All You Could Ask For: A Novel (19 page)

I had finished packing and was pacing again when I heard the knock.

A little smile crossed my lips. Finally, he had come. And I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to the door. I had wanted to all the time I had been here. There wasn’t any question in my mind about it. I walked slowly across the room, took a deep breath, opened the door slowly. And, once again, the man I found on the other side took my breath away.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said.

“Hello, Daddy.”

“You didn’t think I was going to let you do this thing all by yourself, did you?”

I put my face directly in the center of his chest and let him hold me, which he did, tightly. So much it was a little hard to breathe, but not enough that I wanted him to let go. Very few things in life are perfect. This was close enough. In a way, this was the best moment of my entire life.

KATHERINE

HAVE YOU EVER HAD an epiphany?

Let me tell you, it’s awesome.

I’m sure epiphanies come in all different shapes and sizes, like a religious statue producing tears or a painting seeming to breathe, and I’m sure there are horrible epiphanies as well, and I shudder to think what those must be like, because mine hit me like a ton of bricks and if it had been horrible I’m not sure I would have been able to handle it.

For me, it was a moment of clarity, a moment when I realized how much I have been my own enemy, and for how long. It was a moment when I finally understood what Dr. Gray has been telling me, and all the other therapists before her, about how it actually
is
me who is in control of my feelings, not others. It is actually
me
I have been hurting all these years, not others. It is, in fact,
me
I have been angry at, not anyone else.

It came to me not in a vision or a dream, not on a hike at the top of a peak looking down upon the world, but rather in the form of a text, looking down on a plate of pancakes. That text changed everything, because when I read the words I realized they meant nothing at all, even though they were the words I have been waiting half my life to hear.

Phil’s marriage broke up, he moved out, rumor is SHE was cheating on HIM!

I didn’t know who sent it. But even without knowing who it was from, I knew it was true. Phillip’s marriage was over.
She
was cheating on
him
. And, obviously, everybody knew it. In its own way, that’s every bit as bad as having to give a horse a hand job.

So, let’s see: Phillip left me for Holly nineteen years ago and married her less than a year after that, so for eighteen years I have waited for these words. I have dreamt of them, fantasized about them, prayed for them, written them in ink, chanted them in meditation, spoken them aloud daily, and now they were staring me in the face on the blush-smeared screen of Marie’s BlackBerry, and the way they made me feel was a revelation more powerful than any I have ever had in a church or a conference room or the front row of a concert.

They made me sad.

There was no joy, no euphoria, no
in your face
. I had not won anything. In fact, what I realized was that I’d lost more than anyone. Because this wasn’t about me at all. It was about them. Only for me had it ever been about me, and every shrink I’ve ever had has tried to tell me that, but I guess in life you have to figure out the really important things for yourself. And when I read those words, I did.

“So, what do you think?”

It was Marie. I had almost forgotten she was there.

“I think I would like to try listening to John Denver on my hike today,” I said. “Can I borrow your iPod?”

AFTER BREAKFAST I RODE my bike to the base of Smuggler Mountain. The hike had become my favorite way to start the day in Aspen, a twenty-five-minute jaunt, steep most of the way, rocky and raw underfoot, with sensational views of the town and the mountains in the distance. And the reward at the top is the best: an observation deck with the most sensational vista. You feel as though you can see forever. I hustled up every morning after breakfast, got my heart rate elevated, got a little sweat going, then I planted myself on my butt and began my deep breathing. If no one was around, I shut my eyes and did a quick meditation.

Normally, I had my earbuds in so I could listen to my hip-hop as I climbed, but today was different. Today I listened to John Denver. Which, for me, would have been a giant step even if I hadn’t liked it, which I did, in spite of myself.

First off, I
got
it, which I would never have imagined I would. And, in truth, I may not have if I’d been anywhere else. But where I was is exactly where
he
was when he wrote it all, at least that’s what Marie tells me and she seems to know, and after listening to the first song I knew she was right because I could see it.

He sang about an eagle and a hawk, living in rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky, and I could see them, not in my mind but in front of my eyes, birds on the horizon.

Then he sang about poems and prayers and promises, and about the children and the flowers, and about a woman filling up his senses, and all of the imagery was right in front of me, all the lyrics about love and inner peace and the beauty of nature, and I loved it, every word. By the time I reached the top and dropped to my knees on the observation deck, I was a devotee.

I popped the buds out of my ears and was unscrewing the top of my water bottle when I heard footsteps rustling behind, which always disappoints me at the top of Smuggler’s. There is nothing better than being alone on that platform. I just wanted to take a long drink and then sit and listen to more of the music, looking out over the universe below.

Then I got a look at him.

He was tall and thin and looked to be about my age. Not the age Marie thinks I am, more my actual age. He was also in serious shape. Before I even noticed his face, I noticed his crisp biceps and forearms, the arms of an athlete, sinewy and long, not overly muscular, not the sort of muscles you get from lifting weights, more the sort you get from doing things those of us from the city come here to do. He was dark-haired and angular in his face, with pronounced cheekbones and jaw, and he had just the right amount of stubble. Plus, he had the ultimate accessory on a leash behind him, a spectacular golden retriever ambling slowly, sniffing the ground. Both the man and the dog looked like they spent a lot of time on the mountain.

