Sleeping Brides Page 14

  ***

  My teeth hurt from the cake at work, but I took a detour home, braving Grandpa through the snow to pick up a meal from the Chinese restaurant Anton and I liked. It was an occasion to glide, to be light. I’d finally received the celebration I had hoped for when I’d finished the course, and I wanted it to continue.

  “Special delivery,” I announced when I got home. “The food is ice cold, but that’s what the microwave is for.”

  Anton sat on the sofa in the middle of a video game. It was his way of unwinding, letting go of the emotional and physical demands of his art. It did not bother me. It was real. I wanted real.

  “I’ll take a spring roll,” Anton said, his eyes glued to the television as he played. “Would you mind warming me up one?”

  “I might even warm you up two,” I sang, moving towards the kitchen.

  “God bless the angels who sent you.”

  While I waited for the icicles to melt off the food in the microwave, I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the envelope with my bonus. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make the winter a little less worrisome.

  “I got something today,” I called to Anton down the hallway.

  “Is that so?” he asked, strained, undoubtedly committed to the game.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I decided, wanting to wait until I had his full attention before telling him about the bonus. When the food was warm, I joined him on the sofa. “Hi,” I said, handing him his spring rolls.

  “Hello,” he returned, pausing his game. “Thank you for dinner.”

  We ate and shared the events of our day. By the end of the meal, I was exhausted, my happiness wearing me down. Leaving Anton to his game, I showered, the water extra hot to burn the winter chill away, and I got ready for bed. I didn’t hurry. I was tired, but it was a night to move slowly, to enjoy the warmth of the house. I was in the middle of moisturizing my face when the phone rang.

  “Can you get that?” Anton called. “I’m about to destroy the Army of Sanctions.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” I uttered as I hurried for the phone in the front room, half-blinded by night cream. I didn’t make it in time. The machine picked the call up before I did.

  “Anton, it’s your mother. Why aren’t you picking up your phone?”

  “Because life is too short to take every call,” he answered, tossing his controller aside on the sofa, exasperated with the interruption.

  He didn’t hear what I did—the sorrow in his mother’s voice. “Anton, maybe we should answer.”

  “Leave it,” he said. “She’ll hang up and call back later.”

  She didn’t hang up. She choked up, drowned by anguish. “It’s not right to tell you this way, but you need to know. Your cousin Owen died this morning. He had a heart attack.”

  Owen was a brother to Anton. He was Anton’s entire childhood.

  “How this can happen to someone so young is beyond me. He was only forty-two. But you know that, of course. You two knew everything about each other. Come home, Anton. Your Aunt Sophie needs you. The funeral will be soon.”

  She hung up.

  I had been locked to the phone in my shock, waiting to hear more, but now that the call was over, I went to the sofa, to Anton. My shock had worn off, but Anton’s continued to grip him. He stared blankly ahead, a wave of dire emotions fighting their way to the surface. He pushed them all down, swallowing them like sour milk. I put my hand on his back to let him know I was there, and I waited for him to tell me what he needed.

  “You’ll come with me, won’t you?” he asked. The devastation within his eyes was heartbreaking.

  “I’ll talk to Mr. Hartono tomorrow. If he can’t give me the time off, I’ll drive down Friday night.”

  “Please,” he pleaded. “I need you there.”

  “Yes, of course,” I conceded. “I’ll go with you. I’m sure Mr. Hartono will understand.”

  Anton trembled, mauled by a swelling grief. “I think we should go to bed.”

  I agreed. Sleep would be good for him. I shut off his game and the television, and I walked him to the bedroom. We lay above the covers, my head tucked into his, both of us staring up at the ceiling, wordless. At some unnamed hour, I fell asleep, but I later woke to the sound of Anton’s cries.

  “He was my best friend,” he sobbed. “My brother.”

  “I know,” I said as I cradled him in my arms. “I know.”

