Beyond Forever

Chapter 2

February 21, 2033

I know I'm just going through the motions. I'm still in shock. It's been two small days since my wife was taken from me. Even saying that now in my head, it doesn't register.

Wife.

Gone.

Those are words I would never have put in the same sentence...yet, now I have.

And nothing will ever be the same again.

The past two days have been sleepless, full of the process of putting Roseanne to rest. It's almost inhuman, really, this process. I've called in funeral arrangements, flights, and arranged burial plots. I've serenely keyed my credit card numbers to order forms for caskets and penned my signature to receipts. I've done all of this without a flicker of emotion. I've been brave—brave like Roseanne would want me to be.

Then there's the human part when the calls come. Litanies of words meant to salvage my broken life have perforated every piece of me. I've listened to people cry over my pain, and it feels so disingenuous, though I know they don't mean it that way.

It makes me angry, too. Not because these people are breathing and bawling in my ears and Roseanne isn't. No, they make me enraged that I can't feel anything. I've tried to let their tears leak into me, in the hopes that it'll awaken my heart, but there's nothing there. There's no stir or echo of emotion, just a bottomless pit of nothing. And I'm furious over the fact that they can still feel her and cry for her like I should be able to.

Sometimes, I'm sure all my work must be for someone else because if it really were for my wife, it would have killed me. It should have killed me. If I really loved her, then I should be unraveling at the seams. I should be drowning in my misery. There's no way that I should have the strength to do this, because of my love for her.

Even now, along a stretch of highway 57, I drive. I drive with steady hands. Fixed on the wheel they don't move, don't quiver. I stare at them and the proud bands of my wedding rings. They're impossible hands for a widow. A widow has old withered hands whereas mine are steady and strong, soft and youthful.

So, she can't be gone. I can't be alone.

The rationale stops any tears from forming.

The fields race past my speeding rental car as I head south from the airport. I roll down my window and just breathe it in. The sweet scent of seeded fields brushes my face, and for the briefest of moments, I close my eyes.

Roseanne and I always promised we'd come back to where we grew up in Illinois. She'd talked about a chance to visit her old stomping grounds and feel the sunshine and breathe clean air. Those were her stated reasons, but I felt differently.

I believe there was a part of her that wanted to come back to the places where she'd felt she didn't belong, where she'd never quite fit in, and repurpose them.

So many people said she couldn't make it. That a Southeast Asian girl with a decent voice couldn't survive, let alone thrive, in the cold, fast world of New York. I had known her then, a quiet ingénue, bursting with promise and drive. Her resolute presence and glimmering potential incensed me back in those days. I wanted to escape our harsh world, but with no hope or talent, she was a telling reminder of how unfair life was. My own cruel words stood in testament to my jealousy many times. However, they didn't break her, they'd just fueled her drive toward the pinnacle and pushed her toward greatness.

Now years later, she's no longer an average Southeast Asian  girl, but the glimmering jewel of the Broadway Stage. And somehow, mercifully, she's mine. The woman that I have the privilege of knowing and loving.