Page 25

Zoe

BOSTON

“How are you feeling, Mom?”

She looks excited today, and my heart always lightens when I see her smile. Seeing a loved one slowly losing their strength is not pretty; cancer is the worst disease of all.

There are moments of hope for the three of us, and also those days that border on despair.

I’ve been praying a lot for her to get better but not to suffer. Otherwise, I’d rather God’s will take place. It’s a drop of hope in an ocean of certainty.

The doctors don’t have the answers I need. She gets better and worse. And that’s why, more and more often, they allow her to come home.

Thank God I’m able to pay for her to have a room set up like in a hospital, along with a nurse. It doesn’t matter to me how much time she has left; I want her to enjoy all the comfort I can give her.

“I’m fine, baby, but also very sad.”

I look at my hands. I don’t need to ask why. I know it’s because of Mike’s abuse .

“Don’t think about it, Mom. This week, everything will be fixed.”

“Your father told me that you asked him for help days after the wedding. I’m so embarrassed that he told you to stick it out a little longer.”

“And I regret having listened to him. I thought there was something wrong with me, Mom. I always think there’s something wrong with me because I don’t have many people who love me.”

“It’s their loss. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are a beautiful girl, inside and out.”

“When do we know we love someone, Mom?”

“Are you talking about Mike?”

“No. Even before what he did, I could never have loved him. If I’m being honest, I didn’t even like him. I think what happened is that I was too scared to lose you. You and my father are the only stable thing in my life. He showed up and looked like a shoulder I could cry on—older, affectionate, and understanding. I got mixed up in all that. I’m not saying I gave him a reason or apologizing for his behavior, because there’s so much more that I’m not willing to share at the moment. I’m just saying that I was also wrong to marry someone I’d only known for a month.”

“If it wasn’t Mike you were referring to when you asked me about love, then who is it?”

“Someone from the past.”

“The man from Barcelona?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Zoe, you came back from there half-dead. I didn’t want to pry, and you didn’t seem willing to talk, but I knew something serious had happened. Then there was the depression, and I focused on getting you better. Nothing else mattered.”

“It’s that man, yes. I found him again. And I think I love him. That I’ve always loved him, but . . .”

“But what?”

“He may have done something very bad in the past.”

“Did you talk to him about it?”

“No. I only met him again today, for the first time since Barcelona. We’ll have lunch together tomorrow. ”

“Aren’t you rushing? I mean, you’re barely out of the last relationship.”

“What if I miss this chance? What if I lose him forever?”

“But what about what you said about him doing something bad?”

“I’m not sure, Mom. In my immaturity, I judged and condemned him without even giving him a chance to defend himself.”

“Follow your intuition. You’re a sensible girl, and you’ve never given me any trouble. As for this business lunch, I’d rather you didn’t go to a restaurant. Doctors are talking on TV about the increase in cases of this new flu. They envision something worldwide. Your father even bought masks about two weeks ago. It looks like they already ran out in stores—hand sanitizer too.”

I remain silent, looking at her sadly.

“What is it, honey?”

“I can’t stop working. If this new flu thing is serious, I’m going to need to talk to you over video call only. The risk that I might get infected at some airport is huge, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I harmed you in any way.”

She holds my hand, and my heart sinks when I realize how skinny she is. I bring her fingers to my lips and kiss them.

“Let’s not suffer in advance. For now, just take care. I would like you to wear a mask if you need to go outside.”

“That would be great. Especially looking like this.”

“How can you joke about something like that?”

“I can’t, Mom, but I can see you’re blaming yourself for what Mike did, and that’s not fair. No one can be held responsible for this cowardice but himself.”

“Neither your father nor I had any idea he was like this, or we would never have allowed him to get anywhere near you. Mike was a good guy when he was younger; I don’t know what happened.”

A short time later, she begins to doze off.

I walk to the window, but I’m not paying attention to the night outside; I’m stuck inside the memories of my wedding.

A dream that turned into a nightmare.

Being the silly girl who dreamed of lifelong love, I was joined by a depraved man who knew how to hide his other side until it was too late .

I think about what my mother said about Mike being a good guy. I doubt it. He probably hid his true self from everyone, as he did from me. No one goes to sleep good and wakes up a perverted liar. I think it takes years of practice to learn to pretend so well.

God, if she only knew what I’ve been through. The only thing that kept me going for so long was that we barely saw each other. With my travels around the world, we’ve barely lived together for thirty days total in six months, probably less. And when we were together, it usually ended in a fight, as it did the night, he assaulted me.

What would my parents and friends say if I told them that the gold-star man, an assistant professor at one of the largest universities in the country, told me point-blank on my wedding night that he was only ever satisfied with group sex? That he could never be horny in a regular relationship? That he expected me to sleep with his friends so he could watch because he couldn’t get aroused any other way with a woman?

Girls usually talk about their wedding nights with wonder. In mine, there was no sex, no affection, nothing. I was locked in the suite next to his, throwing up nervously and crying.

We weren’t going on a honeymoon anyway because I had work commitments, so the next morning, I ran to ask my Dad for help.

That’s when he told me that living together in marriage was difficult.

Even with no experience, I knew it had nothing to do with living together; it was a defect inside Mike that couldn’t be corrected.

I spent the first month away, and when I came back, he was the kind man I knew again, but he never tried to touch me. I think he believed that I would be curious about sex and that I would eventually give in, which just proves he didn’t know anything about me. I started feeling disgusted.

Our relationship was never based on physical attraction on my part but on friendship. So, him not giving any indication that he wanted to have sex with me, I’m not ashamed to admit, was a relief.

The three days I was in Boston, we talked like we used to, even though he slept in the next room. To be honest, I got used to the dynamic because it wasn’t until after we were married that I realized I didn’t want another man touching me.

The lull lasted until I got back home a month and a half later.

Again, after a disastrous dinner with his friends, he blamed me for our marriage not working out and brought up the whole group sex thing again.

I decided to leave the house and stay with my parents, determined to tell Bia everything the next day and ask her to help me with the divorce process.

That same night, Mom took a turn for the worse, and we thought we were going to lose her. The doctor suggested an alternative and very expensive chemotherapy, a new method. I had to focus on having money to pay the hospital bills because I would never forgive myself if she died because we couldn’t afford to treat her.

Life was a merry-go-round of bad emotions during that time. I traveled, fearing I’d get a call from my father saying that she was gone. I was always tense, getting very little sleep and eating poorly.

Feeling suffocated, I told Bia everything, and she said she would support me a hundred percent to try to get a divorce discreetly. It was with that in mind that I returned home that week. Regardless of what had happened, I would have ended our union. His hitting me was the missing stone in the grave of our relationship.

What relationship, Lord? There was no relationship, just a mistake. We were never even friends. I see that now.

I remember the call from Christos.

Did I mess up sending that text? Should I have waited for Bia to clear everything up with her ex-boyfriend before talking to him?

I don’t regret taking the initiative for the first time, accepting the fact that it could all have been a terrible misunderstanding.

God, he wanted to see me today, even! It must mean something that he was willing to drop everything to come find me, especially after how things ended up between us.

I knew that I hadn’t forgotten him and would never forget him, but I didn’t expect to feel him so strongly inside my heart after so much time had passed.

It was as if he had touched me only yesterday. As if I was still the insecure girl who gave herself to her dark hero that one night in Barcelona .

I need to hear his side of the story, if only to move on.

However, right now, still unsure of anything about Pauline’s accident, I know that whatever the outcome is, there will never be another man for me.