Love, sorrow and undimmed stars: Part 3

The horrible dis-ease with herself had not left Katherine since the night she fled David’s apartment. Not when she got home, shutting the door behind her as if to seal off everything he had told her. Not in the weeks that followed, as she volunteered for more assignments at work as colleagues went on seasonal trips with families. And not in the two months since the most disastrous yet achingly beautiful declaration of love any man had proclaimed for her.

It was an ever present feeling of dread. An indescribable sense of heightened awareness mixed with the realisation that she mistreated another in being so heartless and ignorant. That she was so happily clueless in her actions, recognising now that she should have discussed what they were venturing into. Talked it over with him even if it seemed, based on the evidence, that he wanted the same thing she did.

The numbness was indeed returning. And she didn’t even feel she had the will to fight it. In fact, she would welcome it this time. Before, she hated the anaesthetised fog because it trapped her. Hated how it stopped her from moving on after death when she knew she should not play around with futile emotion. But now, the dull state of passing through life as if wrapped in thick gauze seemed appealing. Because it would mean that she would not have to feel the pain of knowing that she hurt David.

But she had hurt him. She saw in his eyes how he felt. And wondered how she had not seen it before that night. She berated herself now, hindsight having the vision of a hawk. She knew that if she spoke to her friends about it they’d wave her feelings off. That they would support her, saying “so, you don’t feel the way he does while he loves you? That’s not your concern.” And that is why Katherine didn’t tell any of her friends. And then realised, derisive mirth directed at herself, that they didn’t even know about David because she didn’t want him to be part of her life. Well, she succeeded at that. She thought back to the hours before he told her how he felt. How everything must have clicked for him when he heard Lindsay’s bubbly chatter. Well, its good that happened, Katherine thought, contemplating how much worse it could have turned out had they both continued to live under their comfortable but blind assumptions. She told herself this to make herself better. It didn’t work.

She wanted desperately to apologise to him. She formed thoughts and sentences in her head to explain herself. But in the end they always sounded hollow. And she knew they would sound even worse to David, who’d probably throw her out the door on sight in any event. Katherine also knew that an apology would most likely help her feel better, and not him. She wouldn’t do that, she decided. In this case the best way to move on was to not pick at any wounds.

As these see-sawing of thoughts took place, Katherine didn’t realise was that she was withdrawing into herself. That she grew quiet, even around Tom. That she said yes and no, and very little else to those around her. That as much as she did not blame herself for what happened with David, the experience nevertheless left a mark on her. It changed her more than she had ever thought possible. And this was something she could not understand. And for Katherine, this was particularly frustrating. She was exactly the type of person that had to find some sort of explanation. Even if not immediately, she nevertheless had to mull something over until she had a satisfactory explanation or theory. A workable solution. But she found none here. She found no reason to explain why she spent more time thinking of David Burrows after her fling with him ended than when she was sleeping with him.

As weeks became months, the raw pain retreated into life’s white noise. And she was less harsh on herself for what happened. But still she had no workable theory for why David was still in her thoughts. It wasn’t that she now felt something for him. She wasn’t that foolish. But still his face and voice echoed in her thoughts. And the only way she knew how to deal with that was to keep busy. So, in typical Kate McGregor style of unpredictable contradiction, she both withdrew into herself and surrounded herself with people. More time spent with nieces and nephews, more time hanging out with Tom and Lindsay, and more time with the band. All in an attempt to move through Numbness 2.0, as she had come to call it, the unmistakably familiar pain-filled fog and dread that never seemed to leave once it took hold.

It actually seemed to work, especially when she was talking music with the band, as they now seemed to do every other Saturday morning. They often met at the strangest coffee shops where the guys could caffeinate themselves out of hangovers proudly worn from the night before. Jimmy and Trevor, friends since highschool with the Mcgregor’s, Tom, and Katherine passionately discussed (as everyone agreed they no longer ‘argued’) which songs were to follow each other.

“There’s just no way I’m playing them!” Jimmy protested, “No fuckin’ way!”

“Oh, for the love of…Here we go again, guys” Trevor sighed.

“Jimmy, we have to play what they want us to play!” Katherine pointed out. “It’s a highscool party that’s rented out that club. They wanted a cheap band. We play what they want. Simple”

“I have a reputation, people” Jimmy was off now, into one of his trips about how he’d never sell out his rock soul. Everyone else was rolling their eyes, patience wearing thin. “Why can’t we just play our own music?”

“’Cos no one knows our fuckin music. OK!? C’mon, Jim, stop being an ass. We can’t keep having this argument. Maybe we slip in one song at the end. But we have to play what the crowd wants…” Tom interjected.

