Before Ever After (23 page)

The group raised a collective brow.

“I borrowed it from a friend,” Max said without looking at them. He took Rose’s luggage from her and made his way to the door.

“Thank you for your help, Max,” Rose said.

Max wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and twisted it. He stopped midway. He turned around. “Why aren’t you crying, Rose?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s taken you a lifetime to find Jonathan, and yet now that you’ve lost him … you have no tears.”

Rose backed away from Max and sat down on the couch. She kept her eyes on Jonathan’s suitcase.

Shelley rushed to her side. She glared at Max. “I’m sorry, Rose. I’m sure he didn’t mean to be so
insensitive.
”

“It’s all right, dear.” Rose patted her hand.

“No, Rose, it isn’t.” Shelley turned to Max. “I think you should apologize, Max.”

Rose shook her head. “No. I’m glad he asked the question. To be honest, I’ve been asking it myself.”

“It’s because you’re still in shock, Rose,” Shelley said.

“No, I’m not in shock, dear. I know that Jonathan’s gone. I do miss him. I can’t even say his name without dying a little. But, to be honest, I haven’t cried because …” She took a deep breath. “I’ve had no reason to.”

“But you just said …”

“I have every reason to be sad, but I don’t have any reason to mourn. People grieve when things end. Nothing has ended tonight. One of us has simply gone ahead as we always knew it would have to be. But there is no place Jonathan can go …”

“Where you can’t follow,” Shelley said.

“Yes.” Rose smiled. “In time.”

Shelley hugged Rose as tightly as she could without breaking her. She glanced over Rose’s shoulder. Max was looking at her, his face straining with an emotion that Shelley had not seen before. It was strange, she thought, that when everyone else had found some comfort in Rose’s peace, Max appeared as though he was about to cry.

Shelley gave up trying to sleep. CNN was delivering a muted weather report: There was a storm over China. She sat up in bed and switched off the television. The evening’s events pressed closer in the darkness. She rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the image of Rose rummaging for scraps of her husband among his things. She could not. They were seared into her memory, blending into old scars left by a childhood spent watching a different woman go through exactly the same motions. She fumbled for the lamp.

The door of her room creaked open and Max walked in. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“I was up. How was Rose?”

“Calm.”

“I can’t begin to imagine what she must be going through,” Shelley lied.

“Good.” Max crawled in beside her and laid his head on her stomach. The lamplight deepened the shadows beneath his swollen eyes.

“Are you okay, Max? Have you been crying?”

“No, luv. I’m just … tired.”

She wiped away the tear that was running down his cheek. “Rest.”

Max turned away from her, his voice less than a whisper. “I wish I could.”

The disco ball looked less sparkly that morning with two less passengers reflected in its mirrored tiles. The tour group drove away from Austria in silence, sipping the bottles of water they were having for breakfast. No one had been particularly hungry when they rose that morning.

Brad wiped away a tear with the back of his hand. Simon offered him a tissue.

“Thanks.” Brad dabbed at the corner of his eye and blew his nose. He leaned on Simon’s shoulder.

Dex looked out the window. “So much for short love stories and happy endings.” He sighed, fogging up the glass. “I wonder how Rose is doing.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Simon said. “This trip’s not going to be the same without her and Jonathan.”

Max slowed the Volkswagen and parked at the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?” Shelley asked.

“I feel I need to say something before we drown ourselves in mineral water and general misery,” Max said.

Dex frowned. “Excuse me?”

“I know we’ve woken up to a less than cheery morning,” Max said, “but I do have some good news for you.”

“Good news?” Shelley asked.

“Yes. The good news is that we woke up,” Max said. “Today is a new day, and I, for one, have decided to live it. I strongly urge you to do the same.”

“It’s not that easy, Max,” Simon said. “Are you suggesting that we simply forget about what happened last night?”

“Actually, I am suggesting the complete opposite. I am asking that we honor it.”

“How?” Brad asked.

“Jonathan had one wish, and that wish was to spend the rest of his life with Rose,” Max said. “Would it be fair to say that he got his wish?”

“Well … uh … yes, I suppose so,” Dex said.

“We should celebrate that,” Max said. “Not many people can say that they spent the rest of their days with the love of their life.”

“But they’d just gotten married …” Shelley said.

“And they were happy in that short time that they were,” Max said. “If last night proved anything, it’s that life is a strong drink served up in an extremely short—and fragile—shot glass. Jonathan didn’t waste a single drop. Neither should we.”

Brad took a deep breath. “Guys, I think Max is right. I say we try our best to enjoy the rest of this trip.”

Dex nodded. “Jonathan and Rose would want it that way.”

Simon raised his water bottle. “To Jonathan and Rose …”

“And the life they lived so well.” Shelley took a long sip and felt the water wash away the tears in her throat.

Max drained his bottle and turned the key in the ignition. He flicked on the stereo. The upbeat chorus of “Stayin’ Alive” filled the van. The disco ball spun, showering it with stars.

