Chapter 15
It was fully spring—we were actually moving into early summer.
One way I knew was how warm it had been lately, but I was also aware of the date because I hadn’t lost my phone recently.
I had been thinking about wearing shorts again, but Brenna had preemptively informed me that if I did, they would have to fit, so I’d need to look for a pair like that.
Also, I was still spending a lot of time up at the cabin and with the poison ivy, mud, and other hazards, maybe I would still keep my legs covered.
But this house was so hot. Despite the change in seasons, the old radiators still hissed out their steam and the windows were all securely closed, trapping in both the heat and also the smells of sweat, smoke, and…yeah. It was definitely rodents.
I could handle it for a little while longer, because I was leaving soon enough. “I wanted to tell you in person that I quit,” I explained. “I won’t ghost you again, but I’m done.”
He spat into his pop can, either dip juice or phlegm. “Yeah? You’re back with the boyfriend?”
“Well, that’s partially it. I really love someone a lot and I know that he doesn’t care for this line of work. But the most important thing is that I don’t care for it. You might not either, if you put yourself in my place—”
“No one would pay for that.” He scratched his bare stomach. I guessed that his nudity was a good reason for him to want the heat on, except that he was also glistening with sweat.
“I think that if you showered, shaved, cut your hair, and tried to modify your nasty personal habits, you might meet someone that you didn’t have to pay,” I suggested. “It’s worth a try. I know it’s hard to change because I’ve been working on that myself.”
“For your boyfriend?”
I nodded, since it was for Theo. It was also for everyone else who’d felt like they needed to step in to fill the gaps I was leaving in my life, and it was also for myself.
The lists were hard but I would be better when every item on them had a big check mark next to it.
Except the mental list would obviously only have mental check marks, because it wasn’t really possible to draw on thoughts.
“Why the fuck would you bother to say this to me?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“Why not? We’re both human beings even if our relationship has been unusual.
So I’m just telling you as a fellow human that it’s better not to be in a hot, dirty house with signs of rat infestation.
It’s better to be out in the world, even if there are a lot of problems in it.
There’s also a lot of beauty that can surprise you in a very good way. ”
Despite the intimacy of our previous interactions, we’d never talked very much.
He stared at me now and I wondered how he was going to react, and if I needed to be ready to fight.
He was bigger but he did have breathing problems and I didn’t think he’d have a lot of stamina.
Unfortunately, it was always hard to grapple with someone naked and sweaty like he was.
That wasn’t an issue anyway, because he only stared at me for another moment before he nodded.
“My sister’s been saying the same shit. She doesn’t know everything that I do,” he continued, gesturing to my body.
His eyes lingered on my breasts, which were covered today.
“But she knows enough and she tells me…” He stopped, and now he looked toward the window. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe.”
“Good luck,” I said, and I left the house for the last time. I was sure that I wouldn’t be returning.
I went back to my job at the garage because my lunch break was over and then afterwards, I went north towards the medical center.
As usual, my heart seemed to lift when I thought about Theo, but I was aware that I was heading to a sad occasion.
Today had been Pinar’s last at their office because she was quitting to give herself time to plan both her wedding and her big move out of state.
Regina was a mess about it. She had been spiraling as this day approached.
Theo was upset too, but he was holding himself together more than she was.
He kept talking about making changes and how those didn’t always have to be bad.
Regina talked about changes as well but she didn’t sound nearly as accepting.
“We’re all moving on,” she said as we waited for our dinners.
She wiped her eyes on her napkin and blew her nose twice, so I handed her a bib that I took from my purse.
“Thank you,” she told me. “We shouldn’t have met in a restaurant.
I’m ashamed to act like this in public.”
“Don’t be ashamed to cry,” Pinar told her. She also accepted a bib from me. “I’m a mess.”
Regina’s face crumpled. “I’m so happy for you,” she sobbed. “I really am.”
