Dear Adam (27 page)

It's just you sounded like you wanted to get
a handle on it so that we didn't affect your life, is all. I hope
you don't think you're becoming too invested in us.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:28 PM

To: Adam -

Adam, please don't be upset. I just don't
know how to dive very well. But I'm still diving in.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:29 PM

To: Eden E

You've been diving perfectly so far!

I'm so confused.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:34 PM

To: Adam -

Adam, I'm not changing my mind about
anything. My intensity, desire, and commitment is not lessening -
it is increasing. Nothing has changed for me. Do you understand
that?

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:47 PM

To: Eden E

When you say things like wanting us too much
or struggling with diving in when you have been doing so well at
it, it upsets me.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:49 PM

To: Adam -

I'm sorry. It came out wrong. I'm not
pulling back from us at all. Don't be upset, darling, please.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:51 PM

To: Eden E

One of the things I love about us is the
lack of boundaries and our mutual desire to be so intense and
always jump in further together holding hands.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:53 PM

To: Adam -

I have no walls with you. Do you know that?
I have with everyone else. But not with you. And you can tell, too,
every time, they start building up - you know it even before I do -
and then you make them go back down.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:54 PM

To: Eden E

OK, I hope I do. I feel like we're two
halves of one whole.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:57 PM

To: Adam -

We belong together - of that I have no
doubt.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 2:57 PM

To: Eden E

You have other doubts?

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:00 PM

To: Adam -

Adam - what's wrong? We were just talking
about our life together and now you seem to think I'm doubt-ridden
and pulling back.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:03 PM

To: Eden E

I don't know when you said about wanting us
too much, it threw me and I'm upset about all that.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:04 PM

To: Adam -

Please don't be upset. There's no need to be
when I'm yours in every way.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:13 PM

To: Eden E

I'm sorry if I'm being insecure and
needy.

All my life, most of the people I've ever
truly cared about have either changed or died or left. I feel like
we have something incredible and I want to keep hold of it and for
us to take every step together.

I just need to hear your voice, I think. I
miss you so much.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:19 PM

To: Adam -

Darling - I'm not leaving. What I feel for
you will never change.

I feel the same way. You know this
right?

You must be tired - I've made you stay up
for weeks and weeks now and you've gotten barely any sleep. I'm
sorry, but I'm selfish. I want as much time as I can get with
you.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:20 PM

To: Eden E

I'm so desperate for you.

I want us to always remember that we are
fortunate, because most people are lucky if they get 1/3 of what
we've got in their entire lifetime.

And to think, if I hadn't wanted to look up
a book online on a particular day, on a particular time, we
wouldn't be here. That I might have spent the rest of my life not
knowing you, not knowing this.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:53 PM

To: Adam -

Not for a second have I not been grateful
that you found me - that you're in my life. Sometimes I still can't
believe it until I hear your voice and I reassure myself that
you're real. I know I could never have this with anyone else.

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From: Adam -

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 3:55 PM

To: Eden E

I know and I feel the same, that this is
completely unique to us, and it's what we both need; therefore, we
must be the one for each other.

I can't wait for you to come home.

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From: Eden E

Date: Wed, Aug 22 at 4:00 PM

To: Adam -

You're the one for me, Adam.

I will hurry home as fast I can to be with
you.

As soon as she walked in the door, Eden
logged into her Skype account and called Adam. He was usually so
calm and composed but today he sounded upset, worried that she was
pulling back. She wanted to reassure him by voice as soon as
possible.

The Skype jingle kept playing. Adam wasn't
picking up. She ended the call and tried again. Still no answer.
She tried seven more times in the next 1/2 hour, without success.
He had never forgotten or been unavailable for their talks. He was
a stickler for it. The Skype jingle, which usually seemed happy and
made her feel excited with anticipation now seemed to mock her.

"Darling, I've been trying to call you," she
wrote in her iMessage, "Where are you?"

She forced herself to stop calling and
decided to make dinner for Dante.

"Are you alright, mom?" Dante asked her when
she came down from her bedroom looking troubled.

"Yes, honey," she reassured. She gave him a
peck on his cheek. "Just thinking about -"

"Adam?" Her son looked worried.

