Letting You Go: A Short Story Read online

  Letting You Go

  A Short Story

  Aundrea M. Lopez

  Copyright © 2014 by Aundrea M. Lopez

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents in this manuscript are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: October 2014

  Amazon Publishing

  For Chris,

  In honor of your love and service to your community.

  ♦

  Gazing at my reflection in the mirror, I was finally satisfied that I had reached the fashion level known as “in”. My mom used to tell me that beauty comes from inside, and that high self esteem is based on how you perceive yourself. That philosophy may have got me through high school, but college ate me alive. And I'm not talking about just any college. Art college, to be exact, otherwise known as a cut throat, Hunger Games type of society where creativity is butchered by competitiveness and illusive ideas about the “in”. Image may start within, but almost always ends up on a path dictated by others. And everyone knows that beauty and success are correlated.

  So being an older, realistic woman, and an artist, I wanted to make this beautiful. I needed to convey my happiness and relief, rather than depression and a cry for help. I had to remind everyone to celebrate my life, because I really was a happy person. I loved and I was loved. What more could I have asked for than love?

  I had tried on six outfits, scrutinizing every detail, and demanding nothing less than a high culture statement. I'm 32, but still pretty. Most people let themselves go after marriage. I never believed a woman should. I kept my legs shaven. I let my hair grow out, and did something new with it every day, even if I had to wake up an hour earlier in the mornings to curl it. I advocated the idea that makeup should enhance your features, not overpower them. Light applications are always the best policy, though sometimes I favor plum hued eye shadows to bring out the brown in my eyes. I go to the gym, not fanatically like my husband, but at least three times a week, and never earlier than 11 am. Since high school, I've fallen out of the adolescent obsession with bright neons. I stick to black slacks and button-ups in my professional life, and casual jeans at home. I love heels. I use to get tyrannical in that department. Our master bedroom has a master closet that is roughly 5 by 10 feet. My hubby did the calculations and came up with the sum that I require both 10 feet sides of the closet, one 5 foot stretch, and another 2.5 feet of the remaining 5 left, which leaves my poor husband with approximately 2 feet to work with. I still don't think I have enough room.

  My point in all this is that I can't to lie to you. I'm what they call a “high maintenance” woman, in the worst way. That's why I chose pills over his handgun. Both methods yield the desired outcome, but only one does it cleanly. As an artist, I couldn't bear the idea of anyone finding me with an ugly, gruesome hole in the side of my head. I mean, really, how would that look? I'm a rising fashion photographer, after all. At least with pills, my complexion might change a bit, and I may get a little bloated, but no other obvious blemishes on my appearance.

  After much careful research on MayoClinc and WebMD, I finally settled on painkillers, particularly, those with a high acetaminophen content. Sources say they have a greater suicide success rate compared to the antidepressants that Dr. Keith had prescribed me. I'd throw up, pass out, get headaches, pass out again. My guess is that death would take place within thirty minutes to an hour.

  I opened the bottle of pills and shook a few into my quivering hand. They were white, oval shaped, and disappointingly small. I worried a handful wouldn't be enough to kill me. I didn't spend $10.87 for this not to work. I'd have to down the whole bottle to increase my chances. Alcohol might increase the likelihood even more.

  I took the bottle and walked out the bathroom to my kitchen. It still smelt like fresh wood. My husband had spent his off days installing the olive marble counter tops we'd picked out of a catalog. We didn't have money to pay a contractor, so he researched how we could build everything ourselves, determined to make my dream come to life.

  I snatched open one of the cabinets and took down a wine glass. His bottle of brandy still sat untouched in the fridge. I filled my glass to the brim. Allowing the fumes to settle, I studied his work in our cabinets. Just as I put the glass to my lips, the mail door clinked open and an apocalypse of envelopes slapped onto the wooden floor. I gently sat the glass down so nothing would spill, and found the unruly stack of letters below the front door. I scooped them up and shuffled through. Bills. Bills. Bills. Ads. Bills.

  I skipped to the last envelope, which caught my attention as smaller and cream colored, compared to the white uniform standard of the rest. My name and address were written neatly in the middle. My heart dropped into my stomach when I saw the name in the upper left hand corner. Kenneth Allen.

  Thoughts raced. It didn't make sense. Why would my husband be writing to me? Was it a prank? Did some insensitive, less than human being think it was funny to slip this through my mail drop? My husband would never write this. Because he's dead. Kenneth died in a fire three months ago. He crawled around a boutique store, searching for people trapped inside. The dark perplexing smoke disoriented him. He radioed in to the engine company he worked for. He asked them to tell me not to worry. That he was going to find a way out somehow. Then the roof collapsed on him.

  When they found him, he was beyond recognition. They asked me if I wanted to see the body. I said no. I didn't want to remember him that way. I wanted to look back on the last time I saw him as walking out the door to the firehouse and kissing me goodbye.

  “See you in a bit,” he had said.

