If You Could See Me Now (34 page)

“What are we doing?” he asked for the tenth time since they had left the office. They stood directly across the road from the house and Ivan watched Opal viewing it.

“Waiting,” Opal replied calmly. “What time is it?”

Ivan checked his watch. “Elizabeth will be so mad at me.” He sighed. “It’s just gone seven
p.m.”

Right on cue, the front door to the red-bricked house opened. An old man leaned against the doorway, which appeared to act as a crutch. He stared outside and looked so far into the distance he seemed to be seeing the past.

“Come with me,” Opal said to Ivan and she crossed the road, passed the old man at the front door, and entered the house.

“Opal,” Ivan hissed, “I can’t just enter a stranger’s house.” But Opal had already disappeared inside.

Ivan quickly skipped across the road and paused at the doorway. “Em, hello, I’m Ivan.” He held out his hand.

The old man’s hands remained clinging to the doorway; his watery eyes stared straight ahead.

“Right,” Ivan said, awkwardly moving his hand away, “I’ll just slide past you so, to Opal.” The man didn’t blink and Ivan stepped inside. The house smelled old. It smelled like an old person lived there, with old furniture, a wireless, and a grandfather clock. The clock’s ticking was the loudest thing in the silent building. Time seemed to be the essence of the house, a long life lived listening to those ticks. Ivan found Opal in the living room, looking around at all the framed photographs cluttering every surface of the room. “This is almost as bad as your office,” he teased. “Come on then, tell me what’s going on.”

Opal turned to him and she smiled sadly. “I told you earlier that I understand how you feel.”

“Yes.” Ivan nodded.

“I told you I knew how it felt to fall in love.”

Ivan nodded.

Opal sighed and clasped her hands together once again, almost as if she were bracing herself for the news. “Well, this is the home of the man I fell

in love with.”

“Oh,” Ivan said softly.

“I still come here every day,” she explained, looking around the room.

“The old man doesn’t mind us just barging in like this?”

Opal gave a small smile. “He is the man I fell in love with, Ivan.”

Ivan’s mouth dropped open. The front door closed. Footsteps slowly made their way toward them, over creaking
floorboards. “No way!” Ivan hissed. “The old man? But he’s ancient, he must be at least eighty!” he whispered in shock.

The old man wandered into the room with a hacking cough, which stopped him in his tracks and caused his small frame to shudder. He winced from the pain and, slowly, leaning his hands on the arms of the chair, he lowered himself into the seat.

Ivan looked from the old man to the youthful-looking Opal and back, with a disgusted look that he tried unsuccessfully to hide from his face.

“He can’t hear you or see you. We are invisible to him,” Opal said loudly. Her next sentence changed Ivan’s life for good. Nineteen simple words he heard her say every day, but never in that order. She cleared her throat and there was a slight tremor in her voice as she said between the ticks of the clock, “Remember, Ivan, forty years ago when he and I met, he wasn’t ancient. He was as I am now.”

Opal watched as Ivan’s face displayed many different emotions in a matter of seconds. He went from confusion, to shock, to disbelief, to pity, and then as soon as he had applied Opal’s words to his own situation, to despair. His face crumpled, he paled, and Opal rushed toward him to steady his swaying body. He held on to her tightly.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you, Ivan,” she whispered softly. “You and Elizabeth can live together perfectly happy in your own cocoon, without anyone knowing, but what you forget is that she will have a birthday every year and you won’t.”

Ivan’s body began to shake and Opal held on to him tighter. “Oh, Ivan, I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m so, so sorry.”

She rocked him as he cried. And cried.

...

“I met him in very similar circumstances to how you met Elizabeth,” Opal explained later that evening after his tears had subsided.

They both sat in armchairs in the same living room as Opal’s love, Geoffrey. He continued to sit in his chair by the window in silence, looking around the room and occasionally breaking into horrendous coughs that made Opal freeze and rush to his side protectively.

She twisted a tissue around in her hands, her eyes and cheeks were wet as she told her story, and her dreadlocks fell around her face.

“I made every single mistake that you made.” She sniffed and forced herself to smile. “And I even made the one you were about to make tonight.”

Ivan swallowed hard.

“He was forty when I met him, Ivan, and we stayed together for twenty years until it became too difficult.”

Ivan’s eyes widened and hope returned to his heart.

“No, Ivan.” Opal shook her head sadly and it was the weakness in her voice that convinced him. Had she spoken
firmly he would have retaliated in the same manner, but her voice displayed her pain. “It couldn’t work for you.” She needn’t have said any more.

“I didn’t think,” Ivan said sadly. “I was so happy about Elizabeth and me, her aging never even crossed my mind.”

“I know,” Opal said kindly. “But why would it? It’s something we never have to think about.”

Ivan studied his surroundings while he tried to allow what he had learned tonight to sink in. “He seems to have traveled a lot,” he remarked, looking around at the photos of Geoffrey. Geoffrey in front of the Eiffel Tower, Geoffrey in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Geoffrey lying on golden sand on the shores of a faraway country, smiling and looking the picture of health and happiness. “At least he moved on and managed to do those things alone.” He smiled encouragingly.

Opal looked at him in confusion. “But I was there with him, Ivan.” Her forehead wrinkled.

“Oh, that’s nice.” He was surprised. “Did you take the photos?”

“No.” Her face fell. “I’m in the photographs too, can’t you see me?”

Ivan shook his head slowly.

