17. seventeen
seventeen
Brooks
The tangy flavor of the Fruit by the Foot coats my mouth and sticks to my teeth: a lasting reminder that Nora Foster might remember just as much about me as I do about her. Her gesture makes me wonder if some small part of her always hoped that we’d somehow find our way back to each other.
“How was your day?” I ask. “When I texted you this afternoon, you said the diner was slow?”
Nora jolts out of her blank stare out the car window. “Oh, yeah. It was so slow. But that’s nice sometimes, honestly, just to have a change of pace. How was your day? Did you…work out? Or train? Or whatever it is you do in the off-season.”
“All of the above. I’m actually working with a trainer, a retired MLB player, at a gym three days a week with a couple of the guys on the team. Then, I had a meeting with one of my sponsors in Port Angeles. They’re opening a new store there in a couple months.”
Nora sits up straight. “Wait, you were already in Port Angeles today?”
“Yeah, for most of the afternoon.”
“Then you had to come all the way to Kitt’s Harbor to pick me up? I could have met you there.”
“I wanted to pick you up.”
“Well, thank you,” Nora says softly. “That’s a lot of driving for you.”
“I don’t mind. Really.”
She gives me a shy glance that makes my chest constrict. I like seeing her here in my passenger seat. It reminds me of the drives we’d take back when she was my girlfriend. But she’s so much more quiet now. Like the Nora I knew, but with the volume turned way, way down.
“I was talking to my co-workers after my shift,” Nora says. “And they gave me some advice.” She shifts in her seat nervously. “Okay, I’m just going to say it. This is me keeping up my end of the honesty pact.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I’m really nervous about tonight, Brooks,” she says with a sigh. “My friends told me I need to just tell you my concerns and get them out into the open.”
“Solid advice.”
“Yes, I thought so, too. We need to speak about a few things before things go any further.”
She sounds earnest, and I agree. That’s why I orchestrated an activity that would involve driving together so we could have some uninterrupted time to talk.
“Okay,” I say. “What would you like to address first?”
“I don’t even know where to start,” she sighs, and in my periphery, I see her glance out the window.
“How about I start with a question for you?”
“Okay.”
I’m emboldened by the shadows around us and the fact that I don’t have to look directly at her when I ask questions I’ve wondered about for many years. “Why are you still working at the diner?” I ask. “Because I remember when we were…”
“Dating,” she supplies. “We might as well call it what it is. We dated.”
“Right. So, back when you were my girlfriend…” I swear Nora freezes at the word and doesn’t blink for a solid ten seconds. “You had different dreams. I’m just curious to know what changed.”
She spends another long minute in silence before speaking.
“It’s comfortable,” she says. “The diner has always been comfortable for me. I like Kitt’s Harbor. I never really wanted to leave. I think I needed something predictable and easy and safe after you broke up with me, so I kept my job at the diner and never left.”
Her honesty hurts. I swallow down the regret of letting her go all over again.
“I’m sorry, Nora,” I say, glancing over at her. She meets my eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
“You have no idea how badly I wanted you to come back and say those words to me,” she says quietly, looking down at her lap. “After you left, you looked so happy at school, living out your dreams. I was heartbroken that you moved on so easily.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“It wasn’t easy for me to leave you, Nora.” She lifts her gaze to catch mine. “I questioned my choice every day those first few months in Oregon. But then, my sister told me that she’d seen you with Nate, and I was…” I laugh, and it tastes bitter. “Jealous. Insanely jealous. But I knew I’d made my choice, and I couldn’t back out of it.”
“I’ve always wanted to know,” Nora says softly. “Did you break up with me because your dad told you to?”
It’s my turn to sit in the uncomfortable quiet as I’m forced to wrestle with the truths of our past. She doesn’t know the reality of what I faced after I’d allowed my dad to manipulate me into ending our relationship. She needs to know the truth.
“Yes,” I finally say. “I shouldn’t have listened to him. But I did. He thought our relationship would only get in the way of my career, so he told me I needed to make the hard choice and let you go.” It feels good to get the truth out in the open between us, as hard as it is to face it. “I messed up. I let him control me, just like he always had before and like he still tries to do from time to time.”
