Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
DONNIE
After lunch, I follow Leonard and Phyllis to the cemetery in the car Roger and I shared. I don’t use it often. I don’t like driving very much and there really isn’t a need for it in the city. But during times like this, when I need to go to an out-of-the-way place, it’s nice to have.
The air is thick when I step out of the car. Gray clouds rolled in during the drive to the restaurant, hanging low and heavy in the sky. I feel like I’m walking through water. Every breath feels like I’m sucking in steam.
It’s always kind of a surreal experience when I visit the cemetery. I don’t fully feel like myself. Almost like I’m outside of my body, watching it weave through the headstones with a bouquet in its hand. My skin feels tingly and numb at the same time. My insides feel hollow.
It’s the same today—but worse. I told Phyllis and Leonard all about Connor over lunch. They asked dozens of questions. They want to meet him. I got that little tickle of nervousness at the prospect of introducing the boy I’m dating to my parents. I want them to like him. I want him to like them.
Most importantly, they’re supportive of me dating someone new and that was what had me up all night. I’ve gotten their blessing and now I’m at Roger’s plot looking for… permission, absolution, something.
I’m afraid I won’t find what I’m looking for. The fear sits in the middle of my chest, its talons sunk deep into me. I’ve lived with this grief for so long, it’s become a part of me. I don’t know how to let it go or who I am without it.
But I don’t want to move forward with Connor still carrying this soul-deep sense of loss. He doesn’t deserve to have this heavy mantle sitting on top of the relationship we’re trying to build. It’ll be doomed before it even starts if I don’t do something about it now.
So I’m here, heart in my throat, gut sickeningly empty, knowing that it’s all up to me, but not sure if I’m strong enough to do it.
I hang back to let Phyllis and Leonard approach Roger’s headstone by themselves.
He has his arm around her and she leans her head on his shoulder.
It’s beautiful seeing them stand there, side-by-side, after so many years together.
It’s heartbreaking that they’re standing in front of their son’s grave.
I send up a silent promise to Roger. I’ll take care of them.
For the rest of their lives, no matter what happens, I’ll be there for them the way you would’ve been.
The promise sinks into me, into that deep, dark place, and wedges itself between the boulders I’ve collected there.
It’s pushing them apart, jimmying them loose.
Phyllis and Leonard pull away from each other and turn to me. Leonard’s sniffling. Phyllis is wiping her cheeks. They’re both smiling at me.
“Come here, Donnie.” Phyllis waves me over.
I come crashing back into my body in that moment. Blood rushes past my ears as my heart hammers against my ribs. My guts are twisted into knots so tight it’s almost physically painful. The fear is squeezing my chest until I can’t breathe.
Phyllis drags me forward and they sandwich me between them. I bend stiffly to set my flowers next to theirs and when I stand up, they both take each of my hands. We form a little circle with Roger’s headstone taking up the fourth side.
“We’re family,” Phyllis says, giving my hand a little shake by our sides. “Me and Leonard and Roger and you. Nothing’s ever going to change that.”
I nod, trying to hold off the tears for as long as I can.
“Roger loved you so much. And we do too. He would never want you to be alone for the rest of your life, Donnie. And we don’t either.”
The tears come, hot and fast, and I let them run down my face and land on the grass at my feet.
“He would want you to be happy, to love again, to have all the things you had with him.”
Every word Phyllis speaks is a wrecking ball against the mountain of rocks I’ve built inside, on top of, and around me.
Fractures are forming in the barrier I’ve constructed to keep myself safe.
It hurts. Oh god, it hurts, but I can’t go back anymore.
I can’t keep living under this burden. I can only move forward.
“This Connor? Your Connor?” Phyllis keeps going. “He sounds really wonderful, my dear.”
Another swing of the wrecking ball, and another crack ruptures through me. It’s in a spot that’s already been weakened by bits of Connor that have worked their way into me over the past few weeks. They’re all over the place, I realize.
Every laugh, every smile. Every time we’ve teased each other and every time we’ve come together in bed. They’re all little seeds that have wound deeper and deeper into me in preparation for this moment.
“I hope we get to meet him soon. I need to make sure he’s good enough for my son.” Phyllis nudges me with her elbow and something that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob bursts out of me.
She pulls me into a fierce hug. “We love you, Donnie. We want only the best for you.”
“I love you too,” I say through my tears.
Phyllis steps away and Leonard takes her place. He gives me a couple strong slaps on the back and murmurs his own, “I love you.”
A drop of water lands on the side of my face as he lets me go. Thunder rumbles low and menacing across the sky. The clouds have gotten darker, casting everything in shadow.
“You should go,” I say, moving Phyllis into Leonard’s arms. None of us have umbrellas. “You don’t want to get caught in the rain.”
“You’re not coming?” Phyllis asks.
I shake my head and manage to give her a genuine smile. “I need a few more minutes on my own. You go ahead. Have a safe drive home.”
They turn toward their car and I wait until they’ve climbed inside.
A drop of rain lands on my nose, then another on Roger’s headstone, turning the dusty gray almost black. I crouch down so I’m level with the engraving and trace my fingers along Roger’s name.
“I miss you. So much.”
Fat, heavy drops land all around me like a leaky faucet.
“Some days I wake up and it hits me all over again. I’m never going to hear the way you laugh anymore. I’m never going to feel your arms around me. Your pillow is never going to smell like you again.”
My tears are flowing steadily now and the rain is matching my pace. Water trails down the back of my neck and wets my collar. My hair is plastered to my head. I put my hand flat against the smooth face of the headstone and collapse to my knees in the soggy grass.
“It’s better now with Connor. I haven’t had as many of those moments since I met him.”
In the distance, lightning flashes and thunder rolls.
“He makes me laugh, kind of the way you used to make me laugh. He lights up the room the way you used to too. It’s nice having him in the house. It doesn’t echo so much when he’s there.”
Lightning flashes again, closer this time.
The thunder is louder too. It rumbles through me and the rocks start tumbling off.
I sob. I can’t help it. I’m breaking apart and the rain is washing it all away.
The tears on my face. The crumbling rubble inside.
I let it all go and tilt my head back to look up at the sky.
The rain is cold and stings my heated forehead and cheeks.
I sit like that for long moments, not caring that I’m soaked through, not caring that my pants are ruined.
My tears slow and the thick heavy walls I’ve hidden behind all these years are little more than ruins.
I drop my head forward, hands digging into the wet grass in front of me.
“Your mom said it was okay for me to move on. She said you’d want me to find someone new. I know she’s right. I know that’s what you want.”
The rain lets up a tiny bit, the sheets easing back into individual drops. There’s a calmness inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s quiet and peaceful and still.
“He’s young, you know,” I whisper to Roger’s headstone with a smile. “So eager, driven, hard on himself. I think you would’ve liked him. I think you two would’ve been friends.”
The rain stops. There’s one last little rumble of thunder, but it’s far away now. The air smells earthy and clean. I breathe it in and fill myself up with it.
“You’re not going to believe this. He’s a filmmaker. He’s making me watch movies. We’re working our way up to the scary ones. You know how much I hate scary movies. But we’re getting lots of use out of that theater room you insisted we put in.”
The clouds lift into the sky and thin out until they’re nothing but wisps. A single ray of sunshine breaks through.
“Yeah,” I laugh. “I thought you’d like that.”
The sunshine is warm on my face and the sky is shockingly blue. I lean forward and press my forehead to the cold, wet stone.
I’m drained but I feel light. My heart is tender but it’s whole. Roger isn’t here anymore but he’ll always be with me.
I press a kiss to his name. “I love you.”