A Special Relationship Read Online Free PDF Page B

I knew, I was leaning against a lamppost, crying wildly. I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t dodge the desperate wave of grief with which I had finally collided. I didn’t move for a long time, clinging on to the lamppost for ballast, the depth of my sorrow suddenly fathomless, immeasurable. A cop showed up. He placed his big hand on my shoulder, and asked me if I needed help.
    ‘I just want my mommy and daddy,’ I felt like screaming, reverting back to the six-year-old self we all carry with us, eternally desperate for parental sheltering at life’s most fearful moments. Instead, I managed to explain that I was simply coping with a bereavement, and all I needed was a cab home. The cop flagged one down (no easy thing in Boston – but then again, he was a policeman). He helped me into it, telling me (in his own faltering, gruff, kind way) that ‘cryin’ was the only way outta grief.’ I thanked him, and kept myself in check on the drive back. But when I got to my apartment I fell on my bed, and surrendered once again to grief’s wild ride. I couldn’t remember how long I spent crying, except that it was suddenly two in the morning, and I was curled up on the bed in a foetal position, completely spent, and hugely grateful that my two roommates had been out that evening. I wanted no one to see me in this condition.
    When I woke up early the next morning, my face was still puffy, my eyes still crimson, and every fibre in my body depleted. But the tears didn’t start again. I knew I couldn’t allow myself another descent into that emotional netherworld. So I put on a mask of stern resolve and went back to work – which is all you can ever do under the circumstances. All accidental deaths are simultaneously absurd and tragic. As I told Tony during the one and only time I recounted this story to him, when you lose the most important people in your life – your parents – through the most random of circumstances, you come to realize pretty damn fast that everything is fragile; that so-called ‘security’ is nothing more than a thin veneer which can fracture without warning.
    ‘Is that when you decided you wanted to be a war correspondent?’ he asked, stroking my face.
    ‘Got me in one.’
    Actually, it took me a good six years to work my way up from the City Desk to Features to a brief stint on the Editorial page. Then, finally, I received my first temporary posting to Washington. Had Richard found a way to get transferred to Tokyo, I might have married him on the spot.
    ‘It’s just you cared for Tokyo a little more,’ Tony said.
    ‘Hey, if I’d married Richard, I’d be living in some comfortable suburb like Wellesley. I’d probably have two kids, and a Jeep Cherokee, and I’d be writing Lifestyle features for the Post … and it wouldn’t be a bad life. But I wouldn’t have lived in assorted mad parts of the world, and I wouldn’t have had a quarter of the adventures that I’ve had and got paid for them.’
    ‘And you wouldn’t have met me,’ Tony said.
    ‘That’s right,’ I said, kissing him. ‘I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.’
    Pause. I was even more dumbfounded than he was by that last remark.
    ‘Now how did that slip out?’ I asked.
    He leaned over and kissed me deeply.
    ‘I’m glad it did,’ he said. ‘Because I feel the same way.’
    I was astonished to find myself in love … and to have that love reciprocated by someone who seemed exactly the sort of man I’d secretly hoped to stumble upon, but really didn’t think existed (journalists, by and large, being the wrong side of seedy).
    A certain innate caution still made me want to move forward with prudence. Just as I didn’t want to think about whether we would last beyond the next week, month, whatever. I sensed this as well about Tony. I couldn’t get much out of him about his romantic past – though he did mention that he once came close to marriage (‘but it all went wrong … and maybe it was best that it