Tess sipped her tea. Silence and time and space to think was underrated. And yet there were moments when she envisioned herself sitting at this kitchen table each morning for the rest of her life and it made her feel hollow, as if something had been sucked out of her. She had struggled with the paradox of wanting to be alone and the fear of being alone for most of her life. When she had been a child, there were days when she had hid in her closet safe from the crowd in the living room that chanted and told herself stories about how her life would be when she was older. She would live far away in a quiet house by the water and how she’d go out in the early mornings to look at the world and how she would never let strangers in. It would be her own home and to get inside others would need to know the special password that let her know that they were safe, the password that the universe had granted, offering them access to her world.

  She remembered evenings when the crowd in her living room was silent and all that Tess heard were her own thoughts. She often grew fearful that everyone had left the house and had forgotten her. Once, when the silence set in when she was home with a cold, worried that her mother wasn’t around to take care of her, she rushed down the stairs and into the living room to find her mother and her followers all sitting cross legged with their eyes closed, their chins down, bobbing as they made subtle noises that sounded like voices underwater. She had had the urge to wake them all up. It frightened her to see people look dead while they were living, and yet watching them intrigued her. There was something beautiful about seeing people in their stillness—there was a peace that they exuded, as if they were clouds. In her room, Tess had closed her eyes and sat cross-legged on the floor, imitating the way the people in her living room had sat. She made the breathy sound with her throat and within a few minutes, she grew sleepy. So sleepy that she crawled into her bed and fell right asleep. The more she practiced sitting that way—in her closet for fear that her mother would discover her—the less sleepy she became and the more alert it made her. After a few weeks of the sitting, she began to feel as if she were weightless when she sat, no longer noticing her body, and instead tuned into her mind, which seemed content to think about nothing. The first time the free floating feeling overcame her, she panicked, wished to come back down, to sink into herself, but once she was moving, there was no turning back. She never knew where she went, but the feeling of drifting was enough to make her keep doing it. She meditated in secret, never once sharing her experiences with her mother. It intrigued Tess that the things that could have connected her to her mother were things that she had chosen to keep them apart.

  Tess wondered if she had played that game with her ex-husbands—keeping from them the things that could have connected her to them. Had she ever asked them if they were afraid of anything? Had she ever truly known them? Other than what they liked to eat and the hours they worked, and the trivial things that would make them happy or annoy them, there wasn't much else that she knew about them. It perplexed her that you could live alongside a person and not really know them, that you could be related to someone, that you could give birth to them, and not be able to read their minds and hearts. She knew nothing after all of her son’s daily life other than the things they told one another during their phone calls. Unless you were to become another person, and that, in this lifetime at least, was impossible, it seemed unlikely that you would ever get to know another person. The truth was that no matter how many people you surrounded yourself with, you were always alone. Tess wondered if a monk ever felt as if he was alone or if he always felt as if he was with God. She breathed in deep and let it go: the fear, the worry, the wishes that lived in her that she was not yet ready to articulate, as if no words could communicate this new song of her soul which had been forming in her during the last few weeks of her life. She felt empty as of late, as if someone robbed her and left her a note: nothing left to take. And yet the emptiness left her feeling free and renewed somehow, as if she had to empty out, had to let go of all that was in order to begin again. That was the thing with changing your route in life—it seemed that once you got on a new road, there was no end to all the directions you would travel.

  Tess wondered if Neal felt the same way since he had left the monastery. Perhaps his life away from the monastery felt small. To walk a day in his life. Tess wished that she could see out of his eyes, if only for a moment. Tess imagined the halls of the monasteries: dark and cool, mysterious and eerie, safe from the world. She had a desire to walk in a monastery—to smell it, hear the sounds, eat the food, look at the monks. Neal had done the unthinkable by leaving the world behind and finding his own separate peace.

  She yawned deep and wide, her hands reaching toward the sky. Outside, the crickets’ throaty hum filled the air. This spring was certainly different from the other springs of her life. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt as if she was living each of her days instead of passing through them. At random moments, such as this one, it seemed bizarre to her to spend her days walking in and out of houses, opening and locking them up, balancing check books, holding staff meetings.

  The cloud looming outside brought a flash of winter to her mind: deep and dark and cold. She tried to imagine entering life on that late December day so many years ago, over half a century back. Arriving in the world one day late for Christmas—December 26th. Her birthday seemed an afterthought. Winter. The coldness that seeped into her bones. She always felt as if she was on the verge of cracking during December and January, but by the time February set in, she would feel herself melting. She thought of those mornings in December and January over thirty years back when she had been pregnant with Prakash. The loneliness of those days, knowing that her whole life would be different the moment the creature in her decided to show his face. Those February days prior to Prakash's birth, and the few weeks after his birth were probably the only times in her life that she had ever lived as she was living now— apart, and yet connected to the world around her, aware of its movement, aware of the metronome within her beating to the metronome without her.

