Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Five minutes before Friday morning’s grief therapy session was set to begin, someone knocked the coffee maker to the ground and spilled dark, frothy liquid all across the linoleum floor.
The clumsy person was a woman in her thirties who’d lost her daughter last year to a horrible illness, and she immediately burst into tears and fell into the nearest chair, clutching her donut.
Everything broke apart. Steven and Gina sat on either side of her, talking her down, as James hurried to the hall closet to find a mop.
When he returned to the larger room, he found that even more of the grief therapy participants were weeping, as though the first woman’s tears had activated something in them.
James was stricken. The session hadn’t even started yet, and he’d lost control.
Slowly, he slid a mop through the coffee and inhaled.
“Why don’t we sit down, everyone?” he said, fixating on the mop as it swirled the coffee.
“Let’s take some breaths! Everything’s all right.
It’s just a little bit of spilled coffee. ”
It was at this moment that Elena and Carmen entered the community center.
James froze with surprise. He remembered inviting Elena to come, but he hadn’t expected her to show.
She wore a pained expression, surveying the coffee spill and the weeping participants.
Beside her, Carmen wore a look that meant it had taken a lot of Elena’s strength to get her out of the house.
“It’s a mess, Elena,” Carmen said. “First, you don’t let me work, and next, you drag me into this chaos?”
James finished mopping the coffee and hurried over to try to calm Carmen down. He knew that Carmen was experiencing the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s, which could manifest in numerous ways—none of which were comfortable for the people around (nor for Carmen herself, of course).
The woman who’d first knocked over the coffee stopped crying and watched the three of them, captivated from behind her hands.
James felt exposed, as though the onlookers would immediately catch that James had a not-small crush on Elena.
(Not that a crush mattered when you were in your forties.
He didn’t think it did, anyway. He wasn’t thirteen years old anymore, for crying out loud. He could control himself.)
Oh, but now, as he approached Elena and Carmen with a heavy heart, he was thinking about crushes.
He was remembering his son’s first crush, how nervous the young boy had been when he’d first told James about the girl at school.
His cheeks had turned fire engine red, and he’d stuttered.
What had James said? Something like, You’re going to have so many crushes in your life.
You’re going to fall in love so many times!
But his son hadn’t fallen in love numerous times.
He’d barely been allowed to have any crushes at all. Maybe three or four, if that. A single girlfriend, who’d moved away shortly after everything had happened.
Elena was looking at him nervously. Carmen continued to rattle off a list of things she’d rather be doing than attending this “silly workshop, or whatever it is.”
Rather than dwell in his own horrible, tumultuous emotions, James perked himself up and smiled. “Carmen, welcome to our little session today. It’s good to see you.”
Carmen half rolled her eyes. “My daughter seems to think this will be healing for us or something.”
Elena winced and gave James a nervous smile. “You like James, Mom. You told me. Remember?”
“I like him, sure. But I don’t care for all this therapizing,” Carmen offered. “No offense, James. I know it’s your life’s work, or whatever, but some of us have decided on grander pursuits. There’s nothing to be done about grief.”
“No offense taken.” James turned to look at the group, who looked buggy-eyed. “Everyone, you probably know Carmen Vasquez. But do you know her daughter, Elena? She’s spending some time in Millbrook during the Christmas season.”
There was a soft murmuring of hellos.
“I’ve read your articles, Elena,” Steven said as the mother-daughter duo approached. “You’re good.”
“Of course she’s good,” Carmen said. “She’s my daughter. She’s my mother’s granddaughter! She was born to be a journalist.”
A few smiles were exchanged throughout the group. James prayed that Carmen wouldn’t realize everyone was smiling about her, about her mood, about how funny her arrogance seemed now that she was unwell.
“How are you feeling?” Gina asked as Carmen settled in.
Carmen flipped her dark gray hair. “I don’t think we’re here to talk about me.”
“On the contrary,” James said, hurtling toward the single free seat in the circle, “we’re all here to talk about ourselves, and about each other.
We’re here to talk about grief, yes, but it’s more than that.
We’re here to talk about life after grief.