“Yeah, and that means playing manufactured bubblegum punk. You know, I’m telling you, the corporate music conglomerates will rape and –“ Jimmy started again.

“Ok. That’s it. I’m going out for a smoke. Vent your spleen, dude. I’m just not gonna listen” Tom announced, standing and fishing smokes from his pocket.

Tom left the group and headed for the door, tapping a cigarette against its box in frustration as he shook his head at Jimmy. When he looked up from his ritual, he saw David Burrows staring at the overhead menu above the counter in the coffee shop. A moment later, David noticed Tom, and the two men exchanged awkward smiles.

“Hi,… Tom”

“Hi David. How are you?”

They shook hands.

“I’m good. Good.” David answered, before adding “You?”

“About to rip the vocal chords out our lead singer’s throat, but other than that, I have nothing to complain about.”

David’s brow furrowed, but Tom waved it off with a ‘nevermind’ and continued making small talk.

“Strange to see a busy corporate type around here?” Tom continued, trying to fill the silence. Tom knew David and Katherine were no longer seeing each other. That they hadn’t seen each other for two months. But he had no idea what happened between them – his sister simply refused to tell him when he asked, concerned about her.

“You know how it goes, even the bohemian types need insurance…” David countered, tone light even though the sight of Tom McGregor reminded him of Katherine.

“Ah, well. You know, we all do…” And after a pause, he wondered aloud “On a Saturday?!”

“No rest for old, white men making million dollar deals” David replied, trying to sound mirthful. But his mind was now elsewhere.

“Ah” was all Tom countered with.

They were running out of things to say. David wondered how much Tom knew, while Tom could sense melancholy and sadness in the older man. Katherine had told him they both decided to stop seeing each other, but he knew immediately looking at David that that wasn’t the truth. He then wondered how many more seconds it would be before Kate and David saw each other. Tom felt helpless.

“How is she, Tom?” David asked as Tom was about to excuse that he is off for a smoke outside. It was clear that David lost a struggle with himself in asking that question, a mixture of regret and eagerness for an answer written on his face.

“She’s er...well…She’s good” Tom hesitated, wondering if he should now point out that she is sitting a few tables away.

“Good. That’s good.” He then paused, and turned back toward the menu, before asking, “Coffee any good here?”

“’Good’” would be pushing it, “but you won’t die” Tom grinned, “well, at least not today.”

A toothless smile was David’s reply, lips pursed as head returned to face the general direction of the busy counter.

“I won’t keep you, Tom, since you have to get back to tearing out vocal…”

Tom looked back to see why David stopped speaking. And saw that he and Kate were now staring at each other. David had noticed her as she stood up from the table, obviously losing her last shred of patience with Jimmy and deciding to join Tom outside even though she didn’t smoke. Both of them stared ahead, neither knowing what to say. Or do.

David looked at her. His eyes barely blinked. He tilted his head in a greeting gesture, looked away, greeted Tom, and was gone out the door, all in a matter of seconds. He didn’t see Katherine raising her hand in a tentative reply of ‘hello’. Outside, he slung his weathered satchel on his shoulder, and walked determinedly away.

“You okay?” Tom asked when he got to the table. She was still standing, fingers playing lightly on the back of the chair.

“Yeah, I’m fine” she shrugged, looking at Tom. She wasn’t.

“Are we all back now? Everyone done abandoning me to Politics According to Jimmy?” Trevor looked up hopefully. Jimmy shot him a menacing look.

“Just a second, Trevor” a distracted Tom answered, taking his sister’s arm creating some needed privacy. “What is it, Kate?” he asked, softer this time, concerned.

“Its nothing, Tom” she lied. She felt disjointed and wanted to go. The coffee shop suddenly looked tiny, walls threatening. “I’m gonna go. Just had enough of Jimmy…”

“Kate..” Tom said again, but she grabbed her bag and jacket, pulled baseball cap down over hair, and left.

“Is she okay?” Jimmy asked.

Tom looked at his friends as he sat back down. “I really don’t know.” After a pause, he added “Lets get this done though, ok?” His mind was now on Kate, and he wanted to get to the bottom of why she’s been so edgy and quiet these last few months.
***
Katherine heard a knock on her apartment door. She looked up from her couch, bore holes into the wood, wondering if she could ignore the man she knew would be on other side. He knocked again. And Kate relented. She couldn’t avoid him.

“Two seconds, Tom” she said, swallowing hard before she did and consciously making an effort with the tone of her voice. She let him in.

“So what did you decide to play, in the end? Jimmy calm down?” she asked.

“Oh Kate, don’t insult me with that” Tom shot back purposefully walking into her place. He was done giving her space. Katherine hadn’t been the same for quite some time now. And whatever happened, he had to drag it out of her. Kate would keep everything inside and probably kill herself in the process.