  The doorbell’s ring sent Tess from her reverie. Her heart raced. Who would be calling for her at 6:00 a.m.? She peaked out the living room window and saw Michael.

  “Yes, it’s me, your favorite intruder,” he said when she opened the door.

  She hugged him close; there was something about the way her and Michael's bodies melded together that always caused her a moment of doubt whenever she was that near to him. Maybe it was just that she hadn’t had sex in a while.

  “What a treat,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows at her and in a moment he was past her and climbing the stairs up to her kitchen.

  “The crazy Israeli neighbor lady is out there screaming at her son, while he runs down the block, full speed,” Michael said.

  “She’s not Israeli. Her husband, who’s never around, is Israeli.”

  Michael was filling the teapot and turning on the stove when Tess reached the top of the stairs.

  “Would you like some tea?” Tess asked.

  “Thank you, I would,” Michael said, taking out his favorite oversized ivory mug.

  “What do I owe this honor to?” Tess said.

  “I knew that if I called, I would be stuck talking to your answering machine, so I decided to pay you a visit.”

  The teakettle, still warm, whistled quickly, and after he filled his mug, he joined her at the table.

  “Did you come to tell me something?” she said.

  “I've been thinking of joining you on your new found morning walks, but I don't know how your boyfriend would react to me tagging along.”

  “My boyfriend?”

  “The weird guy.”

  “For your information, dearest, I haven’t been out walking with him for weeks, as I’ve been spending my mornings reading for the yoga program and then getting into the office by 7:00.”

  “Don't start with me, Tess.”

  “You come to my house at 6:00 a.m., and tell me not to start with you?”

  Michael sipped his tea, his eyes lowered, before he picked them up and glanced at Tess.

  “Don't look at me with those puppy eyes, Michael. Jealousy doesn't become you. Neal is just a friend.”

  “We were just friends for a long time. I saw him walking away from your porch a few mornings in the past weeks. Is your ‘just friend’ spending the night now?”

  “I wasn’t here those mornings you saw him walking away because I was already at the office.”

  “I suppose he was just hanging out on your porch?

  “He was leaving me cookies if you must know.”

  “Cookies?” he said.

  “He bakes,” she said. “Did you come here to interrogate me?”

  “I came to talk to you about this yoga teacher training nonsense that you’ve gotten involved with.”

  Tess laughed.

  “It's funny to you. Your mother dies and now you intend to become a yoga teacher and decide to start hanging out with a guy who is clearly a freak,” he said.

  “I’m not hanging out with a freak, as you call him, and I don’t intend to be a yoga teacher.”

  “Now you don’t want to be a yoga teacher?” he said.

  “Will you give me a break—I’m trying something new, that’s all. What’s this really about?” Tess said.

  “You think I like this—that I want to be here saying these things to you?” he said.

  Tess held up her palm to Michael as if she was directing traffic to stop.

  “Right now I don’t want to hear what you want.”

  “What are you going to do with your mother’s house?” Michael said.

  “I don’t know yet,” Tess said.

  “Four acres, up in Woodstock, about 3200 square feet house with balconies on each of the bedrooms, all French doors. You would know better than me, but my guess is that you can get over a million for it—maybe close to two. Someone could convert it into two properties—a house and a store of some sort.”

  “We'll see,” Tess said.

  “Maybe I'll buy it,” Michael said.

  “I don't think so.”

  “Are you sleeping with the weirdo?” he said.

  “No, I'm not sleeping with him. Neal and I are just friends. Couldn’t this conversation wait until we were in the office?”

  “I just have a funny feeling about him, Tess. I saw him with his mother yesterday; at least I supposed it was his mother. They were in the supermarket. Just the way they interacted. His mother seems like a nutcase. And he seems as if he's sleepwalking or something. He functions in slow motion,” he said.

  “We're all weird, Michael.”

  “You don't get it, Tess. Trust me. If he's hanging out with you, he's falling in love with you. I predict he's a goner, waiting for the right moment to move in for his kill.”

  “Michael, not everyone is in love with me.”

  “No, but most men that know you are,” he said.

  “I'm sure that he's planning to ambush me during one of our morning strolls,” Tess said.

  “Perfect crime scene,” he said.

  Tess laughed. “Michael.” She stopped.

  “What Tess?”

  “The weird guy as you call him, is—was—a Roman Catholic monk.”

  Michael laughed a deep belly laugh so that spit came out of his mouth. “A monk?”

  Tess handed him a napkin. “He lived in a monastery for 23 years. He left the monastery in March. He's only been back in town for two months.”

  “Wow,” Michael said. “You’ve outdone yourself this time, Tess. But I still say he wants you.”

  “Michael, I barely know him. He’s an acquaintance, someone who I’ve run into a few times,” she said.

  Outside, the sun shone bright. Tess stretched her neck left, right.

  “And, we don't ask one another too many questions—the best type of friend to have,” she said.

