Chapter 18
Nora has no idea what she’s doing. After much ado, her brain has finally given up at 7:37 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Or maybe a few hours before that.
She’s in her car. She’s driving east on I-20; then she’ll head north on I-85 and east on I-40 until she hits Raleigh.
Is this a good idea? Probably not. But Nora can’t see anything but Garrett.
She called her grandpa as she was getting on I-20 to let him know she had set off to Raleigh without a plan. He didn’t try to stop her. When she pointed this out, he said, “I know better than to get between you and whatever you’ve got in that head.” Not exactly a vote of confidence, but it is the truth.
Last night, Nora spent an hour or two crying. Mostly, she was crying about her own choices. She never wanted to work at Rabbittown Casket Company in the first place! Why was she suddenly making a big deal about it? She could sell the store. She could sell her parents’ house. She could sell everything that has ever given her any trouble. She could buy new clothes. She could get a new name. She could leave Rabbittown. But she would still be the same person. She would still have dead parents and the weight of trying to carry everything they left behind.
All of those separate pieces of her life: her old job, the plans she used to have, her family, her future, all the futures she didn’t get to have, and everything else—they all keep shifting and overlapping to make more room for every new thing she adds in. She can’t become one thing or another without the rest of it. She has to carry it all. She has to accept life as it is, not as she wants it to be. She can see that now.
All of these thoughts keep leading her back to Garrett. They couldn’t work it out before, because Nora wanted to meddle in his life, too. She wanted to take the Death part out of his life, but if she can’t even take the Death part out of her own life, what sort of sense does that make? Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t have Death lurking around somewhere? Isn’t Death a part of everyone’s life? Garrett tried to tell her this, but she wouldn’t listen. She wasn’t ready to hear it.
She knows there’s a chance that he won’t be ready to pick up where they left off. She thinks this surprise road trip might increase those chances, but she just couldn’t wait another second to talk to him in person. If he turns her down, she won’t be any worse off than she already is. If he calls the police, she’ll see if Jean can come get her out of a North Carolina jail.
As Nora was wrestling with this decision last night, she ran through all of these details. Of course she made a pro and con list. The biggest con was definitely jail time, but maybe she could talk him out of that. Another con was not knowing his parents’ address, but the internet helped. The last con on the list was breaking her own heart again, but she’s survived that before.
Nora tries to listen to the radio to pass the time in the car, but she ends up spending most of the eight-hour drive overthinking and reviewing the legal pad in the passenger seat. She stops twice for caffeine, which makes the overthinking worse, but it keeps her from turning around. She makes it to Raleigh and into the suburbs, and her heart starts to beat faster. As she gets closer to his parents’ neighborhood, she tells herself if she can just lay eyes on him for a moment, it will calm her racing heart and the butterflies banging around in her stomach.
Nora turns into his subdivision, because of course Garrett Bishop grew up in a subdivision, and she scopes out the houses. They seem pretty normal—slightly worn siding, newly painted shutters, vibrant flower beds, and children in almost every yard. She sees some people in the street ahead, because of course people run here on a Saturday afternoon. A woman in neon colors waves as she passes by going in the other direction. Nora sees a man running ahead of her in basketball shorts and a T-shirt.
Maybe Nora doesn’t recognize those shorts and that T-shirt, but she definitely knows the man wearing them. She would know him anywhere. Her heart beats faster, disproving her earlier theory; she really had not considered a situation like this in all of her overthinking. How had she missed a scenario in eight hours of hashing through the possibilities? She considers turning back because she is not properly prepared, but she didn’t drive this far to change her mind in the end zone.
When she catches up to him, she rolls down her passenger window and yells, “Hey!”
He has headphones on, so he doesn’t hear it. Maybe she should park the car and run after him? That is a terrible plan. She tries again to get his attention, but this time she drives a few yards past him and stops in the middle of the street. She sees the confusion on his face in the rearview mirror, and she waves at him through the back windshield.
He takes out his headphones and leans down into the passenger window.
“Hi,” Nora says.
