Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
MARCO
I called out Amy's name when I came. Could there be anything more embarrassing? I woke up every day after that and that was the first thing that came to my mind.
Why did I do that?
I kept expecting Audry to confront me over it. The way that she left my bedroom in just a bra and panties told me that she was upset. But she'd been acting like everything was fine after that. I was no stranger to denial as a coping mechanism, but her behavior just might have been bordering on psychotic. She hadn't so much as made a snide comment.
I kept thinking about bringing it up, but I didn't see what good that would do. There was no greeting card for ‘I'm sorry I called you my dead fiancée’s name during sex’ for a reason.
I kept picturing what Amy would have done in the same situation. She would have been noticeably upset and would have definitely made it known. It was such a stark departure from Audry’s reaction that it made me miss Amy even more, however weird that might be.
Valerio knew that we had sex, and I thought he would bring it up but he just kept giving me sidelong glances. That was a relief since I didn't have to mention what had happened to him. I knew he was burning with curiosity so I was really impressed at his restraint at not asking about it. Of course, he could see just as well as anyone that we were hardly behaving like lovers. I did my best to stay out of Audry’s way, and she didn't seek me out aside from that time after dinner.
I was tense as we smoked, just waiting for her to bring up what had happened. Instead, we ended up talking about work. I began to think that maybe she didn't really care about what happened, and I didn't know how to feel about that. On the one hand glad she was not upset, on the other, why the fuck wasn't she?
There was a knock at my office door, and I straightened up in my seat wiping the thoughts from my face. “Who is it?” I called.
To my surprise it was Audry who stuck her head in the door. Speak of the devil. She gave me a tentative smile. “Can I come in?”
I gestured for her to enter, curious as to what she could want. Valerio, George, and I had discussed it and we had come to the conclusion that Audry was a very smart woman. The fact that she stole from us and then offered to help us was probably part of a long game. But until we knew what that long game was, our plan was to keep her close and watch her.
I smiled at her in a friendly way. “What can I do for you?” I asked.
She took a deep breath looking nervous. “This is gonna sound weird, so I need you to keep an open mind, okay?”
I nodded. She took a deep breath. “I'd like to see a photo of Amy.”
I blinked in surprise, though why I was caught off guard, I had no idea. Of course she wanted to see a picture of Amy. Who wouldn't in those circumstances? Still, I felt a little protective. I wasn't sure I wanted her to see my fiancée. She wasn't worthy.
“Please,” she said starkly.
I flicked her a glance and then looked away. It was difficult to see that face while trying to decide what to do. The fact that it was difficult to look at her should have given me the answer I sought. But I was still reluctant. “Why do you want to see it?”
She tilted her head to the side, giving me an incredulous look. “You know why.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know what prompted your curiosity, but why poke that bear? What good will it do?”
“Well, for one thing it will help me to understand this weird thing that we have going on. We're supposed to be working together on the deal of a lifetime but there's this huge pink elephant in the room and I just think that it would be better if we addressed it head on.”
I huffed in rueful amusement. “You're probably right. You should see what she looks like and it maybe will help you to understand what happened a little better. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of her in the house. After what happened, I could not bear to look at her face.”
Audry's shoulders dropped in disappointment. “Seriously? Not even one picture?”
I shrugged, shaking my head. “Not even one. However, I can take you to where you can see her, if you want to go.”
She gave me an eager look, “Yes, I do. Can we go now?”
I drove her to the cemetery in my 1980 red Dodge Charger. It wasn't a car that was recognizable to any of my competitors seeing as I hardly ever drove it. My father and I had spent many hours alone together in the garage restoring her. It felt right that she be the one to take us on this journey of remembrance.
Amy had loved it. She kept saying that she couldn't wait until we could go on a road trip in it, just the two of us. We even talked about doing it on our honeymoon, just driving around America like the Winchester brothers.
For such a shy and quiet person, Amy had quite the adventurous streak. Hell, she was going to marry a gangster after all. She made everything fun with her innocence and joy. I knew that if she was here right now, she'd be letting her silky brunette curls just blow in the wind, laughing uproariously, and asking me to go faster.
She loved speeding as long as someone else was driving.
I was glad for the wind which wiped the tears from my face before Audry could see them. The closer we got to the cemetery the more I was sure this was a really bad idea.
What am I doing?
There was no reason to take Audry to see Amy. There were implications to that action that I did not want. It felt as if I was trying to replace her.
“Tell me about Amy.”
I jerked and flicked a glance in Audry’s direction. “Why?”
“I'm just curious. Wouldn't you be curious if you were told you had a doppelganger?”
I pursed my lips and looked away, “She’s not a fairy tale or a story. She was a real person.”
