Chapter Eleven #2
“Fingers crossed,” Julian said. He shed his coat and scarf and hung them on the coatrack like he’d done it a thousand times before.
For a beat, Charlie realized he had. Julian had stood in this hall, had eaten at Gram’s table and had sat in her living room with Charlie cuddled next to him on the couch.
Looking at him now, she was suddenly twenty-one again, Tom was alive and…
nothing. Don’t drift away with those thoughts.
Not now. She cleared her throat. “I really appreciate this.”
“Of course. I’m happy to help.” They looked at each other for a long beat, then Julian glanced toward the basement door. “Put me to work?”
“Do you want a drink first? Gram has coffee, and there’s beer in the fridge.”
“Work first,” he decided. “Then I’ll take the beer you promised me as payment.”
Charlie led him to the basement, pausing for a beat. “Before we go down, just remember, you were warned.”
Julian snorted as they descended the stairs. By the time they got to the bottom, all he could do was mutter, “Wooooow.”
“Told you,” Charlie said, feeling slightly vindicated.
“I should have taken that warning seriously,” Julian said. “Maybe asked for more than pizza.”
“What could be better than pizza?”
He caught her eye, and for the next hour, Charlie tried not to think about what his answer might have been as they hauled furniture out of the basement. When they were done, Julian heaved and collapsed on the dusty old couch that had been relocated to the porch. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Charlie said. “Might get swarmed by the dust bunnies.”
“They can have me,” Julian wheezed. “That’s the most labor I’ve done in a long time.”
“Should have demanded your payment up front,” Charlie teased. She nudged him out of the way so she could cover the couch with a tarp.
Julian perked up. He was probably ravenous now. “Time for sustenance.”
“Pizza from Gordo’s?” she suggested.
“Pepperoni with hot honey?”
“We’ll get half hot honey, half something else.”
Julian grinned. “Still have your aversion to spicy foods?”
“Unless you want me to have hiccups for the rest of the night.”
“It’s very cute.”
Charlie headed inside to place their order and tried not to dwell on cute. By the time the pizza arrived, they’d cleared enough boxes from the living room to utilize the sofa. Charlie hadn’t gotten around to canceling Gram’s cable yet, and Julian quickly flipped it to the local news channel.
“Look!” he said excitedly. “There we are.”
“I didn’t know this was on tonight!” she said, settling down next to him.
“Hold on,” he said, texting furiously. “I’m just letting the admin team know. Hopefully someone can go put the news on in the common room for the residents.”
He was quiet for a moment, then the corner of his mouth curled.
“All good?” she asked.
“They were already on it. Apparently Maggie saw a commercial break earlier and rallied the choir to the common room.”
“Should have known she’d be on top of it,” Charlie said, taking a sip from her beer before setting it down on the coffee table next to Julian’s. She pointed at the TV as the footage played across the screen. “Frank looks so dapper with his bow tie and suspenders.”
Watching the news bite, seeing the residents smile and laugh and clap their way through “Jingle Bells,” Charlie knew she’d made the right decision letting go of the reins. Music was something to be enjoyed, and she was glad Julian had helped her remember that.
“I see they cut out any front-facing view of Harriet’s sweater,” Julian noted.
Charlie laughed. “I told you they would. You really think this’ll improve our chances of getting into the competition?”
“I don’t see how it can hurt.”
Charlie sighed. “The choir will be so bummed if they don’t get to perform.”
Julian laid his head against the back of the couch. “I know.”
“I won’t be able to bear the looks on their faces.” An uncomfortable feeling twisted in her gut as the news bite ended. She hadn’t realized just how badly she wanted this for them.
“You okay?” Julian asked, putting down his plate.
“Just thinking,” Charlie said.
“About?”
“I don’t want Gram to be disappointed. Glendale should be a new chapter for her, and I want that to come with good memories.”
Julian glanced around the room. “There’s…a lot of pictures of Tom. More than I remember.”
Charlie pulled her knees to her chest. “Gram had a lot of them framed after he passed. For the funeral. And the wake. And she just never put them away again.”
“That must be…difficult,” Julian said diplomatically. “Being surrounded by all of this.”
“I think that’s why I stayed away from Elm Springs for so long,” Charlie said quietly.
“It’s easier to keep my emotions in check, to not let them overwhelm my life, when I’m not thinking about him constantly.