“Hi.” He almost smiles, but he’s having a hard time breathing. He bends over to catch his breath.
“Are you okay?” she shouts across the front seat and out the window.
He puts his hands on his knees so he’s eye level with her. “Not really, no.”
“Do you want a ride?”
“I’m kind of gross,” he says, looking down at his shirt.
“Some people don’t care as much as you do about the cleanliness of their cars.”
He smiles as he opens the car door and sits down next to her. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I have a lot of questions.”
“I have answers.” For once, she’s telling the truth.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but what are you doing here?” He’s still trying to catch his breath. A drop of sweat runs down the side of his face.
Nora holds in a laugh. “I wanted to see you.”
“So, you drove to Raleigh?”
“Seems that way.” Even though he’s covered in sweat, she is absurdly attracted to this man. She doesn’t know how she ever thought she could have these feelings for anyone else.
“You know, I would have been home on Monday.” She hears the humor in his tone, so maybe the jail scenario is becoming less likely.
“I’m not good with patience.”
“Well, you’re here. Now what?”
“I want to talk.” All of the overthinking that brought her here, and she can’t remember anything she planned to say. “I know we’ve had our differences or issues or whatever you want to call them, and I know I told you that I couldn’t get over them.”
He nods, and her brain tries to figure out what to say next. She decides she might as well be as direct as possible. What does she have to lose?
“I was wrong. About all of it. I can get over all of those other things, but it doesn’t seem like I can get over you. If there’s a chance you would want to try and work things out or see where we go from here, I want to do that.”
“I thought you had moved on,” he says, staring out the windshield. He doesn’t give anything away.
“I tried. It didn’t happen.”
“How would this work?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“How would we work things out?”
“I don’t know. You said you wanted to get together to catch up. Maybe we could start there? I know we have a lot to talk about.”
He nods as if he’s thinking it over. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Really?” Her eyes widen. She thought for sure it would take more convincing. Or at least some convincing that she isn’t completely insane after stalking him to his parents’ house.
“Really.”
“I mean, I don’t want to change your mind, but I know I hurt you, so if you need some time, I would understand. Or we could talk about all of it first.”
“I’m actually extremely sick of talking about it, and I would be fine if we never talked about it again.”
She tilts her head to consider this for a moment. “I can stop talking.”
“I can’t believe you came all the way to Raleigh. I probably don’t even want to know how you tracked me down.”
“Probably not.”
He smiles at her, and she smiles back, with those same slightly nauseating emoji heart eyes they’ve always had for each other. She reaches across the console to grab his sweaty hand, but to be fair, hers is a little sweaty, too.
“If it’s okay, I would like to kiss you now,” Garrett says.
Nora nods, because she’s lost the ability to speak.
He leans over and presses his lips against hers so gently that Nora thinks he might be giving her the chance to change her mind. Then he takes her face in his hands and kisses her the way he used to kiss her, the way that conveys all the feelings they have for each other without them having to say a word. He stops long enough to say, “I’ve missed you,” against her lips.
“I missed you, too.”
They don’t kiss for much longer because they’re sitting in a car in the middle of the street where he grew up.
“What now?” he asks.
“Whatever you want,” she says.
They’re both smiling like the biggest idiots on the planet, and maybe that’s what they are.
“Can you stay for the weekend? I want you to meet my parents.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “I don’t want to make things weird with them.”
He laughs. “If my mom ever finds out you were in this city and didn’t stop to meet her, we will both be in a lot of trouble.”
“I’d like to meet her. I’d like to meet all of your family.”
“Let’s go, then.”
He points at a two-story a few houses down, and she pulls into his driveway behind the other cars. His house is gray with dark blue shutters, but she already knew that from Google Maps.
“Really, though. How did you find me?”
“The internet. I invaded your privacy. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He leans over to kiss her again before they get out of the car.
“This was a really crazy thing for me to do, Garrett. You should be freaked out.”
“I spent a ridiculous amount of money to see you at a conference, so I understand.” Her heart flutters at this admission. Somewhere, deep down, she had known he had gone to that conference for her, not for Death.
