Ordinary World (29 page)

            “He’s a big guy,” he remarked.

            “Yeah. We overfed him, I guess.”

Without warning, Donny Most became restless and leapt out of my arms, landing on the hardwood floor with a thud; yet he stayed close by, curiously brushing up against David’s legs.

            “Do you like cats?” I asked. It dawned on me that the subject had never come up.

            “Yeah, I like cats. Not as much as I like dogs…but yeah, cats are cool.”

            Once inside, we both took tentative steps, as if we had broken into someone else’s house and were snooping around.

            “Well,” I said. “This is it.”

            David slowly and quietly sauntered around the living room, as if he were in a sacred place. He observed and absorbed every hue and shape and value and tone and texture, I could tell, and moved on to the other rooms the same way, occasionally asking a question about a piece of artwork or furniture or knick-knack, almost in a whisper, as if needing to be reverent of the space.

            “Did you do the decorating?” he asked.

            “We both did,” I answered. “Sam had owned the house before we met, but once we committed and I moved in, it became ours—not just legally, but emotionally as well. I never once thought of this as ‘Sam’s house’ the whole time we were married. And yet, I can’t bring myself to call it ‘my house’ either, especially since he’s been gone. It’s always been
our
house.”

            David perused the display of photographs of Sam and me: our wedding day; our honeymoon in Montreal; on the Cape; in Boston; hiking; at the beach; and with our respective families. Among those were also new ones I had put out of Maggie and me, Miranda, and even a few of Rome. None were of David, however, and this fact was conspicuous.

            “You look so different in these pictures,” he remarked.

            “I wasn’t so heavy back then.”

            “It’s not the weight—I wasn’t even looking at your body. It’s
you
. It’s in your eyes. You’re so happy, so at peace with yourself.”

           
How I hunger to get that back.

            “I was,” I said sadly.

            We entered the study. He chuckled when he saw the shelf of bobble-head dolls, which had gotten quite dusty. I explained how the collection got started. At that moment I felt a nostalgic fondness for them.

            “Wow,” he said, looking around and hugging himself, as if getting a chill. “He’s really in here.”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Sam. He’s in this room. His presence is very strong in here.”

            “Yeah, I know.” I suddenly wanted to leave, wondering if Sam was mad at me for bringing another man into
his
room—in particular, the only man (other than him) I’d ever had sex with, before and after marrying him. How disrespectful could I get?

            “You know, I’m sorry I never really got to know your husband,” David said. “I’m sure I would’ve liked him a lot. I liked him that one time I met him.”

            “We should leave now,” I said, standing by the door, impatient. After he exited I closed the door behind us, something I hadn’t done since the day of the funeral.

           
This was a bad idea
, I thought as we passed our bedroom, and quickly grabbed and shut that door before David had a chance to even peek in. I think he instinctively knew better, however, and continued straight ahead and down the stairs, back into the living room.

            “Your house is wonderful, Andi. It’s more than a house—you and Sam have a
home
.” (I was pleased that he said “have” and not “had”.) “I’ve never had that before, not since I was a kid living in my parents’ house. And even then I never really felt like I belonged there.”

            At that moment I remembered something that Sam had said the day I moved in:
Now it’s a home, Sweetheart.
I then remembered being in David’s parents’ house on the day of his father’s funeral and seeing the family photographs and, at that point, a man I never really knew. And yet here, in Sam’s and my house, I saw the same man I had seen at that funeral, the man I slept with that night. He had needed me that night.

            Was he really that same man?

            Suddenly I found myself stuck between two, perhaps even three worlds. First, the world of Sam and Andi Vanzant: a world of certainty and comfort and home and self-assurance and confidence and love. Sam and I were best friends as well as lovers, and I missed our intimate friendship on a daily basis even more than the sex. Second, the world of David Santino and Andi Vanzant: two people with undeniable chemistry, knowing each other from a past life and trying to assimilate into a new one. We loved each other—there was no denying that. But shortly after Sam and I had gotten engaged and ran into David at the gallery, I remember thinking that it was probably a good thing that David and I had never gotten together, because I was never really going to know David. He would always be Devin to me, and I would always want him to be Devin. I worried that this was still true.

            Which brought me to the third world: Devin the Escort and Andi the Aloof. The alluring man clad in Versace with whom I’d gallivanted around Manhattan and learned about blow jobs and discussed Aristotle and Isocrates; and me: uptight, inhibited, self-conscious. We were so guarded and unavailable to each other in those days.

Perhaps we were struggling to find the comfort of familiarity. Or perhaps the payoff that came from something familiar was bigger than the payoff that came from something unfamiliar. So which was it going to be, especially since it had already been decided for me that my world with Sam was gone forever?

