Before Ever After (33 page)

Shelley sighed. She did love Max; this she knew without question. That was the problem. Saying yes to Max’s question was easy. Saying yes to what he did not ask was not. To have said yes meant she consented to a beginning—and an end. Till death do us part. There was a very real reason for this wedding vow. It proclaimed the infallible truth that all marriages ended in one of two ways: spouses died or love did. She refused to be widowed by either. She read the caption beneath the photograph of the statue silently.

Michelangelo chose to depict David at the point when he had already decided to fight Goliath, but before they had engaged in battle. It represents the journey across cognizant choice and deliberate action
.

Shelley looked at the statue’s eyes and was struck by the determination and courage she found there. But there was also something else. Something she had not expected to see. Peace.

Her choice had not left her with the same serenity. Perhaps, she thought with a sigh, it was because running away was actually the opposite of a decision. It was procrastination. She had yet to make a real choice. She needed to find Max. Having no clue where the tour group was headed next, however, posed a slight problem. She looked at Dex. “Um, you don’t suppose this book would have a section on prominent chickens in history, would it?”

Dex took a nap after making a valiant though vain effort to scour the guidebook for chickens. Shelley watched him sleep. A tiny stream of saliva dribbled from one side of his mouth and pooled on the green sweater he had balled under his neck. She smiled. Dex was sweet and simple, the kind of man her mother had always wanted her to marry. So unlike Max. When she had looked into Max’s amber eyes, there was an easy charm in a flicker, depths of strength in a glint. Sometimes, when Max thought she wasn’t looking, she caught a glimpse of a longing so devastating, she had to look away. And yet she would always look back, unable to resist what haunted her the most: the reflection of an extraordinary new world.

Shelley wondered where Max was now, even as she accepted the
futility of finding him. Having also failed to find any reference to historical chickens or eggs in Dex’s guidebook, she decided that the logical thing to do would be to find her own bearings. Max would return to London at some point. She would contact him then and give him the answer he might not necessarily want but at least deserved to hear.

Dex whimpered. “Sheil …”

Shelley turned to Dex. Had he called her name? His eyes darted after a dream beneath his lids.

“Sheila. Please. Stay!” Dex jolted awake. His sweater fell to the floor.

“Dex, are you okay?” Shelley touched his arm.

Dex grabbed his sweater, looked away, and wiped his eyes with its sleeve. He turned back to face her. The fractured smile Shelley had first seen when they met in Max’s van had returned. It reminded her of a flannel robe, the kind people throw over their pajamas when they rush to answer the door. Rumpled and slightly askew.

“Sorry, was I talking in my sleep?” Dex asked.

Shelley nodded, noticing that his lashes were still wet. “Who’s Sheila?”

Dex swallowed and looked out the window. He dug his fingers into the sweater. “She’s my wife,” he said to his reflection in the glass.

“Wife?” Shelley’s head jerked back in surprise. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“This trip was supposed to be our honeymoon. Sheila … couldn’t come.”

“I don’t understand …”

Dex looked at her and sighed deeply.

“Sheila doesn’t know me anymore,” Dex said, “on most days at least. She’s sick. Familial Alzheimer’s disease. It’s an extremely rare form of Alzheimer’s that afflicts younger people.”

This was it, Shelley thought. This was the pain that had been peeking through the cracks in Dex’s smile the entire trip. “Oh, Dex, I’m so sorry.”

“We had always dreamed of traveling around Europe. But Sheila got sick and the disease progressed more rapidly than anyone expected. The changes were small, almost unnoticeable at first. She started forgetting
little things … her keys, her purse. But later, more things started to fade. Hours, days, faces. Me. It was like I was dead to her … just …” Dex choked on his tears.

“Just what?” she asked quietly.

“Worse. It was like I never even existed.” Dex swallowed back his pain. “But there were still good days to look forward to … days when we could talk, laugh … dream. It was on one of those days that I asked Sheila to marry me.”

Marry me
. Max’s voice breathed into her ear. Shelley fought back tears.

“And she turned me down,” Dex said.

“But I thought …”

“I managed to change her mind. As you may have noticed, I can be quite persistent.” He tapped his camera. A shy smile flickered in his eyes.

Shelley smiled back. Dex had taken more pictures of her on this trip than anyone ever had on all her vacations combined. “I have.”

“In time, Sheila came to understand why I needed to be with her.”

“And why did you?” Shelley regretted the question as soon as the words had tumbled out of her mouth. She had not meant to be crude, only honest. In staying, Dex was choosing to be left behind. He was either a fool or the wisest man she knew.

“Because I don’t believe in jumping off trains, Shelley,” he said. “Do you remember what Jonathan said about Rose when we were at the monastery? How he wanted to make memories with her while he could? That’s how I feel about Sheila. I want to be with her while I can. I want to remember as much as I can: the funny squeak she makes when she hiccups … the way her skin smells like peaches … the way she curls into a ball next to me when we sleep.” His voice grew softer. “These are all I’ll have of her after she’s … gone.”

“That’s why you were so upset that night we took Jonathan to the hospital.”

“Yes,” Dex said, “except that I remember thinking that Rose had it slightly better than me. Rose could at least hope that things were going to be okay, even for just a little while. I don’t even remember what that’s like anymore. Sheila isn’t going to get any better. I’m sitting in the waiting
room—all day, every day—knowing that every second brings us closer to the end. Can you imagine what that feels like, Shelley?”

Shelley bit her lip. She didn’t have to imagine it. She was very aware that people and relationships had expiration dates. She had watched her dad wither and her mom fade next to him. It was exactly why she had fled from Max. Things couldn’t end if she didn’t let them begin.