“I should have left with you.”
He smiles. “There are a lot of things I should have done in the time we’ve been apart, so maybe we’re a good match.”
Nora follows him up the sidewalk and through his front door, and she tries very hard not to have a panic attack. She didn’t think about what would happen after she talked to him. This scenario is brand-new to her brain, and her brain does not care for brand-new scenarios.
“Mom?” he calls. He motions for Nora to follow him into the kitchen, where she comes face-to-face with Garrett’s mom. Nora would know those eyes anywhere.
She looks from Nora to Garrett, waiting for an explanation.
“Mom, this is Nora,” Garrett says. “Nora, this is my mom.”
Nora sticks her hand out because it feels like the polite thing to do. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Bishop.”
When Garrett’s mother doesn’t take her hand at first, Nora assumes she’s in trouble. Instead, Mrs. Bishop squeals. “Oh, my god! It’s Nora!” she says to Garrett. She steps forward and takes Nora into a full-on mom embrace, knocking some of the breath out of her, literally and emotionally. It’s been a long time since a mom hugged her that way.
“You can let her go now,” he says.
“You didn’t tell me she was coming!” His mom swats his arm. “You obviously haven’t told me anything!” The more she talks, the more Nora hears her southern accent, and the more at home she feels.
“He didn’t know,” Nora says before Garrett can explain. “I just sort of showed up. I’m sorry. I promise I was raised better than that.”
“Well, what’s going on?” she asks. “Tell me everything.”
“Mom, give her some space.”
Mrs. Bishop rolls her eyes, and Nora recognizes her exasperated face from seeing it on Garrett so many times. “I’m trying to understand, and you are not helping.”
Now feels like the time to tell the truth. “Well, honestly, I came here to apologize and to beg him to take me back.”
She turns to Garrett. “And what did you say?”
“I brought her here to meet you, so what do you think?”
She claps her hands together and squeals again. Then she hugs Nora. “I knew it!” she shouts. “I told Garrett you were the one. I knew it! Didn’t I tell you?”
“Mom, please,” Garrett says. Normally it’s Nora blushing, but she doesn’t mind letting him have a turn. His hands fidget with the hem of his T-shirt.
“Please tell me you’re staying. Did he ask you to stay? If not, I’m asking you, and I’m not taking no for an answer.” She turns to Garrett and grimaces at his appearance. “Go take a shower. I’ll take care of Nora while you’re gone.”
Garrett huffs, “Well, she just got here, and if she leaves, I’ll know it’s your fault, so please stop acting insane.”
“I think it’s the two of you who have been acting insane, but what do I know?”
“That’s probably true,” Nora says.
“Please don’t leave,” he says. His eyes say a lot more than that.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
—
They spend the rest of the day with his family. Nora meets his dad, sister, and brother-in-law, and they all seem pleasantly surprised to see her. Nora figured they would be mad at her, but she knew Garrett had to keep things from them, so maybe the family didn’t know much about the time they had spent apart.
He brings out a photo album to show Nora pictures of his brother, and they start to talk about the stories behind the pictures. They’re all too happy to tell Nora about Garrett playing basketball and falling off his bike and being obsessed with Power Rangers.
She had forgotten what it was like to have a family like this. Asking for details about one another’s lives. Making fun of one another. So much talking at once. Garrett’s mom never lets Nora out of her sight, and Nora and Garrett can’t seem to stop touching each other. After dinner, Nora and Garrett are in the kitchen, doing the dishes, when Garrett wraps his arms around her waist and kisses the side of her neck. She spins around to face him and says, “You’re driving me crazy.”
He kisses her quickly on the mouth. “I can’t help it. I just have to make sure you’re real.”
“I’m real.”
“I’m happy,” he says. “This is better than I thought it could be.”
She laughs. “I think your mom is happier than you are. I’m going to have questions about that later.”
“She was tired of me moping around. She kept telling me to call you, and I wouldn’t. She threatened to send you flowers for your birthday herself if I didn’t.”
“I thought they might be mad at me.”
He shakes his head. “They just want me to be happy. I’m happy with you.”
