Chapter 7
"Beautiful, one of a kind, You're something special babe, and you don't even realise that you're my hearts desire."
I am already out the door and across the street, the picture of Nick's smile scolded deep into my brain, before I realise that I have absolutely no idea where I'm going.
An enormous red bus races past me, and surprised, I stumble backward a few steps before taking off after it. Even without my suitcase, I'm still to slow, and by the time I make it around the corner, the bus is already pulling away again.
Panting, I stop to squint at the bus map that's plastered at the stop, though it turns out to be little more than a tangle of colored lines and unfamiliar names. I bite my lip as I study it, thinking there must be a better way to crack this code, when I finally spot Paddington in the upper left-hand corner.
It doesn't look far at all, but then again it's really hard to feel for the scale of things, and for all I know, it's just as likely to be miles away as blocks.
I don't remember any landmarks, and I have no clue on what to do once I get there cause all I can remember is Nick saying there's a statue of mary out front of the church. I glance at the map again.
How many churches could there be in such a small part of London?
No matter the distance, I only have ten pounds in my purse, and judging by the cab ride from the airport, that will barely get me from here to the mailbox at the corner of the street.
Since the map is not going to give away any secrets, I figure it's best to just wait for another bus and ask the driver and hope he'll be able to point me in the right direction. But after nearly ten minutes of waiting no sign of a bus, I lean closer to the map and try to decipher the routes.
"You know the saying, don't you?" says a guy sitting on the bench at the bus stop. I straighten up. When I don't respond, the guy continues. "You wait for ages, and then two come along at once."
"Am I in the right place to get to Paddington?" I ask, nervously but I realise to hell with it. I may as well risk it all if I actually want to get there in time.
"Paddington?" he says, "Yeah, you're grand."
When the bus arrives few minutes later, the guy smiles encouragingly, so I don't even bother asking the driver. But as I watch out the window for signs, I wonder how I'll know when we've arrived, since most stops are labeled by street name rather than area.
After good fifteen minutes of aimless sighseeing, I finally work up the nerve to teeter to the front of the bus and ask which stop is mine.
"Paddington?" the driver says, giving her a greet. "You're headed in the wrong bloody direction!"
I groan. "Can you tell me which way is the right bloody direction?"
He lets me off near Westminster with directions for how to get to Paddington by tube, and I pause for a moment on the sidewalk. My eyes travel up to the sky, where I'm surprised to see a plane flying overhead, and something about the sight of it calms me down.
I'm suddenly back in seat 18A beside Nick, surrounded by nothing but darkness.
And right there on the street corner, it strikes me again; how much of miracle it is that I've met him at all. Imagine if I'd been on time for my flight. Or if I'd spent all those hours beside someone else, a complete stranger who, even after so many miles, remained that way.
The idea that our paths might have just as easily not crossed leaves me breathless, like a near-miss accident on a highway, and I can't help marveling at the sheer randomness of it all.
I pick my way through the crowded London streets, keeping an eye out for the tube stop. It's a beautiful summer Saturday and people feel the sidewalks, carrying bags from the market, pushing strollers, walking dogs, and jogging toward the parks.
I pass a boy wearing the same white shirt Nick had on earlier and my heart quickens at the sight of it.
When I finally spot the red and blue sign for the tube, I hurry down the stairs blinking into the darkness of the underground. It takes me too long to figure out the ticket machines, and I can feel the people in line behind me shift restlessly. Finally, a woman who looks a bit like the Queen takes pity on me, and first telling me which options to choose, then nudging me aside to do it herself.
"Here you go, love," she says, handing me over the ticket. "Enjoy your trip."
The bus driver told me that I'll probably need to switch trains at some point, but as far as I can tell from the map, I can get there directly on the Circle Line. There's a digital sign that says that the tube will arrive in six minutes, so I press myself into a small wedge of open space on the platform to wait.
I don't want to think about dad and the wedding I left behind, and I'm not really sure I want to think about Nick and what I might discover when I find him. The train is still four minutes away, and my head is already pounding.
I run my fingers up and down the silky fabric of my skirt, and to be honest it feels far to sticky and the woman beside me is standing far too much to close.
My eyes flicker up again as the train comes rushing out of the tunnel.
