Read Online Seeing Julia by Katherine Owen - Free Book Online Page B

nods. Her tears mingle with mine on the pillow we share.
    ≈ ≈

    Stirring awake, I glance at the red illumination of the numbers two one five and savor in a few precious seconds before I remember what’s happened. Grief returns with fresh reinforcements. The battle seems to be waged for my sanity. While Kimmy sleeps beside me, I face the haunting imagery, grief has so eloquently prepared. First to arrive are those happy memories of Evan: his amazing laugh that captivated me the first time we spoke, the way he’d whisper in my ear when we were in public, the way he made me feel when we’d gaze at each other from across a room. Then, our last moments together, when he brushed his lips across our baby’s forehead and then mine before he sailed out the door and called out: I’ll be right back .
    Then, other images of Evan re-emerge, painful ones that haunt: his crushed Porsche; his lifeless broken body when the firemen finally extricated it from the wreckage; his eyes closed forever; and, the first dawning moment when I began to comprehend he was really gone. The images play over and over, an endless film reel I can’t begin to turn off.
    “Evan,” I say into the darkness. But only silence answers. He’s not coming back.
    Kimberley sighs in her sleep disturbing the early morning’s daunting stillness while I give into the grief swirling all around me.
    ≈ ≈
    Eighteen days. It’s December 23 rd . We spend the day in New Haven at the cemetery. There’s this strange consolation in being there for me, while I watch Kimberley try to handle her high-powered public relations job with Liaison from a cell phone. She stalks with purpose in her black stilettos along the cemetery’s stone path and gestures wildly with her hands. Since Evan’s death, she’s been running triage from Amagansett for Liaison , when she should really be in Manhattan or at the new office in Paris. Even I can see, from this faraway place in which I inhabit, that it’s time for everyone to return to a normal life, whatever that may be. All of us. Kimberley, Stephanie, Christian. Even Jake. Everyone has put their life and plans on hold for me.
    Good girl. The whispered memory of Evan’s voice encourages me now. I start to smile, but then, my heart lurches when I glance down at his grave. The permanent granite headstone isn’t finished, so the freshly dug grave with its faint hint of new green sod laid over the top of it looks out of place in the middle of a snow-covered landscape. I gasp for breath in the chilly air and try to get warm by waving my arms around in the stillness.
    “I miss you,” I whisper at his grave and then, rearrange the white roses I’ve put there. “I miss you so much.”
    I spend a few minutes more at Evan’s grave and then retrace my steps along the familiar path to my parent’s grave site and finally Bobby’s.
    This haven holds all my dead loved ones. Tranquility drifts over me in just being here with them.
    ≈ ≈
    Kimberley drives my SUV back to Amagansett, since I remain incapable of really operating heavy machinery doped up on Dr. Stevenson’s magic white pills and still plagued at unpredictable moments by this overwhelming grief that stays with me like a chronic flu. If it were possible, I most certainly have it.
    The three-hour plus drive, including the car ferry, provides this fleeting sense of serenity, a carry-over from the visit to New Haven. Who gains solace in a cemetery? That would be me.
    Settling back in the passenger seat, I note the holiday lights seem to saturate the world. “What about Christmas?” I steal a glance at Kimberley.
    “What do you want to do?”
    “You should spend it with Gregoire. It’s time for you to return to Paris. Liaison isn’t going to run itself. I’m sure Gregoire’s anxious to return home.”
    “Paris can wait. Liaison can wait, too. We should spend Christmas all together. Wherever you want to be,” she says.
    A scene from last Christmas comes out of nowhere.