Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

They walked, for the first time, as lovers.

*****

“Wow,” said Vanessa, “that was… intense. I had no idea that your beginning was so beautiful, it’s like something out of a romance novel.”

Robert chuckled and said, “Hardly. It’s not the kind of thing that comes in romance novels. All of that is so trashy and needlessly cheesy. Our love was more subtle, I think. Like that comfortable silence that we enjoyed with each other. It was the kind of thing that most people can’t even think of. Most people don’t even know what comfortable silence is, to be honest, and this saddens me because it is a truly wonderful thing to experience with somebody.”

Vanessa was getting jealous. She wanted to feel this with somebody. She was surprised to realize that the person she wanted to experience this with was Robert. She wanted to walk in silence with him, to enjoy the intense intimacy that people felt after they walked with each other in such an intimate way. She wanted to feel the extent of the love that one shared with somebody, love that usually only came about if you had been together for years.

She had never felt love before, she realized, or at least not the kind of love that Robert was talking about. This love that he was talking about was the truest of love, love that you didn’t enjoy easily. It was love that came when two people were so utterly compatible.

She wondered if she would ever find anyone that was so compatible with her. Robert probably wasn’t. They were attracted to each other, or as far as Vanessa knew she was attracted to him and he wasn’t really all that interested in her, but they did not really have anything in common, anything that they could use to springboard into a serious relationship.

She felt like everything she was doing was wrong. She couldn’t think this way about her client, her boss. She couldn’t think this way about somebody that was talking to her about his dead wife.

All of a sudden, to Vanessa’s complete surprise, Robert burst into tears. These were not dramatic tears or the kind of tears that you saw on TV. There was no drama to them, no pretense, nothing like that. These were genuine tears, the kind of tears that only came when there was an ocean of grief or sadness behind one’s eyes that was desperate to break forth from its barrier.

Vanessa rushed to Robert and held him tight. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay, it’ll all be okay I promise. It’ll all be okay. We can stop here, that’s good for now. I’ve gotten enough for one day, I can turn this into a whole new chapter and we can take it from there okay? You don’t have to keep going. It’s okay, shhh…”

She rubbed his back and held him tight. Robert was crying into her shoulder. “She’s gone,” he said. “I can’t believe she’s gone. What am I going to do? I don’t think I can ever love like that again. I don’t think anyone will ever love me like that again. How can I just move on? How can I just forget the best thing that ever happened to me?”

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “This is a process. You’re remembering the good times. Of course things are going to be difficult now. But as you get through this process you’ll realize that everything you remembered about her is still valid. Everything that you loved about her is still valid. You’ll realize that what you felt still exists no matter where Marie has gone, and that’s important. It means that you are still alive, Robert, because you still remember. And as long as you remember her, she will never truly be gone.”

She looked at Robert. “Say it. You’re alive. Say it.”

“I’m alive,” he said. “I’m alive. But she’s gone.”

“No,” said Vanessa, “not yet, but she will be soon. She’ll be gone because you will have let her go, and that would mean that you have gotten past this. I don’t think anything would make Marie happier right now than seeing you be happy. I don’t think anything in this world would make her happier, Robert, remember that. Your happiness will be her happiness.”

Robert burst into tears again and Vanessa held him tight. His sadness was making her sad. She was surprised that she was so emotionally invested in this. This was not the casual concern that one showed strangers. No, this was a deeper and more intimate kind of concern, and it was a result of Robert letting it out so thoroughly. He was displaying intimacy by being so open about his feelings, and as a result Vanessa felt really intimate too.