“I thought so. He never liked me, did he? The rest of your family has always been really nice, but your dad…” she trails off, and I know exactly what she’s implying without her having to spell it out.
“Yeah,” I say. “He’s…complicated. We don’t speak anymore.”
“I wondered. I never really see him around town, and he wasn’t at the game, so I figured things between you must be…not great.”
“I started putting some distance between us once my parents divorced.”
“I’m sorry,” Nora says simply. “You deserve better than that.”
“You deserved better, too,” I say, wishing I could pull the car over and take her face in my hands to emphasize the depth of my regret. “I’m sorry, Nora.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, reaching for my hand across the console. I drop my fingers between hers and pull our palms flush together. It feels perfect. Like our hands imprinted years ago and still hold the memory of our shared touch. “I thought if it was what you wanted, who was I to get in the way?” she continues. “I had to come to terms with the fact that you weren’t coming back. I had to move on.”
We share a glance in the darkened cab of my car. There’s a beat of silence, the whir of the passing traffic filling in as the only sound. The reality is that there is another man present in her life. However reluctant she may be to keep him in it, he’s there. He’s the father of her child.
“I’ve got a hard question for you. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to,” I say. “What happened with you and Nate? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous that he was the one who you chose to marry, but I thought you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t really love him.”
“I did love him,” she says. “And he loved me, too. Until he decided he wanted someone else.”
Anger mounts inside me at what Nate did to Nora. “I just don’t get how he could have been unfaithful to you. It makes no sense.”
She shakes her head with a sad smile. “He changed, Brooks.”
“How could he have changed that much?” I say, then realize I need to curb my emotion. She doesn’t owe me an explanation. “You don’t have to tell me any details, but if you want to talk about it, I’m listening.”
“Okay,” she says, then lets out a long, slow breath. I know this can’t be easy for her to talk about, but I want to know what happened.
“Things were really great for a few years, but then Nate got a new job at a different insurance firm in Carleton Point. His new position required him to be at the office a lot more. That’s when he started growing distant,” she finally says. “He always made it sound like he had an endless amount of work to do, which I would never understand, because I had a job I could clock out of at four PM every day.” Nora sighs. “I had early mornings at the diner, and he had late nights at the office. We barely saw each other. I should have seen it coming, but it still shocked me when I found out that he was having an affair with someone he worked with.”
“How did you find out?” I ask, hoping I’m not overstepping in doing so.
“I picked up his phone to look something up, and I found their text messages. I still can’t even say her name,” she says, taking another deep breath. “Once I confronted him about… her , he didn’t even try to deny it. He told me he wanted out of our marriage because he was in love with her.”
My heart feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.
“And you were…pregnant at the time?”
“I found out I was pregnant right after that. Great timing for my marriage to fall apart, right?”
“Man,” I grit out. “What he did was unbelievable. I know there are no words sufficient for this, but I’m so incredibly sorry.” She gives my hand a squeeze as if she’s trying to ease me off the ledge.
“I know,” she says simply, with a little smile. “I did my best to love him well, but that wasn’t enough for him. Sometimes I wonder if marrying him in the first place had been a mistake. But then I remember that if I hadn’t married him, I wouldn’t have Ollie.”
My heart is thundering in my chest, filled with anger towards Nate. Anger towards myself. If I hadn’t left her, maybe she wouldn’t have had her heart broken so badly. Twice. It’s hard not to feel partially responsible for the turns her life has taken. Like maybe I could have prevented all of this from happening if I hadn’t listened to my dad.
But then again, she’s right. Ollie is a gift. He wouldn’t be here if things hadn’t gone the way they did. I’m not sure I trust myself to talk more about Nate right now and not let my anger show, so I ask her a different question.
“Has it been hard raising Ollie on your own?”
“I’m not on my own,” she says. “My family has really stepped up and helped me so much these past two years. Sydney even gave me part of her income after Ollie was born so I could spend more time at home recovering before going back to work at the diner. My mom takes care of him several days a week, and my neighbors and friends took really good care of me. They still do. I’m lucky to be surrounded by good people who love me. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe they just love Ollie.”
