Chapter 20 #2
“Oh,” Cherry said. She was welling up. Why was she welling up? Cherry didn’t even read Thursday. She kind of hated Thursday. “So you’re just ending it.”
He looked confused. “I didn’t think you’d have a strong opinion about this.”
“I don’t. I just wasn’t expecting . . . So you’ll write an ending? Or you’ll just stop?”
“I’ll write an ending. I’ve got it all plotted.”
“Oh.” Cherry was crying now. She set down her bowl and covered her face.
“Cherry . . .” She felt Tom move closer to her. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He touched her shoulder. “Cherry.”
“I just—” She cried a little harder. “I just—”
He stroked her shoulder. “What is it, baby . . .”
“I don’t want you to—”
“You don’t want me to end it?”
“No, I mean—No. I just—Tom.” The tears were coming in sheets. “Are you making them get a divorce?”
“Am I . . . ?”
“In the comic. Baby and The Guy. Are you—”
“Oh,” Tom said, getting it. “No. No, I would never.”
“Are they breaking up?”
“No. They’re not breaking up.”
“Because I know it’s your comic, and you need to express yourself—”
“They’re staying together, Cherry. I promise.”
“I just don’t think I could—”
“They’re okay, come here.” He pulled her into his chest.
She went. “The idea of them—”
“They’re still in love.”
“Please don’t—”
Tom held her head in his neck. “It’s okay, they’re okay. I wouldn’t do that.”
“You can if you want to.”
“I don’t want to. Don’t worry.” He rubbed her back. “Don’t worry about this. It’s just going to end. I’m moving on, but they’re
staying together.”
Cherry nodded. “Okay,” she choked out. “Thank you.”
“Please don’t worry.”
“Okay,” she said into his chest. Tom was so wide and warm. He smelled so familiar, it made her feel faint. Tom was the only
person under sixty who used Irish Spring.
It took a few minutes for Cherry to catch her breath . . . to come back to herself. Her neck stiffened, and she sat up, away
from him.
“Okay,” she said again. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Tom’s hands fell to his sides.
Cherry wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Good for you, Tom. I mean, starting something new. That’s—That’s great. Do you have
an idea?”
“No . . .” He was still watching her. Still ready to catch her if she started crying again. “But . . . I didn’t have an idea
for Thursday when I started. I literally named it that because I wanted to commit myself to posting once a week.”
“Yeah, I heard you say that on The Late Show.”
“Oh.” He looked embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m like a talking doll with a string—I only have five anecdotes.”
“No, it’s fine. I just meant—I didn’t know that before I heard you say it on TV.”
“You didn’t?”
She shook her head.
“Huh. Well . . .” He’d set his soup down on the table. He picked it up. “There you go. I don’t even know what it’s like to have an idea.”
“Maybe you could do something like Thursday, in a new setting.”
He glanced up at her without lifting his head. “I’m not sure why you’re encouraging me, Cherry.”
“Do you think I should be discouraging you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
Cherry’s eyes welled up. She bit the corner of her lip and waited until she thought she could speak without relapsing into
tears. “I know that we’re not in a good place,” she said. “But I still want you to be happy.”
Tom closed his eyes. He didn’t look up. He nodded. “Okay, well . . . thank you.”
They finished their soup in relative silence.
When Cherry was done, she made room for her empty bowl on the coffee table, amongst all the stuff Tom had laid out there.
It was an insane assortment: A stainless steel apple peeler. Antique bookends shaped like cartoon bears. A cookie jar that
looked like the hot air balloon in The Wizard of Oz, still full of odds and ends.
“So,” Cherry said. She wiped her eyes again. She tried to be rational, or at least to look rational. “Let’s talk through this.”
Tom sighed. “Well . . . you’ve read my notes.”
“I have,” she said. “And you’ve read my notes.”
“And nothing seems to be moving.”
Cherry rested her elbow on the arm of the couch and her chin in her palm. “I think what’s happening is . . . we’re arguing over who should keep things that neither of us really want.”
“Okay,” Tom said, “but also . . . you don’t want to let go of anything.”
She sat up. “That’s not true. I keep telling you to take it all.”
“Yeah, but then if I don’t want something and I put it in the Goodwill pile, you take it out.”
“Well, you’re putting really good stuff in the Goodwill pile!”
Tom laughed at her. “It’s all good stuff, Cherry. All our stuff is good stuff.”
Cherry felt sad. She felt more sad. “Yeah . . . I guess so.”
“That’s because of you,” he said. “Your rule about everything being either useful or beautiful.”
“That’s actually William Morris’s rule . . .”
“William Morris didn’t say it to me every time we went to SuperTarget.”
Cherry rubbed her face. She felt sad and tired. And older than she’d ever been in her life. “If I’m being honest,” she said
quietly, “I don’t know what I want. I don’t want you to take everything, but I also don’t want you to leave it all for me
to deal with. And when I think about giving it away . . .” She shook her head. “No one else will appreciate our stuff like
we did.”
They both stared at the coffee table.
Stevie had been napping on the other side of the room, but now she lumbered over to them, shoved past Tom’s legs, and launched
herself up onto the couch between them. It wasn’t graceful—if the couch were an inch higher, she wouldn’t be able to make
it. She landed halfway onto Cherry’s lap, and her tail hit Tom’s face. He pushed it away. “I thought she wasn’t allowed on
the couch.”
“I promoted her from pet to roommate,” Cherry said, helping the dog settle.
Tom squinted out at the living room and the dining room beyond. “We could just box it all up. Everything that you don’t want to look at. We’ll deal with it later.”
“No.” Cherry scratched Stevie’s neck. “I don’t want to ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ it.”
Tom sighed, short and exasperated. “I know you want me to do my part—but I don’t feel like I have the, I don’t know, authority? And I can’t read your mind. Especially if you don’t know what you want.”
“That’s fair,” she whispered.
“If I took everything you told me to take, you’d be living in an empty house. Do you really want that?”
Cherry breathed in deep. And decided to tell Tom the truth: “I don’t think . . . that . . . I am going to be living here.”
He whipped his head toward her. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to live here. In this house.”
He looked confused. And maybe upset. “But you love this house—you picked it out.”
“Not for myself.”
“Where do you want to live?”
“I don’t know. Not here. Maybe I’ll get an apartment downtown, near work.”
“An apartment?”
“I don’t know, Tom. I didn’t think you’d have a strong opinion about this.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay, well—I don’t. I’m just surprised. I mean . . .” He looked around. “You put your whole heart into this house. There’s so much you can’t take with you, all the painting, and the flowers—your lilac bushes.”
“I wasn’t putting my heart into the house,” she hissed.
Tom took the hit. He looked away.
Cherry took another breath. She looked down at her hand, methodically petting Stevie’s fur. “If you get to start over,” she
said. “Why don’t I?”
Tom sat still. After a second, he pushed Stevie’s rump off his legs and stood up.
He took his bowl and Cherry’s into the kitchen.
She heard him walk out into the foyer. He reappeared in the dining room, wearing his sweatshirt.
“I think I’ll clean out the garage tomorrow,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anything out there we need to talk about. ”
“Okay,” she agreed.
“And I’ll get a dumpster.”
She nodded.
“Thanks for dinner.”
She started petting Stevie again. “Sure.”
Tom cleared his throat.
Cherry looked up.
“I want you to be happy, too, Cherry.”
Cherry didn’t think she could respond to that without screaming or crying, so she didn’t.
After a few seconds, Tom let himself out.