“Yeah, no, I know that.” She stuttered, her face flushing with what might have been embarrassment as she looked away from me. “I didn’t mean it that way.” She murmured.
We completed the rest of the journey in awkward silence. As we drove into the gates of the cemetery, my mind could not help leaping back to the day of her funeral. The place had been packed with an awful lot of people, most of whom I didn't know. There were Amy’s friends from work, the various charities that she was associated with, the dog shelter where she volunteered, her church group - she sang in the choir - and just randoms she'd met at one time or another in her life. They were all there to say goodbye to her.
It filled me with even more rage and pain, to know that this excellent person, who meant so much to so many, had been cut down because of me. Because she loved me.
I remember asking her one time how a regular church goer could reconcile with marrying a criminal. She played me the George Michael video Outside and told me to pay attention to the end, where a billboard appears with the message ‘Jesus saves’ and then typed slowly - so you’re sure not to miss it - ‘all of us.’
“I mean that’s great, but I think George Michael was talking about sexuality and not criminality.” I said dryly.
“It's not my place to judge.” She had said and then shrugged. “Besides, I mostly go to church for the singing, I love it. I also love going for karaoke in gay bars. You should come with me sometime.”
I promised her I would, but only after the wedding.
“I'll hold you to that.” She said to me, smiling coyly and making me kiss her until we both saw stars.
I never did go.
I didn’t even get the chance to ask if she meant I should accompany her to church or the gay bars. It was just another thing to regret.
I parked the car and then took Audry’s hand and led her to Amy’s tombstone. Gravity seemed to be pressing down on me and each attempt to lift my foot and put it back down took actual effort. It was as if I had a heavy ball chained to my ankle. Ironic, considering that Amy was supposed to be my ‘ball and chain’ – though I never would have thought of her in such a derogatory way. Amy was such a light in my life, she made me think that there was more to living then making money and earning the respect of other gangsters.
“Like who cares? Let's dance.” She would say to me, pulling me out of my office chair and making me jump around the room with her for thirty minutes instead of calling my Yakuza associates in Japan to make sure that our next shipment was on time. I had to work later as a result, but it was always totally worth it.
Suddenly I missed her like a severed limb. They don't tell you that about grief, that is not a linear, but rather circular. You might go through all the stages, but that doesn't mean shit.
One day you wake up and you're in denial. You think that that person is just in the other room, brushing her long brown hair and humming to herself. You hesitate to get out of bed, just because as long as you stay there, the fantasy is real.
Another day you can't go to sleep because of the rage that grips you. You want to smash something, kill somebody, to get all that burning anger out of you. You're constantly asking an absent God Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
There's never a satisfactory answer.
Today, as I approached Amy's grave, I wasn't sure what I was feeling. Acceptance? Perhaps.
I came to a stop, reading her headstone once again.
Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted .
It was a quote by John Lennon and Amy used to love to repeat it to me. Every time I would be like, “Babe, I gotta work.” She would just give me a dose of those puppy dog eyes and I would end up doing whatever it was she wanted to do instead.
I never regretted it. Not once.
I pointed to her portrait, embedded in her gravestone. “That's Amy,” I said quietly.
Audry stepped forward and went down on her knees, staring at the photo as if she'd seen a ghost. I couldn't blame her. The resemblance was uncanny.
“Has this been modified in any way?” She asked.
“No. That's exactly how she looked.”
I put a hand on Audry’s shoulder and squeezed, knowing what she was going through. “Are you sure you're not related?”
She looked up at me incredulously, “I have no fucking clue. I grew up in an orphanage before James adopted me.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. Maybe she was a relative.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you even know what you're saying?”
“Yeah, I do. Would you like to propose an alternative explanation,” I gestured to the picture, “for the resemblance?”
She looked away sharply, swallowing audibly. I knew she must be struggling, and something in me just wanted to ease that. I found myself talking, without having decided to do so.
“Amy loved music. She was always humming. She'd wake up earlier than me and go to the kitchen to make me breakfast, and coffee because I couldn't function without it, but the accompaniment was always a surprise. She might do strawberry pancakes, or French toast. Sometimes she drove over to the bakery to buy muffins or donuts. Whatever it was, she always made sure it was something I liked. So, I'd wake up and there'd be coffee steaming in a cup, on the bedside table, with something delicious to eat beside it.” I sighed gripped by painful nostalgia. “She was the best.”
She blinked at me in surprise, “You really loved her.” she said wonderingly.
I furrowed my brow at her. “Of course I did. I wanted to marry her. Why does that surprise you so much?”
She shrugged self-deprecatingly, “I don't know. I guess I haven't met a man in your situation who genuinely loved their partner. Or anyone really.”
My lips twisted. “So you're saying that Martin doesn't love you?”