She looked at her brother, closed the door, and sat back down on the couch, knees pulled up to her chest.

“It was just the first time we saw each other, Tom, since it ended. That’s all. I guess I wasn’t prepared…” She hoped she sounded casual.

“But you said it was an agreed split…you both decided the fling ran its course?”

Katherine sighed.

“I know, I’m just a guy. And your brother, so that guarantees I have nothing to add in wisdom on the ways of the heart, in your mind…but you can tell me what happened, Kate. Even I could see from that definition of awkward that was the coffee shop that there’s more to this between you and David. More than you let on when you told me …”

He sat on the couch and with his eyes pleaded for an answer.

“It’s nothing, Tom. Really. There’s no reason for me to be upset. I’ll be okay. I will”

“Was it hard seeing him?”

Oh, Tom. Why can’t you just let things go? She swallowed hard and tried to remain composed.

“Naah, its not that…” she waved his concern off.

“Did you fall in love with him?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Tom! Get a new bone to fuckin chew on already!!”

“Well, at least anger from you is a step up… What is it then?”

He looked at her from across the couch. He was facing her, but she stared ahead, hands holding ankles. Tom’s simple question brought back everything David had told her. And how she felt that night. Tears started to form, and she quickly moved thumb and middle finger to pinch corners of her eyes on each side of her nose. It didn’t work. Tears spilled forth. And lips trembled.

“Did he hurt you?” Tom could never stop being the big brother. And Katherine felt even worse because of the irony of her brother’s question. She thought to herself that if David’s brother wanted to fly from Seattle to put her in her place, he’d have every right. That if a guy did what she did, every Girl Power book she’d ever come across would be there to make her feel better. She broke.

“He told me he loved me.” Her voice was shaky. A soft whisper uttered through trembling lips. “He asked me to stay with him, to let him love me. Even after he found out what I thought…” She wiped hear tear streaked face.

Tom took a deep breath. So the man had lost his heart to his sister? It explained everything in David’s hasty exit from the coffee shop. It was clear to Tom even then that David cared for Kate, but he still didn’t expect what his sister just told him.

“What do you mean, ‘what you thought’?”

“He didn’t think it was just meant to be a fling. He thought that…that” her voice petered out, hating what she had to say.

“Oh, Kate…”

“I know. Wasn’t very nice of me, was it?” Understatement of the fuckin year Kate, she thought.

Tom looked at his sister, studying her. After a while he spoke again.

“You believe him? You believe he loves you, don’t you? Because he does.”

She turned to look at Tom, and her face crumpled. Silence was her answer. And Tom let it spread. He gave her time, and just let her sit as tears refused to stop. He thought back on his sister’s life, her marriage and this misguided relationship with David. And everything made sense to him. Sometimes it’s easier for those closest to us to see what moves in our hearts than we ourselves. And Tom saw more clearly than Katherine.

After a while, he took her hand, but she pulled it away.

“I don’t deserve comfort. I’m the bad guy here, remember?”

It was Tom’s turn to sigh now.

“That’s not what’s going on here. And I think you know it, Kate.” His voice was stronger this time, less soothing.

She looked at him again, slightly surprised by his voice but feeling deserving of it.

Tom could see confusion on her face, wonder at what he meant.

“It’s not just that you feel you’re the bad guy” he began, “though I know you’re beating yourself up about that. Feeling bad, thinking that you played with this man. But I’m not giving you absolution either, ‘cos you know I had misgivings when you told me about David, about this fling.” He paused before starting again, making sure to think through his words carefully. “You’re caught up in knots because of something else entirely.”

He waited, allowing his words to hang in the space between them. Then he continued:

“The reason you’re falling back into your own world is simple, Kate. You didn’t think any man could love you. Not after Peter…”

“Tom, please don’t” Katherine stifled a sob, choking out the words.

“It’s the truth” he said quietly. He was fighting with himself; wanting to let her cry on his shoulder, but at the same time wishing to point out some harsh realities. The latter won out; Tom knowing that she needed to push back into the air and poke her ahead above the water she’d allowed to settle over her.

“And the reason you’re stuck, the reason you can’t just move on and think ‘too bad he fell in love, I can’t help that’ is because you were blown off your feet by a man telling you what I’m sure David did… Because you actually convinced yourself that you would never be one to find that, Kate.” He paused, and then added “Which was fantastically stupid of you, by the way. And I should have cornered you on this earlier, especially since you think I had no idea. But I could see it in your eyes. I saw it when I asked you if seeing David had anything to do with Peter, and I saw it when you tried to change the subject the way you did. I knew you wouldn’t listen though. He disarmed you. David telling you what he felt for you disarmed you.” Tom said softly, seeing his sister’s struggle. Katherine looked away.