  I had him cremated, or at least what was left of him. It was hard, and remains one of the hardest things I've ever forced myself to do. I didn't stay for the entire funeral. I walked behind his empty casket, touched it with trembling hands, and knelt down to kiss it. His fire helmet rested on top, scarred and scuffed by the ash that took him. That's what finally got me. My girlfriend Kate put her arm around mine and supported me back to the car as they lowered it into the ground.

  I requested his urn, knowing that I could never leave his ashes to chill in a stone cold cemetery. For months I kept it in a box, until the silence settled in the walls of our house, and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't move on with an urn serving as a constant reminder that he was no longer with me. I already had his wedding ring for that, which I kept wrapped in a little American flag in my top drawer.

  At the brink of insanity, I grabbed my keys and headed for the harbor. My conscience ate away at me. That was my husband in the vase. It would be his ashes I threw into the oldest harbor in the world, a sitting body of shit, human waste, and disease. I tried to talk myself through it, so I wouldn't feel so bad. “I'm sorry, Ken, I love you but you got to go. We'll never exist under this roof again.”

  Not a lot of people have to deal with decisions like that, so the only moral example I had was my own. It didn't seem right to just dump him off like trash. Yet, he wouldn't have wanted it another way. He was a purebred, Yankee loving, “r” dropping, pizza eating, road raging, opinionated, pugnacious New Yorker. He loved this city.

  When I got to the dock, I swung the urn over the railing. His ashes road the harbor win
d toward the city. I had to remind myself ashes were ashes. They could never be puzzled together to make a person. I didn't cry like I thought I would. I felt strangely liberated. Like I'd finally found peace. But peace, often times, is short lived. There's always some war you have to run off to.

  I can't really say how I felt holding that letter, whether it was anxiety or resolution. It had to be a prank. Yet, a part of me wondered if it might be a late arrival, something Ken had written while still alive. He liked to do quirky things like that. Write me notes or letters and mail them back to our house. I have a box dedicated to I love you or Have a good day, hun or I'm the luckiest man alive or I'm sorry, baby.

  I wondered at his state of mind before he died. I regret most that I couldn't be there with him in those last moments. Just to hear him say I love you. At least then, I wouldn't have to waste so many hours questioning if he did, or so many hateful nights blaming him after that fire. Did he really love me? If he could go back, would he choose me over saving someone else? I wanted an answer. I wanted some proof that I was still important to him, even after he ran into that building. So I opened the letter.

  It was short. Hardly even a sentence.

  Meet me here.

  An address was written just beneath that to Madam Wong's Boutique, the worthless ma-and-pop shop Ken had risked his life for. I wasn't aware that the owners had moved the store and reopened it until I saw that letter. I was a little resentful, to say the least. They could move on. They could resume their lives normally without the consequences. They hadn't lost anything. Well, granted, they lost their building, but it doesn't count so much as a loss when the insurance built them a nice, new, state of the art, nearly fireproof establishment. Where's my payout? Who's going to buy me a new and improved fireproof husband?

  However, as infuriated as I was, I was equally curious. I wanted to see for myself how they were getting along. I wanted to shake the manager's hand and introduce myself as, “Mrs. Megan Allen.” No doubt he would raise an eyebrow and the connection wouldn't sink in. I'd just smile and say, “Don't worry. Not a lot of people knew me by that name yet. Up until 6 months ago, my last name was Lara. Then I got married, and got joint accounts, and mortgaged a house, and picked out all my kids' names, which was no simple cause since Allen sounds good after every first name. Three months after that, my doorbell rang, and I went from having the perfect life to living as the childless widow of Kenneth Allen, the fireman who died because your shit hole building wasn't up to code.”

  So I called Kate up and told her I wanted to go shopping. She had plans with her boyfriend, but said she'd put them on hold, seizing the opportunity to finally get me out of the house. We took the subway to the city, and she talked the whole way there. Of course, I got the oversweetness one usually gets after a enduring a tragedy. She did everything for me. Treated me to my favorite frappicino, opened doors, cussed people out who cut me off in the terminal. She was just looking out for me. In a way, I felt bad about what I still planned to do when I got back home. She'd be so heartbroken when she found out, but nothing could change my mind about it.

  “How are you, by the way?” Kate asked suddenly. “You've been quiet lately at work. I mean, we work in the same studio, but I never see you anymore.”

  “Actually, I got this new project going on. It eats up all my time,” I said. “Just trying to stay busy.” I can be a good liar when I want to be.

  “I was going through some old negatives the other day. You're gonna love me for this.” She handed me a print of Ken posing shirtless in front of a flag. He titled his fake fire helmet like a cowboy and gave the camera what he considered a sexy smile, but what I could only describe as constipation. I couldn't help but laugh. “Where did you get that?”

  “You remember this?” she asked, grateful to finally get a smile out of me. “This was by far your best work. Hubba, hubba, right?”

  “So embarrassing,” I said, blushing. “You know he'd kill you if he knew you had that.”

  “That's why I think you should have it,” she said, handing me the photo. “For old time's sake.”

  That's how I met Ken. Shirtless.

