He pulled a clean plate out of the dishwasher, trying to decide what he should eat, but all he could think of was an untouched bucket list and the ruins of his wasted life. Jeremy George Powell. Twenty-four. Never married. Never had kids. Never wrote that novel. Never learned to fly a plane or ride a motorcycle. Never swam with dolphins, or tried stand-up comedy, or rocked the house in a band. Never made love in an inn overlooking the ocean. Never spent a month in Paris soaking up French jazz. Never traced his family roots back to Ireland. Never really, truly, fell head-over-heels-spend-the-rest-of-eternity-together in love… until now, at the end.
He cocked his arm back and threw the plate. It smashed against the tile backwash over the sink and shattered, shards flying everywhere while the biggest pieces crashed down into the sink. Next, the coffee mug hit the faucet, broke into two, and bounced away.
“All right. End of the pity party, people. I need air and I need it now.” He snatched his baseball cap and coat off the tree and that’s when he noticed Ana’s book. His breath caught in his throat. He’d managed to keep the book because he told the officers that he had no idea what Gervaise was doing in the loft, and Gervaise was oddly silent as they led him away.
He tucked the book in the jacket’s inside pocket and clomped out of the loft. He made it three steps down off the building’s stoop before he realized that not only was he still in his pyjamas, but he was also barefoot and it was still pouring rain. He stopped, felt stupid for a second, and then continued on. “Screw it. At least I’m wearing a hat and my skull won’t fill with rainwater.”
Chapter Twenty-two
@TheTaoOfJerr: “The only truth is music.”
BY THE END of the block, Jerry was soaked and shivering. “This is getting to be a habit, buddy.” He looked ahead, left and right, down streets he was only vaguely familiar with. He glanced over his shoulder. He was alone. No fellow pedestrians, no taxis, no horse-drawn carriages, no Ana chasing after him. The frigid rain pounded down on his cap, ran down his back, soaked him from top to bottom, bottom to top, inside and out… and it washed away his hurt, his frustration, and most importantly, it scrubbed him clean of the fear that had been threatening to overwhelm him.
He turned around, slipped a bit on the cold, wet cobblestones. It was time to face the world, and he would start back in the warmth of the loft. He went home. At the front door to the building he jammed his hands into the coat’s pockets and found his keys buried at the bottom of the right one, under a layer of fast-food napkins and plastic-wrapped restaurant mints. He looked Heavenward. “Thank you.”
The freezing cold caught up to him and he stumbled up the stairs, fumbled with the keys and lock, and would have broken in the door if he’d had the strength. Eventually the key fit the lock and turned. He shuffled into the loft, placed Ana’s book carefully on the mantelpiece, then shed his rain-soaked coat and shuffled into the bathroom where he peeled off his soaked pyjamas and the hat, dropped them on the floor, stepped into the tub, pulled the plastic curtain around himself, and turned on the shower. He didn’t wait for it to warm up and really didn’t need to since he was much colder than even the cool spray that preceded the hot. He sat there, curled up under the spray, numb.
WHEN THE SHOWER began to cool after he’d used up all of the hot water, Jerry shut it off and climbed out, ready for nothing more complicated than sleep. Sleep, and more painkillers. The frigid rain and the hot shower had washed away the headache, but his soul ached and throbbed and was numb, all at once. He went through the motions of drying off with the big bath sheet. Eventually he tossed it over the shower rod and wandered out into the heat of the loft proper.
Standing naked by the bed, he couldn’t find his pyjamas at first. Then he remembered the wet lump on the bathroom floor, and instead grabbed sweatpants and a hoodie from the ever-present pile of clothes on the chair next to the dresser. He swallowed two more capsules and curled up in a fetal position with the pillow hugged close. Once again, sleep found Jerry, and he welcomed it.
A CHIME SOUNDED in Jerry’s dream and he reached for the old, black dial phone on the desk next to his dream self. He picked up the receiver. “Hello?” No one answered. “Helloooo? Is there anybody out there?” The chime sounded again and he concluded that it wasn’t the phone. He looked around the vintage office of his dream but it slipped away, revealing the walls and framed photographs and dim light of the loft. “What?”
The chime sounded a third time, and he finally clued in. “Skype?” Who the hell would be calling him? Not his mother, that’s for sure. Maybe Carole. By the time he got to his desk and the laptop, the chime was silent. The caller ID was still on the screen, and although he had to squint, he could see that it was Isis’ number. With a couple quick taps of the laptop’s touchpad, he called her back. While it rang, he dropped his butt into the desk chair. Isis couldn’t have gone far from her computer because she answered quickly.
“Jerry! You’re there!” She signed rapidly. “I love you I’m sorry I hung up on you Mom is mad as shit at me for doing it!”
He waved at her to stop, and signed with strong gestures to get her attention. “Isis! Slow down! You’ll melt your nail polish you’re talking so fast. It’s okay. My mom almost hung up on me, too, when I told her last night.”
“So it’s true? You have cancer?”
“Yes, it is. It’s not something I would joke about.” He found himself comforted by talking with Isis. His anger at being awakened thinned and dissipated.
“You’re dying?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Probably within the next month or so. The doctors think I have longer but I’m not so sure.”
“Am I going to get to see you again, before you go?”
“I’m not sure. I’m flying my family out to see me this weekend, while I’m still healthy enough, but I hadn’t planned on doing any travelling, because of the seizures I’ve started having.”
“Oh. Can I come visit you?”
“I don’t think your parents would be too impressed with their fifteen-year-old daughter flying out to see an old man.”
“They’re cool with it. It was Dad’s idea. He cried as hard as me when you told us you were sick. That big tough cop is just a softy inside. If he can come, he will, but he says Mom and I can come out if you let us.”
He thought about Ana and how much she would have loved meeting Isis in person. “I’d love to see you, but let’s see how the next week or so go. I may need some recovery time after my mother’s visit.”
“Is it okay with Ana if we visit? I’ll ask her myself, if you think that would be better, more polite.”
Shit. “Um, Ana isn’t here anymore, Isis. She’s gone.”
“What did you do?!” Her signs were sharp and angry. “I could tell by the look on both your faces that she is the best thing to ever happen to you! I don’t care what you do, you get her back!” He tried to say again that he had no idea where she went, but Isis didn’t let him get a sign in edgewise. “Call her number every ten minutes, go pound on her door, email her, text her… I don’t care what you have to do. You need to have someone there who loves you and, most important, you deserve to have love in your life. Haley is a bitch and I’m glad you got away from her, and I’m too young for you, so find Ana and be in love.” Her hands slowed down so that he could make no mistake in the translation. “Or I will fly out there and kick your ass myself. Is that understood?” She folded her arms over her breasts and waited for his answer.