An Aside: I don't think I've ever written a sequel before. Sure I've written stories with multiple parts but those when you came right down to it (whether they were three or fifteen) were all part of the same story. This one however, is the first time Ive actually attempted to revisit characters that I once lived with. Catch up with how they are doing, what they are doing and how the events of the previous story have shaped their lives since.
The particular story of which the one below is a sequel to is one I wrote about a year ago entitled "For Everything a Reason". The people, Ben and Sharon; a man and a woman in a relationship where their love goes horribly awry with very...interesting consequences.
The last time around I centred in on Ben ultimately as the main character. He was the narrator and therefore the story for, all intensive purposes, was his. I wanted to take a different approach this time and tell Sharon's story. And even though Sharon does not serve as the narrator, the story does begin and end with her. My only hope is that I did her justice.
-- L.A. Lutara
Retrograde
She lives in a house full of ghosts. Memories of happiness, hope and a giddy kind of love skipping hand-in-hand up and down its empty halls, sitting and watching Bollywood movie after Bollywood movie in its stylishly decorated, big screen TV'ed living room, cooking mouth watering feasts that put goliaths to sleep as well as to shame in its stainless steel kitchen.
They float from room to room, these ghosts, alighting on anything and everything, making her home their home, their haunting transforming it from a place of rest and re cooperation into a place of constant torment.
They are a rambunctious bunch, shamelessly keeping her awake at night, every night- singing schmaltzy Top 40 love songs, dancing circles around her head, around her bed and leaving dark circles beneath her eyes.
This house that houses these spirits of long dead feelings and that has long since ceased being a home belongs to her sister, the one who is supposed to help her get through this "hard time" but who is never there. A big government job with a big government car and big government allowances- ones given and ones taken makes sure of this. She is also married, this sister, but with a husband away most of the time (a doctor in some upcountry hospital) it is not uncommon for her sister to host the occasional male visitor on those evenings when she does manage to make it home before 11 O'clock. On those nights she slips on a jacket, ties on a scarf and walks out the door. It never matters how late it is nor does it really matter where she goes, anything to get away from the nausea of her sister's infidelity.
She has lived like this for almost two years. Ever since she lost Blake and Blair to a pool of blood and a bad dream. Even now she thinks of them as little human beings and not just foetuses that once grew inside of her.
"You'll get over it." people said.
"You just need to give it some time." others encouraged.
"I totally get how you feel and all I can say is that it will get better." yet another comforted.
Well she hadn't, time was not doing shit and if anything, for some time at least, she felt worse. Those people didn't know jack shit about how she felt. She was dead while still breathing, a hollow, a husk, a shell of her former self. The worst possible version of herself. They just didn't get it, how could they? And so instead of trying to get her she was prescribed anti-depressants. The ones that made you slow and sleep a lot and put on weight. She put on at least 10kgs after she started taking them. But then she had lost at least 20kgs when everything had happened and so at it was she was still a whole lot slimmer than people were used to.
She's not on them any more though. Not because she feels better but because she feels as if she needs to get better and the pills were not helping.
She has been off them for about a month now and so far she hasn't slit her wrists, hung herself from a chandelier or flung herself down a flight of stair;s so that's some sort of progress right?
Sure, she had thought about doing those things but she hadn't actually done any of them. She had fainted at some point, taking quite a nasty tumble, earning herself quite a few bruises and a classic concussion but that didn't count, did it? It wasn't intentional after all.
That was around the time the texts and phone calls began.
1:47 am
1 text message received
Benjamin ORA
I cnt seem 2 slip & al I cn think abt is u. hw r u? I kno its l8 & I shld hv w8ed til mornin bt I hd 2 ask. I wori abt u.
Sharon didn't reply. She saw no reason to. Not that she hated him any more, no, that had dissolved a while back. She just didn't know what to make of the message. Was he being nice? Did he have some kind of ulterior motive? What was he up to? It was almost 2 O'clock in the morning for chrissake. And so because she wasn't sure she thought it better to just let it be. Better safe than sorry and all that jazz.
Four days later there came another one. Same time, same vein. This time he mentioned the twins. How he often thought about them. How losing them had been like an axe in the heart and how he just couldn't stop bleeding. Sure, he tried his best to cover it up, to move on, to put on a brave face for the world but the truth was he missed them, he missed her and he missed the life they could have had together.
