Chapter 32 MJ
MJ
I’m in the kitchen, pouring myself a cup of tea, when Lindsey comes back from tucking Emily in. She pads into the kitchen barefoot and retrieves a glass from the cabinet.
“How’re you holding up, sweetheart?” I ask as she gets herself some water from the dispenser.
“Fine,” she answers, though we both know she’s not.
I point to a foil-covered platter. “I have some brownies over there. Your favorite.” It’s a recipe I make every Christmas that I found in a cookbook I bought at an estate sale nearly thirty years ago, one that quickly became Lindsey’s favorite. And Henry’s.
“Thanks.” She gives me a weak smile. “I’m not really hungry.”
“Okay.” I nod as she leaves the room, a dark cloud looming over her head, and I can’t shake the feeling that I helped put it there. That my advice, coupled with the way I’ve lived these last five years—how I’ve forced us all to live—has hardened her.
I follow behind her with my steaming mug in my hands and pass Ben, who’s taking Noah up to bed.
“I wanna go home and wait for Santa,” Noah whines.
“We can’t do that, buddy,” Ben says. “We’re staying here.”
Noah pouts. “But why?”
“Because we always spend Christmas with Grandma.” Ben’s tone is vaguely annoyed, suggesting this probably isn’t the first time the subject has come up.
“But—”
“Tell your grandmother good night, please.”
“’Night, Grandma,” Noah says, his little mouth turning downward.
Ben gives me an apologetic smile, and a twinge of guilt pokes me in the side.
“Good night, sweetheart,” I say before taking my spot on the love seat next to Rose, where yet another Christmas movie is playing.
I can’t remember a single thing about the plot of any of the films we’ve watched today.
It’s hard to focus on anything with Lindsey looking so heartbroken.
She arrived late because she had to drop by the clinic on the way over.
Something about checking on a patient. When she got here, her eyes were red and puffy, and I began to suspect there wasn’t a patient at all.
She went through all the motions of a typical Christmas Eve with the family.
We grazed on the snacks I prepared and ate lasagna for dinner.
Lindsey picked at her food just enough to make it look like she was eating.
She’s avoided having much in the way of conversation, opting to play no less than seventeen rounds of Candy Land with Noah and Emily.
The light that’s been shining in my daughter’s eyes for the last month has dimmed to a mere flicker.
“Didn’t we see this one already today?” Lucy asks, munching on a handful of Chex Mix. “That girl looks familiar.”
Willow rests her head on Lucy’s shoulder. “I think that’s because she was the lead in the one we watched two movies ago.”
“Can’t they find anyone else to star in these things?” Lucy pops a pretzel in her mouth. “How am I supposed to believe she’s serious about this guy running the bakery when she’s supposed to be with the guy that owns the goat farm?”
Rose yawns. “That two-timing hussy.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure goat guy and bakery guy are the same person too,” Ellie says. “He just shaved his scraggly beard.”
“Well, he was a goat farmer,” I say. “I think the beard kind of suited him.”
Rose nods. “He’s welcome to farm this old goat any time.”
Lucy wrinkles her nose. “Ew.”
“What do you think, Linds?” Ellie asks. “Beard or no beard?”
It takes a moment for Lindsey to register that Ellie’s question was directed at her.
“Hmm?” she says finally.
“The guy.” Ellie points to the TV. “Do you like him better with the beard or without?”
Lindsey stares blankly at the screen, and I’m positive she still has no clue what we’re talking about.
“Oh. Um, without’s fine, I guess,” she says with a shrug before rising to her feet. “I’m pretty tired. Too much Candy Land for one day. I think I’m going to go on up to bed.”
“Are you sure?” Willow asks. “If you stick around long enough, we might get to see this guy own a rundown inn.”
“Yeah, I’m beat.” Lindsey forces a smile. “But I’ll see y’all bright and early.”
“Of course, sweetheart,” I say. “Get some rest.”
She leans down to kiss my cheek. “G’night.”
A chorus of “good night” follows her as she leaves the room.
“I wonder what facial hair he’ll have in the next one,” Rose says. “A goatee? Maybe a Tom Selleck mustache?”
And they’re off on another tangent, the goat farmer and the bakery owner forgotten. I make a concerted effort to nod at appropriate intervals and contribute an occasional uh-huh, but my heart is with my eldest daughter, who’s climbing the stairs to her childhood bedroom.
Her footfalls on the steps grow farther and farther away, until they disappear. The sound used to bring me comfort because I was once naive enough to believe that as long as my children were close, I could protect them from anything.
In my own grief and desire to keep things the way they were, I lost sight of what matters: the people I love that are still here.
Lindsey asked me what she should do when we were in that hospital bathroom, and I failed her.
I told her about the cost of love, but I didn’t tell her about the reward.
Maybe because I’ve been so focused on everything I was missing that I lost sight of what I have.
Everything I still have.
My sister, my beautiful children and grandchildren, and a life well-loved.
But there’s something else too. Ron’s face and kind smile fills my mind, warming me from the inside.
There’s a new story waiting to be written, if I can just be brave enough to grab a pen.
I rise just before the sun on Christmas morning, get dressed, and tiptoe downstairs so as not to wake anyone while I brew the first of many pots of coffee.