“Ollie’s awesome, but you are…” I struggle to find adequate words to describe Nora and all that she is. “Even in the short amount of time we’ve been talking again, it’s evident to me that you’re an amazing person. Just like you always have been.”
Nora looks at me then, and when I return her gaze, she’s watching me intently.
“You’ve been through a lot, Nora,” I say. “But you’re better for it. I can see it in everything you do. You work so hard to take care of Ollie and everybody around you, so tonight, I want to take care of you.”
She squeezes my hand, and I can feel hers shaking beneath my grip. She sniffs, and I realize that she’s crying.
“Oh, no,” I say. “I’m making you cry on our first date? Things aren’t looking good.”
“It’s not our first date,” she laughs.
“You’re right,” I say, glad we can acknowledge the relationship we had in the past.
“I’m not upset, I’m just…” she says with another sniffle. “I appreciate you being so open about things with me. I need that, especially after what happened with Nate.”
“I get it,” I say. “You can trust me, Nora. I’m going to prove that to you. You can always ask me about anything, and I promise I’ll never hide anything from you.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
We drive in silence for a moment before Nora speaks up again. "Have you been happy with your choice?" she asks.
I pause before answering, wondering if she’s asking me about all the ways I regret leaving her. Or maybe she just wants to make sure I’ve still found some kind of fulfillment without her, the way she did. Because some part of her always cared for me. “I thought I was pretty happy, but after the way this last season ended, I’m questioning whether I’ve really got a grasp on what’s supposed to make me happy. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“I’ve felt the same way since my divorce. It turned my life upside down. Made me question everything.”
“So, how did you get through it?”
She lets out a tired laugh. “I’m still getting through it. Every day I’m getting through it. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. That’s the funny thing about grief. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it and stifles your happiness and strangles your hope. There are things that help, for sure. Like going to therapy or being around loved ones. I think my favorite coping mechanism is trying to stay busy. Usually with work.”
“Same.”
“But that only works until you’re off the clock, right? Then I try to distract myself from being sad by doing things I enjoy, like throwing pottery.”
“What happens when you run out of distractions?” I’m afraid of her answer. Like Nora, I never stop moving. I don’t want to know what happens if I choose to sit with the feelings I keep numbing and shoving down.
“I think those moments where you allow yourself to really process your grief are necessary. They’re so painful, but that’s what you need sometimes, you know? You have to let yourself grieve the full weight of what you’ve lost.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I say with an uncomfortable laugh.
“I don’t either. But I do it anyway, sometimes. And then I usually feel better because I know that hard feelings pass. They’re not permanent. And I know I’ll be able to get through it when the grief comes again. My therapist told me to try and remember that each day is just a moment, and that tomorrow will be better.”
“Tomorrow will be better,” I repeat.
“You have to take things one day at a time because if you start to think too far ahead, you get so completely overwhelmed that you want to…give up.”
“So why haven’t you?”
“Ollie,” Nora says without hesitation. “I need him. He needs me. He’s the motivating force behind everything I do.”
My thoughts turn inward, and I ask myself what my motivating force is. I don’t have a child or family to care for, so does that mean my motivation in life is just to serve myself? That doesn’t seem right. Maybe that’s why things have felt so unmanageable. I’m so busy worrying about myself and my mistakes and my problems. My life seems shallow and self-serving compared to Nora’s. Her experiences have given her a depth I lack. I suddenly feel like a student, like she’s the teacher with all the life experience, and I’m sitting at her feet, ready to learn.
“What about you? How do you cope with loss?” she asks. “You can’t win every game, right?”
“My losses are nowhere near as great as yours. Baseball is just a game,” I say, and it feels like a revelation.
“That doesn’t matter. A loss is a loss.”
“I don’t lose well,” I admit. “It’s something I need to work on. You know how I am. I stew on things and beat myself up. Pick my mistakes apart.”
“Just like your dad used to do?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe that’s what you’re really grieving,” she suggests. “The fact that you can never please him, even though you want to so badly.”
I’m suddenly antsy. I don’t want to talk about Bill. It makes my blood boil under my skin just thinking about him.
