Page 14 of The Widower's Girlfriend
I’d never memorized the way a woman’s skin felt like silk. Or how she bit her lip when she was confused or thinking hard about something. Or the hours, days, months, years I could spend worshiping her mouth and the way she kissed me back.
And now that I feel all that and more, I have so much more I want to explore. I’m fascinated with the human heart. Not the parts that pump blood and keep us alive biologically. I’ll leave that to the doctors in the world. I’m fascinated by the emotions of the heart.
How a heart could be completely shattered, yet still continue on. How it could be pieced together, whole, yet different. Tender, but hopeful. Then flushed with a tidal wave of love and affection without bursting at the seams so newly mended.
Part of why I blog about my grief is so I can understand it. Yet, I haven’t explored this part of moving on and finding love again.
Not that I love Jemma.
It’s way too early to even think about that. But just the possibility of having feelings again in this tattered heart of mine is novel and strange and wonderful.
So I get up before the sun and down two cups of coffee while I sit with my thoughts. It isn’t so much meditation today but mulling over my discovery.
I glance at my watch and see I’ll be late for my presentation if I don’t get moving. Finishing my protein bar, I slide into my suit jacket and check my hair in the mirror. Then I grab my phone and key card and rush out the door.
Down in the ballroom, I enter quietly through the back and walk up the side of the room. The moderator finishes up whatever he was saying and then moves into introducing me. I wait for him to get through the familiar bio I wrote years ago and just update as necessary.
Then it’s my turn and I leap onto the stage and adjust the microphone to my height.
“Thank you, Frank, for that warm welcome. Though I talked to most of you last night at the reception, I’d like to address some of your questions. Because at the end of the day, though the details will be different for each of us, we all share one common thing: our loved one has died. Wherever you may be in the grieving process, I have a message for you today.”
I continue on with my normal spiel, the slides behind me changing when I click the button on the small remote in my hand. I’d know this presentation in my sleep, I’ve given it so many times. Public speaking comes naturally to me and I’m lucky I’ve been told I’m good at it.
So, when I get to the second to the last slide, I pause. And not where I’m supposed to.
I pause because it hits me that the presentation is really only half done. I’m missing the second half. The half where I talk about truly moving on and what that looks like and how it feels. For the first time ever, I feel like I’m letting my audience down.
I boxed myself into this role of talking about the first few stages of grief to the point I’ve stayed in the same place.
And nothing’s more confining than realizing the box exists.
I end my speech like I rehearsed and walk off the stage to applause I don’t deserve. I have my work cut out for me. I’m going to talk to Jemma and explore how I feel about her. And then I’m going to go home and finish that speech.
The organizer of the event shakes my hand as I pass by, his hearty handshake telling me he’s happy with my contribution. I have to bite my lip to stop the word vomit that threatens to spill out. If he thought that speech was great, he’d love what I plan to present next time. Or maybe he’d hate it. Time would tell.
I pour a glass of water from the table at the back and sit in an empty chair off to the side. Other speeches are going on, but I don’t hear them. My brain is whirling and at the forefront of all the chaos is a singular thought: I need to make things right with Jemma.
Walking off without her last night was rude. Plain and simple. No excuses. I freaked out and thought about my reputation before I thought about her feelings. My own fears over moving on led me to hurt another person, which is never okay in my book.
My thoughts stray back to the kiss, like the nightly cigar you just can’t give up. You know it’s not good for you, and even though you promise yourself every morning to give it up, come nighttime, you’re holding her in your hand and drawing her in.
The fact that the kiss cemented itself in the top position of best kiss of my life sends my heart racing. Yes, it was the kind of kiss to make a man want more, but it also scares me to think I’ve made some sort of ranking in my head, where my late wife, the woman I thought was the love of my life, isn’t in the top position.
So like the addict I’ve become, I pull out my phone and type out a quick text, hoping no one can see my screen.
Me: Got any plans tonight with your fake boyfriend?
My knee starts jumping up and down as I wait for a reply. No reply bubble appears so I shut my screen off and try to focus in on the current presenter. He’s droning on and on about managing one’s anger. The days where I felt intense anger over the unfairness of cancer choosing my wife’s brain as a breeding ground seem so long ago. Like those days belong to another person.
Checking my screen again and not seeing a text, I stand and slip out the back door. I can’t sit still any longer. I need to make things right. After the way I treated her last night, she may not text me back at all. Apologizing over text seems like the millennial way out so I wrack my brain for a better plan.
It’s on my second lap of the hotel lobby that the perfect idea comes to mind. It’s a long shot and she may think I’m crazy, but I have to do something to get her to talk to me. I have to apologize and make sure she doesn’t think my callous treatment had anything to do with her. It was all me.
And this gesture should help pave the way to that apology.
10
Jemma
