Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

And perhaps, when she started writing and started creating her own works of art, in doing so she would be able to get over Robert. She would be able to avoid the heartache that came with feeling something for someone that did not feel it back. If only she knew, in this moment, that Robert was thinking about how being with Vanessa would be quite nice. These thoughts were what were keeping him from being open with Vanessa right now, because he was afraid of them. He was afraid of what it would mean if he started to allow himself to feel this way.

“So,” said Vanessa, “shall we get started on the next thing? What are you going to tell me about today?”

“I think we should continue chronologically the way we have been going for so long,” said Robert. “I had been thinking that maybe I should start talking about the later part of our relationship but I quite like peeling back the layers of memory and seeing what life was like from the very start. It helps me to rationalize what I had had with her, if you know what I mean, because I look at it progressing. It’s almost like watching a film, if I’m being very honest, a film of my early days with my wife, and this helps me. It calms me. It helps me feel like everything that I am currently going through is worth it because it is the end result of something beautiful.”

“I understand,” said Vanessa. “In speaking of your relationship chronologically you would end up reliving it perfectly. You would end up seeing all of the things that you had seen back then and you would be able to see it with more adult eyes. Maybe that would help you, you know? Maybe it would help you properly understand what you had truly had with Marie.”

“It’s interesting that you say that,” said Robert. “I don’t think that I fully realized what my relationship was. It was very loving and very caring and very, very good, I do know this, but at the same time I think I had idealized it quite a bit after my wife had died. I had started treating it as this special thing, viewing it with a fervor that was almost religious. I had started to think that remembering the bad times would be sacrilege, blasphemous almost, as if I would be dishonoring the memory of my wife by thinking about her in anything but a positive light.”

“Every relationship has its bad sides and bad patches,” said Vanessa. “Every relationship in history has been imperfect. Perfect relationships exist in stories, they are fanciful works of the human imagination. They are things that you dream about, they are nice thoughts but at the end of the day no relationship can be perfect because humans are inherently imperfect. No relationship can be what they show on the movies because in a real relationship the story does not last two hours, it lasts days and months and years.”

“I know,” said Robert. “I need to start thinking of it like that. I need to start coming to terms with the fact that my wife had her bad side just like I have my bad side. We were two imperfect humans that loved each other. We were people that looked past these flaws and saw each other as the sum of our parts. It’s just… unsettling to think of my wife as anything but perfect.”

“I think that Marie would have liked it,” said Vanessa. “You thinking of her as imperfect I mean. I think she would have liked the idea of you remembering her as human rather than as this perfect angel that had absolutely no flaws. She was a no nonsense type of woman, and she did not have the patience for idle romanticism.”

Robert chuckled and said, “That is very true. Even when she was being romantic she was so up front and blunt about it. It’s so odd that I, the businessman, was so goofy and romantic with her, and she, the writer, was so blunt about how much she loved me, she never sugarcoated it or dressed it up in pretty words. Her fancy words were for her books. The love we shared was too important for her to talk about in such fancy ways. It was real, it was earthy, and that was exactly how she talked about it. And I loved that about her, you know? I loved that our love was so important to her that she simply couldn’t be flippant about it in any way. I love that she expressed her love with such stoic ferocity.”

Vanessa smiled and said, “I think this is part of you getting past your wife’s death. I think you’re starting to remember Marie as a human being, and a human being is a lot easier to get over than a perfect little angel which is what you had been remembering her as for so very long. Do you want to talk about the other side of your relationship? I’m sure the idyllic scenes that you have mentioned were peppered with little storms of negativity, no one’s relationship is perfect for very long.”

Robert thought for a moment and then said, “No, I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. I don’t think that I am ready to think of my wife in such a negative light. I mean, I have already thought about it, I know, I just don’t think I’m ready to talk about it openly. I might end up saying something or the other but at the end of the day I think it’s better that I talk about it when I’m completely ready, when I’ll be able to talk about it without covering anything up or sugarcoating anything.”

“Alright,” said Vanessa, squeezing Robert’s hand. “Whatever you’re comfortable with. Let’s just talk about whatever you want to talk about right now.”

And so, Robert began to regale Vanessa with the story of how he and Marie had gone to a friend’s wedding and he had accidentally dropped a bottle of wine and spilled wine all over the bride’s dress. Vanessa was happy to have this time with Robert. She was happy to enjoy these moments. But most of all, she was happy to be the one that got to see Robert get over the death of his wife by realizing that she had been just another human, albeit a human that he had loved.