Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
“Do you think he had a premonition?” I asked Eddie after we left the studio and walked up Eighth Street.
We’d just listened to the tracks Gabriel laid down before his surgery and even though I thought some of them were great, Gabriel wanted nothing to do with them. So it was my job and his lawyer’s job to inform the label that they were not to be released.
But the music was hard to listen to. Some of it was really dark and foreboding.
I found it strange that he’d recorded two songs that he’d never played for me.
The lyrics for one of them sounded like a metaphorical death.
The other asked questions, What would you say if I told you my twisted dreams and darkest secrets?
Would you run away or would you stay with the stranger I’ve become?
It was almost like he knew what was coming. Like he’d foretold his own demise and wondered what our life would become when he was a stranger to me.
I couldn’t stop thinking about those lyrics.
“I don’t know but he was obsessed with death,” Eddie said.
“I remember this one time when we were in Australia, must have been about two years ago, he blacked out on stage. Midway through the song he just stopped playing and singing. We thought he was drunk and forgot the words.” Eddie chuckled although neither of us found it funny.
“He never told me about that.” It made me wonder how much else he’d hidden from me. “Nobody did.”
Eddie gave me an apologetic smile. “Yeah, I know. I think you joined us in Japan a few days later. He asked us not to say anything. He was always so protective of you and never wanted you to worry.”
There was a big difference between being protective and withholding important information. If he had to hide things from me, what did that say about our relationship? “Is there anything else he didn’t tell me?” I raised my brows. “Anything that happened on the road that I should know about?”
Eddie shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking but no, absolutely not. He was always faithful to you. Gabriel would have sooner cut off his own arm than cheat on you. He never looked at anyone but you.”
Now he barely looked at me at all. The surgery saved his life, but they had to remove 70 percent of his temporal lobe. His memories had been wiped clean. Severe retrograde amnesia that was most likely permanent.
I could still picture his face when he saw me after the surgery. Completely blank. No recognition whatsoever.
Gabriel had no idea who I was, and in the past five months, he’d expressed little to no interest in getting to know me.
“Let’s grab some coffee,” Eddie said when we stopped on the corner.
We were right across the street from Washington Square Park, not the direction I should have been headed in, but I hadn’t really been paying attention to my surroundings.
My life had been put on hold since February 4 th . The day I married Gabriel and the day I lost him.
Today was one of those mid-summer days that you see in movies set in New York. The sky a crisp blue, the park so green, the colors so saturated that the city shimmered and dazzled.
I watched a woman walking three dogs on leashes, a shirtless guy in a bucket hat with a Gray’s Papaya cup clutched in one hand and his arm around a petite redhead, cyclists racing past. Joggers and kids chasing each other into the park, and a group of tourists in I Heart NYC T-shirts with cameras slung around their necks.
The city teemed with life. I felt like I’d missed it all.
When had that icy winter melted into spring and magically transformed into summer?
Even so, I hesitated, torn. “I should get home.”
“You’ve been running yourself ragged. Take some time to sit and relax and enjoy the sunshine. Come on. I’m not taking no for an answer.” Eddie put his hand on my elbow and steered me across the street and through the park.
“So bossy,” I teased, but it was a beautiful day so I was grateful that he’d insisted.
We sat at a sidewalk table under a green awning and ordered iced coffee and cannoli.
“Thanks, Eddie. This is nice.” I stirred sugar into my coffee and took a sip through the straw. “You’re a good friend.”
“Wish I could do more,” he said gruffly. “How’s he doing?”
“I don’t know.” I took a bite of the cannoli and set it down, brushing the crumbs off my cotton dress.
“I feel like he’s getting worse instead of better.
He has no interest in anything, and I know he’s depressed but none of the antidepressants are working and I don’t know how to help him.
He refuses to try music therapy, even though the doctor thinks it would be good for him. He wants nothing to do with music.”
