something to occupy my mind and time; I would
go insane from the unanswered questions and instant replay if I didn’t.
To say she was livid when I showed up would be hugely
inaccurate. She was way past that. I
could tell by the fireball that was hurled towards me, barely missing my head. That,
and the storm of yelling that followed, summing up to basically question why I
was so hardheaded. When she shushed long enough for me to say anything, I
simply told her, “I need this.” I could only hope she would understand how
painful it was sitting in her apartment alone.
“Fine;” her arms, previously crossed over her chest, dropped
to her sides. “But I’m not giving you any work.” Turning to Ian, who stood behind
her, watching the goings-on with a mixture of confusion and interest, she said,
“And you won’t either.”
“Then I’ll find something.” She nodded and began listing
things they still needed to do before Saturday night as Ian followed her to
another area of the building.
Left to my own devices, I made my way into her office, a
project already in mind. When I’d had to file the charts I redid, I remembered
thinking her cabinets were a mess and it was a miracle she could find anything.
The chaos probably stemmed back to Conan; I doubted he was much concerned with
keeping her organized.
So I set to work, pulling all of the files, emptying the
folders, and re-sorting the papers into stacks around the room. At one point, I
decided I should start stuffing folders again, so I went out to buy a few
multi-color packs to help further organize everything.
The project took up my time during the day. Trying to determine
where everything belonged was all that mattered. I wasn’t hungry so I often
skipped meals without trying. Caroline stopped in occasionally during the week
with food and sat down, telling me I had to eat something. I would eat some of
it while listening to her talk about what was happening and ask if I needed
anything. Every time my answer was the same: no. I was fine. Don’t worry about
me. But I knew the more I said it, the less she believed it.
After the first day, she gave me rides there and back, her
reasoning being she couldn’t stop me, so she might as well save me the cab fare.
The morning trip was laced with conversation, mostly her prying and trying to
coerce me into dealing with what had happened. It didn’t work because I
wouldn’t let it. I wasn’t ready to deal with it. I just needed more time.
My nights were spent outside. I would wait until she was fast
asleep before sneaking out. Sometimes I went out to the rooftop garden—I was
drawn to it despite how painful a reminder was. Other times I would find a park
and walk around aimlessly. On those walks, I often felt as though I was looking
for something in the trees, searching for someone in the clearings, hoping for
one thing or another to lead me away from this half existence. The only thing I
ever found was the moon.
When I saw her hanging in the sky, Jake’s words returned to
me from all those years ago, from the night before he left the camp to return
home. Drei had struck some deal with the Lady of the Moon, keeper of promises. I
didn’t know what he had promised, or if she was doing her part in it, but every
night I was out there, I asked of her the same thing.
“Bring him back to me...please. I can’t keep living like
this.”
I would stare after her until she began to disappear over the
horizon. Then I would sneak back into Caroline’s apartment, pretending to have
just woken up. She didn’t know I left at night; she didn’t know I couldn’t
sleep. It was just another reminder that no one could replace him; it was also a painful reminder of how much and how little he really knew about
me.
No comments:
Post a Comment