Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
DONNIE
I stop a few feet away from the restaurant door to take a couple long, slow breaths.
My heart rate is elevated and my breathing is too shallow.
Connor was lovely yesterday, holding me on the couch, listening to me, then taking me upstairs to bed.
I spent the night in his room, which I don’t usually do.
But I needed him with me and I didn’t want to wake up alone.
Phyllis and Leonard are already waiting for me inside the restaurant. Four years on and this is still so hard. I thought it would get easier as time passed, but in some ways, it’s getting more difficult.
I love Phyllis and Leonard. They’re the parents I never had.
Since the very first day I met them, they’ve been nothing but caring and supportive.
They welcomed me into their family and treated me like their own son.
Roger was really close to them his whole life.
Before he died, we used to see them at least once a month.
Now, I see them maybe three times a year.
I pull out my phone and send Connor a text.
Donnie
At the restaurant now. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.
Connor responds immediately with a series of hearts and thumbs-up emojis.
I plaster a smile onto my face and pull open the door. Phyllis sees me the minute I step inside and stands up to wave me over. I give them both long, tight hugs that I don’t want to end.
Sadness wells up in me at seeing them again.
I’ve missed them a lot, more than I’ve realized.
They’ve always been so easy to be with. They’ve known me for so long that there’s a deep familiarity between us that only comes with time.
Sitting down with them now feels like coming home in a way I haven’t felt since the last time I saw them.
It also hurts to see them though. We are the three people Roger loved the most while he was alive.
We are the three people who loved him the most too.
No matter who we talk to or how well we try to explain it, no one else in the entire world will understand exactly what it feels like to have loved him and lost him.
We’re bound together not merely by our shared love of Roger, but also by our shared pain.
It’s impossible to forget that when I see them.
“We ordered wine already. I hope that’s okay.” Phyllis lifts her glass in a silent salute and takes a sip.
“Would you like a glass?” Leonard picks up the bottle.
They know I don’t drink much. I never have—except for maybe a two-week period when I tried to drown my sorrows and ended up on the bathroom floor more times than I’d like to admit. I drink even less now.
“No, thank you.”
Leonard tops up Phyllis’s glass instead.
“How are you, dear?” Phyllis asked. “You look good.”
She’s lying. I look like crap. I woke up halfway through the night, all tangled up with Connor in bed, with a sudden panic about what I was going to say to them at lunch. I crawled out of bed at first light, feeling like I’ve been punched in both eyes and I have the bruises to prove it.
I force my lips into a smile. “I’m okay.”
It’s an understatement and that’s kind of the problem. The past few weeks with Connor have been wonderful. The shared meals, easy conversation, casual kisses, and heated touches. Movie nights and trips out into the city, sweet messages waiting for me on my phone after classes.
I’ve been smiling more than I have in ages.
My steps feel lighter and the sun feels brighter.
I have that giddy, walking on the clouds, everything is perfect feeling that comes at the beginning of every relationship.
I haven’t felt that in literal decades and my body and soul have been gorging on it.
Phyllis looks at me and I swear she can see inside my brain and read every single one of my thoughts. She gives me a smile that makes my eyes sting with tears and suddenly, I feel like an eight-year-old boy who wants his mother, rather than a fully grown man in his forties.
“That’s wonderful. I’m so happy to hear that.”
I switch the subject before I actually start crying in the middle of the restaurant. “How have you both been?”
“Oh, you know.” Phyllis gives a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’re the same.”
“That’s not true.” Leonard reaches for his wife’s hand. “We’ve started dance classes.”
Phyllis blushes a dainty pink and Leonard gazes at her like they’ve just run off and eloped. It makes my heart ache to see that look in Leonard’s eyes. It’s the same way Roger used to look at me.
“What, um, what kind of dancing?” I ask.
“Latin ballroom,” Phyllis says with a saucy shimmy of her shoulders. “Our neighbors coerced us into going with them.”
“It’s been fun,” Leonard adds. “I’ve even shed a couple pounds.” He pats his rounded stomach.
The waiter comes by to take our orders and refill our water glasses.
Leonard continues after he leaves. “Phyllis also has a new book club.”
She giggles and leans toward me, bringing her hand up to cup her mouth. “It’s not really a book club,” she whispers. “It’s a poker club. A bunch of us old ladies betting with pennies. But we call it a book club so we don’t scandalize people.”
I smile and it isn’t forced this time. This time, I mean it from the depths of my heart. Dance classes and poker clubs. They’re doing things that make them happy, that bring joy into their lives. They’re living again and… I guess, so am I.
“Roger had regular poker nights with friends, didn’t he?” Phyllis has a faraway look in her eyes.
My heart clenches, bracing itself for what’s coming. This is why lunch with Phyllis and Leonard can be so difficult. The reminiscing. I have zero problems with talking about Roger. I’m more than happy to answer every question Connor might have about him.