The guitar was a foreign object to him and didn’t entice him in the least. He didn’t write in his journals anymore. He didn’t want to hang out with his friends. He didn’t want to do anything.
“What I should have asked is, how are you doing?” Eddie said.
I shrugged. “I’m fine.”
My gaze wandered to a couple holding hands across the table and I felt a sharp pang of envy. Everywhere I looked now, I saw happy couples. Strolling down the street. Sitting in the park. Gazing into each other’s eyes across a sidewalk table.
Gabriel– my husband –could barely even look at me let alone touch me. I kept telling myself that I had to be patient. He was still healing. These things took time and that was the one thing I could give him since he didn’t seem to want anything else from me.
Sometimes he disappeared for days at a time. Other times, we could be in the same room but it felt like the entire Pacific Ocean separated us.
One time I reached for him in the middle of the night and when I opened my eyes, he was lying rigid with his arms at his sides and his eyes on the ceiling like he was counting down the seconds until I moved, until no part of my body touched any part of his.
Now I understood how it felt to be lonely, even when the person you loved was right beside you.
“You don’t look fine,” Eddie said.
I laughed. “Thanks. I even put on makeup today.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” I forced a smile. “I just have to hang in there. Tell me more high school Gabriel stories.”
Eddie had a million stories, and he was a good storyteller so I always loved hearing about Gabriel in his teens.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I had a crush on a girl in high school?” I shook my head.
Eddie leaned back in his seat. “Well, she wouldn’t give me the time of day.
She was really cool, really smart. Into drama and poetry.
So Gabriel said, ‘You should write her notes and leave them in her locker.’ But I’m no wordsmith so I asked him to write the notes for me and then I’d copy them and pass them to her in class. ”
“Let me guess, she fell in love with you.”
“Yep. But it backfired. She was really into me until she figured out that there was no way I could have written those notes.” Eddie looked over at me. “You remind me a little of her. That’s what I told Gabriel the first time I met you. That girl fell in love with Gabriel’s words.”
“So did I,” I said.
Eddie nodded. “The notebook. He told me about that when I was still out in LA. He called and said, ‘Eddie, I found her. The girl of my dreams. Now I just have to convince her that we’re meant to be together.’ I told him to write some love letters and slip them in your locker.”
We laughed.
“He wrote the best love letters.” My smile slipped when I realized I’d used the past tense.
But maybe that was what I had to do. Stop comparing this new version of Gabriel with the old version. Everyone expected him to still be the person they knew and loved, and he was probably feeling the weight of our expectations.
None of this was his fault. He didn’t ask for any of this either.
When I took those vows, I promised to love him in sickness and health, good times and bad, for better or worse. So that’s exactly what I needed to do.
This was just a rough patch, a bump in the road.
In the greater scheme of things, five months was nothing. We just needed some time to get reacquainted, that’s all. We could do this. We could do anything.
We were Cleo and Gabriel.
Our story wasn’t over. It had only just begun.
In time, Gabriel and I would fall in love all over again.
When I got home, I felt lighter with a renewed sense of purpose. I walked through the front door and called his name then stopped on the threshold of our bedroom and surveyed the damage.
Photos and notebooks were strewn across the floor, some of the pages torn out and ripped to shreds. His memories .
I gathered up the scraps of paper and tried to piece them together as if tape and glue would fix everything. Fix him. Fix us.
I read some of the words from the scraps in my hand then balled them in my fist and tossed them aside.
These pages were from the journal he kept when he was out in LA, “dealing with some heavy shit.” He’d written about driving around Laurel Canyon, searching for his mother.
About his less-than-stellar relationship with his father.
About Kat, the “cool chick” who had loved him. And about his stint in the psych ward.
Out of all the notebooks he could have chosen from the box on the shelf, he just had to choose this one.
I picked up the phone and called around, asking everyone if they’d seen Gabriel but no one had.
I grabbed my keys and headed out the door but stopped on the landing and looked over at the door left slightly ajar.
The roof.