But Tom’s frozen in time here, and if I let my guard down, even for a moment, those memories flood in along with the grief, and…
I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with that yet. ”
Julian’s eyes flickered to the hall, to the boxes she’d piled in front of the stairwell. “Why does it look like you’ve cordoned off the second floor?”
“Umm… Tom,” she started. “When he was… They offered him really nice hospice facilities, but when it came time for that, he just wanted to be in the place that he loved most in the world. Outside of a stage, that is.”
“And that was here,” Julian finished, his soft words filled with realization.
Charlie nodded, feeling sick. Her heart crashed against her ribs. The pizza congealed in her stomach.
“Shit, Charlie,” Julian said under his breath. “Sorry doesn’t feel like enough, does it?”
“Honestly, after it happened, sorry started to feel like the most empty word in the English language.”
“Do you mind me asking how it happened?”
“Cancer,” Charlie said, forcing the word out. “You never think it’ll be you, you know? It’s something you expect to hear in your seventies, not your thirties.”
Julian shook his head.
She put her plate on the coffee table next to his. “You know what still gets me to this day?”
“What?”
“That I didn’t even notice when he got sick.”
“I’m not sure anyone really does. Right? Not at first.”
“But it seems so obvious now when I look back. He was suddenly tired all the time and losing weight. We were traveling for concert performances and doing back-to-back shows. Fatigue just sort of comes with the territory when you’re touring.
But I actually joked that we were working him too hard,” Charlie said.
She rubbed her brow. “That moment plays on repeat in my head sometimes. Like, what was wrong with me? Why didn’t I see what was happening?
Maybe if I’d figured it out sooner or if I’d asked the question—”
“Hey,” Julian said, reaching for her hand, threading their fingers together. “Nothing about this situation was fair, Charlie. Wishing for hindsight when all you can do is look forward… Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t carry that around.”
She swallowed hard, words turning to clay in her throat. She suspected she’d always feel like there was more she could have done.
“Is that why you stopped singing?” Julian asked.
“It’s funny,” Charlie said. “Music is all I know how to do, and yet I can’t seem to find a place where it makes sense anymore.
Tom always said to find a place where the music sings to you.
But since he’s been gone, nowhere feels right.
And the moment it starts to feel wrong, it’s just easier to pick up and leave.
I keep thinking it can’t go on like this, but it does…
I’m fighting so hard to stay right now because I want Gram settled and secure.
I don’t want her to feel like I abandoned her, but some days it’s—”
“Overwhelming?” he said, not looking at her.
She sighed. “Having to constantly fight off the feelings is exhausting.”
“Grief doesn’t follow any kind of time line,” Julian said. “I don’t think you need to be fighting those things.”
“That’s not the only thing I’ve been feeling, though,” she said, catching his eye.
She didn’t want to read more into this than she should.
Maybe they’d gotten caught up in the heat of the moment, sneaking around the community center.
But if it did mean more… “You’re caught up in there somewhere,” she admitted.
“When I look at you, I remember a time when Tom was still alive, and I’m worried that I’ll never escape that.
That I’ll never be able to let myself enjoy something without opening myself up to all that pain.
” She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m making sense. ”
“It doesn’t need to make sense,” he said. “I think grief is ours to process however we need. And this hasn’t exactly been easy for me, either. Seeing you again.”
Charlie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You meant a lot to me. Back then.” Julian’s hand tightened against his knee. “To this day, I’m not sure why you pulled away, but I took it pretty hard.”
“Oh,” she said, his words taking the wind out of her. “I sort of thought we just…drifted. Didn’t we? Long distance was hard, and school was demanding, and life pulled us in different directions.”
“Is that really how you saw it?”
She nodded. “How did you see it?”
He sat back, running a hand through his hair. “Honestly, it sort of felt like you ghosted me. Like you woke up one day and decided I wasn’t worth your time and cut me out of your life.”
Charlie sat up straighter, her heart flip-flopping at his honesty. “I didn’t realize! God, if I’d known—”
“It’s fine,” he said, brushing her off.
“It’s not fine.” She reached for him. Squeezed his forearm. “I never meant to hurt you like that.”
“You weren’t the first.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “Trust me. Seems to be par for the course with me.”
She held him tighter. “What does that mean?”