The Day I Lost My Taste for Love, and for You Chapter 10
When winter ended, the forsythia in the town came into bloom.
Bright yellow flowers stood out against the gray stone walls, full of life.
My life had settled completely into its own rhythm.
My sense of taste had not come back, but I had learned to enjoy every meal through texture, temperature, and color.
I even planted a small bed of herbs in the courtyard.
I could not smell them, and I loved watching the way they moved in the wind.
Every so often, from the edges of that old circle, news about Oliver and Jessica reached me.
After that scene in the lane, Jessica could not survive in the city at all.
She lost her job, and the company sued her over the kickbacks, and she paid out every cent of savings she had before she slunk back to her hometown.
I heard that people back home had heard about it too, and they pointed and whispered about her every day.
Oliver was another story.
He did not find a new girlfriend, and he did not quit.
But he turned into a complete workaholic who numbed himself with alcohol and punishing hours.
—
Coworkers said he often drank himself blind alone late at night and then sobbed over a message thread that never had anything new in it.
“What was the point?”
My former coworker sighed over the phone.
“If he knew it would come to this, what on earth was he doing back then? Anna, we’re all glad you’re doing well now.”
“I’m doing fine.”
I smiled and hung up.
It was true. I was fine.
There was no more waiting up at night for a man who came home smelling of liquor.
There was no more swallowing broken glass to accommodate somebody else’s “kindness.”
There was no more checking and rechecking whether I had actually done something wrong.
On the first day of spring, I went to the post office in town to mail a package of local goods to relatives back home.
I had just stepped out the door when a fine spring rain began to fall.
I had no umbrella, and I started toward the eaves next door to wait it out.
A black umbrella opened over my head.
I turned around.
—
Oliver stood at the other end of the handle.
He was somewhat tidier than the last time I saw him, and the deadness at the bottom of his eyes was like a pool of water that would never ripple again.
He stood there and looked at me.
His gaze was greedy and hopeless at once.
He seemed to want to carve every line of me into his eyes.
“I heard you’re doing well here.”
He spoke quietly, as though he were afraid of disturbing something.
“I am. Very well.”
I did not step out from under his umbrella, and I stood there calmly, the way anyone stands in front of a stranger asking directions.
Oliver’s mouth twitched into a smile that was worse to look at than crying.
“That’s good, then.”
His knuckles were white around the handle.
“Anna… I didn’t come here to bother you.”
He took a deep breath.
“I’m leaving the city. The company is transferring me to the branch out west, and I probably… I probably won’t be back in this lifetime.”
He looked at me, and his eyes slowly went red.
—
“I just wanted to see you one more time before I go.”
The fine rain came down on the umbrella with a soft rushing sound.
I looked at him.
Five years had carved a gorge between us with no bottom to it.
The boy who would once have put his coat over my shoulders in a downpour had been killed by his own hand.
“Have you seen enough?” I asked.
Oliver went still, and in the end, the tears slid down his cheeks anyway.
“Enough.”
He pressed the handle of the umbrella into my hand.
When his fingers touched mine, he pulled back as though he had been shocked.
“Anna, take care of yourself. Always.”
He did not say he was sorry again.
He understood at last that some damage can never be paid back in a lifetime.
He turned and walked into the fine spring rain.
His back was bent, like a prisoner carrying a heavy yoke.
I held the umbrella.
—
I watched him disappear slowly around the corner of the street.
There was nothing to call after him, and there was no goodbye.
I closed the umbrella.
It was raining, and spring rain is warm, and it did not feel cold falling on me.
“Annie, why aren’t you using an umbrella in this rain?”
The woman from next door passed by with a basket on her arm and greeted me with a smile.
“It’s fine. This rain feels good.”
I smiled and dropped the umbrella into a trash can at the side of the road, and I walked home over the wet gray flagstones.
“Spring pea soup tonight, I think.”
I said it to myself.
There was no taste in any of it, and spring had come.
(The End)