Time Was by Steve Perry Page A

woman he’d loved.
    I killed her again , he’d once said to Killaine. They killed her once; I killed her again.
    But she asked you to , she always told him. She couldn’t live that way.
    And you think that makes it any easier to live with? Zac would reply.
    Jean.
    So much history in that name, spoken so softly, so sadly: Jean . . .
    â€œWhat did you dream of her?” asked Killaine.
    Zac took a deep breath, held it, tensed slightly, then released the breath slowly. “We were in Paris during some kind of festival. We were sitting at one of those little cafés where coffee is served at small wooden tables under colorful canopies. Somewhere nearby a band of street musicians began to play, and she asked me to dance with her. ‘It’s almost midnight,’ she said. ‘Dance the new day in with me.’” He leaned forward, rubbed his eyes, and sighed.
    â€œSit back,” said Killaine, her tone of voice making it clear she would hear no argument.
    Zac did as he was told, and Killaine resumed her massaging of his back.
    â€œSo she asked that you dance the new day in with her . . .” Killaine prompted.
    â€œI kept telling her that I was a klutz, a lousy dancer, but she didn’t care. She jumped up from the table and grabbed my hand and dragged my fat butt out into the street, and we danced—oh, how we danced! She was so graceful, so beautiful. I felt like Fred Astaire his first time with Ginger Rogers. The music kept growing louder, more joyful, you know? And the other people who had been dancing, they saw us and slowly began to move away, forming a circle around us, watching, applauding. Jean was so . . . luminous under the streetlights.
    â€œThen it began to rain, but she wouldn’t stop dancing, and the band wouldn’t stop playing, and the people surrounding us began to sing, and I realized then how very much I loved her, how very much I admired her, how much she completed me, and I remember thinking, Please don’t laugh, if you laugh, then I’ll lose my heart forever; don’t laugh or I’m done for.
    â€œShe laughed. It was the sound of bells, it was one of the most beautiful, purest things I’d ever heard. And then I was laughing with her and not giving a damn about our getting soaked. I was just lost—in her, in the music, in the singing, all of it. It was the most perfect moment of my life, dancing with the woman I loved under the glistening lights and the crystal rains at midnight in Paris.”
    Killaine rubbed the sides of his neck. “What a wonderful memory to dream of. Why did it disturb you so?”
    â€œThat’s just it,” said Zac, reaching back to stop her hands. “It wasn’t a memory. It never happened. I always wanted to do that with her, but we never . . . never had the chance. And now”—his voice cracked—“we never will. And I hate it. I hate this —pulling up stakes every few months and running to another city before Annabelle can get to us, the constant worry, the tension, the uncertainty . . . but most of all, I hate waking up at three in the morning because I was dreaming about a memory of something that never happened.” He turned and looked over his shoulder at Killaine. “Does that make sense to you?”
    â€œIndeed, it does, Zachary.” She touched his face, her thumb gently brushing away a fresh tear just now sliding slowly down his cheek. “From the little you’ve spoken of her, and from the little I actually know about her, I know that she must have been quite a remarkable person in order to capture your heart and bind its wings.”
    â€œShe was,” whispered Zac. “Remarkable. I . . . I didn’t know her for very long, you know?”
    â€œI know.”
    He stared out the window. “Strange, isn’t it? How you can spend years around some people and never feel close to