Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck

Author:Erika Robuck [Robuck, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 9781410462114
Google: jQTRpFz238YC
Amazon: B00BCU08FO
Barnesnoble: B00BCU08FO
Goodreads: 15810873
Publisher: NAL
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

I smiled at the thought of our card games on Will’s hospital bed, with Ben teasing Will about his phantom fiancée and the two of them teasing me to death about everything. I wondered about Will’s wife and about his life in the quiet town where he and Ben had been raised.

I decided I’d send him a letter when I got home from my parents’ house, and update him on my life and my work. My letter would be sadly brief. I needed to actually live more to call it a life.

When I returned home after the weekend, Sorin saw me through the window. We’d been waving politely for months, but I couldn’t stand how we’d left things that night, and wished to make amends with him. I knocked on his door before I could change my mind, and he invited me in.

The first thing I noticed about his apartment was how clean it was. There were no papers strewn about the floor. The walls were bare. No empty cups littered the table. Three boxes were stacked near the couch. He followed my gaze.

“I am leaving,” he said.

Was he leaving because of me? How had I let so much time pass without coming to him to assure him it wasn’t his fault?

“Why?” I asked.

“I graduated,” he said.

Of course. The ballerinas had left late last week.

“Congratulations,” I said. “Are you returning to Romania?”

“No,” he said. “I am off to New York to audition for the New York Philharmonic.”

“I’m so happy for you,” I said. “And I’m sad I haven’t heard you play with the orchestra.”

“I did not think you would really want to,” he said. “After that night.”

I don’t think I could have felt any worse than I did at that moment. He looked pained, too.

“Sorin,” I said, “I need to apologize to you.”

“No,” he said. “I should not have done that to you. After your attack. With your husband’s picture.”

“Stop,” I said. “You did everything right. That dinner with you. That kiss.”

I blushed, but I continued, determined to assure him.

“You reawakened something in me,” I said.

Now it was his turn to blush.

“I wish there could have been more. It was my fault, not yours. I realized how young you were and felt my husband looming over us.”

“But, Anna, he has passed on,” said Sorin.

“Probably,” I said. “But all I have is a piece of paper that says he’s missing and he was never found. And he is a part of me and I’ve never felt that part of me lose its grip the way I would if he was really dead. So I still feel married, and that isn’t fair to you. He’s always there.”

Sorin looked at his feet. “I see.”

“I know I’m foolish,” I said. “I can’t explain it, and I haven’t been able to get over it after all these years. I’m held prisoner by the idea that he’s just missing and not dead.”

“I am very sorry for you,” he said. “You deserve someone, Anna.”

“And you deserve someone who can give you every part of herself.

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