12. No Greater Oblivion
12
NO GREATER OBLIVION
Alejandro
The Present
T he house is empty when I arrive.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Do?a Ana’s getting new glasses, and Lyss went grocery shopping. I asked them to leave us alone for a while.” She moves behind the kitchen island and lights a cigarette with trembling fingers. “Where have you been staying the last few days?”
“The North Star.” I narrow my gaze. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since a traumatic life event forced me to indulge in sense-numbing vices,” she snaps back. Almost immediately after, she straightens her shoulders and takes a deep breath. Dahlia puts out the cigarette and dumps it in the trash. “They’re herbal…I don’t like nicotine.”
A thick, uncomfortable silence settles in the room. I can’t believe this is what’s become of us. I’d rather the hostility over the unsettling disquiet. I don’t even know who we are anymore.
“I have something for you.” I hadn’t noticed it before but there’s something on the counter wrapped in brown wrapping paper and tied together with a simple ribbon. She pushes it across the marble until it’s within reach. “Happy Birthday.”
I stare at the gift.
“Today’s the tenth.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I reach for it.
I completely forgot today’s my birthday.
Thirty years and I have nothing to show for it except broken relationships, a child I never knew existed but was already gone, and the profound antipathy of the only woman I have ever truly loved.
Part of me almost rejects the gift. Feelings of unworthiness and self-loathing collide inside my chest. Pressure builds with every heartbeat and I fear that between this breath and the next, I’ll split open completely. But I can’t risk rejecting anything from her and the truth is, I don’t want to. Curiosity wins out in the end.
The ribbon comes undone with ease and I’m careful when removing the wrapping paper. Dahlia can’t help herself. Before I’ve turned the book over to read the cover, she tells me what it is.
“It’s one of your grandmother’s books—the poetry collection that went out of print?” She nibbles on her bottom lip. “I was already looking for it before…before everything happened. It ended up all the way in a rare bookstore in Virginia if you can believe it. I’ve had it since last March and figured this was as good a time as any to give it to you.”
My grandmother stopped writing not long after her children were born. Raising a family, especially during the early years of Abuelo’s career, was difficult. I imagine it didn’t leave much room for creativity. She was successful enough in her youth that her work was translated into a few languages but not all of her titles are still in print. Namely, the poems she wrote when she met and fell in love with Abuelo. Dahlia built a bookcase in my study for all the editions of her work, both in Spanish and the other languages they were translated into.
So many moves over the years meant many of her first editions were lost in the shuffle. I’ve been trying to track down as many as I could. This one especially.
As if having a mind of its own, when I open the book it miraculously lands on the one poem I had in mind.
“Did you ever look through it?”
“I did.” She nods almost frantically. “She was very talented. I couldn’t understand some of it—there were words I didn’t know—” She notices the page I landed on. “Actually, I really liked this one. Don’t think Google Translate did it justice but it came close enough.”
Somehow, I doubt that so I translate for her.
“ I once believed there was no greater oblivion than solitude. The interminable passage of time trapped in the madness of one’s own mind—a madness for which there is no cure. But if poison has bittered the sweetness of true love than oblivion must be this; the abyss in which I’ve found myself, longing for your presence, and realizing it is now forever out of reach..”
I close the book and we are once more returned to a state of unendurable silence. I decide not to stay any longer than necessary for fear of igniting a topic of conversation I’m not yet ready for.
“Thank you for the gift,” I say and get up. “I should?—”
“We really need to talk.” She pleads.
“If it’s about O’Neil, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Alex—”
I grab the book from the counter and practically sprint toward the nearest exit. Dahlia follows me through the house.
“You have to promise not to retaliate against him. We didn’t know!”
“ Retaliate .” I hiss under my breath. “Son of a bitch is lucky he isn’t at the bottom of the Hudson.”
“Look, if I had known you and Rian had history, I would’ve never gone this far with him.”
I spin on the balls of my feet to face her. “On the contrary, I think you would’ve made a spectacle of fucking him just to get a rise out of me.”
Her lips purse. “Jealous?”
“Hardly. I should probably thank him for saving me the headache.”
Dahlia’s eyes narrow to slits. “How emasculating it must feel to know you’re so easily replaced.”
“Is that what he is? My replacement? Even desperate, we both know you can do better.”
“Does insulting me make you feel good about yourself? How pathetic. You aren’t half the man Rian is.”