I'm never sure if things are as small as they seem, or if it's just my panic that seems to dwarf them. When I think back, I often remember stadiums as little more than gymnasiums; sprawling houses become apartment-sized in her mind because of the number of people packed in.
So right now, it's really hard to tell for sure whether the tube is actually smaller than the subway cars back home, which I've ridden in a thousand times with a kind of tentive calm, or whether it's the know it my chest that makes it seem like a matchbox car.
Much to my relief, I find a seat on the end of a row, then immediately close my eyes again. But it's not working, and as the train lurches out of the station I remember the book in my bag and I pull it out, grateful for the distraction.
I brush my thumb across the words on the cover before opening it.
People talk about books being an escape, but here on the tube, this one feels more like a lifeline. As I leaf through the pages, the rest of it fades away; the flurry of elbows and purses, the woman in a dress biting her fingernails, the two teenagers with blaring headphones, even a man whistling an annoying tune at the other end of the train.
The motion of the train makes my head rattle, but my eyes lock on the words the way a figure skater might choose a focal point she spinks, and just like that she's grounded again.
As I skip from one chapter to the next, I forget that I ever meant to return the book. The words, of course, are not my father's, but he's there in the pages all the same, and the reminder kick-starts something inside me.
Finally a big red stop sign appears at the next station holding big bold black letters, PADDINGTON STATION. I exit the train along with other passengers, past the words, and right onto the hard tiled floor.
Outside, the sun has come out even brighter. I spin in a circle, trying to get my bearings, taking in the white-trimmed pharmacy, the little antique shop, the rows of pale-colored buildings stretching the lenght of the road.
I glance at my watch; nearly three pm and I still have no idea what to do now that I'm here. As far as I can tell, there are no policemen around, no tourist offices or information booths, no bookstores or internet cafes. It's like I've been dropped into the wilderness of London without a compass of a map.
I pick up a direction at random and set off down the street. There's a fish 'n' chips place on the corner, and my stomach rumbles at the smells drifting from the door; the last thing I ate was that pack of pretzels on the plane, and the last time I slep was before that.
I'd like nothing more than to curl up and take a nap right now, but I keep moving anyway, fueled by a strange mix of fear and longing.
After ten minutes and two emerging blisters, I still haven't passed a church. Finally, emerging from an alleyway, I spot a narrow stone building across the street. I hesitate a moment, blinking at it like a mirage, then I rush forward. But then the bells start to ring in a way that seems far too joyful for the occasion, and a wedding party spills out onto the steps.
I haven't realised I've been holding a breath, but it comes rushing out of me now. I wait for the taxis to stop hurrying past and then cross the street to confirm what I already know; no statue of Mary, no Nick.
Even so, I can't pull myself away, and I stand there watching the aftermath of a wedding not unlinke the one I just witnessed myself, the flower girls and the bridesmaids, the flashes of the cameras, the friends and family all wreathed in smiles.
After a long moment, I reach into my purse. It's time to do what I always do when I'm lost. I call my mother.
My phone is nearly out of battery power, and my fingers tremble as I punch in the numbers, anxious as I am to hear my mother's voice. It seems impossible that the last time we talked was less than twenty-four hours ago. The departures lane at the airport seems like something from another lifetime.
We've always been close, my mom and, but after my father left something shifted. I was angry, furious in a way I hadn't known it was possible. But mom, mom was broken. It was even as dangerous as beyond repair.
For weeks she'd moved as if she were underwater, red-eyed and heavy-footed, coming alive again only when the phone rang, her whole body quivering like a tuning fork as she waited to hear that dad had changed his mind.
But he never did.
In those weeks after Christmas our roles had been flip-flopped; it was me who brought mom dinner every night, who lay awake with worry as I listened to her cry, who made sure there was always a fresh box of Kleenex on the nightstand.
And this was the most unfair part of it all; What dad had done, he hadn't just done to him and mom, and he hadn't just done to him and me. He'd done it to me and mom, too, had turned the easy rythms between us into something brittle and complicated, something that could shatter at any moment.
To me, it seemed that things would never return to normal, that we were forever meant to pinball between anger and sadness, the hole in our chest big enough to swallow us both.
But then, justl like that, it was over.
About a month and a half had passed when mom appeared at my bedroom door one morning, decked out in her now familiar uniform of a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of dad's old flannel pajama pants, much too long and far too big for her.
