Хелен Браун - Bono

“Let’s take Bono and walk out of here right now.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Patrick’s words echoed inside my head: Good luck with that one . But my husband was no Doc Golightly. He’d hardly flown to New York to drag me back to life as a hillbilly. Besides, it was impossible to go “back.” Even if I returned to Melbourne, it would be as a different woman.

As Philip leaned over to kiss my cheek, Monique and Berry arrived. Fantasies of abducting Bono dissolved in their laser beam smiles. I introduced them to Jon, who swept them away to his office to sign papers. When they emerged a few minutes later, Monique was glowing. Berry had the befuddled air of a new father.

“I thought we were taking a cat home for a trial,” he said. “She didn’t tell me we were adopting him!”

But when he saw Monique’s smile, I could tell he wasn’t going to raise a serious argument. He was a man who put his wife’s happiness above all else.

“You can go now,” Monique said to me, taking the cat carrier’s handle.

Who, me? Now? I fought the instinct to snatch the handle back.

I peered into the cat carrier and rubbed Bono’s nose through the wire.

“Be a good boy, won’t you?” I whispered. “I love you.”

That little black cat with the lion haircut had enriched my time in New York beyond words. Through him I’d met incredible people and experienced the soft heart of the city. His story had touched people around the world. I couldn’t say good-bye.

“Are you crying?” Philip asked as we walked back along the East River.

“It’s just the wind,” I lied.

Philip wrapped his arms around me. I wept into his neck. Darling Bono. It was the best possible good-bye. Besides, I wasn’t the first woman to cry over a cat.

Chapter Thirty-six

CROSSROADS

A cat becomes a permanent resident in the heart.

Before she left New York, Lydia had made me promise to visit the Rubin Museum of Art, a gallery specializing in Buddhist masterpieces from Tibet and the surrounding countries. To my surprise, the Rubin was in Chelsea on West 17th Street and Seventh Avenue. Awash with sculptures and tapestries, the gallery’s serenity was a world away from the bustle out on the streets.

Every married couple has a different protocol when it comes to viewing art. We’re not the ones who walk hand in hand from artwork to artwork. Philip generally gives each piece an allotted amount of time and respect, whereas I flit from one to the next until I find something that speaks to me. If there’s a seat nearby, I might happily absorb that one work for twenty minutes. To avoid discord, Philip and I usually take off in opposite directions to find each other forty minutes or so later near the exit.

I was drawn to a room where dozens of Buddha statues were displayed together. The space emanated such power it seemed to make time loop back on itself. A man sat in the corner meditating. Though I was tempted to join him, I wasn’t sure my knee would take kindly to the hard floor. I closed my eyes and tried to capture the energy of the room so I could report back to Lydia when we got home.

Afterward, it took a while to adjust to the change of pace on the street. We plunged into a shoal of shoppers and waited on a corner for the lights to change.

At first, I thought I imagined the voice calling my name. When I heard it again, louder this time, I ignored it thinking there must be a million Helens in New York.

A hand grabbed my shoulder. Startled, I turned to see Monique’s dazzling smile. I could hardly believe it.

“How’s Bono?” I asked, adjusting to the shock of seeing her.

“He’s great!” she said, slightly breathless from chasing after me.

“Is he eating? Is he taking his pill okay?” I asked, aware of the anxious note in my voice.

To my relief, she nodded.

“He’s not hiding all the time, is he?” I asked.

“No, he’s very friendly,” Monique said.

I felt a little crestfallen. It sounded like Bono wasn’t missing me. When relationships end, I’d heard women talk about flings they have with “Transitional Men,” who help them gain confidence so they can move on to Mr. Right. In Bono’s case, I was Transitional Woman and Monique was Mrs. Right. Though I felt a little sad, I knew it was how things needed to be.

Chances of our paths crossing like this were slimmer than a cat’s whisker. Perhaps the meeting had been arranged on a spiritual realm between Bono, Lydia, and the Buddha statues.

The crowd swirled around us as Monique and I embraced each other on the street corner. For a moment it seemed we were in some kind of movie.

“I thank you every hour,” Monique said.

The feeling was more than mutual. Monique was the saint Bono had been looking for. After the lights changed, Monique and I said good-bye.

“Let’s go somewhere quiet,” Philip said, guiding me into a taxi and directing the driver to head uptown.

Central Park was decked out in her summer greens. His built-in compass led us to a silky pond where model yachts admired their reflections as they glided across the water. If we were vacationing in Hades, he’d still find a boat to look at. We sat on a bench while a young street performer carved out intricate strains of Bach on his violin.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said, squeezing my fingers.

People probably thought we were quaint holding hands after twenty-two years of marriage. But we didn’t do it for their benefit. I couldn’t imagine life without the weight of his hand in mine.

“Didn’t John and Yoko live somewhere around here?” I asked.

“I think you’ll find the Dakota building’s out of our range,” he said with a smile.

With Yoko being seven years older than John, their age difference was similar to ours. Except Yoko didn’t have two kids from a previous marriage in tow.

It takes a man of exceptional heart to embrace and raise stepchildren the way Philip had. He’d been equally tolerant and understanding about my two-thirds life crisis, if that’s what it was.

“I don’t need to live in the Dakota building,” I said.

“Are you thinking somewhere closer to Michaela?”

“No,” I said. “I love New York, but having you here has made me realize it’s time I gave up fantasizing about other people’s lives.”

“Really?”

“The one we’ve created together is precious enough,” I said. “It’s taken decades of painstaking work from both of us.”

The violinist was working himself into a Bach-induced frenzy. Philip stood and walked toward him.

“We’d be crazy to leave the kids,” I said.

The musician’s face lit up as Philip spoke to him and dropped a dollar in the open case lying on the ground.

“I want our granddaughters to know us, and for us to help them grow into teenagers, don’t you?”

Philip took my hand.

“And I need to say sorry.”

“What for?” he asked.

“I don’t know what happened after I was sick,” I said. “The walls pulled in around me and I froze up emotionally. Maybe I thought I was dying. Then I met Bono.”

Philip smiled.

“He’s sicker than I ever was,” I said, dabbing my eyes. “Bono taught me the whole point of being alive is to keep on loving no matter what.”

Philip rested his arms on my shoulders and drew me to his chest.

“I’ve been shallow and self-centered,” I said. “Please forgive me. There are so many layers to love. We haven’t explored half of them. I’d like to keep on doing that with you, if you’ll have me.”

“There’s nothing I want more,” he said, hugging me tight. “But there’s just one thing.”