“How fascinating,” she said politely, then added, “Will your husband be joining you there?”
I leaned forward and pulled my own book from the bag under my seat, using the time to put a placid expression on my face. “My husband passed away a few years ago.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, her expression contrite. “I really put my foot in it, did I not? Please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. Jian… my husband… we weren’t married very long.” Her face was filled with sympathy, so I did something I seldom did: I unburdened. “In fact, he died less than an hour after we were married. We didn’t even get a wedding night together. It was… it was so horrible.”
“You poor thing. How terribly tragic.” She leaned across the aisle to give my arm a sympathetic pat. “Do you mind if I ask what happened? If you do not wish to talk about it—”
I glanced over to make sure Mrs. P was still settled, and was relieved to see her eyes closed. “I don’t mind at all, but there’s not too much to it. I met him while I was working as a tour guide in Chinatown. The one in San Francisco.”
“How very interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever met a tour guide.”
“I’m not one anymore. I really got the job because I look Asian—well, I suppose I am Asian, or at least partly so, according to the orphanage where I was left as a baby—and the owner of the tour company said tourists liked authenticity.” I shrugged, but I wasn’t certain if I was dismissing the eight months I spent showing tourists around or the fact that I didn’t know my own parents’ ethnicities. “One day, I bumped into a handsome man on the sidewalk in front of one of the shops we take the tourists to, and four days later, we were getting married at the courthouse. Unfortunately, there was a drunk driver outside, and as we were crossing the street to the parking lot…” I swallowed back the harsh memories. “Jian knocked me out of the way so I wasn’t hurt, but he… he wasn’t so lucky.”
“How very tragic,” she repeated. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said, swamped with remembered guilt. “If he hadn’t taken the time to push me out of the way…”
Her hand moved again, as if she wanted to give me another reassuring pat, but stopped herself this time. “You can’t think like that. What ifs will always plague you if you let them. I’m sure your husband did what he thought was best.”
“Yes,” I agreed sadly, struggling with the secret fact that although I’d fallen hard for Jian, we had been together such a short time, I wasn’t sure anymore if I was grieving for his loss or for losing our potential life together. “It’s been a hard couple of years. He wasn’t American, you see, and I had no idea who his family were in China, and no way to contact them. I tried to go through the Chinese embassy, but they just said they had no record of him. I even hired a private detective, but he drew a blank as well, saying that Jian must have come into the country illegally.”
“Oh, my. That doesn’t sound…” She bit off the rest of her comment, no doubt aware it was less than polite.
“No, it wasn’t good. There I was, newly widowed to a man I barely knew, with no idea of who his family was or how to find them. I had quit my job to marry him, and the owner of the tour company was so pissed, he refused to take me back. Then things just kind of went to hell in a handbasket when the police were asking who Jian was, and why I had married him so quickly, and on and on.”
“You really have been through it,” Claudia said, stretching out and giving me another sympathetic arm-pat.
I shook off the old but familiar memories. “I have, but I feel like it’s time to put that behind me. I’m taking this job as an omen that things are going to turn around for me.” I gave her what I thought of as my brave smile. “And even if I don’t get to actually go on the Nile cruise, I will get to see Cairo. I’ll have a day there before I have to fly back home.”
To what? A little voice in my head asked. Back to the couch that your best friend lets you sleep on because you don’t have a job, or money, or any sort of a life?
I ignored the voice. I’d had long experience doing so after Jian’s death.
“I’m sure that will be a lot of fun,” Claudia agreed, and picked up her book.