Guilt flooded her. When was the last time she
had spent real quality time with her son? When her mind wasn't
somewhere else, with someone else? She had asked rote questions,
mechanically - about how he was, how work was - but it was
absentminded. She was becoming a creature she despised, an
emotionally distracted mother. What kind of example was she setting
for her child?

She shook her head. "Just work, honey. Lots
of cases going to trial so we're very busy."

She decided to stay home from boxing that
night so she could spend a leisurely dinner with Dante, instead of
rushing to cook and eat like she usually did.

She put away the iPod with some difficulty.
She had gotten so used to having it always within reach when she
was at home in case Adam called or messaged her. The little device
represented her most tangible link to him and it exerted a magnetic
and almost irresistible pull.

She made Dante's favorite, chicken
parmigiana, with a big salad and lots of garlicky bread. He seemed
pleased. They sat down to dinner, which lasted almost an hour
because she wanted to catch up with everything that was going on
with him. He was going to be a senior this year, she remembered
with a pang. The last year he was going to be "her baby." In truth,
he had been very independent for quite some time but she had
steadfastly held onto the delusion that she had him until he turned
18 and became a legal adult. Tears almost came to her eyes as she
thought of him moving out, going to college in nine months. Blink
and she would miss it - that magical, once-in-a-lifetime moment
when her boy becomes a man.

Perhaps Dante had been missing her presence
too, though he would never say so, because he invited her to watch
his favorite sitcoms with him. They spent a pleasant hour sitting
on the couch and laughing together. In the middle of it all, she
cast a sidelong glance at her son, again getting teary-eyed. She
wanted to tell him, "I wouldn't miss this for the world,
honey."

She felt less guilty when she went up back up
to her room, vowing to be more present for Dante. As she walked
through the door, she heard the Skype jingle. Her iPod was lit up
in the dark and vibrating on the bed.

“
Hello.”

“
What happened? Where were
you?” Adam was upset, almost breathless. It was a marked change
from his usual calm voice.

“
I’ve been home. I called
you eight times. Didn’t you see?”

“
Yes. I’m sorry, Eden. I
must have fallen asleep waiting for you to get home and didn’t
realize I turned the ringer off.” He coughed.

“
I was afraid of this
happening. Night after night of you staying up until three, four,
sometimes five in the morning. Perhaps we should limit our
talks.”

“
No!” he said, almost
violently. “I fall asleep one time and all of a sudden you want to
pull back.”

“
Adam, I’m not pulling
back. I’m just concerned that you might get sick. It’s past six
o’clock in the morning there now and didn’t you say you have a
meeting at 10?”

“
I’m fine,” he said in a
low growl. “They’re my employees. I can always
reschedule.”

“
But you wouldn’t like
that. You don’t like to keep people waiting. You’d be disappointed
in yourself if you weren’t punctual.”

“
This is more
important.”

“
We can talk tonight,
Adam.”

“
You sound different. Even
in your mails today, you sounded different.”

“
You wrote that I was
changing you. Maybe it’s true. And maybe it’s for the
worse.”

“
Not for the worse. For the
better.”

“
Maybe we need to pause and
reevaluate.”

He drew in his breath.

“
You are pulling back. I
knew it. I don’t understand. What have I done?” His anguished voice
was barely above a whisper.

Eden sank down to the floor and drew her
knees up. She was helpless, falling so fast, falling so hard, she
was losing her grip on everything that was substantial in her
life.

“
Adam, do you know what I
realized when I couldn’t reach you tonight? How easily you could
disappear from my life if you wanted to. I don’t know where you
live. I don’t know how to get a hold of you outside of Skype and
e-mail. If you shut those accounts down, then I would have nothing
at all. I could pass you on the street and not know it was
you!”

“
I missed one phone call.
And already you’re pushing me away. Eden, I’d do anything to prove
to you I’m here to stay. I would never just disappear from your
life. Between the two of us, it would be you who would leave
me.”

“
Do you care for
me?”

“
My god, you know I
do.”

“
You would do
anything?”

“
Yes,” he replied without
hesitation.

“
So if I asked you right
now to send me a picture, to video call – you’d do it?”

There was silence on the other end. Her heart
instantly felt leaden.

When he spoke, it was with despair. “If it
came to that, I suppose I would have to find a way to do it.”