She looked away and shrugged, “I don't know, maybe he does. But it's not something he shows .”
“So, you're actually bemused that I show that I loved Amy?”
She grimaced, “Something like that. Don't mind me. Tell me more about her. What did she like? What did she dislike? Did you ever fight?”
I chuckled bitterly, and yet - quite glad to have a reason to reminisce. “Oh yeah, we fought. I remember one memorable occasion early in our relationship, when we went to this club and there was a girl there hitting on me. That was pretty normal for me so I just ignored it. But Amy,” I shook my head, “Amy got really mad about it. She walked out of the club without her coat in the rain and flagged down a taxi. Of course I ran after her, tried to take her home. No dice. She pushed me away got in the taxi and drove off. I followed her just to make sure she got home safely. Then I drove home completely in the dark, not knowing what the problem was. But I texted her that I was sorry anyway cause that's what Valerio said to do.”
Audry gave an amused chuckle. “Did she answer you?”
I huffed in amusement. “She asked me what I was sorry for. Of course I couldn't answer.”
Audry barked with laughter, “Oh, I like this girl.”
“Yeah, she was soft spoken as fuck, but she did not take shit. Anyway, the next day I went to her house armed with coffee and donuts from the specialty place she liked and asked her to tell me what I had done wrong. She took pity on me and told me that she didn't enjoy watching me flirt, while we were supposed to be on a date. Meanwhile I couldn't even remember who the fuck she was talking about. But I promised to be more circumspect in the future, and that when we went out it would just be the two of us. She agreed to give me one more chance.”
“Damn, I love her confidence. Where the hell did you meet her?”
I chortled in remembrance. “Well, see, I had this niece. She came to stay with us for a while and joined the local school. I was dropping her at school one day when this hurricane of a woman came storming up to my car to tell me that I was in the wrong lane. And who did I think I was, yada yada…” I paused, then laughed, shaking my head. “I didn’t know what she was so angry about then either. Anyway, turned out that Sadie, my niece, had taken it upon herself to sit on the floor of the back seat in search of something she’d dropped and so it looked like I was in the school lane without a kid to drop off. Big misunderstanding.”
“Was she embarrassed?”
“A little. She apparently also felt guilty so she offered to buy me a coffee and a donut.”
“I’m sensing a theme.” Audry said.
I nodded fondly, “Yeah, breakfast was our thing. Anyway, I thought we were just playing. A little flirting, enjoying the conversation, basking in her sunshine, soon she’d realize who I was and that would be that.”
“But it wasn’t.” Audry said.
I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t.” I pursed my lips, my heart beating too hard. “She just accepted everything about me.”
We were quiet for a while.
Audry let out a huge sigh. “And then she died…”
I shook my head, anger jolting through me. “No. She didn’t die . She was killed. Yegorov and I, we had our issues and things could get ugly from time to time. But we kept it professional. Our rivalry was confined to business. He brought that rivalry into my home. Maybe he meant to kill me, but he ended up killing my future. I intend to make him pay.”
She nodded, her face grim. “I can help you with that.”
“So you said.”
“I meant it.”
“Good.” I looked one more time at Amy’s grave and shook my head. “It’s so strange, being here with you, and her. Seeing her face on you has been… a trip.”
I nodded. “I kinda got that when you called her name while you were fucking me.”
I closed my eyes. There it was. The elephant in the room. “Yeah, about that…”
She raised a hand. “No need to explain.” She looked down at the picture. “I get it.”
“Oh, you get it? Could you explain it to me, because sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind .”
Audry laughed bleakly. “Yeah, that makes sense. Maybe you are. Maybe we both are. Like for real, what the fuck?”
That made me laugh. “Yeah, what the fuck? Can someone explain? God?”
She sighed. “Look we can totally just put what happened behind us, finish up with our business and go our separate ways. If that's what you want, I'll respect it. I want to say that Amy was lucky to have found you, but it really sounds like you were the lucky one and I feel regret that I will never get to meet her.”
“She really was truly awesome. And as for this situation,” I said pointing from her to me, “I guess we'll figure it out as we go along. But I agree with you that we should put what happened behind us. If I really think about it, the resemblance between you and her is very shallow. Your personalities are totally different, so I guess I just need to get it together.”
“Yeah, I mean I definitely don't cook, and thus I don't hum while I'm cooking. Also catch me dead directing traffic in a school zone.”
I grinned, “Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it. My girl used to love to volunteer for shit. It used to drive me crazy at the time, but…” my brows drew together as a lump choked me.
“But now you’d give anything to watch her volunteering.” Audry finished for me.
I nodded slowly. “Yeah.” I rasped.
She reached out and squeezed my hand before dropping it like it burned her. “I’m sorry for your loss.”