  ***

  Anton’s family lived near the border with Belgium, in a town where floral cafés lined narrow streets and the smell of chocolate and beer united nationalities. In the snow, it was a wonderland, but such beauty could not be revered in a time of mourning. It only added to the pain.

  The funeral service was short. No one said much, except for the priest. Afterward, we met at Aunt Sophie’s house for cake and coffee. Within the comfortable shelter of the humble townhouse, people began to speak, sharing their stories of Owen with each other in small clusters. With nothing to contribute, I walked around, listening. I had never met Owen, but I felt like I knew him through Anton’s stories, and now the stories of others.

  When I was tired of listening, I went upstairs to Owen’s room where Anton was chained away. I had wanted to give him time alone with Owen, but there was only so much time a person could be alone in their grief before it crushed them into splinters. The room was rich, filled with memorabilia of a man with a gracious sense of humor. Old comic books were stacked on top of a writing desk, and photos of football teams adorned the walls. On the floor was a line of instruments—guitars, a trumpet, and a keyboard. Owen had never married, choosing instead to care for his mama, who was as blind as her sister, Anton’s mother. Both women had inherited a genetic disorder. Living within his childhood home, Owen had never really left his boyhood, but he was kind, and he could make a stone laugh. I knew from the stories I’d heard.

  Sitting on the edge of a neatly made bed, Anton held a saxophone. “We were supposed to start a band together. As boys, we’d listen to the radio and yell out band names. Owen picked up many instruments throughout his life, but all I picked up was a chisel. A saxophone is much more daring.”

  “Blow on it,” I encouraged as I sat next to Anton on the bed.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Curl your bottom lip under and blow. Don’t think about it. Just feel it. It’s not about creating music. It’s about sharing a moment with Owen.”

  He did. Steadying the saxophone, Anton released his pain into the instrument, fumbling his fingers along the keys. There was no melody, just bursts of uncertainty and suffering until he was drained.

  “That helped,” he said, setting the saxophone aside. “I feel closer to him. Thank you for being here.”

  “Always. To the max.”

  Anton placed his hand on mine. “No, I mean it. Thank you. Before you, my world was always too dark or too bright. You give me balance.”

  “I wouldn’t put so much faith in me,” I said. “I’m no saint.”

  “You are to me. I have many regrets when it comes to Owen, things we were meant to do together that I put off, but my biggest regret was not introducing him to you. You are one of the most important people in my life. And so was he. I wish you’d met him.”

  I could feel the tension in Anton as he held back his tears. “I may not have met him, but he lives on through your memories, and his own. Memories are eternal, carried with the soul. Talk about those memories, and when you do, know he’s talking with you.”

  “Or trying to shut me up, depending on the memory,” Anton joked through his sorrow. “Promise me something, Storme. Promise me we’ll make a lot of memories together, memories to carry with us when we die.”

  I stood and offered him my hand, knowing his Aunt Sophie needed him more than he needed me. “We’ve already started,” I told him.

  ***

  Months passed, months when Anton remained sealed in a titanium sadness. He spent a lot of time in his studi
o with his sculptures, to the point where he became but a shadow to me, slipping in and out of the house—our life—like a bandit trapped in the night.

  I don’t know what to do, I caught myself writing in the steam on the mirror after a shower, knowing I had to be patient but growing lonely with each hollow day.

  My patience was rewarded when I found a voicemail from Anton on my phone at work telling me to meet him at his studio. Relieved, I hurried through the numbers that confined me to the office so that I could leave early.

  Whitewashed with high ceilings, Anton’s studio was a cave of lost relics, Anton himself one of the relics. On a wall of shelves was ornate pottery. Anton sold it to pricey gift stores, his bread between the larger installations. He was working on an installation now, which stood in the center of the room, a sculpture twice the size of me, hidden beneath a sheet that neglected to touch the ground, revealing a bronze foundation.

