Sandra and I lost contact years ago. Changing family lives, different partners, other jobs, and maybe a feeling that despite all we had shared, it was better we stayed away from each other. The next guy she married was my total opposite—a bearded, introverted kind of guy, into black magic and candlelight, even in daytime. I had been a mostly shaven, sunny street and café type.
She must have been looking for a change, or greater stability after our time together. Our respective fragilities had badly played against each other’s and knocked the wind out of our young lives at just that moment when they ought to have been surging forward, reaching for the stars.
We had not been prepared for the road ahead. Not as kids and not better as young adults. We ought to have spoken more about what had happened to her as a child. Her parents, my parents, all of us. Instead, the two of us met with our shadows, merged our weird lives with the reckless determination of our teenaged years. When events got too overwhelming or bizarre, we turned our heads, called them normal and rewrote the song sheet.
In the wild atmosphere of those years, it was an easy thing to do. Faithfulness was considered square and boring, jealousy unfashionable and even mild possessiveness seen as a disease of sorts. Sandra and I marched on ahead, the thin line between freedom and chaos often smudged underfoot.
I have no idea at this point what became of her. That new husband had one of those names such as you’d find taking up twenty pages in a city telephone book. She took his name and chose invisibility, most likely, from her past, mine, ours.
The last time we talked, moons ago, she mentioned that her husband had asked if she’d accept to have an open relationship between them—the freedom to sleep with anyone they chose, or anyone he chose anyway. She told me about it, smiling with apparent lightness, the way she almost always talked about heavy or complicated things. Not a care in the world.
I nodded, but felt almost nothing, only a vague curiosity maybe. After all those years, unfashionable emotions had given way to a weird distant sadness. Sandra told me about their little son Rafael, saying he was in kindergarten now.
“Already?” I smiled and shook my head. I remembered him as a darling kid. We talked briefly about our jobs, warmly kissed each other on the cheek and went our separate ways. We have not heard from each other since.
Shivers, Slaps and Silence on Amazon US
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