Chapter 9
9
Gina looped her arm though Deedee’s, and Rosie was close behind as they went through the revolving entrance door and into the foyer of the Steinman she had already shut them out enough and so she decided to let them in. To take a chance on making herself vulnerable with them once again, although she intended on being fully-clothed this time – the pun perked her up slightly and a small smile formed on her face as she made her decision.
Deedee pulled Rosie’s wrap around her shoulders and turned on her heel to walk back to her friends. Taking their hands in each of hers, she swallowed hard before saying, ‘Please… will you sit with me and help me do this? I’m feeling so nervous right now.’ Gina and Rosie nodded immediately and held her hands tightly as they walked back into Harry’s office together.
Once everyone was seated, Deedee in the middle with the wrap discreetly slipped underneath the backs of her bare legs to protect the sofa from fake tan staining, and Gina and Rosie on either side of her, Harry lowered the privacy blind. He then sat in an armchair with an oil painting of vivid wildflowers on the wall behind him and pressed a remote control that made a decorative panel on another wall rise to reveal a movie screen. Soothing music played as legal words in a white font with a black background appeared on the screen, but it was all a blur to Deedee as she held her breath and gripped her friends’ hands as she waited for Joe to appear. After what felt like an eternity, the text on the screen finished and the black background was replaced with a creamy coloured curtain that parted slowly.
And there was Joe.
He was seated in the same armchair that Harry was sitting in now.
Deedee let out a small gasp. Her eyes darted towards Harry.
‘He was here,’ she exclaimed, her eyes flicking back to the screen where the same oil painting was on the wall behind Joe. ‘In that chair.’ Harry paused the film. ‘When did Joe record this?’ she asked, noting the way her husband looked vibrant and tanned, his beautiful denim-blue eyes sparkling as always, his blond hair thick and swept back with no hint of the harrowing deterioration that was to come.
‘Soon after the diagnosis, I believe,’ Harry said solemnly.
‘But that was at least a year before he died. We had been to Hawaii, hence his gorgeous tan. And then on to New York. I was here with him. So he came and made this film and never even mentioned it to me?’ Deedee felt tears prick in the corners of her eyes at what felt like a betrayal, why hadn’t Joe told her? She instinctively pulled her shades down over her face.
‘Shall I continue?’ Harry asked as Deedee sat silently for a minute or so, still feeling blindsided that Joe had gone to such lengths as to visit his lawyer and record a codicil and hadn’t said a word to her about it. She cast her mind back to that time, remembering how they had been together twenty-four seven, or so it had seemed. But they couldn’t have been. And she hated that her memory of events was distorted now. It had always been her comfort, replaying her time with Joe, going over the details in her head, and even reminiscing out loud sometimes in her chats with him. So to find out that her reality might not be true any more was a very disconcerting feeling indeed.
‘How long is the film?’ Deedee said quietly. Harry referred to a bundle of paperwork on the desk before telling her, ‘Eleven minutes, including the legal notifications.’
‘I see,’ she nodded. So not long then. He could have popped out when I was in the shower or whatever, on the pretext of going to get coffees, and just dashed in here to make a quick movie for his wife to watch after he’d died, like it was no big deal before rocking back up in our apartment with a tall skinny latte clutched in his hand, pretending absolutely everything was completely normal and with me none the wiser. And it must have been intense, an emotional thing for him to do, to confront his own death, so why didn’t he share it? Why didn’t it show, in his face, his demeanour? Was he really that much of a cool character? I didn’t think so, but now I’m questioning everything I thought to be true. But more to the point, why didn’t I notice something was off on that day and ask if he was OK? I could have offered comfort and support. I should have paid more attention.
Deedee let out a puff of air for feeling terrible that she had let Joe down in some way, but then realised what she was doing. She was making everything intense, magnified and getting angry as a cover for the fear she was feeling inside because if Joe could do something like this – hide the fact he had made an incredibly emotional film – then what else might he have hidden from her that she didn’t even notice?
Moving her hands free from Gina’s and Rosie’s, Deedee pressed her palms on the tops of her thighs. ‘OK, I’m ready!’ She wasn’t really, but figured it was best to get it over and done with, to find out what was so important that Joe had to make a secret film for her to see only years after he’d died. For some inexplicable reason, her thoughts suddenly raced back to the two disastrous marriages she had before meeting Joe. Particularly the affairs her first and second husbands had had and the heartbreak and the inevitable ‘unburdening’ each of those men had indulged themselves in, to offload their guilt, with no thought for the pain they put her through. Could this be what Joe’s living will was all about? Some sort of confession, an unburdening , with a retrospective apology in case a betrayal had been revealed since his death. But surely not. Joe wasn’t like them. Was he?
Deedee swallowed, tearing her thoughts away from the ridiculous, and forced herself to get a grip saying, ‘Whatever is revealed I will deal with it’ over and over inside her head like a mantra as she motioned with her head for the film to continue.