Chapter 23
Ella
Friday
Mrs. Violet handed me her heaviest grocery bags. I’d offered to help her carry them to her house, which was only a few minutes away from the local market, a shortcut on foot.
It had been a stressful week. My sister caught a cold that passed on to my mom, who was now recovering at home too.
I had to pick up my brothers from school, go grocery shopping for the house, and I was supposed to prepare the registration form for people selling support baskets to raise funds for senior year prom.
Plus, I had told Saga at the CIC that I would take her shift at the kindergarten so she could go on vacation this week, and I felt a tight knot in my throat.
Because maybe I wasn’t able to take care of everything.
After leaving Mrs. Violet and her grocery bags, I returned to the market, mentally reviewing the shopping list that I hadn’t had time to write down on paper.
“Ella!” Miles drove by in his mother’s car, slowed down, and pulled over next to me. “What are you doing?”
“On my way to the market!” I answered, a little rushed.
“You walked here?” he asked, noticing I was walking down the street instead of parking at the market.
“No,” I said, gesturing with my arms as I tried to figure out the fastest way to explain it all to him. But my brain was racing against my pending tasks. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk unless you come with me to the market,” I suggested.
“Alright! I was just heading home. I’ll go with you and help!” He understood, and my face expressed gratitude.
We ran through the market corridors. Dividing to conquer.
I would dictate to Miles what was needed, and he would disappear and reappear with things for the basket while I did the same.
When we returned to the parking lot, Miles helped me load the car with the groceries.
“Can you tell me what time it is, please?” I asked him.
I needed to get home, put at least the cold items in the fridge, then go out to pick up my brothers from school, go back home, and get to the CIC in time for the kindergarten shift. Lastly, I would go back home and cook soup and something else for dinner. Oh, crap, I forgot the pharmacy.
“Ella, you need to breathe.” Miles stood in front of me, forcing me to stop thinking. “You do this sometimes.”
“What do I do sometimes?”
He looked at me with a face of genuine understanding. “You need to learn to ask for help.”
Ask for help? What did he mean? I did ask for help. But at that moment, I was helping other people who did need the help. Not me.
“You take care of everyone all the time. That’s just who you are.
” He fixed his gentle green eyes on mine.
“You’re always there. And I understand that they do need you sometimes.
But you should learn to ask for help. You don’t have to do everything on your own.
And you don’t have to be 100% available, all the time, for everyone, to the point that you forget your boundaries and…
you forget yourself.” He made a brief pause.
“You taught me that fulfillment comes from helping others, and now I’m teaching you that fulfillment also comes from taking care of yourself. ”
I guessed the nervousness of the whole week had made me swallow feelings. Maybe I had been trying not to show weakness. Not to show tiredness. When Miles lifted the lid of my inner jar, or knocked over my perfectly composed Jenga pyramid, tears ran down my cheeks.
He saw me through the tinted sunglasses I was emotionally wearing.
I walked to the other side of the car, pretending I had to leave my purse there for some reason.
“What are you doing? Come here. Don’t cry alone. Come and cry with me. I’ll be here and offer you a tissue at the end of it,” he said, and I let out a quiet chuckle. It was nice to have him let me be on a rainy, cloudy day. “What else do you need to do today?” he asked.
And then I walked back to his side. He let me rest my head on his chest. And he listened to me.
He had heard me vent and worry about things before, but it was the first time I cried next to him. And I truly cried. Tears and sobs. From sadness, or anxiety. I didn’t exactly know.
Maybe I just needed to.
And he let me.
Four hours later, Miles rang my home number. My brother Alvin answered the phone and called me from downstairs.
Miles had picked up my brothers from school earlier so that I could stop by the pharmacy, go home, cook dinner, and take care of my mom and sister.
He had then taken my shift — Saga’s shift — at the kindergarten.
I wouldn’t let him do it at first, but he insisted he was becoming quite skilled with children and claimed he wanted me to give him a chance to practice that “complex job”, as he called it.
I lit the fireplace and tidied up the house after checking on my sick patients upstairs, each one resting in their bedroom.
The soup was ready, and a lasagna was cooking in the oven. I had just asked my brothers to go set the table for us.
Miles kept telling me I didn’t need to thank him every time I used the words “thank you” on our phone call, but the truth was that I felt like words meant nothing compared to how much it meant what he had done for me that day.
He shared some stories from the kindergarten and his adventure with the “small humans”, as he would say. I laughed and realized he had enjoyed it. His heart was bigger than he gave it credit for. And I felt grateful to be part of it.