At this point in our argument, both of us awkward and a little embarrassed, I felt that we were going through the motions, actors struggling with a clunky script.
“Just because it’s what you believe,” he said. “What you
“How can you possibly know what the truth is?” I snapped back. “You only met her a few times, and even then you barely bothered to talk to her. She wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to get to know.”
I was arguing with apparent conviction, my voice raised and my words sharpened to hurt, but in truth I was still on our relationship beltway, and inside I was uninvolved and unscathed. I continued my performance, marveling slightly at how easy it was to get into my stride. I’d never had a row before.
“What did you call her? ‘Kooky’?” I asked, not waiting for a reply. “I don’t think you even bothered to listen to anything she said to you on the two occasions we all actually had a meal together. You judged her without even having a proper conversation with her.”
“You’re right. I didn’t know her well. And I admit that I didn’t like her all that much either. She irritated me, as a matter of fact. But this isn’t about how well—”
I interrupted him. “You dismissed her because she was an art student, because of the way she lived and the clothes she wore.”
“For God’s sake.”
“You didn’t see the person she was at all.”
“You’re going way off the point here. Look, I do understand that you want to blame someone for her death. I know you don’t want to feel responsible for it.” The composure in his voice sounded forced and I was reminded of myself talking to the police. “You’re afraid of having to live with that guilt,” he continued. “And I do understand that. But what I want you to try to understand is that once you accept what really happened, then you’ll realize that you weren’t to blame at all. We all know that you weren’t. She took her own life, for reasons that the police, the coroner, your mother, and her doctors are satisfied with, and no one else is to blame, including you. If you could just believe that, then you can start to move forward.” He awkwardly put his hand on my shoulder and left it there—like me he finds being tactile difficult. “I’ve got tickets home for both of us. Our flight leaves the evening after her funeral.”
I was silent. How could I possibly leave?
“I know you’re worried your mother needs you here for support,” continued Todd. “But she agrees that the sooner you get back home, back to your normal life, the better.” His hand slammed onto the table. I noticed the disturbance on my screen before his uncharacteristic physicality. “I don’t recognize you anymore. And now I’m laying my guts out here and you can’t even be bothered to look up from the fucking Internet.”
I turned to him, and only then saw his white face and his body huddled into itself in misery.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t leave. Not till I know what happened to her.”
“We know what happened to her. And you need to accept that. Because life has to go on, Beatrice. Our life.”
“Todd …”
“I do know how hard it must be for you without her. I do understand that. But you do have me.” His eyes were blurred with tears. “We’re getting married in three months.”
I tried to work out what to say and in the silence he walked away from me into the kitchen. How could I explain to him that I couldn’t get married anymore, because marriage is a commitment to the future, and a future without you was impossible to contemplate? And that it was for this reason, rather than my lack of passion for him, that meant I couldn’t marry him.
I went into the kitchen. His back was toward me and I saw what he would look like as an old man.
“Todd, I’m sorry but—”
He turned and yelled at me, “For fuck’s sake I love you.” Shouting at a foreigner in your own language as if volume will make her understand, make me love him back.
“You don’t really know me. You wouldn’t love me if you did.”
It was true. He didn’t know me. I’d never let him. If I had a song, I’d never tried singing it to him, never stayed in bed with him on a Sunday morning. It was always my idea to get up and go out. Maybe he had looked into my eyes but if he had, I hadn’t been looking back.
“You deserve more,” I said, and tried to take his hand. But he pulled it away. “I’m so sorry.”
He flinched from me. But I was sorry. I still am. Sorry that I had neglected to notice that it was only me on the safe beltway while he was inside the relationship, alone and exposed. Once again I had been selfish and cruel toward someone I was meant to care for.
Before you died, I’d thought our relationship was grown-up and sensible. But on my part it was cowardly, a passive option motivated by my insecurity rather than what Todd deserved: an active choice inspired by love.
A few minutes later he left. He didn’t tell me where he was going.