Nora kisses him right as his brother-in-law walks in and tells them to get a room.
They do get a room. His parents don’t ask any questions, and Nora doesn’t protest about sleeping with Garrett in his childhood bedroom. It’s covered in basketball memorabilia. She’s never seen so many basketball posters in her life. She reads all of the ticket stubs and autographs while he watches her, as patiently as he can, from his full-size bed.
Nora changes into one of his T-shirts and climbs into bed next to him. She runs her hand over his bare chest for about two seconds before he rolls over on top of her. He kisses her, and all of their feelings rush to the surface. His hands travel all over her body, and she doesn’t think it’s possible for her to get as close as she wants to get to him tonight. He starts to pull the shirt over her head, and her conscience steps in.
“Wait,” she whispers.
“Is this too fast?”
“God, no. I just don’t think we should have sex in your parents’ house.”
He huffs, but he rolls off her. “Please don’t do this.”
She laughs. “I’m trying to be respectful.”
“I know.”
“Are you mad?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He kisses her neck. “Yes.”
“Garrett?”
“Nora?” He keeps kissing her neck.
“I love you.”
He moves to kiss her lips. “I love you, too.”
They lie there for a moment, until he slides as far away from her as the bed will allow.
Her brow furrows. “I thought you weren’t mad.”
“I’m not. I just thought this would be the perfect opportunity to talk, since we’re not doing anything else.”
She laughs. “I thought you were done talking. What do you want to talk about?”
He sighs. “We have to talk about how you feel about my job. I still have the same one, and I don’t want you to change your mind.”
“I’m not changing my mind. I’ve decided not to care about your job.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I love you, not your job. I’ll get over it.”
“It really didn’t seem like you would get over it, though. Even if I quit today, you’ll know I spent years helping people die. We need to talk about it.”
She sighs. “I think the expensive death conference helped me realize that I don’t have a leg to stand on. I wasn’t okay with Death because I wasn’t okay with all the death that has happened to me. That’s not your fault, though. It has nothing to do with you. And you were right. I make money from Death, too, in my own way.”
He tilts his head. “So, you’re okay with it now? After all that?”
She laughs. “I wouldn’t say I’m okay with it. I would say I’m working through it. I get why it’s important to you, and I respect that.”
“I’m really trying to understand.”
“I don’t know, Garrett. I guess I just realized I can’t be mad about my parents dying forever. I think the conference reminded me that death is the reason my parents met so many people and impacted so many lives. How can I sell caskets every day if I’m so mad about death? What good would it do anyway? Everyone dies, right? It’s not like I can stop it.”
“That’s logical of you.”
“I’m not mad about it anymore. My parents wouldn’t want me to be mad. They would want me to let it go. They would want me to help people if I can. Didn’t you say you were helping people? Then you’re doing a good thing, right?”
He rubs his hands up and down his face. “My head is spinning a little, but I’m glad you see it that way. It seems like you’ve done a lot of thinking since I saw you last.”
“Maybe I’m not explaining it right, but I promise I’m not going anywhere. Can you just trust me for now?”
“I trust you,” he says, taking a deep breath. “This is going to sound stupid, and I already regret saying it out loud, but I don’t want you to ignore what I do every day. I want you to be proud of me.”
She runs her fingers through his hair. “I am proud of you. You’re a good man. I think I’ve always known that.”
He pulls her toward him until they’re nose to nose. She takes his face in her hands and tries to memorize exactly what helooks like in this moment, the joy radiating from his face. As he kisses her, Garrett slides his hands up her body, and Nora can barely handle it. She climbs on top of him to feel him against her.
He groans. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me, too.”
“I can’t wait to be far away from my parents’ house.” He kisses her neck and down to the edge of her T-shirt.
“We have time,” she whispers.
They kiss for a while, letting their hands wander until Garrett can’t take it anymore. He asks her to talk about something boring, like the paint colors she’s been thinking about for the store, and he listens to every word. She falls asleep against his chest, hoping that life and Death will cut them some slack, at least for a little while.