Her jaw slackened in shock, her mouth agape at her brother in surprise. She knew she could hide almost nothing from him, but she had no idea how well he saw through her. He was right. It took her long enough to figure out her workable theory, but now she had.

Seeing David again and being confronted by Tom did that. She had given up. She had lost faith in the idea of love. She had lost hope that someone could find love in their heart for her because she had let Peter’s death to take that from her. Other people would find it but since his accident, which changed everything she thought she knew of the world, she would be exempt from that. That such bounty would pass her by. Because she lost faith in what happened and did happen, and could happen between two hearts. She had given up on any notions of love and commitment, of trust between two people.

But David loved her. And the knowledge of his simple, uncomplicated, unashamed love for her is what threw her. It changed all the rules. Not because she felt she owed him now, or because she felt guilty. It threw her because it made all her assumptions shallow and false. Hollow. She saw love in his eyes that night, love for her.

And then regret took over. Sorrow and dread in the knowledge that had she not hurt him the way she did, she may have had something beautiful. Had she not disregarded him from the outset, because of his age, because of everything, had she not treated him as a silly affair, had she not made all those assumptions, she may have just given herself a chance. But that was lost to her now. It was over. It was the perfect ending for her hubris. A comeuppance for all her pride. Because that is what it was, more than anything. It was as if the gods were cruelly demonstrating to her the folly of her disdain-filled approach to life. Showing her a man who looked at her the way he did, love in his eyes and asking almost nothing in return, then making her foolish enough not to run toward that man.

She wiped fresh tears from her face as they streaked a path in the wake of those that had gone before. Her shirt cuffs were almost soaked and her breaths ragged.

“I hurt him, Tom. I hurt David” she paused to swallow choked sobs “his face that night…it was more than I could bear…” she couldn’t continue, her voice getting lost in her throat. She choked back more tears and anguish. “He must think me a selfish little girl. Arrogant. And he’d be right…”

“Hey, hey, Kate.” Tom moved to hold his sister now, resting her head on his shoulder. “Don’t do that. We all make mistakes. But then…we can try to make them right.”

She pulled away from him to look him in the face, astounded at what she heard in his voice; surely he can’t think...

“Whatever it could have been, Tom, it doesn’t matter now. I know what I’ve done. And I’ll get past it, don’t worry about me” Katherine assured him, even finding the strength to summon a smile at the end. “I’ll be okay” she nodded at the end.

Typical Kate, he thought. Seeing the finality, but not possibility.

“You could go see him…”

Katherine looked at her brother, stunned.

“Don’t look at me like I just asked you to kill a fluffy kitten. You could tell him what happened. Tell him about you and Peter. Explain to him…”

“No!”

“Then at least go to him, Kate. You just said about how it ‘could have been.’ Tell him that. Tell him what you feel now.”

“Would you listen, if it were you, Tom? If a girl you were seeing did to you what I did? You saw at the coffee shop. Its best I stay away.” She took a deep breath, reassuring herself in her mind that she was right.

“If I loved the girl, if I fell for her the way I can see in your eyes David fell for you, I’d give her a chance. Because the prize would be more than worth any risk. If you make a mistake, fine. But if you make the same mistake twice, Kate, you might just lose your McGregor cred.”

“Even when you knew the girl didn’t love you?”

Tom exhaled slowly. Then nodded. “Let David make that choice, Kate. Don’t be a coward.”

“Its not that simple, To-”

“Its extremely simple” he cut her off, “you dated, he fell in love with you, he told you. You were surprised by that. It shocked you. Now you’ve been thinking about it, and you might just actually like the man. An old man, someone you may have never considered before, but you might, nevertheless, actually like him. Who knows, might even love him one day. But you have to take that chance, Kate! If he wants to throw you out, that’s his choice. And it’d mean he’s not too clever. But I’ve heard that about the Irish Burrows’s” he ended with a cheeky grin, as always, trying to lighten Kate’s mood.

“I have no right to even ask anything of him” she said the words staring into her hands, Tom’s humour having no effect. Her voice was resigned, her body bent forward in defeat “no right to even think it.”

“Very likely. But let him decide.” He paused, taking both her cold hands in his, trying to stop her from shaking, then adding “Promise me you’ll at least consider going to see him. Seriously consider it? And don’t just give me an answer to shut me up and get me out. Please think about it. And go see David.”

She nodded. She could at least consider it even though she was certain she wouldn’t go through with it. She’d think of nothing else but what she and Tom talked about over the next few days, even if she didn’t want to. David filled her mind and thoughts. And not long after, she also realised how much she missed him. His company, his funniness, his laughter, his wit, his smile. Him. And when she did, she tried even harder to ignore them.

***