“But you know what? I’d do it all over again,” Dex said. “Losing someone to F.A.D. is extremely rare, but finding the other half of your soul is rarer. Any man, at least any man who had found what I had, would do the same, which leaves me wondering why …” He paused, looking hesitant.

“Why what?”

“Why you’re on this train.”

Shelley blanched from the punch to her gut.

“I honestly thought you and Max had something—”

“Terrifying.” The word slipped out in a whisper from her lips, but it rang loudly in her head.

“But isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what everyone hopes for? To find a passion so great that it scares the hell out of you? Why are you so desperate to run away from it, Shelley?” Dex asked.

“Shouldn’t you be asking yourself that same question? Why did you leave your wife’s side to go on this trip? What are you running away from?”

“What? No. You’ve got it wrong. I never left her, Shelley. Sheila’s been with me on this entire trip.” He took a deep breath. “And I have pictures to prove it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I … took pictures of you so that Sheila could see her face on them when I got back home. I’m making the memories she can no longer make for herself. This is our trip, memories we can reminisce about on good days and hold on to through the bad,” Dex said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was afraid you wouldn’t …”

Shelley regretted her poses. She wished he had told her the truth. Dex could replace her plastered smile, but she was worried that Sheila might still see the reluctance in the arms folded across her chest and the
awkwardness weighing down her hunched shoulders. She did not know Sheila, but she knew that she deserved so much more. Shelley threw her arms around Dex and hugged him tight. “I understand.”

“Do you?” Dex sighed into her shoulder.

She pulled away. “Of course I do.”

Dex clasped her hand. “Then I’m asking you again, Shelley—why are you here? If you really understand the value of making memories with someone you love, why are you throwing yours away so easily? You don’t know how much I envied you … all of you on this trip. Everyone had someone to experience the journey with. You shared everything, from the best eggs to the worst kind of pain. One day these memories will fade, but you’ll always have someone to argue with about what the name of that monastery in Austria was and to laugh with about that creepy guy we met in Slovenia. Do you know how special that is?”

Shelley wanted to give him an answer, but she knew that nothing she could say would make a difference. He had not spent his childhood learning how cruel scrapbooks could be, watching a woman find—and lose—her husband every time she turned a page. If he had, perhaps he would think better of jumping off trains.

“I know that there’s no magic potion to preserve my life or Sheila’s,” Dex said, still holding on to Shelley’s hand. “And I know that the time will come when her voice won’t be as crystal clear in my head. But even when every detail has dulled, I know that I’ll always have something that not even time can take away. Pain.”

Shelley’s hand stiffened against Dex’s palm. “And that’s a good thing?”

“Yes, because when I’ve forgotten everything else, I’ll feel that ache … that tightness in my throat … that heaviness in my chest … and know that I loved a woman once and she loved me back. It’s proof that I existed and so did she.”

I
t was Saturday and the embassy was closed. The recorded message on the phone stated a number to contact in case of an emergency. Shelley deliberated about whether her situation qualified as one. She wasn’t incarcerated, no one had been murdered, and her passport had not fallen into unscrupulous hands. She wondered if leaping from imaginary trains counted.

Dex knocked on the phone booth. “Well?”

She hung up. “I think we need to find a place to stay until Monday.”

Dex had left their hostel to do some sightseeing. While his persistence had paid off in getting Shelley to pose for his pictures, it had little effect on getting her to talk about why she had run away. She wasn’t trying to be stubborn; she just didn’t know what to say. She was staring at a brick wall. Literally. She drew the threadbare orange curtains shut, blocking out the view.

She flopped onto the bed. The rolling landscape of lumps and springs jabbed at her ribs. Shelley rolled on her stomach and buried her head on the stained pillow. She gagged and flipped over. Death by wet dog.
Shelley would have fled, but her feet had gone on strike. They demanded rest. But the bed refused to cooperate. A spring stabbed her in the back. She scrambled off the mattress and dashed out the door.

It was the third cup of espresso that quieted the protests of Shelley’s exhausted appendages. Even her toes were now buzzing with borrowed energy. But the Olympian sprint they wanted to run would have to wait. Shelley was channeling the caffeine rush for other purposes.

She took the last paper napkin from the dispenser and began to scribble down the second volume of possible answers to Max’s question. She looked at the tall stack of napkins beside her. She signaled the waiter for another cup.

The waiter narrowed his eyes under a hedge of dark brows at the pile of napkins on the table.

Shelley didn’t notice him. She was engrossed in reviewing her latest list.

It’s not you. It’s me …
Blech.

If only love were enough …
Pathetic.

It just wouldn’t work …
Ugh.

Absolutely not!…
Psychotic.

No
. Hmm.

No
. Not bad, not bad at all. Swift, like a bullet to the head. Shelley hoped it would be just as painless. She was well aware that when she squeezed the trigger, it would not be Max who would be standing at the end of the barrel. “No,” she practiced out loud.

The waiter frowned. “No espresso?”

“Huh?” She looked up at him. “No. I mean yes. Another espresso, please.”

The waiter nodded. “One espresso.” He turned to leave.

“No.” Practice would make perfect, Shelley told herself. She was already beginning to sound more convincing.

The waiter walked back. “No espresso?”

“What? No. No. One espresso. Please.”

The waiter rolled his eyes. “One espresso.”

“No!” Shelley smiled at the depth of her delivery, seconds before being kicked out of the café.

Shelley would still have been wandering aimlessly around Rome if not for Sister Margaret. The heavyset nun had suggested that every good Catholic schoolgirl should make a visit to the seat of her faith. Shelley did not want to disappoint her longtime boarder by telling her that the only thing she now had in common with the pink-cheeked schoolgirl she had once been was that she still occasionally put her hair in pigtails. She conceded to touring the Vatican, deciding that this would at least delay her return to the forest of mildew she had to sleep on. She walked up to St. Peter’s Basilica and took in its scale.