I watched Grace’s reaction carefully, but all she said was, “I see.”
Inside the dark bar, Grace selected a small table, hung her bag over the back of a chair, and pointed to the jukebox in the corner. “I’m gonna pick out a song. It’s too quiet in here for a bar.” Her mood seemed lighter. I thought about how she couldn’t handle being indoors without music. She was fine outside, listening to nature, but when she was inside, she always had to have music on.
“Can I order you a drink?”
“A glass of red wine would be great.”
I had to constantly remind myself not to reminisce in my head and to just be in the moment. There was a lot to say, after all. When I returned with our drinks, she was sitting, elbows propped on the table, her chin resting on top of her clasped hands. “You look great too, Matt. I wanted to say that earlier. You haven’t aged much at all.”
“Thanks.”
“I like the long hair, and this . . .” She brushed my beard with her fingertips. I closed my eyes for a second too long. “So, you were in L.A.?”
I tried to control my breathing, to stop myself from breaking down and crying. I was totally overwhelmed in her presence.
A sad song came on with a droning male voice. “Who is this?” I asked as I took a sip of my beer.
“It’s The National. But, Matt, you said you wanted to talk, so let’s talk. You went to L.A. after your divorce, Did you stay with your mom? How’s she doing? I think about her from time to time.”
“I went before I got divorced, actually. To take care of my mom. She passed away while I was there.”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Matt. I’m so sorry. She was such a wonderful woman.”
My throat tightened. “It was ovarian cancer. Elizabeth thought Andrew should’ve stepped up, but he was too busy trying to make partner at the firm. My mother was dying and her sons were fighting over who should take care of her. So stupid.” I looked away. “My marriage was already on the rocks. Elizabeth was desperately trying to get pregnant, but I was thousands of miles away, across the country. I think, on some level, she thought I was trying to avoid her. I just thought she was being selfish. We were both angry and hurting, I guess.”
She nodded. “What happened after that?”
“While I was in L.A., watching my mother wither away, Elizabeth started having an affair with my friend and our co-worker Brad, a producer at National Geographic. Eight years of marriage—poof.” I made an exploding motion with my hands.
“Eight years? I thought . . .” She hesitated.
“What?”
“Never mind. I’m really sorry, Matt. I don’t know what to say.”
“You can tell me this: why did you leave?”
“Leave when?”
“Why didn’t you leave a note or a message when you went off to Europe? You just left.”
She looked confused. “What do you mean? I waited. You never called me.”
“No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t make any more calls. The only person I talked to was my mom because I could call her collect. I was out of cash. We got stuck in a village with a broken vehicle and hundreds of miles of rain forest around us. I just figured you’d understand.”
She looked shattered. “What about that article in that photography magazine? It basically said you had a job with National Geographic and you were going to Australia after South America.”
“Back in ’97?”
“Yeah.” She threw back her entire glass of wine. “There was a photo of you taking her picture and it said you were going to Australia with her for six months.”
“I’ve never even read this article you’re talking about, so I’m not sure what you mean. Elizabeth asked me to go to Australia, but I turned her down. I came back here to be with you after my internship was over, but you were gone.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I thought you were going to Australia. That’s why I ended up joining Dan’s orchestra.”
I was shaking my head now, too. “No, I didn’t go to Australia. I came back at the end of August. I tried to call you before I left, but I couldn’t get through. I went straight to Senior House, thinking you’d still be there. When I couldn’t find you, I thought maybe you had moved to grad student housing, so I went to check with the registrar. He told me you had deferred your grad school admission. On my way back to Senior House, I saw Daria and she said you had joined Pornsake’s orchestra.”
Grace started crying, full, quiet sobs into her hands. “Grace, I’m so sorry.” I grabbed napkins from the dispenser on our table and handed them to her. “I thought you were the one who left me. I didn’t know how to reach you. I didn’t even accept the job at National Geographic until I found out you were gone.”
She let out a laugh through her tears. “Holy shit. All this time . . .”
“I know. I tried looking for you a few times, but I could never find you online. I didn’t know until tonight that your last name was Porter.”
Grace was hysterical now. “I married Pornsake, Matt. He changed his last name to Porter.”
My heart was murdered. “Oh.”
“Not right away. I waited almost five years. He’s dead now. You know that, right?”
“No. How would I know that?”
“I wrote to you.”
“You did?” Elizabeth. Turned out she still hadn’t told me the whole truth. It was like I had fallen into some alternate universe, where Grace loved me and I was the one who had left. All these years I had spent depressed over losing her, yet all this time she had been trying to find me.