“Is that what you tell him when he’s inside you? You’re twice the man Alejandro is. ” I can’t help the venom that seeps into my voice. “I bet it’s the perfect excuse to say my name in bed because you know it’s the only way you’ll finish.”
Her cheeks burn bright red. “ Fuck you.”
“Why? Is Rian not doing a good enough job?”
Flustered and frustrated, she pushes at my chest and it’s only then that I realize how close we’ve become. She pushes again and tries to force me out of the room and into the hall but I catch both her wrists, pinning them behind her back.
“Let go !”
“The two of you won’t last more than six months .” She fights against my hold but it lacks urgency. Heat rushes to her cheeks when my fingers find the pulse in her wrist and squeeze. “You’re capricious and stubborn, and he’s stoic and unfeeling. He isn’t passionate enough for you and you aren’t levelheaded enough for him. It’s a miracle the two of you haven’t killed each other yet.”
“And you think we faired any better?” This time when she attempts to free herself, I let her. “I was back in New York within a year.”
“You left because you wanted to. No one sent you away.”
“No one was keen on keeping me either. You didn’t exactly go out of your way to get me back.”
“I kept my promise to you, Dahlia. I have always respected your freedom—I’ve always respected your right to choose .”
Incredulous laughter leaves her lips. “You are such—” She stops and immediately shakes her head. “I hate you. I hate you…so much.”
“You don’t hate me. You’re hurt. You’re angry with me, and I deserve it, but you don’t hate me.”
“Stop fucking telling me how I feel!” she snaps. “I’m sick and tired of everyone telling me what I feel, what I’m experiencing, as if I’m incapable of figuring it out for myself. I do hate you. I loathe you, I resent you, I wish I’d never laid eyes on you, I wish I’d never…I wish I had never loved you?—”
“ Dahlia .”
“Because from the moment you entered my life you’ve done nothing but wreak havoc. I had a life here. It wasn’t a lot and it wasn’t perfect but it was still mine and I gave it up to be with you because I loved you and I thought you were worth the sacrifice. The least you could’ve done was make a halfhearted attempt at getting me back after ruining my life .”
“You were the one who left!”
“ You never asked me to stay! ”
Silence befalls the room. Dahlia can’t seem to catch her breath.
“Had it ever occurred to you that all I wanted was to see you try? To see something. Anything. All I wanted was a reaction out of you.”
My lungs tighten with the effort to speak. “It’s been a year, Dahlia. A year of me being stuck in our old life in our old home and you upended all of it…to get a reaction out of me?”
Tears rush to her eyes but she won’t let a single one fall; she’s too stubborn for that. “What else was I supposed to do? You shut down on me. Nothing was the same after the fire. It’s not my fucking job to fix you, Alejandro. You didn’t want to be helped, and there was nothing I could do. I thought…I thought that if maybe?—”
It feels like the ground has been pulled out from under me. I can’t carry my own weight anymore and find support on the armrest of a nearby chair. “What a stupid fucking thing to do, Dahlia.”
Her lips purse with indignation. “You were suffocating me. Overprotective and overbearing?—”
“I was protecting you?—”
“Not to mention secretive. Had you told me the truth about Sandro and how the fire really started, things would’ve been different.”
“And after the fact? How do you explain your behavior once you got back to New York? Lettie will leave the room if I try to broach the topic of your falling out, and Diego acts like he’s mourning a dead person. Do you think that what happened between us gave you the right to destroy those relationships?”
She drops her head, too ashamed to meet my gaze.
“You broke their hearts, Dahlia.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” she defends quickly. “I was angry.”
“Angry at me, and you took it out on them . Why? Did they do something to you that I don’t know about?”
“No!” She insists and drags a hand across her cheek. “Of course not.”
“Were you doing it to hurt me then? Did you figure the easiest way to get to me was through Diego and Lettie?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you—I loved you! I just…”
Dahlia’s voice trails off and when she doesn’t continue, I find myself relieved. I don’t think I have it in me to sit and argue in circles with her any longer.
Finally, I ask, “What are you going to do about Rian?”
She turns away from me and focuses on something out the window. “What is there to do about Rian?”
“Dahlia…”
Her eyes flutter shut.
“I’ve known him for over a decade. Don’t?—”
Before I can finish my sentence, she spins on the balls of her feet and rushes upstairs.
And just like a year ago, I let her go without a fight.