Chapter 19
Sawyer
Memories of Kennedy surface late into the night, like they do whenever I spend time with her parents. Which isn’t often—I love them dearly, but it’s hard, withstanding the limbo of our relationship whenever we’re together. The family we’re not.
Morgan gracefully retires to the guesthouse when the rest of us lapse into reminiscing. House looks good. Just like Kennedy designed. She’d have it no other way. Remember Thanksgiving?
No discomfort spending time with my late fiancée’s parents takes the fun out of that story. Kennedy and I spent exactly one Thanksgiving here during her life with her parents, her brother, and his girlfriend. Except the girlfriend was a surprise Kennedy’s brother forgot to mention until the day of.
Kennedy and I had lived in the house mere months. Furnishing was very much unfinished. We literally did not have enough chairs for the new guest.
Not only was Kennedy undaunted, her design eye would not permit mismatched seating.
With urgent calls to her favorite wholesaler, who very indulgently unlocked his warehouse at two p.m. on Thanksgiving, I was dispatched to pick up one more perfectly matching chair for our dining room.
It’s the one Morgan sat in earlier this evening.
With the night drawing longer, the wine I picked up from the grocery store dwindling, I wonder whether Irene and Joe notice how cold the house gets when it’s only the three of us. In the unusual chill, I feel Kennedy’s silent companionship.
I keep looking for glimpses of her, but right now, I’m not surprised to not find them. Understandably, Kennedy’s parents’ inability to see her depressed her during their first few dutiful drop-ins.
I think she’s listening, though. I hope she is. The warmth of reminiscence is enough to make me feel human for a few hours. I hope Kennedy feels the same.
It’s past midnight when I walk Irene and Joe down to their car under the goldenrod glow of my hillside’s old streetlights. “Thank you for having us, Sawyer. We had a wonderful evening. And please tell Morgan it was a pleasure meeting her,” Irene insists.
I smile. Honestly, I myself hadn’t expected how much Morgan’s presence would enliven the evening. Morgan is charming, obviously. But it’s more than that. Having her here made it less like the unfinished version of nights Kennedy and I spent with her family. “She knows,” I say. “Don’t worry.”
We’ve reached their car, the new Subaru they got last year. Kennedy’s parents pause. Knowing what passes wordlessly in the look they exchange, I preempt them.
“We’re really not together,” I say, meaning me and Morgan. “I haven’t…” I falter under the confession’s weight. “I haven’t moved on,” I say quietly.
I haven’t moved on.
When I was new to haunting, I tried, just once, at Kennedy’s insistence, to re-create the dinner parties Kennedy and I would host, gathering our CalArts friends, commiserating over gallery rejections or unemployment frustrations, celebrating someone’s pregnancy or a new commission, gossiping over new relationships or weird stuff our old professors said on social media.
The house was much more unfinished, with whole sections of open drywall, exposed wiring everywhere, and sawdust carpeting the floor.
I felt the same. Gutted. Unready. Hosting them the best I could.
Kennedy’s specter hung out, half included, seeing but unseen.
Over dan dan noodles, our friends did their best to balance their behavior toward me.
Their condolences I knew were sincere—the last time I’d seen them was Kennedy’s funeral, which no one missed.
When they ushered the evening forth, I felt their heartbreakingly well-intentioned effort to remind me “life will go on,” or some shit.
The whole night, I felt like my watch had stopped running. Like the rest of them could feel time’s passage, but not me. For me, everything stood still.
I wonder if they knew. If they could see it in my face or hear it in my voice that it would be our final dinner party.
I haven’t moved on.
Sympathy softens Irene’s features. I’ve long found this quality of Kennedy’s mother interesting, her open-faced, even overdramatic emotional readability. It’s so unlike Kennedy’s captivating, sometimes cryptic reserve.
“You know you can, though, right?” she says.
Now I can’t meet Irene’s eyes. I skirt my gaze to the front yard, to the empty space where they doubtless noticed the uprooted jacaranda. Kennedy’s tree. Guilt sweeps over me despite Kennedy’s parents wishing me the exact opposite.
Joe doesn’t get into the car. We’re just outside the reach of the streetlights. He watches me from their shadows. “Kennedy would want you to,” he replies.
The streetlight flickers overhead.
The sign sets my heart racing. Kennedy. She’s here. She has to be.
“She wouldn’t want you holding on to her when she’s gone,” Joe musters, with pained strength I recognize. I’ve spoken to them in the same tortured tones. “You know that, right?”
I look down. I don’t know what I know. I knew life ended with death until I met my fiancée’s ghost. Now…
“And you’re not getting rid of us even when you do move on.” Irene takes my arm. “You may not have gotten the chance to marry Kennedy, but we see you as our son just the same.”
She pulls me into a hug, which is when I realize how much I needed one. Even when Kennedy was with us, I felt such hope with her parents. The promise of the family I’d longed for. Irene and Joe Raymond could have filled in for the failings of my miserable, manipulative parents.
It was another reason I couldn’t wait for our wedding. When Kennedy and I were married, I could finally call them my own.
I clench my eyes closed, fighting my tears. Over the years, I’ve let so many connections unravel, so many working pieces of myself fall into disrepair. Kennedy’s parents haven’t let me. They haven’t let me lose them.
I feel so, so lucky for it. A gift, one of many, from my Kennedy.
Finally, I feel strong enough to release her. My…oh, fuck it. My mother-in-law. Not the way we ever expected. Our way. Believing it makes it true, like Irene’s saying. I’ve believed more unlikely things.
Irene smiles, tearful. She unlocks the Subaru.
“Wait,” I say, remembering. “The photo album. You left it inside—”
“We didn’t come for the photos,” Joe says softly. “We were worried about you.”
“We have them all scanned,” Irene reminds me. “Just return our calls next time.”
I nod, unable to say more. Guilty and grateful, I wave them off while they start the engine under the streetlight’s continued flickering. I wait until the car disappears down the curve of the hillside.
Finally, the streetlight stops flickering. Under its dull comforting glow in the black night, I walk back home.