Page 3 of Slanting Towards the Sea

THREE

I PARK ACROSS THE street from the bank’s main entrance and stare at the large, glass-windowed building as if it’s about to swallow me whole.

Maybe it is. My thumb rubs the edge of the yellow folder containing all the relevant documents for today’s meeting: the original mortgage paperwork, the paperwork on the loan extension, expiring next month.

The state of our hefty debt, with zero means to pay it back.

Dad has always been a person of grandiose ambitions, a lover of all things luxurious and extravagant.

Soon after Mom died, he tracked Baba’s distant cousins, bought them out, and turned Lovorun into a huge building site.

It was his way of dealing with Mom’s death, I guess, his homage to her.

Or maybe it was the fact that her death had reminded him of his own mortality, that his time on Earth was limited too, and if he ever wanted to do something grand, now would be the time.

If he restored the ruins and made a heritage hotel out of them, he would’ve left his mark on the world.

His life wouldn’t have been for nothing.

I understood where he was coming from.

Lovorun was my grief project too.

In my darkest hour, the olive grove there offered me a way to put one foot in front of the other, even while I was losing Vlaho, even as my whole future was slipping through my fingers bit by bit, like grains of fine sand.

But the documents in my hand are a sure sign we’re losing it all.

My phone dings on the passenger seat with Vlaho’s message. “ready for the meeting?”

“as ready as i’ll ever be,” I text back.

“meet you outside the personal banker’s office.”

I look up at the building, focusing on the place where I know Vlaho’s office is, and wonder if he’s looking out the window.

He works in internal audit and has nothing to do with mortgage handling, but I was relieved when he offered to accompany me to the meeting.

I may be out of my depth, but at least he’ll be there to help.

At least I’ll get to see him today.

I turn the collar of my raincoat up before I step outside the car and into the February cold, and hurry to the bank entrance, where the security guard greets me with a knowing nod.

It’s the same guard who’s been monitoring the entrance since Vlaho got a job here when we moved to Zadar after graduation.

I worked as a substitute teacher in the nearby elementary school for a brief period, and Vlaho and I met for lunch in the bank’s cafeteria between my morning and afternoon shifts.

It was the happiest we ever were in Zadar.

I wonder how much of our story the guard knows.

If he’s aware that we’re divorced now. If Marina had to explain things the first time she came to visit Vlaho at work.

Does she ever come? Do they have lunch together like we used to?

Neither of them has ever mentioned it, and of course, I’ve never asked.

As I enter the main building through a revolving door, the dry air gives me the urge to cough.

I wave to the receptionist behind the counter, an older lady whose grandkids we always talked about.

They’ll be finishing elementary school by now.

She opens her mouth to say something, probably to kindle some sort of conversation—we haven’t seen each other in so long—but I hurry toward the elevator, relieved that it opens as soon as I press the button.

Once I’m in, I give her an apologetic shrug.

I can’t bear asking her about her grandkids anymore, not when the questions on her side have long subsided.

When will you have kids, Mrs. Oberan? she’d ask.

You and your husband would make such great parents.

I’m not Mrs. Oberan anymore, but I take comfort in the fact that Vlaho is the world’s most wonderful dad. It’s the kind of comfort, though, that pricks at the back of my eyes.

The personal banker’s office is on the second floor.

As the elevator doors slide apart, Vlaho appears behind them, standing in the shaft of morning light.

The scene looks almost like a painting, a huge weeping fig plant towering above him, the same size as the one he gave me on our one-month anniversary has grown to.

I had to move it outside my room a couple of years ago, into the high-ceiling hallway where it’ll have room to continue to grow.

The irony that it’s still growing when our love has long withered is not lost on me.

I push myself against the elevator wall and head out.

“Hey.” Vlaho kisses my cheek. He smells of mornings, the wisp of a piney aftershave and mint toothpaste, and underneath, the familiar, powdery scent of his skin.

We walk side by side through the corridor toward the offices in the back, our footsteps muffled by the gray carpet that’s worn in the middle, marking the people’s favorite trajectory on it.