"Enough of this," she said. "Let's get out of here."
I frowned, "What?"
"Pack your things, kid," mom said, sounding almost like herself again. "We're going on a trip."
By the time we stepped off the plane in Arizona, I could already see something in mom beggining to unfold. We spent a long weekend by the pool at the resort, our skin turning brown and our hair going blonder in the sun.
At night, we watched movies and ate burgers and played miniature golf and even though I kept waiting for mom to crumble, to break down in pieces, it never happened.
And for a moment, I wondered if that was how our life would be like; a big slumber girls night out party. And for a moment I thought it wouldn't be so bad after all.
But then we arrived back home and I realised the true purpuse of the trip. Dad had been there.
It was the little things that stunned me the most, not the obvious absences –the coats on the hooks by the back door, or the wool blanket that was usually draped over the couch in the next room –but the smaller pockets of space: the missing ceramic jar I'd made for him in pottery class, the famed photo of his parents that had sat on the hutch, the empty spot in the cabinet where his favourite mug had always been.
It was like a scene of a crime, as if the house had been stripped for its parts, and my first thought was about my mom, until by one glance at her I realised she already knew about it.
Back to present, when the phone goes to voice mail, I sigh, listening to the familiar sound of mom's voice telling me to leave a message.
I find myself turning south, almost unconsciously, like it might somehow bring me closer to home, and as I do that, I notice the narrow point of a steeple just between the white facades of two buildings. Before the phone can beep in my ear I flip it shut again, leaving behind yet another wedding as I hurry in the direction of yet another church, knowing without knowing that this is the one.
When I get there, rounding a building and then weaveing between the cars parked on either side of the street, I'm pulled short by the scene before me, my whole body going numb at the sight.
There, on the small patch of lawn is a statue of Mary, the one Nick mentioned.
I remain rooted a safe distance away, my feet stuck to the sidewalk. Now that I'm here, this whole thing seems like the worst possible idea.
I look down at my dark skirt, high heels and then look back at the professionally styled people crowding the church backyard and my heart does a little skip when I catch the sight of no one other than Nick and my mouth go dry.
He's standing beside Denise, his arm resting lightly around her shoulders. I realise now, that Denise must be his mother, but then when I look closer at the scene in front of me I realise my fatal mistake.
It's not Nick at all. His shoulders are too broad and his hair too light. And when I hold up my hand over my eyes to sheild them from the slanted sun, I can see that this man is much older. Still, I'm startled when he looks over, his gaze meeting mine across the yard, and while it's pretty clear to me that this must be Nicks's brother, there's also something beautifully familiar in his eyes.
My stomach lurches and I stumble backward, ducking behind a row of headges like some sort of a criminal.
When I'm safely out of sight, hidden to one side of the church, I find myself just outside a wrought-iron fence woven with vines. I ciricle the perimeter, running a hand along the fence until I reach the gate.
Above me a bird cries out and I watch as it makes lazy circles in the crowded sky. The clouds are tick and laced in silver and it makes me think back to what Nick said on the plane, the word taking a shape in my mind: cumulus. The one cloud that seems both imaginary and true all at once.
When I lower my eyes again, there he is, across the garden, almost as if I dreamed him into being. He looks older in his suit, pale and solemn as he digs at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, his shoulders hunched and his head bent.
Watching him, I feel a surge of affection so strong that I nearly call out.
But before I can do anything, he turns around.
There's something different about him, something broken; like maybe for the first time ever he let his walls down. But his eyes hold me in the spot where I stand, and suddenly I'm torn between the instict to run away and the urge to cross the space between us.
For a long time we just stay there like that, as still as the statues in the garden. And when he gives me no sign, I swallow hard and come up with a decision.
But just as I turn to walk away, I hear him behind me, the word like the opening of some door, like and ending and a beginning, like a simple wish.
"Wait," he says, and so I do.
"Now that the pain is done, there's no need to be afraid, we don't have time to waste, just tell me that you'll stay."
AN: Hi :) I really wanted to get that one review so I could reach 100 and I planned to not post this until I do, but then it started snowing last night and when I woke up about an hour ago I realised my whole backyard is WHITE. Like there's a metar of snow covering the ground and I realised what better way to start a weekend, than updating a story I love! So enjoy this chapter, and the next one will be up soon.
