That Joe is not dead – he is standing right there, before my eyes.
I watch him as he works. I study his movements, I drink in his shape, and I ask myself again if this is real.
It is real. He is real. He is right there, through a thin pane of glass.
Joe is not dead. Joe did not die in that fire – we were wrong. I am stunned and silent and still for a few moments, not completely sure that I am not asleep and dreaming; or awake and dreaming. Still not sure that any of this is real. I close my lids, touch the solid brick of the wall, and inhale air that tells me this is where the smokers come. I nip at my own lip so hard it bleeds – an extreme version of pinching myself.
After all of this prodding and poking, I open my eyes again. He is still there. The bar is still called Gracie’s, and Joe is still collecting glasses. I have found him – just when I thought he was finally lost.
I have found him, and now I don’t know what to do. This is not how I’d imagined I would feel. I had imagined that I would feel joy, and certainty, and conviction.
Instead, I feel shaky and feeble. If I go in there – if I take a few small steps inside – I will be changing both our lives. He looks settled and happy here. He has his bar. He has a life, one that he has worked hard to build. Do I have any right to shatter that? Or should I simply take the win and leave? Leave, knowing that Joe is safe and well. Leave, and be grateful for that.
Even as the thought inserts itself into my mind, I recognise it as cowardly. I am scared, now that this moment is finally here. I am overwhelmed. I have yearned to see him again, and now I have, it is too big for me to safely process.
Behind these brick walls I will not only find Joe, but everything that broke me before – the pain of losing our daughter. The perceived loss when I thought he’d left. It threatens me – it threatens all these years I have spent building myself back up, becoming stable, learning how to assimilate into a normal life that I have never felt truly comfortable in.
I let my mind run through all the notes that Joe has left me. About being brave. About being lonely. About how lucky we were to have each other.
I remind myself that minutes ago, when I thought he was dead, I vowed to live my life – to really live it. Now that he is alive, I must do the same.
I will not be a coward, I decide. I will not hide. I will not be intimidated – my normal life is not worth protecting, it is a flimsy and joyless thing. If I turn away now, I will never forgive myself – I will be doomed to self-loathing and soul-sapping safety until the day I die, sitting in my mother’s chair with a row of remote controls and a deep well of regret as I endure a slow death over decades.
For one more minute, I linger. I realise that my hair is a mess, my clothes are scruffy, that I am wearing no make-up. I remember a time, a tableau, during our early days, when I was getting ready for a party, still struggling with the contents of the same make-up bag I spilled the day I met him.
‘Wear whatever make-up you like,’ he’d said, smiling, amused at my sighs. ‘It’s your face. I’m just saying you don’t need to – you’re gorgeous as you are. It’s like giving the Mona Lisa a spray-tan.’
I smooth back my hair, and take several deep breaths. This is not a time to worry about how I look. This is a time to act. To do, before I think myself out of it, or paralyse myself with fear.
I walk back to the door. I gently push it, finding that it is closed but not yet locked. I lay my shaking hands flat on its surface, and I push again.
Chapter 39
There is always a moment, in a romantic film, where the hero and heroine are reunited, and the sweeping sound of orchestral strings envelops them. Where the happy-ever-after becomes real, and you know it’s cheesy but you feel it anyway – that sense of completion. Of journey’s end.
Right here, right now, there are no sweeping strings, no soft lenses, no sentimental voice-over to tell me how I should be feeling. There is simply me, and him, separated by the length of the bar.
He looks up as I enter, obviously thinking I might be a late-night customer, perhaps preparing to tell me to leave. There is a moment when we are both frozen still, and I see him blink. Clearing his eyes, wondering if he is seeing what he thinks he is seeing.
I walk closer. He lays down his towel, his glasses, and remains silent. We both remain silent, spending an eternity and seconds studying each other.
His hair is still wild, thick dark strands falling over his forehead. His face is lined with both laughter and loss. His eyes still shine in exactly the same way they always did. He is still Joe, and he is still the most beautiful man I have ever seen.
‘I thought you were dead,’ I say, as he closes the distance between us.
‘I’ve been close,’ he replies, coming to a standstill just steps away from me. ‘Is it really you, or am I dreaming?’
I know exactly how he feels. I have been searching for him. I had believed he was lost – but now he is found. He, of course, had no idea that I was coming. That I was going to walk through the decades, and through the past and through the door to his bar.
I reach out, and touch his hands. The skin is rough and ridged with scar tissue – the hands of a passer-by who ran into a burning building to try and rescue the people inside, I realise.
His fingers link into mine, and his eyes are roaming my face, checking everything over, examining every millimetre. He is holding on tight, as though he fears I may go up in a puff of magical smoke, or try to leave.
‘It’s really me,’ I say. ‘There is so much to tell you – but the first thing, the most important thing, is that I never turned my back on you. I never wanted you to leave. My parents told me you’d moved away, that you started over. That you left me. They lied to me for all these years, and I only found those letters and cards after they both died. I’ve been looking for you ever since.’
I see the emotions cascade across his face. Anger. Sadness. Regret.
‘So much has happened …’ he murmurs, eventually.
‘I know. Some of it, anyway. I read that last letter of yours, and I understood what you were saying. So I have followed in your footsteps, seen what you have seen, met the people who shaped you. I’m here with Belinda, and my cousin, and I’ve met Ada and Geraldine and so many others. We went to Madigan’s, and thought you’d died in the fire.’
‘No,’ he replies, as I stroke the damaged flesh that tells its own story. ‘That was Josh, one of the bartenders. I tried … I tried to get to him, but I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t get to you, or Gracie.’
The pain in those words is indescribable. It is raw, and fresh, and just as brutal as it was all those years ago. It is a guilt that he has lived with, alone, ever since.
‘I know you tried, Joe. I know you would have died yourself rather than let anything happen to us. There is so much I need to say to you …’
He nods, and removes his hands from mine. I feel instantly bereft, cold without their touch. I have been without their touch for too long, and want to keep them, wrapped in mine, forever.
‘You can tell me everything,’ he says. ‘And I can tell you everything. And we can talk until dawn, and then walk in the park, and talk some more. We can talk like we used to talk, all through the night, watching the stars, or whispering when Gracie was asleep. There is time, for all of it. But right now, there is only one thing I want to do …’