“It’ll be fine,” Vlaho says, sensing my dismay as he always does. He’s just saying that to make me feel better. Or maybe he’s referring to the grand scheme of things, where, yes, all will be fine, even if you lose everything except, perhaps, your life and health.

This I believe. The worst already happened when I let him go, and I’m still alive.

Still drinking coffee in the morning, brushing my teeth and my hair, cooking lunch, then eating it.

Food still gets digested, broken into molecules that get into my bloodstream, then travel where they need to, in order to become building blocks for new cells.

This is the way life goes on for me. On a cellular level. “I know,” I say.

When we exit the office half an hour later, I’m laden with sweat.

We don’t talk on our way back to the elevator.

The personal banker, a beautiful young woman with brown hair gathered in a high ponytail, the kind of woman who would’ve made me all kinds of insecure if I were still with Vlaho, didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

The loan cannot be extended, the first payment is due next month, and if we forgo paying, we will have defaulted on the debt, and the bank will have to consider means of forced collection.

My gut twists into knots. How can I go home and give this news to my father, who expected me to perform a miracle, the way he had all those years ago with his floppy disk?

A father who’s ill and powerless to do anything but watch me ruin it all?

It doesn’t matter that the circumstances have changed since he turned the leadership of the company over to me when he got sick, or that this downfall was in motion long before I took charge.

None of it matters. All that matters is that I’ve failed again.

“Ivona?” Vlaho touches my hand. “Talk to me.”

I stop and turn to him. We’re in the middle of the dark corridor and the lack of light softens his face. It makes it easier for me to open up. “I have no idea what to do. There won’t be enough money no matter what I do. If the bank isn’t willing to give us another extension—”

He leans against the gray panel wall behind him, and I do the same on my side.

“I hate to say this but… maybe you’ll have to sell.

That way you’ll at least have control over the terms and price.

” He looks down for an instant then back into my eyes.

“I’m sorry, I know how much Lovorun means to you.

” His voice is supple and low. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine us like we were for years, huddling together in our bed at night, talking.

“Dad would never agree to sell.” Sometimes it seems like pulling this project off is the only thing keeping him alive.

“I know, but this isn’t about your dad anymore.

” Vlaho’s tone is soft but pointed, the kind he used when he wanted to tell me something without putting it into words.

It’s these small moments of recognition—a specific inflection of his voice, a particular look on his face, a small gesture no one else might notice—that I live for.

Why I swirl in his orbit even at the cost of watching him make a life with someone else.

I reach to squeeze his arm, a touch that will linger on my fingertips for hours. “Thank you for going in with me.”

He gives me that look that feels like an intake of breath. An expectation, a wanting. As if his fingers, resting at his sides, are removing a strand of hair off my face. Stroking my cheek.

But a beat longer and the mirage is over. We’re back to ourselves, the way we’ve been for the last nine years. Most of the time, I’m convinced he doesn’t even remember the days when we were together. But in moments like this, when silence swallows our words, I wonder.

“It’ll be fine.” I echo his own words back to him and start walking again. He follows, reluctant.

“Oh yeah,” he says, his words dragging slower than his feet. “Before you go. Marina asked if you’ll come over for Maro’s birthday. It’s next Saturday. Nothing fancy, mostly family and some friends. Maro asked if you’d come too.”

“Because the little scoundrel knows I buy the best presents,” I say to hide how I really feel.

Not because it pains me to be in their home, I’ve grown used to it over time.

Not even because Marina’s mother will be there, watching me like some sort of tempest, for what could the single ex-wife of her son-in-law be other than an obvious threat to her daughter’s marriage?

I dread it because Vlaho’s mother will be there.

Frana never misses a birthday, christening, or any of her grandchildren’s milestones now that she has them.

She is the only one who really makes me uncomfortable.

The only person who knows the truth behind why I left Vlaho.

The only person, besides myself, who I have to blame for it, even though all she had given was a nudge, and the decision was mine, all mine.

“Sure, I’ll be there. Just let me know the time,” I say, and let the elevator doors squeeze out the image of the man I love.