Page 72 of That Weekend in Paris
We’re a mile or so from the airport now, and my heart rate kicks up. I feel sick at the thought of leaving.
“The truth is, Klein,” she says now, “I have things I have to take care of in my life, too. And I’ve been kidding myself here, putting it off when I know I can’t do that.”
“You mean with Josh?”
“Yes,” she says. “I mean, he wants us to try again, and I don’t know. Maybe I need to give it a shot.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, a little stunned. She won’t look at me, and in the near dark of the car I can’t read her expression.
“We were married a long time,” she says. “Maybe that’s not something I should just throw away.”
I feel floored by this, wondering if she’s just saying it because of what’s happened tonight, or if it’s something she’s really considering. “I thought you were over him,” I say.
“He’s asked me for another chance,” Dillon says softly.
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
We drive the last half mile or so to the departure gates in silence. Dillon pulls the car to the American Airlines entrance, and we sit for a moment, awkward.
A traffic security guard waves for us to move along, and I look at Dillon and say, “This isn’t how I wanted this to end.”
“I know,” she says. “But it’s probably for the best, don’t you think?”
“When will you be coming back?” I ask.
“I’m not sure,” she says. “I may stay at the château another day or two, try to write a few things I have in my head.”
“Will you let me know when you’re back in Nashville?”
“Sure,” she says, and I hear in her voice the unlikelihood that this will actually happen.
I get out of the car, open the back to pull out my suitcase and guitar. I walk around to the driver’s door. Dillon has rolled the window down and looks up at me with a forced smile. I feel a deep and immediate grief for what I know has been lost between us, and yet, I don’t have the ability or the right to fix it.“Dillon—”
“Don’t,” she says. “Just go, Klein. Be well and happy, and I’ll listen for you on the radio.”
I shouldn’t because it will only make things worse for both of us, but I lean down and kiss her softly. I feel her give and realize that she’s doing what she thinks she needs to do in letting me go. She’s doing this for me.
A lump forms in my throat, and I can’t seem to swallow past it. My eyes sting with tears. I am not going to let myself lose it in front of her. I step back, pick up my belongings, and walk into the airport.
Dillon
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
?Arthur Miller
WHEN I GET back to the château, I barely remember the drive from the airport here. Suddenly I’m parked in the lot, where we left the car when we first arrived, and the sun is coming up behind the estate.
I get out of the car, take the path that leads to the orchard, putting one foot in front of the other without letting myself think beyond the physical movement.
When I reach the edge of the orchard, I stop for a minute, staring at the beautiful fruit-laden trees and feeling the loss of Klein here, as I would a death. I know this because the hole in my heart is so like the same kind of grief I had felt after losing my mother, my best friend in life, someone I knew I could never replace.
I can’t deny that this glimpse of happiness I experienced with Klein during our time together in France feels like something I’ve never found before him, and very likely will never find again.
I walk further into the orchard, sit down on the dew-moist grass, and listen to the morning sounds of the countryside around me. The birds chirp back and forth, busy and happy. I picture Klein and mehere, kissing under the warm sun, the smell of ripening fruit abundant all around us. The tears well in my eyes now, slide down my cheeks, and I don’t bother to deny them or stop them. I know enough about emotions to know that there is only one way to get past them, and that is to go through them, to feel them.
The sounds of my heartbroken sobbing quiets the birds, as if they respect their interpretation of my language.Once my sorrow is spent, I sit for a while, letting myself absorb this place and its beauty, neither of which I ever want to forget. And when the birds start their singing again, I stand and walk back to the château.
Life does, after all, go on.