“You can visit North Carolina,” I assured her as I also sniffled. “As far as I’m aware, you can even have hidden compartments in your car and it’s a beautiful state. I really enjoyed living there, even though it was brief. You can take time off.” I looked at Theo. “Right?”
He didn’t answer that. Instead he asked, “Regina, do you want to share anything?”
We turned to her and she cleared her throat and seemed to reset.
“I won’t need time off because I’m retiring,” she admitted.
“My daughter is moving and my son’s already gone, and now Pinar is leaving, too?
I need to be in a position to be more mobile.
I have to be ready to get in the car or on a plane to come see everyone and I can’t be worrying about the office falling apart without me.
My husband and I want to travel together, too,” she added. “We want to enjoy ourselves.”
“Wow,” I said. “Wow, that’s huge. I’m happy for both of you.
” I was, but I looked at Theo. What was he going to do now?
He didn’t appear worried that both these women were leaving his office and he wasn’t touching his jaws.
The last doctor he had visited to work on his bruxism really had seemed to help.
I still wasn’t able to observe him well at night, though, except with a pane of glass between us.
Anyway, he had asked me not to stand in his yard and I was respecting his wishes.
He held up his beer. It was after work, so we were having a few drinks but Regina was watching all of us to make sure that it wasn’t too much.
“Cheers,” he said, and we also raised our glasses.
“Cheers to changes and to all of us moving into a different future. We’re not really saying goodbye, because I know that Regina won’t let us. ”
“Damn straight,” she answered, and we laughed as we also used our bibs. “Do you want to tell us about your changes?” she asked, and she was looking at me. There was no way that she could have known that I’d seen my former employer today. Could she?
“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.
“I mean that I heard that you made up with your mother,” she said. “I heard that you’re planning on returning to school, too.”
I looked at Theo but he shook his head. “I didn’t tell her any of that,” he announced.
“He didn’t,” Regina confirmed. “I had coffee with your sister Nicola and she added me to a group chat.”
“What?” I yelped. “How did you meet my sister? You’re in the anti-Grace chat?”
“She and I have mutual friends in the emergency department where she works,” Regina answered. “It’s not an anti-Grace group chat, either. We mostly exchange recipes but we do talk about you at times.”
“Let me see,” I demanded, and she was willing to pass over her phone.
There were some really good recipes, mostly shared by Granger, but there was also information about me.
Nicola wrote how proud she was that I was planning to go back to college so I could become a vet technologist, and Addie chimed in to add what a good job I was doing at the garage. Apparently, she’d been checking.
There was also a big thing about Regina going over to Juliet’s house to meet everyone in person. She had been especially excited to see my newest nephew and had loved him, and they’d all said that they were going to have to do it again and invite me to join them next time.
“This is all nice,” I stated. “No one is worried or angry.”
“Why would they be?” she asked me.
Because many, many items on my lists were unfinished, that was why. There were many, many things to fix.
Theo addressed that. “I can tell what you’re thinking about,” he told me. “Please don’t.”
“Juliet is so happy that you made up with your mom,” Regina noted, scrolling more. She showed Pinar, who nodded to confirm. “She says that getting her back into yoga was a great thing to do.”
I had done that by showing up at my mother’s house and saying that I had to get into crow pose.
It was on the list and needed a check mark, of course, but I had also gone there because Mom had been texting a lot to apologize for the things she’d said to me.
She had been so hurt by my father’s actions, she’d written, and she’d felt like I had taken his side .
It gave me the opportunity to explain how upset I had been to learn about Rachel and her gutters, which had turned out to be a lot more than an issue with gutters and exactly what I had feared.
I hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone else with his actions like I had been.
I explained how I’d felt trapped, and I’d said all that to my siblings, too.
I said that I wished I’d done things differently and that feigning ignorance wasn’t the way I was going to act in the future.
That already had a checkmark. I’d fessed up about a botched delivery at the garage, something that had been partially my fault because I hadn’t totally understood their procedures for receiving stuff.
It had been fine in the end, and I planned to do it again—not to mess up a delivery, but the part about not feigning ignorance.