Hiding In His Dreams (10 page)

He saw her look down at her now flat
stomach, and pat it lightly.

Ten minutes dragged into twenty. Luke
decided that it was time to join her. He went up beside her and put
an arm around her. She did not seem to notice.

He heard the summer rain hammering
against the glass, as though it were struggling to infiltrate their
apartment. The rain came without warning, a sudden freak storm. The
wind bellowed and shook the glass window.

She shook a little, and Luke could not
tell if it was due to the weather.

"Are you OK?" Luke asked.

Alyssa shook her head, then her entire
body began to tremble. She started to unbutton her shirt, then took
it off, standing there in her bra.

She turned to Luke, and started to
unbutton the top of his dress shirt. She kissed him furiously on
the cheek, then pounced on him.

Luke backed away. "What are you
doing?!" he asked. He looked at her. Her face was hot, and her body
was still shaking. Luke now knew that it was not due to the
weather.

"Let's make a baby," she said. Her hair
was a mess, her eyes were eager, and her voice was innocent. Too
innocent to do what she had just suggested.

"Like this?"

She nodded.

"I don't want to do it like this. It's
too soon. It doesn't feel right." There, he had said it. He had
mentioned the miscarriage for the first time in weeks.

Alyssa, however, did not notice it. She
advanced on him, and he backed away even farther.

She tackled him and he fell to the
floor. She tried to undo her bra, but the straps were giving her
trouble. At the same time, she kissed him all over his face, but it
was less of a kiss and more like the wet slobbering of a
dog.

"Alyssa," he said.

When she did not respond, he yelled,
"Alyssa!"

She ignored him.

He pushed her off, and she rolled down
beside him.

The two of them lay on the floor,
panting.

He looked at her. She looked like she
had just fallen into a pool.

"Not like this," he said
firmly.

She started to cry, then sob
hard.

He took her in his arms and kissed her
on the neck once. "It's alright, Lissie. It's alright."

She closed her eyes and snuggled into
his chest, still sobbing.

* * * * *

Over the next few days, Luke worked
late. He missed dinner three times. He did not want to face his now
crazy girlfriend. On the fourth night, he knew he would be in hot
water if he did not go home for dinner. He left the office at
9pm.

When he got home, he saw Alyssa sitting
on the couch in front of the TV set.

“
You’re doing it again,” she
said, then switched off the TV.

“
Doing what?” He strolled
into their bedroom and set down his briefcase.

“
Working too hard.” She
followed him into their bedroom.

“
You’re doing it too,” he
shot back. “You even started a third job.”

She looked at him blankly.

He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Volunteering at that old folk’s place,” he offered.

“
That’s different.” She put
her hands on her hips. “You were a workaholic before
the…the…the….”

“
Miscarriage,” he said. “We
had a miscarriage. How can we deal with it if you can’t even say
the damn word?” His words came out harsher than he had expected,
impatient and caustic.

“
Deal with it?” she said.
“How can you use those words to describe our little babies?” Her
eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared up.

He sensed she was looking for a
showdown, and he was not going to give it to her. It could explode
in his face.

“
Let’s just eat,” he said.
“I’m starving.”

“
Fine,” she said.

They went into the kitchen, and tried
to decide what to have for dinner.

"I don't feel like cooking," Alyssa
said. "Let's order delivery."

This struck Luke as odd. Alyssa had
always liked to cook at home.

Half an hour later, fried chicken was
delivered straight to their door. They sat down at the dining
table.

“
You want to go for a walk
after dinner?” Alyssa asked, opening the box of chicken. The
appetizing aroma of fried chicken floated through the air. “It’ll
be just like our after-dinner walk at Qualicum Beach.”

Luke felt pieces of the old Alyssa
returning. It was in her face and her tone of voice. He looked out
his high-rise window. It was getting really dark.

“
Nah,” he said. “I don’t
really feel like it.”

Alyssa chewed on a pasta side dish,
then put her fork down. The silverware clattered onto the
table.

He could something in her face. The
start of a confrontation was written all over it.

"What are we doing?" she
asked.

"We're having dinner,' he said, taking
a bite of his drumstick.

"No, what are we doing?" She pointed to
herself quickly then to Luke. "I feel like we're going
nowhere."

"What do you mean? You really want to
go for a walk? Fine, let’s go after dinner then."

"We're not going anywhere. Everything‘s
feels weird."

Luke was not listening though. He was
looking out the window, thinking about his projects at
work.

“
Luke, I’m talking to you.
The least you could do is listen.” Her tone was angry, and had just
a hint of menace in it.

Luke put down his drumstick and stared
at Alyssa, whose face was starting to redden. He was beginning to
understand that her belligerent attitude was more than just about a
walk. "It's fine. We just had a minor setback. You’re just dealing
with the aftermath of the miscarriage. We can try
again."

“
And what about you? I don’t
see you grieving.”

“
I am,” he said. “Just
inside.” He wondered whether she had bought his lie.

Alyssa did not look convinced. Looking
at her twisted face, he realized what had really started this
argument.

"I was going to ask you to marry me,"
Luke said. "But I thought that could wait until later."

"Until later when?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Just later.
We were still dealing with the miscarriage."

“
I had a feeling you didn’t
want to marry me. You only obliged because of the baby.”

The accuracy of her statement bit him
like a fire ant. He even squirmed.

The doubts he had about marriage and
starting a family flooded back into his mind, overwhelming it. They
must have somehow survived his flaying.