  “If you had a mobile, I could text you instead of leaving a message for you at work,” Anton declared when he saw me. Coming from the sink, he shook his hands dry.

  “Mobile phones take the mystery out of life,” I claimed, feeling like I was talking with a stranger, not the man who slept next to me in our bed. “What are you working on?”

  “A tribute to Owen. It’s a saxophone. Or it will be, once I’m finished. I still have to add the keys.”

  “Right on.” The sculpture drew me in, but not as much as the man beside it did. “I’ve missed you.”

  “And I you,” Anton said, giving me all of himself. “I know it wasn’t fair on you, but I needed to do this, so thank you.”

  “Does this mean we actually get to wake up next to each other tomorrow?” I asked. “It’s the weekend. We can spend all morning in bed.”

  Anton smiled. It was the first I’d seen since Owen had died. To me, it was a beacon, a sign he could move past the grief, that he would return to me.

  Wearing his smile, he nuzzled my neck. “To wake up, we have to sleep, but I have no intention of either of us sleeping tonight.”

  I closed my eyes, enjoying his soft kisses. “As long as you’re coming home with me, I’ll never sleep again.”

  “You won’t let me immortalize you in?” he teased. “A woman with a neck as riveting as yours should be immortalized.”

  “I’m not for show,” I murmured as his kisses pressed harder. “Let’s go home.”

  “One moment,” he said, pulling away. “I need to check the kiln in the back. I’m not sure I turned it off.”

  “Hurry,” I called after him as he disappeared behind a simple white door, its color and texture camouflaged against the abrasive starkness of the studio.

  A noise crackled within the acoustics of the room—loud and penetrating. It startled me. At first, I believed it to be an alarm, until I recognized it as Anton’s ringtone, which he kept at full volume when he worked with his power tools. I followed the shriek to one of the shelves on the wall, and I flipped the phone open to silence it. As I did, a text message flashed across the screen.

  All men have fetishes. Tell me, Anton, what is your fetish? I told you mine.

  Instantly, I shut the phone, distraught, but I kept it in my hand. Why the hell would someone send him a message like that? And who? Anton’s studio no longer felt like a cave of lost relics. It was a den of secrets, an unnatural place. I wanted to leave, but not without Anton.

  When he emerged from the back, I tossed his phone to him. “I know you’re going through a difficult time, but this is not okay. It’s bogue.”

  Quickly, Anton read the message. He didn’t look surprised to see it. “No, it’s not okay,” he said, heavy with remorse. “I’m so sorry, Storme, but I promise, I’m not sleeping with any of them.”

  Them. There were more than one. My chest started to ache. “Who are they?”

  “Friends I connected with online in chat rooms. Some of them are fans of my work. We just talk. That’s it. I never cheated on you.”

  He was telling the truth, what he thought was the truth, which made it more painful. “To me, this is cheating. It makes me doubt our relationship. It makes me doubt you.”

  Anton fell into a despair equal to my own. “I don’t want to lose you over something so meaningless. I love you, Storme. Please don’t leave me because of this.” He glanced at the sheeted sculpture, and I knew where his mind went—Owen.

  I considered running away, but I couldn’t. What we had was powerful. It was not something I could run from so easily, not when I knew everything he had been through. People did stupid things when they were grieving. Knowing so wasn’t enough to soothe the hurt I felt, but it was enough to allow me to forgive him.

  “Never again,” I commanded.

  “Never. It’s not worth losing you.”

  “Good,” I said, and I walked out of the studio, leaving it up to Anton if he wanted to follow.

  ***

  Pain was inevitable. Being alive meant, now and again, skin broke. It couldn’t be avoided, no matter how heavy the armor. But all pain eventually faded, including grief. After dedicating the sculpture of the saxophone to a performing arts school for the blind, Anton returned to me, spending more days at home than his studio. I witnessed the pain within him subside, and by the summer, he seemed okay, free from his loss.