It’s different with Phyllis and Leonard though. It’s the back and forth. My emotions fuel their emotions, which fuel mine again until it becomes too much. Then I’m suddenly back there, in the days after we lost him, rocked with the realization that he’s gone and he’s never coming back.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice tight and a little too high. “He did. Once a month with his work friends. He wasn’t very good at it though. He had the worst poker face I’ve ever seen.”
Leonard shakes his head, smiling at a private memory. “He never could lie to us.”
“It was in his eyes,” Phyllis adds. “We could always tell by the look in his eyes. He was such a sweet child.”
The waiter comes by with our plates and I poke at my grilled fish.
That sweet child grew up into a sweet man.
One who called his mother every other day, who brought home flowers on Fridays, who lit up every room he walked into.
He used to drive out to Long Island to spend an afternoon with his father doing yard work.
He paid for the four of us to go on a cruise together once.
I shift in my chair, fighting the itch to get up and walk out for some air. I pick up my glass of water instead and down half of it.
God, I miss him so much sometimes. I miss having him move in the same space as me. I miss his smell. I miss knowing what he’s thinking without having to ask. I miss finishing his sentences for him and having him finish mine.
I even miss all the things he was shite at, too.
That cruise we all went on? He spent the first three days sequestered in the business center for work.
Yard work in Long Island was fine, but try getting him to lift a finger with our own backyard.
Good luck. I miss all the ways he annoyed me because they were a part of who he was.
He wouldn’t have been Roger without them.
Phyllis’s hand settles over mine on the table. I glance up to find her watching me, a knowing look in her eyes.
“I miss him too, dear.”
I nod, my heart in my throat.
She tilts her head to the side and narrows her eyes a fraction. “Have you started dating yet?”
My eyes bulge out of my head and I choke on my own saliva. I grab for my water and bang on my chest, more as a stalling tactic than anything else. This was what kept me up all night. Whether I should tell them about Connor.
“Are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, sorry, I just…” I suck in a deep breath. “You caught me off-guard.”
“So is that a yes? You’ve started dating?” Phyllis asks again.
“Phyllis, we don’t need to go prying into Donnie’s life.”
“It’s not prying.” She shoots him a glare. “I’m just looking out for our son’s best interests.”
I freeze and my eyes snap to Phyllis, but she’s still glaring at Leonard.
It probably just slipped out. Or she meant “son” in a figurative sense because I used to be her son-in-law.
Yes, we considered ourselves family once, but that was before, and I barely ever see them these days. They couldn’t possibly…
Except Leonard’s studying me and I feel like I’ve been caught breaking curfew or something.
“Actually, this might be a good time to mention…” He glances at Phyllis with a questioning look.
“Oh, yes, that.”
That what?
Leonard stares me right in the eyes. “We’ve changed our will so that everything goes to you once we’re gone.”
I don’t understand right away. Why would they do that?
“It’s not going to be billions or anything,” Phyllis says, with an exaggerated hand wave. “But there will be a good chunk left. And the house, of course.”
“What?” My voice is small with my heart lodged right up there in my throat.
Phyllis and Leonard exchange a look, then she smiles at me with so much tender indulgence that I can’t breathe.
“Donnie, you’re our son. It makes sense for us to put you in our will.”
“But… but…” I don’t have the words to describe this mix of indebtedness and unworthiness and humility churning inside me.
They don’t owe me anything. I haven’t done anything to deserve a gesture like that.
I came here today debating whether I should tell them that I’m sleeping with someone who isn’t their son.
“My dear, you became our son the day you and Roger became partners. That hasn’t changed just because Roger isn’t with us anymore.”
“But…”
Phyllis tsks at me. “No buts, you hear me? We’re family.”
The tears slip past my lashes and I swipe at them, trying not to draw attention to myself.
Hearing Phyllis call us family is like the prickling sensation when feeling returns to a limb that’s gone numb.
It hurts like fucking hell, but it’s life coming back to a part of me that I’d forgotten was there.
I’ve been so lonely and I’d resigned myself to that solitary existence.
Connor somehow wormed his way in and set up camp inside me.
And now Phyllis and Leonard are reminding me of how much I’ve pushed away the people who love me most. Maybe it was what I needed at the time, to lick my wounds by myself. But I need life now. I need to live.
“You’ve been alone for too long,” Phyllis says, like she’s plucking my thoughts straight out of my brain. “You need to start seeing people.”
I nod. She’s right. “I have been seeing someone,” I manage to whisper.
Phyllis’s face lights up. “I knew it!” She looks so excited and eager that I have to laugh.
It’s a laugh that breaks through that dark, heavy place inside me. It shakes something loose, like a chunk of rock falling away from me. My body feels lighter. It’s easier to breathe. My heart rate settles closer to its resting pace.
“Tell me about him?” Phyllis asks, like we’re teenagers gossiping about boys.
I smile at the thought of him, the boy who is changing my life. “His name is Connor.”