82 Days
Rhea spent three months going from her bed to Topanga General and back to her bed. She could not see friends; she could not hike; she could barely even speak to Louisca. He got used to their quiet coexistence in the store and was kind enough to give her space.
When Danny was her boyfriend, she’d taken a break from her therapist and her life coach; she could not imagine spending one extra second away from Danny. Now she knew she should start the sessions back up again but could not imagine spending one extra second away from her bed.
She was completely hollowed out by loss; she dropped weight and wore stained sweatpants to work in her designer clothing store. Halfway through the first month, she could not take the pain of waking up anymore. She longed to soothe herself and sent an ill-advised text to Danny: I miss you so much
She watched the ellipsis appear and disappear on his end of the chain.
Her feverish longing to hear his voice almost made her dial his number.
Finally, he wrote back: I can’t do this.
I can’t drag this out. I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you but I will hurt you more in the long run if I don’t cut this off.
Please don’t reach out again. This will get easier.
She cried so hard she made herself throw up.
She felt utterly helpless. She’d lost him and could not undo it.
She would never be able to convince him she did not want children.
Even if she could, she would be lying, and she could not lie to him ever again.
There was nothing on this earth that could bring her any solace.
Food tasted like sand. Drinking alcohol brought her depression up to scary levels of bleakness—levels she might not survive.
She silenced the Ada-Tiny-Rhea-Zoe text chain; she could not look at another baby photo.
They each individually reached out and questioned her lack of activity on the chain; Rhea was surprised they’d actually noticed the absence of emojis.
She told them about the Danny breakup and said she was just taking a little bit of time to heal; they were all trying to respect her desire for space.
She felt a fierce, unquenchable need to talk to her mother. She tried to imagine what Sarah would say: “What kind of man doesn’t want kids?”
An obvious reply would hang in the air: “Um, my father…?”
But Rhea would never say that; her mom hated talking about Rhea’s father.
“Eh, Danny’s a coward. Count your blessings you got out when you did. Bullet dodged, sis.”
Her mother always blamed everyone else. She never took responsibility or wanted Rhea to take responsibility for anything.
She would never own up to sending Rhea all those encouraging hummingbirds or admonish Rhea for all the lying and manipulation.
Not that any of that mattered. Rhea would never know what her mother would say; she did not have a mother.
The worst part was that, throughout all the pain and self-neglect, Rhea’s tea garden continued to thrive.
She never went near it, but all the herbs were bushy and verdant; sometimes, when she was drinking tea on her deck and the wind picked up, she could smell them.
That morning, she looked down and saw two Steves in her yard; one Steve lifted his leg on her garden.
“Good dog,” she said.
It was the first joke she had made since the breakup. She felt relieved she still had a sense of humor. She heard a knock at her door, and even after three interminable months, a wisp of hope that it might be Danny floated through her mind.
She opened the door, and Tiny barged in.
“I can’t take this anymore, dude. I know you asked for space, but I’m too worried about you.
You know, we started a new text chain, and all we talk about is whether or not we’ve given you enough space yet.
And don’t tell them I’m here ’cause they decided we should keep respecting your boundaries, but I went fuckin’ rogue. ”
Rhea took in her dear, feisty friend and started bawling. Tiny wrapped her short arms around Rhea’s neck.
“I’m broken. I cannot get over this, no matter what I do.”
“Takin’ a look around here, I’m guessing all you’ve tried is living in filth and letting rats nest in your hair?”
“I’m paralyzed, I can’t do anything.”
“Well, your house fuckin’ reeks,” Tiny said as she stepped out of their hug and opened several windows. “And you need to shower ’cause you reek too.”
“I think I’m done with showering. What’s the point? You go through all that, then you gotta do it again a few days later. It never ends…. ”
“Rhea…Get. In. The. God. Damn. Shower.”
Tiny sat on the toilet seat lid while Rhea showered and recounted every second of her relationship with Danny.
Tiny did not interject; she just listened, and when Rhea was dried off, fully dressed in clean gray sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt, and done with her story, Tiny said, “Rhea, I’m heartbroken for you. For both of you. I am so sorry about all of it.”
“It’s not your fault—”
“You met him at my house; it’s at least a little bit my fault.”
“I just don’t know what to do now.”
“What can you do? You gotta just move one foot in front of the other, but I think we should be done with the wallowing phase, if I could just shove you through the stages of grief a little faster.”
“Where’s Wolfie?”