  “What’s that?” I asked, finding him on the sofa with a glossy magazine. “You reading up on the royal family?”

  “It’s a travel brochure,” he told me, flipping through the pages.

  Intrigued, I sat beside him, tucking my mobile phone into the pocket of my shorts. Ever since finding the text message from Anton’s friend, I’d finally purchased a mobile, making myself more available to Anton while he processed his grief.

  “I want to take you somewhere special,” he told me, adjusting his position so that my body pressed into his. “You deserve somewhere special.”

  “Neat. Where were you thinking?”

  “Maybe a cruise through the fjords of Norway.”

  “I’m down with that. The Northern Lights are a once in a lifetime experience.”

  “And so are you,” Anton said, his amber eyes burning into mine, taking me captive. When he released me to flip to a bookmark in the brochure, I didn’t feel as whole as I had seconds before.

  The bookmarked page was of an Italian lake resort, a hideaway lost within the mountains. “I was also considering taking you here. This is the type of place I’d like to get married.”

  “Married?” I asked, surprising myself with the uncertainty I felt.

  “Yeah. Maybe next year,” he pondered. Then, before it became official, he added, “But for now, I want to take you somewhere special. I don’t think I could have survived everything that’s happened without you. You’ve been everything to me.”

  Setting the brochure aside, he reached into a wooden box next to the sofa, and he pulled out a glass figurine of a goddess-like woman with a face that resembled mine. Her arms were raised above her head, spilling fire around her. “I’ve immortalized you. You are the fire burning deep within the earth. You are the fire that burns within me.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, touched.

  And it was, but I did not believe it to be me. I was not immortal. I was not a saint or a goddess. Expecting me to be was expecting too much.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Almost

  A cardboard box sat on my desk at work, full of my belongings. I had known this day would come, we all had, but our prudence didn’t make the event any less upsetting. It was a bummer. Across the room, Babetta cried at her desk, her curls a blanket against the cheap wood. Michael, the janitor, comforted her. We all had someone to comfort us, but I wasn’t sure the same could be said for Mr. Hartono. Concerned for my boss—my former boss—I went to his office. He was in the middle of taking down the painting of the parasol, which had failed to protect us.

  “How are you doing?” I asked, letting myself in.

  “Miss Cloet, I am so sorry.” His u
sual weariness was replaced by the weight of his regret. “I promise you, I’m going to rebuild. And when I do, I’ll find you. I’ll find all of you.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I said out of politeness.

  “Will you be okay?” he asked, leaning the painting against the wall. “I need to know you’ll be okay.”

  “Of course I will be. We all will. Life has a way of working itself out. You should take this time to rest. You are too old for your age. Rest. Then rebuild.”

  “Rest won’t make this okay. Nothing will. I failed you.”

  “No, you didn’t. You saved us, for as long as you could, but even giants have their limits.”

  “I’m not a giant.”

  “You are in my eyes.”

  Quietly accepting my compliment, Mr. Hartono reached for his box of tea. “I want you to have this, Miss Cloet.”

  “Oh. I can’t, Mr. Hartono. I never liked tea.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve known you many years. You’ve never finished a cup.”

  “Then why did you keep offering me one?”

  He set the box on his desk, its fate undetermined. “Because everyone needs a little warmth to their day. It wasn’t about the tea. It was about the warmth.”

  I picked up the box and held it close. “I’ll accept this,” I told him. “And when you rebuild, it’ll be my gift to you.”

  I believed Mr. Hartono was capable of rebuilding, but being capable of something and destiny allowing it to happen were two different things. My faith in him wasn’t meant to be lived up to. It was meant to be a warm cup of tea.

  “I’ll find you,” he said again. “I’ll make sure you’re all okay.”

  Affording him a smile, I left his office, knowing it would be the last time I did so.

  At home, Anton was playing one of his video games. After the clamor in the office, the casual nature of home was a nice contrast. It was peace, the only way I knew how to achieve it.