  “What are you trying to say?” he said.

  “I need to get ready for work,” she said.

  “Tess—I miss you.”

  She watched a pigeon outside walk across the telephone wire. It moved deliberately, gracefully, before it dove into flight.

  “You don’t care,” he said.

  “Michael. Don't do this.”

  “What am I doing, Tess? Is it so wrong of me if I miss you, miss us?”

  “No.”

  “You just don't want to hear it,” he said.

  “We're friends, Michael. Please. You're feeling nostalgic today, that's all.”

  “We changed our lives for one another, Tess. You forget that sometimes. I left my wife, you left your husband.”

  “We did that for ourselves, not for one another. That's just where we were at back then. Now we're at a new point in our lives,” she said.

  “Now I'm slaving away at your company while you’re busy becoming a yoga teacher and seducing a monk,” he said.

  Tess laughed. “I promise that tomorrow you'll feel differently. You're just lonely today.” Tess stood up and stretched tall, and while her arms were in midair, Michael hugged her tight around her waist. She hugged him back.

  “I’ll leave you to get ready for work,” he said. “I hope you're right about today.” He kissed her forehead and let her go.

  He moved down the steps slowly, as if he had weights on his legs. She lingered at the door for a moment as he got into his car and drove away. Sometimes it was so hard to make sense of life. She couldn’t remember why she wasn't with Michael, but when she thought of waking up beside him each day, of going to sleep in his embrace each night, it was enough to make her desperate to wash it all away. Michael had asked for things that Tess could never give another person—permanence, security, herself. When she was with him, she had always felt as if she was playing a game of tug of war, trying to hold onto the parts of her that Michael tugged at. There was no doubt for Tess—she was done with relationships. To think that you could form a union with anyone other than yourself was a myth.

  Chapter 22: Out to Sea

  “Neal!” She must have been sitting at the foot of the cherry-blossom tree and reading the Yoga Sutras for over an hour, unless Neal was early for their date.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” Neal said.

  “I lost track of time,” she said. “I only meant to come out here for 15 minutes at most.”

  He pointed to the cat by his feet. “I’ve brought a visitor,” he said.

  Tess's eyes met the cats and in that moment of recognition, she understood that it was the cat that had been crossing her path these months. The cat didn't take its eyes off Tess, so that she felt as if she couldn't break the stare, either.

  “He's been waiting by the bushes surrounding my house each morning. When I start walking, he follows me—at least for the first block or two. Today, he followed me the whole way here.”

  “We know each other,” Tess said. She held out her hand to the cat, and still, not taking its eyes off of her, the cat began to sniff at her finger and then sat down beside her, purring as he rolled onto his back, his belly to the sky.

  “Hello, kitty,” she said. “You always run away from me, don't you? But now you want to play. It's as if there's a whole world in those eyes of yours, isn't there?” she asked.

  The cat nuzzled Tess to pet him and hesitatingly, she reached out and touched his fur.

  “You’re not such a bad cat,” Tess said. “Even if you look big and mean.”

  He was pretty beat up—cuts by both ears, crusted blood by his nose. She wondered if he had any diseases. “I haven't had a cat since I was a little girl. My mother always had cats running around our house.”

  She scratched his head with her fingers so that he closed his eyes, his purr growing louder. She hoped he didn’t have fleas.

  “He likes you,” Neal said.

  “Do you want some milk, kitty?” she said, and the moment she began to make her way to her feet, the cat darted full speed into the backyard.

  “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare him away.”

  “He'll be back,” Neal said. “Cats remember kindness.”

  “Maybe,” Tess said, smiling at Neal, sad now that the cat had gone.

  “I'm glad we're doing this,” Tess said, pulling out of her driveway, glancing for a moment at Neal in the passenger seat. The way he strapped in and leaned back in the seat made her smile; he looked as if he were preparing for takeoff.

  “Me, too,” Neal said.

  She had run into Neal out on the shore of Jamaica Bay a few mornings back. Watching the boats pass by in the early morning, Neal had said In More In Caelo, going on to translate it: In the sea in heaven. He had told Tess it was the motto of the Intrepid upon setting sail. His father had always said it whenever they saw a boat go by and then Tess was saying that she’d never been to the Intrepid and neither had Neal, and so they made plans to spend the following Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, one of her rare Saturdays off from yoga teacher training, at the Intrepid Museum in New York City.

  “My friend from yoga has been talking about your cookies to everyone in Teacher Training and giving them a taste. You've got a following. If you ever want to open up a cookie shop, it would be a hit.”

  Neal laughed. “Monk Cakes.”

  “Or the Cookie Monk.”

  “The Cookie Monk,” Neal said.

  “We're laughing, but I'm being serious. I could search for some reasonable real estate for you and we could make it happen.”

  “Somehow, I don't think that God intended for me to leave the monastery to become a bakery owner.”

 

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