"What am I doing here?" I ask myself.
It has been a decade already, why do I bother? Why do I still care?
"Because I love him." I answer to myself.
I walk through the street. It's a pleasant place, with a lot of trees and beautiful French styled houses with gardens and white fences. It's a bright day, a peaceful day.
Somehow I feel…Inappropriate.
I know I don't belong here. Not here the place, but here: his world. Because this is his world now. A bright, calm world, with no angst, no pain, no deceiving…The place he wanted so bad, but I couldn't give him…Because I have never found it for myself, in the first place.
I look down to the crumbled paper in my hands, to check if it is the correct address. I look up to face the house. As I expected the garden is the most beautiful of all in the neighborhood. I can see her hand on each flower of it. The house, in the other hand, couldn't be simpler. Big, spacious, but simple: painted white, with dark blue windows.
Crossing the front portal, I climb the front stairs and ring the bell. She answers the door. She's pregnant. Like the last time I've seen her. I remember clearly.
It was seven years ago, at Jean's birthday. It had been three years, since they had left the mansion, not telling anyone the reason (Jean and professor probably knew, but they didn't told anyone, and any one asked them either).
Remy had broken up with me a while before. "It's definitive." He had said. I didn't believe him…
That time there wasn't a reason. We had gone through horrid things before, and he always came back. I just assumed he had gotten bored, but would come back eventually. When Jean got a telegram, and went into the living room with the brightest smile in her face, telling everyone that Ororo and Remy were coming for her birthday, I almost died of happiness. I was sure: he was coming back to me. Just like always.
They would arrive in a week. The longest week of my life. I just couldn't wait the moment he would arrive and I would throw myself on his arms. And the day arrived. I heard his voice from the stairs and simply run to the front door like a mindless little girl. I did threw myself in his arms.
It was like embracing a marble column.
I looked up, straight into his eyes. I didn't saw happiness on them, I didn't saw love in them…I saw pity.
"Hi, Anna" he said in a neutral voice. I stepped back to look at him; he was different. He was more… adult. I looked around; the room was full of people, all of them with embarrassed looks in their faces. I wondered why. Then I saw why. A few steps from us there was Ororo, … pregnant…
And here I was again, in front of the woman he chose over me…carrying another child of his. And probably she was as shocked and uncomfortable as I.
-Hi, Ororo…Is Remy there?
-No. He went out to take care of some business of his. Want to come in?
-Sure.
I entered their house. Their house, I remarked bitterly in my mind…
In the living room, Provencal styled furniture matched the ethnic inspired art on the walls, like a photo taken from a magazine, but yet with a homey feel to it. It was Ororo´s doing for sure; although Remy´s extravagant taste on art and objects was clearly there; actually it was hard to tell what in that house was his or hers.
-Can I get you something? -She asked prompting me to sit
-No, I'm fine. I'm sure you're asking yourself what the heck am I doing here…
-To be completely honest, I sure wasn't expecting a visit from you.
-Would you believe if I told you that I don't know either? I just felt I needed to do it.
-I see.
I can't understand why I'm being so open with her. Maybe it is because one day we were friends. In that time she was there for me, when I needed. I tried to be there for her too. Probably we should continue to be friends; she did ask me to, that day in Jean's birthday. But it was my choice not to. I simply couldn't. Maybe I really am selfish and immature.
As the uneasy silence grew, we heard somebody's voice calling for her at the door.
-Excuse me.
While she goes back to the front door, I start to scan the room. An old-fashioned wooden cabinet at one of the sides of the room gets my attention. On top of it there are dozens of pictures. There is the picture they took with Jean and Scott on her birthday; a bunch of pictures of them together, smiling, lots of photos of children playing and laughing…their kids.
-Hi…-a soft voice greets me.
I turn to see a little boy, about four years old or so, looking up at me.
-Hi- I answer-Who are you?
-J.D.
I look down at him, and it's like a slap in my face. The boy is identical to Remy. He has nothing of his mother on him. If it weren't for the light café au lait tone of his skin I would swear he wasn't her son. I almost faint when he looks me in the eye. Red-on-black eyes…the eyes of his father.
-I'm Anna. -
-Hi, Anna. -He offers me a handshake, which I accept with a gloved hand.
I hear Ororo coming into the room, and prepare myself for the moment she will rush to separate me from her little boy; after all I am dangerous.
She doesn't. She just stands there, with a smile on her face, probably proud of her son's good manners.
-I see mister J. D. already introduced himself.
-What does J.D. stands for? -I ask, genuinely curious
-Jean David-he answers with a perfect French pronunciation, he most definitely learned from his father. I can't help smiling.
-That's a beautiful name.
-Thank you, ma´am.
Ororo comes towards us:
-J.D., Larraine is outside asking if you want to go to her house eat some cake she just backed.
-Can I?
-Sure, go ahead.
-Thanks, momma.
-But don't take too long. -She says while he runs out the door. And turning back to me- I'm going to get us something to drink.
As she goes to the kitchen, I start to make small conversation, trying to ignore the obvious fact that both of us are uncomfortable with the whole situation.
-So, third baby already? -I say out loud, sitting in the couch
-Actually, fourth.
-Fourth?
-Yes. You haven't met Isadora and Louis yet…they are at school right now. Louis just started. Isadora is in the first grade already.
-Time passes fast.
Indeed it does. While I'm still trying to process the fact that Remy is with her she's already about to have his fourth child. Time passes really fast.
After a while, she comes back to the living room with a steamy cup of coffee, and I am more than amazed that she still remembers the way I like my coffee. I get up and head the cabinet with the photos. I turn to her gesturing the pictures:
-Could you?
-Of course-she answers following me
She starts to point the photos one by one introducing each of the kids in them. Isadora, the seven-year-old white haired copy of her, apart from her brown eyes and slightly lighter skin; Louis, a handsome dark haired and blue eyed young boy, with Remy´s smile; and finally J.D.
As I look at the pictures I start to imagine how the next baby is going to be…
-Do you already know what is going to be the next one? Boy or girl?
-Girl. -She smiles softly.
Is it too wrong of me to hate her right now?
I look at each of those images and try to imagine how it would be if things had taken in a different direction. This could be my house; those could be my children, he could be my husband.
Now I really know what the word jealousy means…it doesn't feel good.
I shouldn't hate her. It's not her fault, after all. Not my fault either, nor his.
Remy was not the first event to go out of hand in my life…Cody, Remy, Joseph…and a couple more after Remy…But Remy was the only one I truly loved. That simple fact makes me feel worst about him, but looking at my past he wasn't that different from the other men in my life.
I remember the day Remy was talking to me about a book he read when he was younger… "Notre-Dame de Paris". He said it was about destiny, and how it marks people for no apparent reason… "Fatality" he had said… Back then it didn't interested me at all. It was only a stupid book I had never read. I didn't realize the meaning that story had had on him, the impact of that simple word in his life…now I do.
Some say we should accept fatalities, that they are God's will. Those people have never gone through what I have.
As Ororo turns to sit in the couch I take my glove off…I touch her neck, and she falls right in time for me to catch her before she hits the ground. It was a feather-like touch, that in normal conditions would only make her a little dizzy, but in her delicate state, it provoked a faint. Nothing serious though.
I carry her to the couch, and turn to leave.
Standing in the front door I close my eyes. There it is. Her memories. I can see them like they were mine. I wish they were. Unfortunately it's impossible. I will never have this kind of happiness for myself; and I don't even think I would want if not with him.
Call me masochist, but I need those stolen pieces of happiness. Although they will burn an itch into my mind like hell, I want them…I need them like I would need a drug; to have something to keep me going for a while more…till I learn how to move on.