true story – The Metrognome

Chapter 2, First Meetings

He and I met at a conference for bakers. Funnily enough, both of us were with our partners. He with his wife, a stunning brunette who must have been willowy at some point in her life but had now lost some of her youthful firmness. A beautiful woman, nevertheless. I noticed her across the room even before I saw him, partly because she stood stiffly in her high-heeled pumps in a dress of dreamy teal chiffon topped with a large statement necklace in blue. Turning to see who she was with, I saw him with his eyes locked in mine.

It sent a frisson through me, his frank and open stare, with his wife just next to him and looking in my direction as well – she’d probably turned to see what he was looking at. Smoothly, noticing her gaze from the corner of his eye, he turned his face to look at the fearsome-looking exhibit next to them: a large pink and yellow creation shaped to look like a princess castle. I noticed that he looked slightly appalled, as did my boyfriend, Amar.

“What the absolute f**k is that,” Amar murmured, pointing at the cake-castle. “You want to go and laugh at it?” he grinned, and taking my hand, led me to it. I checked to see where he was – he had moved to another exhibit down the table, and they were both intently listening to a woman baker explaining her tray of blue cookies and macarons.

I don’t remember much of the conference, nor the exhibition hall and its contents, but I do remember looking around the room several times to see where he was. I caught him looking at me a couple of times. The last time he did, he turned away with the slightest smile on his lips. On any other man, that smile would have said, ‘Gotcha!’

On him, it simply said, ‘I’d like to know you…’

We met each other a month later, again, by accident. This time, both of us were alone. And we made the time to go to a café. Nothing was said about our earlier meeting – it was understood why we were sitting across from each other having lattes at mid day. The question was, What were we going to do about this little thing that existed between us?

I could have, should have, done nothing. But I did.

Chapter 1

Let me state right away that this is not a happy story, about happy people. It’s about not knowing anything about the future. About not having a future. About cliches and what happens when you let your heart do the talking, even when you know your story is not going to have a happy ending.

He was a married man and still I had an affair with him. I knew he would never leave his wife, and still I had a beautiful little baby with him. It didn’t help that she grew up with all his mannerisms, some of his looks, all of his charm. Like a small, curly-haired flashback to happier times.

I knew he would leave. And he did, and I still felt acute sadness. Mostly because I didn’t know what to tell my daughter. Why Abba was not at home any more. How he could just come one evening while we were out at the park and take all his clothes, his shoes, his papers, and never come back, even for a last look or chat with his daughter.

Because despite everything, I don’t want her to grow up with the slow burning hate in her heart, the kind that sours everything in life, the kind that feels like a dull burning in your chest all the time. The hate and the fury that I feel for him. I don’t want it to sully her.

So I make up stories to divert her. But she is going to catch on soon. Every time she asks for Abba, I tell her a story. A child that bright will make the connection, and possibly begin to dread it.

“Abba said he would buy me a cycle,” she begins, a trace of a whine in her voice. She knows I don’t like this particular conversation, mostly because he and I argued long and hard over it. She’s too little for a cycle, I kept saying, and he kept telling me I was too paranoid for words. Now I don’t want to relive that conversation, that feeling even more.

A story, then.

‘He always began every morning with his mobile phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. No, wait. He always began every morning sitting on the pot, mobile phone in one hand and cup of coffee in the other –‘

“Wait. Is this one more story about Abba? Because really, you need new stories.”

“That’s rude. No, it’s not about Abba. It’s about this person I knew –“

“Which person? How do you know him?”

“I knew him many years ago. I don’t know him that well…”

“And yet you know how he began his mornings.” She sighs and is about to roll her eyes, when a new thought occurs to her. “Wait. You still haven’t told me when Abba is coming home.”

She stares, waiting for an answer. Not to be deflected for long. All I want to do is hold her close and tell her the truth. But no. A story will have to do. I can’t tell her anything just yet.

I look at her honey locks, her smooth skin, her almond-shaped eyes. You are truly your Abba’s child, I want to say, but I think I might begin to cry. Instead, I strain to hear sounds from outside – I don’t turn my head around to peer at the door, as if to magically see through the wooden shutters into the inky blackness beyond. I cannot alarm her, make her think something is more wrong than it is. She is already so perceptive and I don’t want more questions about her Abba. So I square my shoulders and say, “A story, then.”

It helps to pass the time till I know how to pick up the pieces of our lives.