This time Sharon replied.
9:11 am
1 text message received
Sharon UTL
I miss them 2. Evry day sinc hz bin a battle. sm days r hell, otha days nt so mch. I miss u 2 sometimes. Wen I manag 2 c past the hurt. hw r u?
At the time, Sharon couldn't put her finger on it but something about Ben's words made him seem different. Maybe it was his admission that she hadn't born the hurt alone. Maybe it was him saying how he missed the life they could have had. Whatever it was though, it made Sharon feel as if she had a partner in this, even if an unlikely one, even if a small one. And so when she fell down the stairs she called him. Not for him to help her, no, he had no reason to, not really, but to let him know. Maybe he would serve as a hand holder of sorts, a proverbial shoulder to lean on, even if only over the phone.
He seemed concerned; asked whether she was OK. Who was with her. What did the doctors say. What she was taking. All the right questions with all the right amounts of concern. She couldn't help but feel a little tug. Tried her best to ignore it.
"He broke your heart." She told herself.
Completely and irretrievably. He did not deserve even the tiniest crawl space of a place in her haphazardly glued together semblance of a heart.
And so when Ben asked to see her Sharon said no. Not out right, she had said she needed to think about it which they both knew in reality meant "No.". Not one with finality but more of one that suggested that she was not yet ready. And so understanding this, Ben did not push.
That does not mean that they did not talk however. Because they did. A lot. And for about three weeks. And then Ben once again asked whether he could see her. It still bugged her why he wanted to but this time she felt ready. At least a little more than she did before anyway. And so she said yes, he could.
"Cool." he said. "You name the when and the where."
Sharon thought about this for a moment.
"It's Monday right?"
"Uh-huh."
"Then how about Wednesday?"
"I can do that." he said. "Where?"
"Well, I can't really leave home right now so..."
"So do you want me to come to you? Cuz I can. Do you want me to?"
Why is he being so damn considerate? Sharon wondered. It went against everything she had come to believe about him. What she had seen about him. He had stayed around for the kids, not for her after all. And when the kids were gone, so was he.
"Sure." she said.
"Cool. So I'll call you tomorrow evening to set up a time then?"
"Sure." she said again.
And then it is Wednesday and her phone is ringing and it is him calling and he is at the gate and she is opening it for him and she is on her tip toes and he is hugging her.
The first thing she notices about him is how much weight he has put on. Not so much in the face but all in the stomach. He still looks good though. And knowing him he knows that and so Sharon decides to poke a little fun at him.
"but you ki-boy, what have you been eating?"
"Little boys and girls mostly. Why? Does it show?"
He says holding his stomach and striking a pose.
Sharon lets out a small laugh and tells him to come in.
So far, so good.
After showing him where to sit Sharon gets him a glass of water (sweat, sweat, sweat everywhere) and makes sure to not sit on the same couch as him (still wary; very, very wary).
At first they talk about safe things, which is to say that they mostly talk about him and even when they do talk about her it is mostly in broad strokes- how she spends her days, how she cooks at night, how her hair has finally grown back out after she had shorn it almost to the skin in a frenetic act of mourning....
Not quite as broad of a stroke as she hopes but it just sort of tumbles out. She never really had full reign of her tongue around Ben. And Even now, after everything she is still having a hard time keeping her words in check.
Sharon runs a hand through her luxurious head of hair as she says this. The darkness of the memory momentarily sweeping her, her gaze becomes far off, her other hand instinctively going to her stomach.
"Hey."
Sharon snaps her head in Ben's direction.
"You OK?" He genuinely sounds concerned. He looks concerned too; his forehead is creased with worry.
"Yeah...yeah I'm fine." Sharon says shaking off the shadow.
She stands up.
"More water? Juice? Biscuits?"
Ben thinks about it for a second.
"I choose D. All of the above."
Sharon smiles and this makes Ben smile. He lost her there for a second.
"Coming right up."
The fat jokes keep coming. Not that she minds the extra padding mind you. She would still jump his bones in a second.
"Well my bones are all yours for the jumping. But only if you're gentle." Ben flirts lightly. "You know I'm a sensitive soul."
Another laugh and another wink of the eye. Ben finds the sound of her laughter re-assuring. He is there because he is worried about her. Really worried. At least she is doing a lot better than he thought. Thank God.