“Maybe,” I say finally, not wanting to bring my dad into our intimate conversation. At least not yet. Nora gets the memo because she gives my hand a squeeze.
“Thank you for talking with me and asking the hard questions,” she says. “I need it. I hope you know that you can talk to me about things, too. Anytime.”
“Thanks, Nora,” I say, shooting her a smile. “I’d like that.” I lift our joined hands up. “And I like this.”
Her lips lift in a shy smile, and she adjusts her grip in my hand. “Me, too.”
“Wait,” Nora says as my trunk opens to reveal the rollerblades in the back. “You didn’t buy these just for me, did you?”
I flick the receipt out of sight and pull the box containing Nora’s rollerblades out. “No, of course not.”
“These are brand new!” she gasps. “You didn’t want to rent blades inside?”
I wince. “Absolutely not.” I’m sure the fact that I make really good money has crossed her mind before, and I don’t want this to seem like an attempt to flaunt my wealth. I decide to paint myself as the poster child of OCD instead. “Just think about it for a second. Would you want to wear rollerblades that have had hundreds, maybe even thousands , of other people’s sweaty feet inside them already?”
Nora wrinkles her nose. “Well, no, when you put it that way.”
“Here,” I say, handing her one rollerblade I’ve unwrapped. “Try this on. Hopefully you still like yellow.”
“How did you remember that?” She scoots up into the bed of the trunk next to me and tugs off one of her sneakers, revealing bright pink socks covered in yellow smiley faces. I grin at the sight.
“I remember a lot of things,” I say.
She pauses, brushing her hair back from her face and giving me a curious smile. “Like what else?”
“How deep do you want to go tonight, Nora?”
“We’ve already gone pretty deep already,” she points out, tugging the rollerblade on over her sock and snapping the buckles into place. “I’m curious to know what you remember about us.”
“You go first,” I say, leaning against the side of the car and crossing my arms.
“Fine. I remember how hard you used to be on yourself. Clearly, that hasn’t changed.”
I tilt my head in acknowledgement. “I remember that one time we skipped fourth period…Mrs. Gibson’s class, I think? And went to Tony’s to get pizza instead. But then, your car wouldn’t start, and we had to call your mom…” she trails off with a giggle.
“She was so mad at us,” I say, laughing at the memory.
“I remember that you don’t like ice in your water.” She purses her lips, and I nod. “And that you’re very particular about the cleanliness of things.”
“Correct on both accounts.”
“And I remember…” She suddenly ducks her head, looking embarrassed.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Come on. Don’t leave me hanging.”
She toys with the ends of her long, dark hair before looking up at me. There’s a flicker of the memory there in her brown eyes, and without her saying a word, I know exactly what she’s going to say.
“When you bought my dream prom dress with all your savings because my dad had lost his job, and we couldn’t afford it.”
I slide my hands into my pockets and look down at the yellow rollerblade dangling off one of her feet.
“You looked so pretty in it,” I say softly, lifting my eyes to meet hers. “I had to.”
Another thread pulls taught between us as we recall the shared memory. One of the many moments that had made us both certain that even after graduation, we were going to be together for a long, long time.
“And here you go again,” she says, lifting her rollerblade into the air. “Buying me things.”
“Does it fit?”
“Perfectly.”
“I had to guess at your size, so you can be honest if they’re too tight or too big.”
“No, they’re perfect,” Nora says, reaching down to unsnap the buckles.
“Here,” I say. I cup the wheels of the rollerblade with one hand and help her slide it off her foot. My other hand settles around her calf, and I feel the warmth of her skin through her thin leggings.
“Thank you,” she says, and my gaze flicks up to hers. She’s so pretty. Still the prettiest girl I’ve ever known. I reluctantly slide my hand off her leg to place the rollerblade back into the box.
Never in a million years did I think I’d be with Nora again, casually talking about the past we’d shared while easing into what could be our future. I’d thought she was gone for good.
But she’s not. She’s here. She’s smiling down at her yellow rollerblades like I just handed her the world, and something tilts inside me.
Maybe she is what my life has been missing. She’s the missing piece.