I get a shiver of happiness when I imagine it might have something to do with me being here, with my influence. But then just as quickly I slap myself down. Could I have a bigger ego? I don’t think so. So what’s the reason for the use of past tense? Why does he care now? I’m burning to know, but I don’t want to seem desperate. Better to stick to less personal questions.
“Did you work when Laura was alive?”
“Yes. We rehabbed brownstones and apartments in Manhattan and flipped them. She was the designer and the general contractor, and I worked with various sub-contractors doing different things, like finish-carpentry, drywall, some plumbing and electrical.”
“Sounds like you were a great team.”
“We were. In pretty much every way.”
I can’t think of what to say to that. All I can imagine is what it might feel like to be so in love with someone, so perfectly matched, and then have it all disappear in a single moment when your back is turned. I try to picture what that day was like for him — the day he got the news that his wife was gone. But I can’t. Nothing in my life could have been even remotely devastating. My morbid curiosity gets the better of me and I speak before I think.
“What happened the day she died?”
Asking that question puts me squarely in the role of Asshole of the Year, but it was out of my mouth and in the air between us, so he either had to answer or completely ignore me. I’ve gotten the impression over these past couple days that Jeremy has manners and he feels bad when he doesn’t use the good ones, so I prepare myself for what I expect to be a very sad answer.
He faces the stove as he speaks. “We were working a job. A renovation on the Upper East Side. One of the subs ran out of material. Drywall tape, if my memory isn’t totally shot. I was going to go get it, but I was up to my elbows in soldering, just finishing up the installation of a sink in the kitchen. Laura said she’d go, and I just grunted. I was angry at the stupid pipes, if you can believe that. I wasn’t even thinking about my 9-month-pregnant wife having to go out in the rain to get something as stupid as drywall tape. I remember I didn’t even stick my head out to give her a kiss goodbye.” His shoulders move as he stirs a pot of what I assume is sauce. “That was something we always did. We never parted without a kiss. I think that was the first and only time it happened.”
“Superstition?” I ask.
“No. Maybe kind of. It’s just that Laura was always saying you never know when it will be your time to go.” He sighs and stops stirring, his hand just hovering over the stove. “I used to go along with her silly ideas, kissing her before she left every time, knocking on wood when I said certain words like cancer or HIV, whatever; but I never believed in that stuff the way she did. I never thought God would take her away so young. We were doing everything right. We were good people. We gave to charity and treated people the way we wanted to be treated. We were playing by the rules, but we still lost.” He shakes his head and hisses as he stirs the pasta in boiling water. “She was convinced she was going to leave earlier than the rest of us, and I was convinced she was crazy to even think it.”
The goosebumps are back, and I have the strangest desire to look over my shoulder. But I don’t, because I don’t believe in ghosts, and even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to go looking for one.
I try to think of something supportive to say, but my brain draws a blank. Again, I just let the words fly out. “So, to sum everything up, it was basically the worst day of your entire life.”
“Yes. Easily, it was the worst day of my life. The death of my parents was bad, but nothing like the day Laura left me.”
The room has gone so dark with his sad memories, I can’t stand it anymore. I have to lighten things up.
“So what are your plans now?”
Jeremy puts two bowls down on the island counter and then strains the water from the pasta in the sink. “What do you mean?” He comes over and puts half the noodles in one bowl and the other half in the second.
“I mean, what are you going to do with your life now? You’ve been in solitary confinement, mourning for around nine months, but you have to come back to the real world eventually. So what’s the plan for that?”
He pours sauce over both bowls of pasta, hissing when some of it splashes up and hits his bare hand. I try not to stare as he puts his mouth to his skin and sucks on it, but it’s impossible not to. I can picture those lips on mine so clearly.