“At home. With his favorite person.”
“Jason?”
“His nanny. I swear to God, Ree, I’ve been there every second of his life, and he still prefers her to me. He’ll chug my breast milk, then physically shove me away to reach for her. My nipples look like meatloaf, but she’s his mommy.”
“I’m so sorry I haven’t met him yet,” Rhea said, and started crying again.
“Good news for you, I got him for another seventeen years and eight months. Even better news for you, you’re gonna meet him tonight. ’Cause you’re coming over.”
Rhea thought about leaving her house and audibly sighed. “I don’t think I can make it tonight.”
“Ree, no. I’m not letting you spend tonight alone; I know it’s not your favorite holiday, but—”
“What holiday?”
“…Halloween.”
“It’s Halloween?”
“Holy fuck. I cannot believe we were actually gonna keep respecting your boundaries. This is so much worse than I thought. Get your purse; we’re leaving now.”
Rhea tried to come up with any excuse not to leave her house.
“I don’t have a costume.”
“I have one for you.”
“I hate Halloween.”
“That’s only ’cause you’ve never seen Wolfie dressed as a strawberry.”
“I think I have a cold; I don’t wanna get him sick.”
“He’s already sick. He’s never not been sick.”
Out of excuses, Rhea found herself standing outside Tiny and Jason’s bedroom door, holding Wolfie in his inconceivably adorable strawberry costume while on the other side of the door, Tiny put on an awkward bunch of grapes and Jason put on a giant banana.
They stepped out of the bedroom, and the sight of this ridiculous family of fruit made Rhea laugh for the first time since the breakup.
“We’re a fruit bowl!” Tiny exclaimed. “And you, my friend, are…a lemon.”
Tiny held up a clear plastic bag with an adult lemon costume inside, and Rhea recoiled.
“Come on, where’s your holiday spirit?”
“I hate Halloween,” Rhea repeated, but took the costume into the bathroom and put it on.
The round, yellow fruit covered her entire body.
It was the second-least-flattering costume in existence, the first least flattering being Tiny’s bunch of grapes, and Rhea flat-out refused to wear the yellow beret with a green stem sticking out of it.
She did feel a lot warmer with it on, partly because it was polyester but mostly because Tiny had thoughtfully taken the time to buy her a lemon costume.
A member of Tiny’s staff took pictures of them: adults dressed as fruit, forcing grins while a fat little strawberry looked off into the distance, bored and confused.
Rhea looked at the photos on Tiny’s cellphone and laughed again.
She was genuinely starting to feel lighter; Tiny might have just saved her life.
Rhea looked out the window at the darkening sky and said, “Should we go soon?”
“Uh-huh, very soon, we’re just waiting on…some people.”
“Tiny…?”
“Well, if I told you they were joining us, you wouldn’t’ve come.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone. But I swear to God, it’s gonna make you feel better to be around a lot of people. But if they ask, tell them you called me. I do not wanna hear a fuckin’ boundary speech from Ada.”
Zoe and her family arrived first. Zoe’s older daughter was Alice. The new baby was the Cheshire Cat, David was the Mad Hatter, and Zoe was the evil Queen of Hearts, which Rhea found amusingly apropos.
“Rhea! You’re here!” Zoe embraced her. “Thank God. We’ve been so worried about you. But honestly, my love, I had a bad feeling about Danny right from jump street, and I’m so relieved you ditched him.”
Everything about Zoe’s words hurt. Rhea did not want anyone to think ill of Danny; she loved Danny more than she could ever put into words.
Also, why did people wait for something to go bad and then say, “I knew that was going to go bad”?
If you knew it was going to go bad, you should have told me before it went bad!
Rhea just imposed a smile and told them how adorable their family costume was.
The Achebe-Millers arrived next. Ada was dressed as Wendy.
Marcus was Captain Hook. Chichi and Ekele were both Peter Pan, and sweet little Obinna was stuffed into a Tinkerbell costume; he kept pulling his wings to his mouth so he could suck on them.
Ada Achebe was living Rhea’s dream life, Neverland and all.
Ada screamed when she saw Rhea and hugged her for so long that Ekele started to cry for attention.
“I’m so happy you’re here, Ree Kee! I feel like I never got a chance to properly thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
All Rhea could think about was how guilty she felt that Obinna was three months old and they’d never met.
“For what? For watching Chichi and Ekele. For saving our butts. And for my Meal Train.”