  Fresh out of college, I took on freelance work to expand my portfolio. Memorial day was right around the corner, and a company wanted me to promote their guy jeans by using subjects who they deemed patriotic men. I pulled some favors with my gay modeling friends and had them pose as sailors and police officers while I snapped pictures.

  The editor shrugged when I showed her the negatives. She thought they were “ok” shots, but too “navy”. She wanted it redone with more color. “Think inspiration,” she told me. “People should be proud of being patriotic. Not blue. Close your eyes with me and think reds, yellows, oranges. Give me a little more...fire.”

  Firefighters. I'd completely forgot about them. I felt so stupid. I put an ad up on Craigslist titled, “Fit Male Model For Fireman Photo Shoot. 2 Years Experience Plus!”The resumes fled in from well qualified male models, some of them questionably gorgeous. I decided on a blonde guy named Pierre with stunning blue eyes and cute fluffy lips. God bless France. His thighs and legs were disproportionately short, but luckily, we'd be shooting from the middle up. All I wanted was that toned, firm, upper body. The rest could be airbrushed out.

  The night before Pierre's photoshoot, I received an email from a Mr. K. Allen, simply titled, “I'll do it.”

  No resume. No summary of qualifications. No picture.

  I wrote back, “Sorry, but I don't think you meet our qualifications. We're looking for someone with two or more years of modeling experience.”

  He responded within the hour. “So seven years of firefighting experience doesn't count?”

  “You do understand this is a modeling gig? You won't actually be fighting any fires.”

  “Ya, I get that. I'm just trying to make some extra cash. Do you want me to come in or not?”

  “You're welcome to come try out in our studio, but I can't make any promises.”

  He showed up the next morning. I knew from the beginning he wasn't what we were looking for. He was cute, but not front page material. His brown hair was too short. I wanted medium length and a lighter, highlighted tone. His eyelashes weren't as full as Pierre's, and he lacked the attractive almond eye shape. I kept thinking puppy when I saw them, bright and honey brown, like warm syrup on a stack of pancakes. They gave away the fact that he was a lighthearted kind of guy. All good things, I'm sure, but I had my heart set on Pierre’s blue seductive gaze.

  If K. Allen's eyes didn't get you, his personality did. He was sweet, or at least charismatic enough to keep our secretary engaged as he waited his turn. This was the type of guy you'd never get bored with. He had a deeper appreciation for life. That was probably due to his line of work. I had nothing against that. Not at all. It wasn't his personality that lost him the job. He just wasn't a model. Since he'd gone through the trouble, I let him have a few shots anyway. The zero modeling experience really showed. He was a dork. He didn't take it as seriously as Pierre did, which sealed his fate, but he was definitely fun to shoot.

  I couldn't use his photos and pass up models who'd obviously done more professional work. I ended up picking someone else, but I kept in contact. We remained friends for a while before he eventually asked me to dinner. It was then I learned that auditioning for the gig was actually a penalty assigned by his crew for losing a bet. They had his shots pinned on the refrigerator for months. His loss, my win.

  We found the department store on the corner of Liberty and First. Kate charged for the shoes and lingerie. I wandered aimlessly in circles, keeping my eyes open for the owner or manager. There were more customers meandering around than staff. Figures. I ended up in the baby section, smiling fondly at the cute little tutu dresses, and the tiny baby girl onesies that read “Daddy's Princess”. Ken and I talked about having a baby in the near future. I wanted a girl.

  My eyes swelled up, and I rummaged through my purse to distract myself. My hand
brushed against the cream colored envelope. I read it over again. Meet me here. It wasn't just one sentence. There was more writing on the flip side. I don't know how I missed that. I could then say with absolute certainty that it was Ken's handwriting. Who could have faked that?

  Pieces of me that you've always kept. Physically and mentally. They will always be yours to smile back on, whether I'm here or gone.

  “Megan, check these heels out,” Kate called across the store. I quickly put the letter away. Lethargically, like a ghost, I walked over to her. I didn't feel attached to my own body anymore. I felt some place else. Some place with Ken. And I saw things. I thought I saw him in the corner of my eye, playing hide and seek behind clothes racks. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. It was definitely unnerving.

  “I think we should go,” I told Kate.

  “We just got here,” she protested.

  “I don't feel comfortable in this particular store,” I said.

  “Oh.” Kate understood and nodded. “Let me just pay for these and we can go.”

  I decided to wait outside for her. I started for the door, thinking about all the pieces I'd kept of him, both physically and mentally. When Ken was alive, he supplemented his income as a firefighter by doing accounting and tax preparing on the side. He was so good with numbers. He developed a strong clientele, and got offered a position at a respected financial advising firm. He turned it down. His heart had always been with the fire department. But when we talked about starting a family, he reconsidered the offer and how he'd close his ties with firefighting for good. He was always trying to make me happy.

  I heard his voice, somewhere on the right side of the store, behind all the isles. That couldn't be right. I listened again and turned white. It was definitely Ken's voice. My heart skipped. I was both excited and terrified. I followed that voice like chasing salvation.