Normally, I’d be starting the French toast casserole we have for breakfast every year and prepping the sides and Christmas dinner.
I’d be in a tizzy all day to make sure everything is perfect. But not today.
Today, I’ve decided, will be different.
I fill a travel mug with coffee and shrug on my coat before grabbing my purse and keys from the kitchen counter.
Frigid air slaps me in the face when I step out into the dawn and trudge toward my car.
The leather seats are so cold, they send chills through my body, but I don’t have time to let it warm up.
I want to get out of here as inconspicuously as possible.
Thankfully, the drive is short. It’s not one I’ve made in years, but I know it with the intimacy of a worn love letter, the ink faded from decades of retracing the words with my fingers.
When I arrive at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens, I drive up the winding path that leads to where Henry is waiting for me.
We bought our plots in our late thirties, back when the idea of needing them seemed eons away.
We told the guy at the funeral home we liked the magnolia trees along the back of the property, and when he said he had two plots together beneath one of the sprawling giants, we bought them and promptly put the whole thing out of our minds.
I pull to a stop a few yards away and climb out of the car with my coffee, grabbing a blanket from the trunk before making the rest of the journey on foot.
Henry insisted I keep one there in case of emergency after the Mid-South got hit with a massive ice storm in the late nineties. He always thought of things like that.
The air is still and peaceful, other than the light wind rustling against the trees and the echo of tires on asphalt in the distance from the occasional car passing along the highway.
The sun is rising over the tree line, casting a golden glow over the headstones.
I never considered cemeteries to be anything but sad, but right now, this place is beautiful.
“You’ve got a nice view here.” The warmth of my breath fogs up my glasses as I approach Henry’s resting place. With one hand, I wrap the thick blanket around me and sit, grateful to have the extra layer of protection from the frosty ground.
I take a long pull from my coffee. The sight of Henry’s marker still makes my stomach sink. It’s hard to comprehend how a life so vibrant can be reduced to a simple inscription:
Loving Husband, Father, and Friend to All Animals.
“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” I say. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit.
It’s still hard for me, and if I don’t come, I can play these mind games with myself and pretend you’re somewhere else, away at one of those vet med conferences you used to speak at.
That’s a lot easier than accepting that you’re really gone. ”
“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things,” I admit.
“Rose told me after Thanksgiving that celebrating the holidays with me wasn’t fun anymore, and I think she’s right.
I’ve been hanging on to you so tight, I didn’t leave room for, well, anything else.
All I’ve managed to do is make myself and everyone around me miserable.
I couldn’t see it before, or maybe I just didn’t want to. ”
I slide my thumb over the edge of my mug and sigh.
“I’m worried about Lindsey,” I say. “She met someone. You’d like him. He’s everything you ever wanted for her. I think she was starting to feel something for him, but she got scared and ended things. She chose feeling safe over being loved.”
I place my hand on the cold bronze stone bearing my husband’s name, as though maybe wherever he is, he’ll feel it.
“We both know safety is an illusion, don’t we?
” Tears brim my eyes, and I place my cup on the ground so I can remove my glasses and dab beneath my lashes.
“We were supposed to have many more years together, you and me. In fact, I believe I was promised forever, and now, here we are. But how lucky were we to find someone we loved so much that even forever wouldn’t have been long enough? ”
God, we were so lucky. I sniff, pulling the blanket tighter around myself.
“I’ve been in a holding pattern since you died, Henry. Our entire family has, and that’s my fault. They only stayed that way because of me. They wanted to help me not be sad, when the truth is, I’ll never not be sad about losing you.”
“This is a beautiful sunrise. It’s perfect.” I lean my head back and squint, my eyes adjusting to the growing light. It looks as though someone sliced a blood orange and used its juices to paint the sky. “I wish I could have this sunrise—this exact one—every day for the rest of my life.”
“But I can’t. I get to enjoy it while it’s here, but that’s it.
That’s all I get.” I squeeze my eyes shut, the colors staining the backs of my eyelids.
“I can sit here every morning and wait for that same exact sunrise to come again, with those same vibrant colors, but I’ll never be satisfied.
I’ll always be disappointed because some mornings it’ll be overcast or maybe it won’t be quite as pretty.
Or maybe it’ll be stunning, but in an entirely different way.
As long as I’m sitting here waiting for that sunrise, I’ll never find what I’m looking for. ”
My tears leave icy trails down my cheeks. “Or I can decide right here and now to remember this sunrise for the rest of my life. To accept there will never be another one like it, but that doesn’t mean the one that comes tomorrow won’t be beautiful in its own way.”
I close my eyes, and I can almost feel my husband next to me, his hand covering mine.
“And I think that’s what I want to do, Henry. I want to chase sunrises for as long as I can. Or maybe I’ll become partial to sunsets or midnights.”
Warmth builds in my chest, as though the sun is shining directly from the center of my heart.
“I want you to know, I’ll carry you with me no matter where my story ends, because you are where it began and you’ll always be my most favorite part.”
I kiss the tips of my fingers and place them to the headstone before rising to my feet.
“I love you, Henry. I always will, but it’s time for me to go chase some more sunrises.”