We’re here to talk about what it means to keep going after loss. ”
“And I’m here to say,” Carmen said, clearing her throat, “that we don’t matter as much as we think we do.” She folded her arms. “And everyone loses things. People. Places. Jobs.”
Elena looked pained, her head down. James tried to catch her eye and finally succeeded. He offered her a look he hoped translated how much he felt for her during this difficult time.
“Maybe someone else can get started for us so Carmen can get a better picture of what we do here,” James suggested.
After a brief and awkward silence, Gina chimed in, explaining what she’d been up to that week and the various times she’d been initially overwhelmed with grief but found ways to overcome.
A few other people piped up, echoing what Gina had been through and explaining their own tactics.
Throughout, Carmen seemed to grow angrier.
She fidgeted and cast sidelong glances at Elena.
When there was a moment of silence, Elena piped up.
“Hi,” she began, addressing the group nervously.
“I’m Elena. Elena Vasquez. I got to town a week ago now.
I hadn’t been here for a full five years, so you can imagine the whiplash I’ve gone through.
Since I was last here, my father died, and Mom and I haven’t spoken.
Like at all. I was in Syria when he died, and I didn’t hear about it till after, um, after the burial.
And I’ve felt terrible since. Inundated with guilt. ”
Interrupting her, Carmen gasped, as though she couldn’t believe Elena would drag their dirty laundry out into public like this.
“It’s okay, Carmen,” James assured. “Elena wants to speak about her grief. She wants to verbalize what happened.”
“But you can’t just say it,” Carmen blurted. “That isn’t how a journalist operates. What I’m hearing right now is all opinion, opinion, opinion, but where are the facts?”
Elena touched her mother’s arm and bent her head to whisper in her ear.
James couldn’t fathom what was said. But all at once, Carmen was on her feet, stomping to the front door.
Elena got up and followed her, but James chased her down, eager to help in any way he could.
When they reached the glass door, which displayed flashing snowfall, he managed to speak to Elena, saying, “Are you all right?”
Elena blinked at him, her hand on the door. Her mother was already out on the sidewalk, ranting at her about revealing too much.
“I shouldn’t have brought her,” Elena said, biting her lower lip. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
James shook his head. “She’s sick. I know that.”
“I don’t want her to be sick.” Elena’s eyes glinted. “I want it to stop.”
James knew exactly what she meant. He wanted his own grief to stop, too. It often felt like a ride he couldn’t jump off.
“Come by later, if you want,” Elena said. “She’ll be in bed by eight thirty, and I can’t sleep very well before midnight.”
James nodded but didn’t manage to respond, not before Elena chased her mother, whipping her coat over her shoulder as she ran.
That night, James carried a bottle of red wine over to Elena and Carmen’s place.
Standing on the front porch, he swept the snow from his hair and reached to knock on the door.
Before he could, the door opened, and Elena stood before him, wearing a dark sweatshirt and a pair of leggings.
She looked cozy and adorable—but she’d added a little bit of makeup, and she’d styled her hair.
He thought so, anyway. In any case, she looked good. He smiled and held up the wine.
In the kitchen, Elena poured them both a glass and apologized for what had happened during the grief therapy session.
“I don’t know what got into me,” she said.
“I mean, I know she’s sick. I know she’s grieving.
I know she doesn’t fully know what she’s saying.
But I don’t want to make everyone else’s grieving process worse. ”
“You didn’t,” James said. “In fact, we had a really wonderful discussion after you left.”
Elena sat across from him and put her chin on both fists. “You’re saying that my messy relationship with my mother was good fodder for group discussion?”
James laughed. “We all look to others for inspiration.”
“And we learn from others what not to do,” Elena said, raising her glass to his. They clinked.
Suddenly, James was overcome with the need to spill the beans on his own life. It felt unfair that he knew so much about Elena, and she knew so little about him. (Unless, of course, someone had filled her in on his story, which was always possible in a town as small as this.)
“You know,” he began, “I have my own story. My own grief.”
Elena’s face was shadowed.
“You already know?” he guessed.
Elena shook her head. “I didn’t want to learn it from anyone but you.”
James felt a swell of affection for her—her kindness and empathy.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said. “I get it. It’s a lot to carry around.”