“Oh,” she said, studying them and seeing a different picture than Ivan did.

“Why can’t he see you anymore?” Ivan asked, watching Geoffrey taking a handful of prescribed pills and washing them down with water.

“Because I’m not who I once was, which is probably why you can’t see me in the photographs. He’s looking out for a different person, the connection we once had is gone,” she replied.

Geoffrey stood up from his chair, this time grabbing his cane, and made his way to the front door. He opened it and stood at the doorway.

“Come on, time to go,” Opal said, standing up from her chair and moving out to the hallway.

Ivan looked at her quizzically.

“When we
first
started seeing each other I visited him from seven
p.m. to nine
p.m. every day,” she explained. “And seeing as I can’t open doors, he used to be there waiting for me. He’s been doing this every evening since we met. That’s why he wouldn’t sell the house. He thinks it’s the only way I’ll
find him.”

Ivan watched his old frame wobbling on his feet as he stared out once again into the distance, perhaps thinking of that day when they frolicked on the beach or the day on the Eiffel Tower. Ivan didn’t want that to be Elizabeth.

“Good-bye, my Opal,” his gravelly voice spoke quietly. “Good night, my love.” Opal kissed him on the cheek and he closed his eyes softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

So it was clear in my mind,
I knew what I had to do next. I needed to do what I was sent here to do, make Elizabeth’s life as comfortable for her as possible. But now I had gotten so involved with her I would have to help heal old wounds
and
the new wounds that I’d foolishly caused myself. I was angry at myself for making a mess of everything, for getting caught up and taking my eye off the ball. My anger was overpowering the pain I felt and I was glad, because in order for me to help Elizabeth, I needed to ignore my own feelings and do what was best for her. What I should have done from the start. But that’s the thing about lessons, you always learn them when you don’t expect them or want them. I’d have plenty of time in my life to deal with the pain of losing her.

I’d walked all night thinking about the past few weeks and about my life. I’d never done that before, thought about
my
life. It never seemed relevant to my aim, but it should always have been. I found myself back at Fuchsia Lane the next morning, sitting on the garden wall where I had
first
met Luke over a month ago. The fuchsia door still smiled at me and I waved back. At least that wasn’t angry at me; I knew Elizabeth would be. She doesn’t like people being late. I’d stood her up. Not intentionally. Not out of any malice, but out of love. Imagine not meeting someone because you loved them so much. Imagine hurting someone, making them feel lonely, angry, and unloved because you think it’s
best
for them. All these new rules. They were making me doubt my abilities as a best friend. They were beyond me, laws that I wasn’t comfortable with at all. How could I teach Elizabeth about hope, happiness, laughter, and love when I didn’t know if I believed in any of those things anymore? Oh, I knew they were possible all right, but with possibility comes impossibility. A new word in my vocabulary.

At
6
a.m. the fuchsia door opened and I stood to attention as though a teacher had entered the classroom. Elizabeth stepped out, closed the door behind her, locked it, and walked down the cobblestoned drive. She was wearing her chocolate-brown tracksuit again, her only informal outfit
in her wardrobe apart from her work jeans. Her hair was tied back messily, she had no makeup on, and I don’t think I’d ever seen her look so beautiful in my life. A hand reached into my heart and twisted it momentarily. It hurt.

She looked up and saw me and stalled. Her face didn’t break into a smile like it usually did. The hand around my heart squeezed tighter. But at least she saw me and that was the main thing. Don’t ever take it for granted when people look in your eyes; you’ve no idea how lucky you are. Actually, forget about luck, you’ve no idea how
important
it is to be acknowledged. Even if it is an angry glare, because it’s when they ignore you, when they look right through you, that you should start worrying. Elizabeth usually ignores her problems; she usually looks right past them and never in the eye. But I was obviously a problem worth solving.

She walked toward me with her arms folded across her chest, her head held high, her eyes tired but determined.

“Are you all right, Ivan?”

Her question threw me. I expected her to be angry, to shout at me and not listen or believe my side of the story, like they do in the movies, but she didn’t. She was calm, with a temper bubbling beneath the surface, ready to erupt depending on my answer. She studied my face, searching for answers she would never believe.

I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question before. I was thinking about that as she was studying my face. No, it was as clear as day to me that I did not feel all right. I felt brittle, tired, angry, hungry, and there was a pain, not a hunger pain but an ache that started in my chest and worked its way through my body and head. I felt that my views and philosophies had been changed overnight. The philosophies that I had gladly carved in stone, recited, and danced upon. I felt as though the magician of life had cruelly revealed his hidden cards and it wasn’t magic at all, just a mere trick of the mind. Or a lie.

“Ivan?” She looked concerned. Her face softened, her arms dropped from their folded position, and she stepped forward and reached out to touch me.

I couldn’t answer.

“Come on, walk with me.” She linked my arm and we walked out of Fuchsia Lane.

They walked in silence deep into the heart of the countryside. The birds sang loudly in the early morning, the crisp air
filled their lungs, rabbits bounded daringly across their path, and butterflies danced through the air waving through them as they walked along the woodlands. The sun shone down through the leaves of the dominant oaks, sprinkling light on their faces like gold dust. The sound of water trickled alongside them while the scent of eucalyptus refreshed the air. Eventually they reached an opening, the trees held their branches out, making a grand and proud presentation of the lake. They crossed a wooden bridge and sat on a hard carved bench in silence, watching as the salmon jumped to the surface of the water to catch the
flies in the warming sun.