I am walking home from the funeral, dressed in my anonymous black, heel clacking, lost in thoughts that hover just outside of my conscious mind.
I am on alert immediately.
“Maria?”
Turning, I know without looking, its him, a flaming rocket screaming at me out of my past, someone I have thought nothing of since my solo walk across the Piazza that so solidly changed my life’s direction.
“Simon” the surprise in my voice saying more than the words I speak. “How are you? Its been quite the time”
I look at his flopping unkempt blond hair, the greying stubble, the ragged clothes, once so immaculate, so perfect. He looks even less than he was before I met him when I took that unconscious elegance of his in hand.
“Yes, sorry, not sure what to say next, How have you been” he stammers
When I didn’t return to the hotel in Italy, I stopped thinking about him, my then life over in an instant. I never went back, leaving my history hidden in the carry-on bags unpacked and littering that cheap flaking room, the ceiling fan beating a rhythm as we lay turned away, trying to sleep.
I got up early, slipping out of bed quietly, desperate to be on my own. The Piazza was almost empty, just a few night revellers wending their way home and the dawn time workers sipping their black rich coffee and feeding on their cornetto’s.
Alan’s courage provided the route I needed, the hand I held later that same day as we flew home, gave me the core of security, reliability, that I had always craved. My love grew into an irresistible force by the time we left the café, drawn to his strength and helplessness, the mixture heady.
Simon is waiting for me to speak, I know he needs to ask “Why?” but I want desperately to get away, run as fast as my heels will let me, I have nothing but a sense of embarrassed heat, my face reddening, my soul closing.
I turn and walk away without another word, I see in the reflection of a café window his puzzled expression, but he doesn’t pursue, just sits down with his handwritten cardboard sign, asking for alms.
When I get home, there is a silence that is difficult to hear, no keyboard clicking, no rumble of the quietly played background drone of electro pop, Alan’s favourite working music.
I sit, wine glass already in hand and wonder what happens next.
“Don’t make any sudden decisions” whispers to me from some distant conversation I heard on a BBC podcast.
But I want to make some sudden decisions, I want to get out of this depressing bland house he insisted was designed for us. It is antiseptic, and totally not me, spirited from someone else’s magazine home.
I pour the rest of the wine into my glass and blankly look as the laptop starts flashing through images of our lives.
I slam it shut.