"It's good to see you." Ben says "and I'm glad you're doing OK."
Sharon examines him. Is he being sincere? Is he really there as a friend? Is he really there just to make sure that she is OK? Everything so far seems to point to that but something still keeps her from fully believing it so.
"You seem different, you know that?"
Ben smiles.
"Oh yeah? Good different or bad different?"
"Ha! Don't misunderstand me Ben, it's not like you have suddenly become a knight in shining armour or anything, far from it. But you do seem less cold. I'm pretty sure that if I put my hand on your chest I would actually be able to feel your heart beating."
"You mean I was cold before?"
"Like Mr. Freeze."
"Huh. I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or be extremely offended by that. Nice reference though."
"My nephew watches a lot of cartoons and I baby sit a lot. And a compliment, definitely a compliment."
They share a curtailed smile and arrive at an awkward silence. Their conversation has been littered with them, descending whenever neither of them seems to have anything to say; the space filling up with all the unsaid.
Breath in, breath out.
Ben takes a sip of his apple juice. Cold. Ceres.
"I thought this would be harder." Sharon says a moment later, melting the mounting silence.
"How come?"
"We have history." Sharon says as a way of explanation.
Ben gives a little shrug.
"And...?"
"And you don't think we do?"
"Of course I do. An immense amount of it. Probably more than most could ever hope for."
"And you didn't think that history would make things at least a little...weird?"
Ben shakes his head.
"No."
Sharon ponders this for a moment.
"Then let me ask you, what did you expect when you came here?"
Ben is silent for a moment. For more than a moment, for maybe three. Sharon is about to give up on him answering when he does.
"I didn't expect anything. The best way to avoid being disappointed is-"
"To not have any expectations." Sharon finished for him.
"Exactly. I came because I wanted to see how you were. I'm glad to see that you're OK."
"Better, not OK. It's still hard. I still cant sleep. I still cry for no reason. I still have moments when I want to stick a knife in your neck and feel your blood on my finger tips."
Awkward silence, obviously.
Ben swallows, tries to think of something innocuous to say without coming off as trite.
"Are you still thinking about surrogacy?"
hmmmm, not quite what he was going for but oh well.
Sharon licks her lips,
"I thought about it for a long time and in the end I realized that all I would be doing is trying to temporarily replace what I had lost with something that in the end would not be mine. It wouldn't be a wise thing to do."
Ben nods. Tries to ignore the fact that Sharon just regurgitated his own sentiments, almost verbatim, back to him as if they were her very own.
"I really took what you said to heart." she adds as if reading Ben's mind.
Ben is about to wave it away when his phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket and glances down at its face and is instantly reluctant to answer it.
"Take it." Sharon says instantly picking up on the hesitation pinioning him.
"You sure?"
"Go ahead."
And so he does.
The conversation is brief but with several, "I will's" and "Don't worries" and even a couple of "I know's".
"I'm guessing you have to go." Sharon says once he has hung up.
"You guess right." Ben says standing up. Sharon gets up as well.
"A meeting, a date? A boss, a girlfriend?"
"Something like that."
"You know you haven't answered my question right?"
The two of them begin walking towards the front door, the gate.
"Mmmm-hmmm."
"Girlfriend then."
Fiancé actually, Ben thinks but says nothing.
They reach the gate.
"This has been nice." Ben says holding open his arms for a hug.
"It has." Sharon replies allowing herself to be hugged.
"And Ben,"
"Yes?"
"Congratulations."
"For what?"
"Your impending nuptials of course."
The look on Ben's face is that of a kid who has been caught with a fist full of sweets five minutes before supper time.
Small town and people talk, he should have known. He wanted to tell her himself, that was the point of the entire visit and he was about to but something she said told him that she was not OK as he told her he thought she was. He didn't think she was ready and here she had known the entire time.
"It's OK." Sharon says, taking his hand and squeezing it. "I appreciate your concern, it's actually kind of sweet."
She pulls him in for another hug.
"Take care of yourself Ben. And take care of her. She's a good one."
And with that the visit is over. Ben heading back to his life, his bride and his future and Sharon heading back to what exactly?
This question swirls around Sharon's head as she walks back into the house, up two flights of stairs and turning around flings herself down them.