“
I do,” he protested, but
even he could tell it sounded weak and insincere.

Alyssa continued, "Can you honestly
look me in the face and tell me you want to marry me? It’s not just
because of the babies. I know you still have issues. Unresolved
issues."

He looked her in the face and she
looked back at him expectedly. It was an old-fashioned western
stand-off. He knew this was going to blow up in his face. It was
not just about the miscarriage. He knew the stress of the
miscarriage was the trigger for a bigger issue.

Finally, he spoke. “Fine. I’ll be
honest. My parents didn’t have the best marriage. They stuck
together for 25 years, even though the passion and the love were
long gone. It made me really sad to see the love just fizzle out of
the marriage. And it made me even sadder to see them still stick
together.”

“
And you think that will
happen to us?”

Luke did not reply for a while. “It
scares me.”

Alyssa shrugged. “There’s really
nothing I can say to comfort you. Except for ‘take a chance.’ I
shouldn‘t have to convince you to marry me.” She shook her
head.

“
You know I love you,” he
said. “I feel it in my heart.”

“
Prove it,” she
challenged.

He said nothing. He wanted so badly to
say something to comfort her, but she was right. Marriage terrified
him. He resented his parents for that.

She gave him a brief look. It was
nearly a blank look, but Luke knew better. Alyssa’s looks were
never quite blank, always concealing a weapon. But Luke was unable
to read anything from this particular look, except for… undertones
of something. Resignation? Disappointment? Menace?

Yes, Luke decided. That was it. It was
a menacing look.

* * * * *

At the work the next day, instead of
focusing on his latest client, he was thinking about Alyssa. He was
especially thinking about the look she had given him the night
before. It was ominous to him, like a black cat crossing his
path.

There was a knock on the door, and
Gordie, his overachieving colleage, now a Full Manager and Luke’s
superior, peeked in.

“
Excuse me, sir,” Gordie
said to Luke’s client. “I’d like to borrow Luke for a
moment.”

The client, a skinny balding
middle-aged man, nodded and smiled. “Please go ahead.”

Luke grabbed the document that he knew
Gordie needed, told his client he would be right back, and stepped
out of his office.

Gordie, a young man in a pristine black
suit and a red bowtie, nodded. “Thanks for this.” He took the
document from Luke. “So I hear you’re getting married?
Congratulations!”

“
Married? Where did you hear
that?” Luke squinted at Gordie.

“
Office rumors travel fast.
You mean you’re not getting married?”

“
I was going to propose, but
then something happened, and I’ve decided to postpone
it.”

Gordie scratched his head. “Why?
Alyssa’s a great girl. I’m going to be honest with you. I saw her
bring you dinner one night and I thought to myself ‘I would gladly
give up my job if it means I get a girl as great as her.’ I could
tell that she takes great care of you.”

Gordie pointed to himself. “Don’t be
like me. I know what people say about me. I know no life, no
friends, and I live at the office. Sure, I’m the youngest Full
Manager of the company, but I sacrificed too much to get here. Can
I get girls? Hell yeah, but now I’ll never know if they’ll like me
for me or for my money. At least you know that Alyssa loves you for
you.”

Luke frowned. He did not feel this was
any of Gordie’s business. He was right though. Alyssa loved him for
him, and not for his money. She was with him before he had made
Junior Manager.

Gordie saw Luke’s scowl. “Excuse me,”
he said, then left.

Luke re-entered his office. “Sorry
about that,” he apologized to his client.

“
So we want to acquire FH
Bank and they offered me a contact. You think this is a good
deal?

His client stuck a thick pile of
documents on his desk as Luke sat back down.

Luke stared at the document, but the
words did not register as meaning in his mind. To him, it was all a
bunch of scribbles on pieces of paper.

He decided to dismiss Alyssa’s
threatening expression from his mind. She was just stressed out.
Yes, that was it. She had lost both fetuses in her womb. That would
make anyone, especially her, a woman that really wanted children,
stressed out.

What about him? Sure, he was bummed
that the babies had been lost, but for some reason, he did not feel
the grief as intensely as Alyssa. He felt ashamed that he did not.
After all, the babies were his too. In fact, he felt relief. He did
not want to admit feeling something as loathsome as relief under
the circumstances, but he could not help it. Feelings are. They
simply are.

Instead of focusing on the constant
yammering of his client, he stared vacantly out the open
window.

He smelled something in the air. A
storm. A storm was coming.

* * * * *

The rain started even before he got on
the sky train to go home. It was a furious kind of rain, angry with
the whole world. It hurled itself against the window of the train,
splattering on the glass with a satisfying thud, like a kamikaze
bomber.

I saw her bring you
dinner,
Gordie had said.
Alyssa loves you for you and not for your money.
I’ll never have that.

Yes, that was true. She does care about
me, he thought.

Not that there was any doubt of that.
And there was no doubt he cared about her. There was never doubt
about the love between them. That much he knew.

He glanced around the train, and
noticed that he was sitting across from a wrinkly elderly couple.
They both had white hair, and were wearing tattered
clothing.

They held each other’s wrinkly hands,
and kissed on the lips.

When they looked at each other, Luke
noticed something in their eyes. Joy. That was it. Joy. And love.
It was not passion, but that did not matter. The elderly couple had
something so much better, so much deeper, and so much more
permanent. Mature love. Luke could tell just from the way they
looked at each other.