Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [57]
Michael walked through dark Nantucket streets, which were completely empty. He felt alone, isolated and adrift. He was having trouble just catching his breath, which was unusual. His legs felt incredibly heavy. Finally, tears began to roll down his cheeks. Real tears. Among his first ever.
He pulled his windbreaker tight and waited at the dock. The boat would arrive in about half an hour. There was already a trace of sunlight on the horizon. Could that mean there was hope?
There had to be, because Jane couldn’t die. It was too heartbreaking even to imagine.
Jane can’t die now.
Seventy
I WOKE the NEXT MORNING already smiling, stretching luxuriously, feeling intensely sated in that happy, secure, slightly dragged-through-a-hedge-backward kind of way that comes from making lots of love — making actual love, as opposed to having sex.
I felt wonderful. Sunlight was pouring into the room, as if the sun were trying to shine brighter, just for us. Turning, I was disappointed not to see Michael right beside me. That stupid little travel clock on the wobbly nightstand said 8:55. No way was it that late, though.
What had Michael and I planned to do this morning anyway? Let’s see, we’d talked about going back to an antiques store that had some kind of whale-tooth carving Michael liked. But first, breakfast at the coffee shop in town that specialized in blueberry pancakes, although I still wasn’t hungry. Maybe because I was shedding some weight and liking the feeling of my body. Or, more likely, because I was in love.
Well, whatever, we were going to be late, weren’t we? Any day we spent together wasn’t long enough. We had to seize every minute. Plus, Michael loved to eat, probably because he never put on an ounce. The creep.
I was just about to jump out of bed when I had a flashback to the night before. My mind wandered to a conversation that Michael had wanted to have, something he needed to tell me. I remembered waking up during the night, and Michael lying down with me.
Where was he?
“Michael?” I called, and got no answer. “Michael, are you there? Michael? Mikey? Mike? Hey, you!”
I got out of bed, pushed the hair out of my eyes, and looked around. No Michael. Michael wasn’t anywhere.
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I glanced around for a note but saw none.
Dumbstruck, I put my hand to my mouth. He just couldn’t have.
Somehow I stumbled back to my room, where the wrecked bedsheets seemed to mock me. The idea that Michael would literally love me and leave me had never occurred to me. I didn’t know whether to feel worried or furious or just painfully, heartbreakingly agonized.
“Michael,” I whispered in the empty room. “Michael, how could you? Didn’t you love me? You were the one person who did . . .” Oh my God, that was it, wasn’t it? What he had wanted to tell me, why he hadn’t been able to sleep.
He’d left me again for another child, right? He was back being somebody else’s imaginary friend.
I ran around the two bedrooms like a crazy person in search of a lost shred of sanity. All of his stuff was gone. His duffel bag — gone. I pulled out bureau drawers, threw open closet doors. Nothing of Michael’s was anywhere. No signs that he’d even been here.
I looked out the window at a day as bright and pretty as any we’d had so far in Nantucket. A perfect day for bike riding and antiques shopping, supper at Ozzie and Ed’s, being with someone you loved more than life itself.
“Oh, Michael,” I said, “how could you leave me all alone? Again.”
This time I wouldn’t forget him, because I couldn’t ever forgive him — for breaking my heart twice.
Seventy-one
MEN SUCK! Even imaginary ones.
I arrived in New York that day, and I felt like a stranger in my own home; everything in every room looked as though it belonged to someone else. Someone who wasn’t me. Was this my furniture? Had I selected