A
h, the Bee Gees to the rescue,” Paolo said.

“Yes, you might even say that they saved the trip,” Shelley said. “Jonathan and Rose had left the back row very empty, but Max somehow managed to keep our spirits up with dangerously large doses of the Bee Gees’ greatest hits.”

“Scary.” Paolo chuckled. “But I can relate. I grew up with a mixed tape of seventies music blaring in our car.”

“That sounds like Max, all right,” she said.

“Well, he is—quite literally—one of a kind,” Paolo said.

The realization came without warning, much like discovering a bee trapped in your car. A black and yellow blur zipped past in her peripheral vision. Shelley gasped.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“One … one of a kind,” she said. The bee buzzed in her ear, waving its stinger at her. “I think that might not be the case exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

Shelley shook her head, trying in vain to evade it. Shoo. Shoo. “After Austria we headed to Slovenia. Max took us to a river.”

“So?”

“It was a river where a man had once lived.” The bee settled on her shoulder. Damn.

“What man?”

“A man …,” Shelley said, “like Max.”

The bee jabbed its stinger into her neck. It injected its toxin and pried itself off, leaving its bottom half embedded in her jugular. It fell dead on her lap.

Shelley felt the thick poison crawl under her skin. She hummed “Chiquitita” to keep calm. Wait. That was ABBA. The chorus of “How Deep Is Your Love” popped into her head. She sang silently, trying to soothe herself with old comfort.

T
he late-afternoon sun glowed on Shelley’s eyelids. It roused her from a dreamless sleep.

“Rise and shine, luv.” Max fastened back the window drapes.

Shelley squinted through the glare, disoriented. The black-and-white neoclassical details of the bedroom came into focus. She remembered where she was: a riverside penthouse apartment in the capital of Slovenia. She yawned. She knew from the sandy dryness of her mouth that she had been asleep far longer than the ten-minute nap she had told Max to wake her from. “What time is it?”

“Not ten minutes later.” Max sat down beside her on the bed. “The boys have gone exploring in the Old Town. We’re supposed to meet by the river for dinner. Are you feeling up to it?”

Shelley cleared her throat and rubbed her eyes. “You shouldn’t have let me oversleep.”

“But you were snoring so blissfully, I didn’t have the heart to wake you—despite having gone deaf in both ears.”

She threw a pillow at him. “I do not snore.”

Max laughed and gathered Shelley to him. He smiled and kissed her
softly. “I thought you needed a bit more rest after … everything that’s happened,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She snuggled closer. The events of Vienna were not far behind, but the pain in her heart was duller now, soothed by sleep and Max’s embrace.

“Good,” he said. “I’d hate to think my eardrums died in vain.” He flipped Shelley over on the bed and tickled her until her high-pitched squeals threatened to make him deaf in earnest.

Shelley and Max strolled along the small river that circumscribed the Old Town district of the city of Ljubljana. What the city did not have in grandeur, Shelley thought, it made up for in crooked willow-shaded streets, charming rows of red-tiled roofs, and the vibrant banter of the university students spilling out from the streetside cafés. A mop of fiery red hair flashed in the corner of her eye.

“Over here!” Dex waved at Shelley. He was seated with Simon and Brad at one of the restaurant tables set on the cobblestone embankment.

Her chest tightened when she saw the empty seats where a birdlike woman and bear-size man would have normally sat. She waved back, trying to ignore the hollow ache.

Max sat down next to Brad. “So what adventures have the three of you had today?”

Brad grinned at Shelley. “I think I should be asking you that.”

“I slept the day away, I’m afraid,” she said.

“And I thought that you and I were up to the same thing,” Brad said.

“Which would be what, exactly?” Shelley asked.

“Oh, you know, mounting something tall, strong, and massive.” Brad winked at Simon.

“Er …” She blushed.

“Which in English means that we climbed that castle over there.” Simon pointed over Shelley’s shoulder to where the medieval Ljubljana Castle stood on a hill in the center of the Old Town.

Shelley laughed. “Well, I certainly have to agree that it is by far the only thing that qualifies as massive in this city.”

“Isn’t this place great, though?” Dex said. “A regular Lilliput. Everything’s so tiny. Even the river’s small.”

She glanced at the green river flowing past them. It was hardly more than a stream and matched the color of the willow leaves hanging over it.

“Don’t let its size fool you,” Max said. “It’s a small river that’s overflowing with stories.”

“Including a tale about one of Isabelle’s Slovenian cousins, perhaps?” Simon asked.

“You know me so well.” Max signaled the waiter. “But that is on tomorrow’s menu. Tonight I think we should try some toasted goat cheese, whitefish with cream sauce, and a bottle or two of Renski Rizling.”

“Sounds good,” Shelley said.

“And perhaps a tiny slice of a popular Slovenian folktale,” Max said. “Has anyone heard of the River Man, by any chance?”