Page 4 of That Birthday in Barbados
With my hand shaking, I forced myself to open the next one.
I stopped there, closed out the account. I couldn’t read anymore. My stomach rolled.
I bolted from my chair. I barely made it to the toilet in the office bathroom before throwing up the coffee that was the only thing on my stomach.
I retched so hard that it felt as if a knife was cutting through my midsection.
When there was nothing left to come up, I stood, pushing my hair back from my face. A knife might actually have been less painful than the reality of betrayal.
My sister. My husband.
I pictured both their faces, heard their voices telling me the lies that had been necessary to keep all of this secret. How long had it been going on? When did it start?
Another stab of pain hit me in the center of my chest. I bent over, wrapping my arms around myself, squeezing as hard as I could, as if my very soul were dissolving and flowing right out onto the floor.
Suddenly, I had no idea who I was, the threads of my life unraveling until the fabric was no longer recognizable. My knees buckled. I lay face down on the floor, arms outstretched, Louboutins slipping from my feet. They were now nothing more than proof that I had spent the past fifteen years of my life building a company that had taken all of my energy and focus. So much so that I had been blind to the fact that the two most important people in my life had gone on without me, forged something new and separate from me.
And that left me . . . alone.
I raised my head and allowed myself a slow take of the corner office signifying the pinnacle of my life’s work to date. And all of this for nothing.
A sob rose up from deep inside me. I coughed it out as if my body were trying to reject some foreign bacteria it recognized as deadly.
I started to cry, the tears streaming down my face with such forceI was all but certain they would never stop.
Chapter One
“My soul can find no staircase to Heavenunless it be through Earth’s loveliness.”
–Michelangelo
Catherine
Three years later
THEY DO STOP. Eventually, I ran out of tears.
I mull this fact, staring out the window of the first-class seat,studying the clouds below with an objectivity I never before had about flying. I used to feel real fear for getting on a plane, would dope myself up with Benadryl as soon as I took my seat so I could sleep through as much of the flight as possible.
But I don’t feel fear anymore. And I don’t cry anymore. The tears I’d nearly drowned in the morning I’d come face to face with the end of my marriage are long gone. Once they finally stopped, they never started up again.
Because I don’t feel much of anything these days.
I’ve read plenty of books on grief in the past three years, and I’ve learned that people who experience tremendous loss sometimes turn off their ability to feel.I’ve wondered, more than once, if I’ve turned to stone. Like one of those poor souls who stared at Medusa and got zapped into rock, never to feel a single thing again.
Maybe it’s for the best, anyway. It’s better not to feel. Feelings don’t stay static. What starts out as happiness, given it hangs around long enough, inevitably evolves into sadness. And if anyone knows that the first one isn’t worth the second one, it would be me.
“Have you been to Barbados before?”
The question startles me out of my cloud staring, and I turn to glance at the woman sitting next to me. She’s dressed in an off-white pantsuit with a vivid orange blouse showing at the edges of the lapels, a perfect match to her lipstick. Her makeup is perfect too, and she’s smiling as if happiness is her middle name. “Yes,” I say. “You?”
“Oh, yes. It’s my favorite place anywhere in the world. I go as often as I can. Where are you staying, dear?”
“The Sandy Lane,” I answer.
“Spectacular. You’ve stayed there before?”
“Once,” I say.
