uncontrollably. I sobbed like that for almost a week without letup. I sobbed through the funeral. I let no one touch me, not even Shauna or Einda. I slept alone in our bed, burying my head in Elizabeth 's pillow, trying to smell her. I went through her closets and pressed her clothes against my face. None of this was comforting. It was weird and it hurt. But it was her smell, a part of her, and I did it anyway.
Well-meaning friends - often the worst kind - handed me the usual cliches, and so I feel in a pretty good position to warn you: Just offer your deepest condolences. Don't tell me I'm young. Don't tell me it'll get better. Don't tell me she's in a better place. Don't tell me it's part of some divine plan. Don't tell me that I was lucky to have known such a love. Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me - and this is going to sound uncharitable - stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she still breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.
I kept hearing that "better to have loved and lost" bullshit. Another falsehood. Trust me, it is not better. Don't show me paradise and then burn it down. That was part of it. The selfish part. What got to me more - what really hurt - was that Elizabeth was denied so much. I can't tell you how many times I see or do something and I think of how much Elizabeth would have loved it and the pang hits me anew.
People wonder if I have any regrets. The answer is, only one. I regret that there were moments I wasted doing something other than making Elizabeth happy.
"Dr. Beck?"
"One more second," I said.
I put my hand on the mouse and moved the cursor over the Read icon. I clicked it and the message came up:
Message: Click on this hyperlink kiss time, anniversary.
A lead block formed in my chest.
Kiss time?
It was a joke, had to be. I am not big on cryptic. I'm also not big on waiting.
I grabbed the mouse again and moved the arrow over the hyperlink I clicked and heard the primordial modem screech the mating call of machinery. We have an old system at the clinic. It took a while for the Web browser to appear. I waited, thinking Kiss time, how do they know about kiss time?
The browser came up. It read error.
I frowned. Who the hell sent this? I tried it a second time, and again the error message came up. It was a broken link.
Who the hell knew about kiss time?
I have never told anyone. Elizabeth and I didn't much discuss it, probably because it was no big deal. We were corny to the point of Pollyanna, so stuff like this we just kept to ourselves. It was embarrassing really, but when we kissed that first time twenty-one years ago, I noted the time. Just for fun. I pulled back and looked at my Casio watch and said, "Six-fifteen."
And Elizabeth said, "Kiss time."
I looked at the message yet again. I started getting pissed now. This was way beyond funny. It's one thing to send a cruel email, but...
Kiss time.
Well, kiss time was 6:15 P.M. tomorrow. I didn't have much choice. I'd have to wait until then.
So be it.
I saved the email onto a diskette just in case. I pulled down the print options and hit Print All. I don't know much about computers, but I know that you could sometimes trace the origin of a message from all that gobbledygook at the bottom. I heard the printer purr. I took another look at the subject. I counted the lines again. Still twenty-one.
I thought about that tree and that first kiss, and there in my tight, stifling office I started to smell the strawberry Pixie Stix.
Chapter 2
At home, I found another shock from the past.
I live across the George Washington Bridge from Manhattan - in the typical American-dream suburb of Green River, New Jersey, a township with, despite the moniker, no river and shrinking amounts of green. Home is Grandpa's house. I moved in with him and a revolving door of foreign nurses when Nana died three years ago.
Grandpa has Alzheimer's. His mind is a bit like an old black-and-white TV with damaged rabbit-ear antennas. He goes in and out