Chapter 36
Lior
The house was a disaster of boxes and booby traps.
I tripped over the rug I’d rolled and slid under the coffee table the night before, the end of it sticking out just a little too far. Coffee splashed onto my Adidas joggers and I stared down at the wet spot on the taupe-colored fabric, then kept moving toward the kitchen.
Glancing around at the happy space, my chest ached.
I had loved this house for so long, it was hard to say goodbye.
Part of me wanted to hang onto it. I could come here in the winters…
spend Christmas… put my tree in the main floor window like I always had, and like my father had done before me.
I could rent it out. Maybe I’d have kids one day and they’d want to live here.
I recalled the many long weekends Addie had spent here before she’d opened her clinic and got so busy.
How we’d take the subway into Manhattan and shop all day, and then come back and order take-out and watch movies until we passed out on the couch covered in bits of popcorn and Sweetarts.
She was the only person I had let into this space. Well, her and Graham.
My breath hitched, caught on a memory of him in my kitchen giving me that smile of his.
Goddamn that smile.
I felt my wall going up, trying to shut the pain out. “Up here” I heard my mother’s voice call from the deep recesses of my mind.
I shook my head, pushing her voice and the wall away and letting the pain rush through me. It was okay to hurt, Hestia had told me. Hurt leads to healing.
“Pain is how the injury lets itself be known. Tears are it being cleansed. And then the tender scab will cover it and it will slowly begin to heal. Don’t pick at it, don’t cover it up. Let it breathe and do its thing. It will heal quicker that way.”
Tears slid down my cheeks and I let them drip onto my t-shirt. I hated how much I still missed him. He’d barely been in my life, only present for a moment, but he’d made his mark.
“Maybe he was the thing you needed,” Addie had said the week before when she’d called to ask for a grocery list of items she could put in my kitchen before I arrived – so I didn’t have to immediately run to the store and shop.
“What do you mean?” I’d asked.
“To break through these walls you’ve had up for so long. Maybe he was the impetus to a better quality of life. He opened you up and—”
“Well, that’s a bit personal don’t you think?” I’d said, cutting her off.
She snorted loudly in my ear. “You’re disgusting.” She snickered some more. “And stop trying to distract me. Look, maybe thinking of him in those terms is a good way to help you get over him.”
“I thought you were still holding out hope for us.” Even though I’d told her not to. Repeatedly. And she’d ignored me. Repeatedly. Telling me she knew better.
“Oh, I am. I have a bet going with Alexandra.”
At the mention of her much more austere partner at the clinic, I laughed.
“Alex is too classy to bet on my love life,” I said.
“That is where you’re wrong, my friend.”
“Fine. But if you win big, I expect a big gift.”
“If I win, I imagine you will be getting a big gift. Didn’t you hint that Graham is well-endow—”
“Addie!” I’d blushed profusely as we’d both laughed.
I checked the time now. The movers would be here in an hour.
There was so much to do still, but I also needed to finish my latest article.
A piece for Harper’s Bazaar. I sat on one of the four kitchen stools and opened my laptop.
But I was too distracted. Rather than look at the document, I started to scroll.
First a social media site, then a fashion blogger’s website I followed, then an online home goods store for items for the new Seattle house.
Each click was more unsatisfying than the last. Because I knew what I really wanted.
I wanted to read Graham’s Around the Neighborhood articles.
It had been weeks since I’d read one and my fingers itched to type in the newspaper’s website.
“Don’t do it, dummy,” I whispered as I began tapping each key in turn until there they were, all the ones I’d missed, lined up down the right side of the screen.
I moved the mouse down and clicked the oldest one, reading, smiling, hearing his voice in my head. Then I moved on to the next one. And the next.
When I reached the latest article, I was already a mess.
Sniffling. Tears welling in my eyes. I missed his humor.
His thoughtful observations. When we used to take walks, or go out to eat, or talk on the phone, or spend any time together at all, he had a way of noticing things exactly like I did.
He saw the absurd in the mundane. The sweet in the ugly.
The silliness in the elegance. He was kind and decent and sexy and…
“Perfect,” I said, and then wiped away a tear and clicked on one last article.
I knew from the first word that the article would be about me.
Though he never named me, what he did do was something entirely different than all the other articles he’d ever written for the paper, explaining to his readers what had really happened that day.
What was going on behind the scenes of a woman who had publicly lost her shit.
How we never know what it is to walk in someone else’s shoes.
And when those shoes step in poo? Well, sometimes we falter. And sometimes we need a little grace.
I could barely read as he explained in vague details my plight that day. How he’d actually been so distracted by my eyes at first that he hadn’t realized he was being yelled at. How we ran into each other later. And then again. And then again.
“Destiny?” he asked his readers. “I don’t believe in coincidence so why now, after years of living blocks from one another, were we constantly in one another’s paths?”
He talked about Bronte’s clear approval of me. Her traitorous double tail thumps and leaning. How I’d taken care of him during her last day and passing.
He talked about it all. Briefly. Poignantly.
And then it ended. Elegantly as always with a sweet quip, a final thought, and a tender goodbye.
Carefully closing the laptop and shoving it aside, I laid my head on my arms and cried.
Big, body-wracking sobs, the pain of this loss pouring out of me.
The angst of the men I’d allowed in before, the lows I’d allowed myself to hit, the terrible words used against me by my mother that had sat in my body for years.
I cried over all of them. I cried until I couldn’t anymore.
And then I lifted the hem of my shirt, wiped my face, and sat looking around the packed-up kitchen.
“Time for a new chapter,” I whispered to the room.
There was a knock at the door and I spun to see the top of the moving truck out front. Sliding off the stool, I went to let the movers in.
I kept out of the way as much as possible, packing up the rest of the books that were still lining the bookshelves in the living room and watching from the window as the movers loaded my bed, which I’d decided not to burn after all, and the rest of my bedroom furniture into the truck.
As I emptied one shelf and moved to the next one down, my eyes caught sight of Graham’s name.
There they were. All seven of his books and the manuscript for the eighth that would be coming out next year.
It was his best yet. I’d stayed up late the night I’d gotten it, and then finished it the next morning over coffee and donut holes.
When I’d finished, I’d started all over again from the beginning.
It was an intricate work of art as lives intersected and broke before crossing again, the bonds too strong to sever forever.
I closed my eyes, letting the emotions flow through me.
When I opened them again, a flash of light blinded me and I raised my hand to block it while peering through the brightness to see what it was.
The sun coming through the window was glinting off my little silver Space Needle statue.
I stared at it and then had an idea. Picking it up, I held it in the palm of my hand, turning it over and over, my mind and heart racing in unison.
Maybe it was a stupid idea, but I didn’t care. It was my move.
Wrapping my fingers around the little statue, I dodged the moving guy carrying my desk across the entryway to the front door.
There was one pair of shoes left in my foyer. My favorite old white sneakers, which I’d planned on my wearing on my flight to Seattle.
But I was going to have to wear something else, it seemed.