I did what I could with my hair.

“Spectacular day,” I said, as casually as I could manage.

“Isn’t it?” His voice was higher than I imagined, less rugged than his jaw and stubble suggested, but that was all right.

“What a gorgeous dog,” I said. I needed to get him talking. I’m good at talking.

“Yes, she is,” he said, and made a kissing sound—toward the dog—and the golden trotted toward us and nuzzled up against his hip. “Ten years old and she still climbs Smuggler’s in twenty minutes.” He knelt beside the dog and wrapped an arm around her. “What a good girl,” he whispered to her. Then he looked up at me, squinting a bit in the sun. “She’s Florence, I’m Stephen.”

“Katherine,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

“You from New York?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No, but everyone in this town knows each other and everyone else is visiting either from New York or Chicago. I took a guess. You look more like New York than Chicago.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“No. ‘Your beauty is creating a solar eclipse’ is a compliment. That was just an observation.”

Well. I had certainly not expected this rugged, good-looking, outdoorsy guy to also be quick on his feet. I would actually have preferred him to be well beneath me intellectually. Now I knew how all those men I’d dated had felt. “So, I suppose you’re from here,” I said finally, because I couldn’t think of anything funny.

“Actually, I’m from Chicago but I’ve been here fifteen years. They say you come for the winters and stay for the summers. I’m living proof.” He pulled a bottle of water and a small bowl from his backpack, poured some of the water, and put it down for the dog. “When I was growing up my family used to come here to ski,” he continued. “I came out one time in my early twenties for the summer music festival and never left. Never will. There’s no place like it in the world.”

“I get that feeling,” I said. “I feel like this air could add ten years to your life.”

“The air, the altitude, the people, you’ll love it,” he said. “How long are you in town?”

“Actually, I don’t know. It’s sort of open-ended.”

He got a funny look when I said that. If I wasn’t mistaken, he looked interested. Maybe he was just being friendly, hospitable, proud to show off his adopted home, but I don’t think so. He glanced down and, I thought, slid his eyes toward my left hand.

“Well, I would be happy to show you around a little,” he said. “Have you been to Jimmy’s?”

“I haven’t.”

“Do you like hamburgers? The best in the world.”

“I love hamburgers,” I said. I hadn’t eaten a hamburger in ten years.

“Terrific. It’s right in town. We’ll be there around six for drinks if that works for you.”

My heart sank. “We?” I said, trying to sound casual.

He patted the dog. “Florence and me. See you there?”

I tried really hard not to look as relieved as I felt. “See you there.”

I turned my head as casually as I could manage as he walked away. I looked out over the valley as I listened to the crackling of twigs behind me. They were going off together, the man and the dog, maybe across the meadow and down Hunter’s Creek. Maybe he was going somewhere I didn’t know anything about. Either way, I needed to see what his butt looked like.

“Hey,” I shouted, turning my head so I got a great look before he turned back. Fit but not flashy, in shape but not showing off. Spectacular. “Why did you name her Florence?”

He smiled. “That’s my second favorite city.”

“I like it,” I said. Actually, I loved it. “See you tonight.”

He nodded, and off they went. A man and his dog. A gorgeous man and his dog. Perhaps soon to be
my
man and his dog. It could happen. Stranger things have.

As I watched him walk away, something inside me changed. For the better, I thought, and forever. From this moment forward, I decided, I really am going to be filled with loving-kindness. I really am going to be peaceful and at ease. I really am going to be happy. Who knows what might happen. Maybe Stephen would make a move on me tonight. Maybe we’d have a one-night stand that would become a treasured memory, or maybe it would be more than that, much more. Maybe I’d wake up in his bed after a night of rapture and affection and look out his window and see the sun coming up over the mountain and decide I would do as he did, stay forever. And maybe we’d be together.

And maybe none of that would happen, but isn’t it wonderful that it might?

I stood and brushed the dirt from my butt, went right to the edge of the platform, and beheld it all, the trees, the streams, the gondola at the base of Aspen Mountain. I watched an airplane cross the entire horizon and touch down at the airport a few miles away. The horizon was limitless, just like my life, filled with endless possibilities. And that, I realized, is the answer to the question, the one about what makes life worth living. It’s about all the wonderful things that might happen, if only we’d let them. And I knew, right then and there, that someday I would look back and say that this was the best day of my entire life.

Samantha R.

BreastCancerForum.org

Greenwich, Conn

Date joined: 9/30/2011

Hello, my name is Samantha Royce, and I have breast cancer.

Is that how you’re supposed to start?

I don’t exactly know the etiquette here. I suppose my beginning sounds like something from Alcoholics Anonymous, where I have
also
never been, by the way, but I’ve seen it in movies and read it in books, you make your introduction to the group and then you tell them your problem. Perhaps it works the same way in a breast cancer support chat room. I really don’t know. I guess, like a lot of other things right now, I’m going to have to figure it out as I go along.