            “Thank you for letting me into your home, Andi,” said David.

            I began to cry.

He took me into his arms and held me.

            “It was a big step,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”

“I just feel so
lost
,” I cried, voice muffled, my face buried in the same blue Henley he wore that first day in Rome. “Just when everything starts to look familiar again, I look around and suddenly don’t know where I am.”

“I know,” he said, soothing me and stroking my hair. “You’ll find your way. I promise. Even if it’s a new road. It’ll be okay.”

He let go and lovingly looked into my eyes, which made the corners of my mouth turn upward in benevolence. He kissed me softly.

I walked him outside to his car.

“I’ll call you in a couple of days, okay?” he said. I nodded my head in agreement.

After he left I re-entered the house, scooped up Donny Most again, and carried him into the study, where I sat on the couch and cried, stroking his fur and apologizing to Sam over and over again.

Chapter Thirty-five

I
SPENT THE NEXT THREE DAYS RECOVERING FROM the hangovers of flying anxiety, jet lag, altitude sickness, hiking, and emotional exhaustion. Worse still, I had to go back to school and be productive—having squandered that allowance in the weeks leading up to my meltdown, I couldn’t afford to slack for even a minute. On the Friday following my return, I sat in Melody’s office telling her all of this. Then I segued into a new conversation.

            “I can’t believe it’s two years since Sam’s been gone,” I said.

            “You mean, since Sam’s death,” Melody responded.

            Melody always tried to get me to come out and say it, but I never gave her the satisfaction. “And I’m forty-two. Geez, when did
that
happen?”

            “It kinda creeps up on you, huh.”

            “I don’t feel forty-two.”

“How old do you feel?” she asked.

“Some days I feel like I’m thirty-two. Other days I feel like I’m sixty-two. My brothers are taking it really hard. Joey’s going to be fifty in December and Anthony is forty-seven. The thought of their ‘baby’ sister catching up to them is a little scary, I guess.”

            “Are either of them married?”

            “Both of them are divorced. It’s hard to be married to a musician, especially with the kind of work they do. They’re on the road a lot, and around a lot of drinking and drugs and promiscuity.”

            “Do they participate in those activities?”

            “If they do, they never said a word to me. They don’t seem to be the type, although who knows? I managed to put up a good front for a long time.”

            “What do you mean?” Melody asked.

            “I mean, on the outside, I made sure my hair and makeup looked nice and that I wasn’t fazed by the extra pounds or upset when Andrew or anyone else dumped me. And anyone would’ve thought I had a healthy, active sex life.”

            “Until Devin?”

            “Yeah. Devin totally had my number.”

            “You hid nothing from Sam?”

            “Well, I never told him that Devin was an escort. All Sam knew was that I had been sort of ‘involved’ with someone in New York,” I said, gesturing quote marks with my fingers at the word
involved
. “I never really specified with whom or the extent to how involved we really were.”

            The memory flashed before me:

“What does ‘involved’ mean?” asks Sam.
“It wasn’t exactly dating. We were just sort of hanging out together.”
                       
“How is that not dating?”

                       
“Well, we weren’t sleeping together.”

                       
Sam grows quiet. “But you liked him.”

                       
“I was attracted to him, yes,” I admit.

           
“Why didn’t you sleep with him if you were hanging out together?”
                       
“I don’t know. It just wasn’t that kind of relationship.”

                       
“He never wanted to sleep with you?”

           
“He…he didn’t communicate that.”
I take his hand. “Look, Sammy. It was a very shallow relationship. He was a great guy to hang out with, but he just wasn’t available—I don’t mean married, just…let’s put it this way: even with you being four states away, you were more available and present than he was. Really,” I say, “that guy wasn’t the one.”
                       
“You’re not going to tell me his name?”

           
“You gonna hunt him down and beat the crap out of him?”
                       
He laughs. “He’s not worth the bridge toll.”

I put my arms around him and kiss him. “Exactly. You’re the one I want, Sam.”
              “Why did you never tell him everything?” asked Melody.

            “I’ve told you before—there didn’t seem to be a need to. That information alone made him edgy.”

            “Edgy?”

            “Okay, pissed off. Insecure, I guess. He actually had second thoughts about marrying me at one point.”

            “How did you resolve it?”

            “Well, I reminded him that I
moved
, for chrissakes. Relocating to a new state pretty much demonstrates commitment, I think.”

Melody nodded and paused for a beat.

            “Is that all you withheld from him?” she asked.

            The question settled into my stomach. “Yeah, I guess so.”

            “Do you think he hid anything from you?”