46. Forty-six
Forty-six
“No Bo tonight, Birdie?” Monica asks as I set my groceries on the conveyor belt of her register Friday night.
I keep my eyes down. “Not tonight.”
When the belt stops, I don’t look away from my cart. Part of me doesn’t even care if I buy the food anyway.
Without warning, two arms wrap around me and squeeze me in a hug, making me grunt. Monica, with her dreadlocks, neon hair band, and Good Grocers name tag, pulls me into her so tightly I wonder if I’ll ever be able to breathe again.
Under any other circumstances, I’d peel her off me, but tonight, my head in her hair that smells like coconuts, I start to cry.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asks, handing me a tissue from her pocket when we finally pull apart.
I shrug, wiping my nose, as she circles back around her register. “I fell in love with someone when I knew I shouldn’t and kept a secret I knew would crush him. ”
“Hmm. That sounds tough, but you’ll figure it out,” she says with too much displaced optimism, once again dragging groceries by the scanner, causing a beep noise with each item. “I saw the way you two were together. Y’all have the good stuff.”
She grins, and I force a smile.
If it were only that easy.
On Sunday, I go to church. Alone.
I consider calling Bo, texting him, something. But I don’t. I can’t. After everything that happened, everything he’s said and I’ve done, there’s just no point.
I pick one of the trails we’d been to—his hat on my head—and spend the entire walk crying tears that the November wind scrapes off my skin with gusts that cut like ice. The beautiful fall leaves are long gone; the bare trees that remain are as alone as I am.
With all the years I’ve spent alone in my life, I never would have imagined this change would be such a shock to my system. Yet, alone before Bo and alone after him are two very different places to exist. One manageable, the other a black hole.
I sit at my kitchen table and stare at the thick envelope with his name scribbled across it, the paper and ink taunting me.
My phone vibrates with a text from Libby. Hey girl, I’m sending over the service schedule for Veda. Let me know if you need anything. Yoga next week? xo
A picture of a paper with Veda’s face next to times, dates, and locations comes through.
Veda’s services. Because she died. And Bo blames me.
Setting my phone down, I don’t respond. There’s nothing to say.
Eyes back on the envelope, my phone vibrates again. This time, it’s Bo’s name I see. Can we talk?
The tightness in my throat those three words cause sends my hand to my own neck.
One breath. Two.
Instead of immediately responding, I reach for a notebook from a basket and take out a pen. I need a plan. A strategy. Some way to manage this situation that isn’t driven by emotions and grief and the emptiness that fills me.
On one side I write, reasons to talk to him , on the other, reasons not to .
I can’t be with him, I know that. This exemplifies everything I’ve spent my whole life believing: love has no place in my life. Some people might call it depressing, Mabel would call it women’s fiction horseshit , either way, this is too messy. Whether I get cancer or not, I’m not equipped to be with someone else.
Under reasons to talk, I write: closure, maybe friendship?, Huck might need him in the future, I have a letter for him from Veda, I love him . I scratch the last one off. I do love him, but that can’t be a reason. If I see him, it can’t be because I love him .
Under reasons not to talk, I write: he blames me for Veda dying, he said terrible things, I love him. Somehow, keeping the fact I love him under reasons not to talk to him makes more sense.
Eyes pinging between the two lists, weighing my options, I pick up my phone. Okay.
His response is immediate. Okay. Lots of family coming in tonight. Tomorrow before the visitation? Libby told me she sent you the times.
A million things I want to say tingle at my fingertips, but all I write is See you then.
I park in front of Bo’s house and grab Veda’s letter for Bo from my purse. Not surprising, there are nearly a dozen vehicles parked in his yard and driveway.
Veda asked me to never stop loving him, and I won’t. Last night, lying in bed, I decided that even though Mabel is hell-bent on love meaning love story, I know love can look different. Maybe I loved him like a lover before, but now our love will be something else. Friendship. Like we said it was supposed to be from the beginning.
Or like a brother.
I drop my head side to side, stretching my neck at the thought. I don’t need to have siblings to know that after the things I’ve done with Bo, I’ll never be able to look at him like a sibling.
Either way, this is my chance to explain everything. To clear the air and give us a clean slate .
Shoving my fear and anxiety down as deep as I can, I tighten the belt on my coat as I walk. Across his yard, up the steps, to knock on the door that, only days ago, I would have just pushed open.
When Libby’s the one who opens the door, I’m flooded with relief. A friendly face. Thank God.
“Libby! Hi!” I say with an exhale.
She smiles but it seems forced. Nervous.
My eyes slightly narrow, but a high pitched, “Birdie!” interrupts my thoughts. Lucy pushes by Libby through the cracked door and wraps her arms around me. I kneel next to her and give her a hug, inhaling her sweet scent of strawberries.
“Lucy, I think you’ve grown since I saw you last week,” I tell her.
She laughs, then her little face turns serious, blue eyes wide. “Gran died.”
My stomach drops. “I know,” I whisper, running my fingers through her hair. “I’m so sorry. She was the best Gran.”
She smiles and hugs me again, whispering, “Daddy’s sad.” The words slice into my chest like a saw blade.
“Birdie, listen…” Libby says, her tense, hushed tone pulling me from the hug. “You should know th—”
Whatever she’s going to say next is hijacked by the door opening wider. There, a woman stands who looks like a slightly younger Libby. Beautiful in a long black dress with long dark hair and bright blue eyes, she reaches for Lucy.
“Who’s this, sweetheart?” she asks, eyes locked with mine .
I don’t have to ask; without introduction, I know it’s her. In the simple stare, another line gets added to the others that perpetually play through my mind.
Veda died.
Bo blames me.
Mandy is here.
“This is Birdie,” Lucy says, stepping back next to Mandy—her mother that I now see she looks a lot like.
She nods, her eyes moving along me in a way that’s assessing. “I see.”
I can’t say anything. My throat is so pinched, I know any attempt at a word will come out a choke.
Libby can’t comfort me. I can’t fall apart in front of Lucy—unfortunately a concept I now understand. I need to go.
Pulling the envelope from my pocket, my hand is shaking, moving so slowly toward Libby it’s like the actual air is made of clay, and it takes all my effort.
“I—I—”
Libby’s gaze clashes with mine; my own misery reflecting back to me.
“Lucy?” The familiar voice that calls from inside cripples me . Bo. There’s not enough time for me to run. He’s already there, in the doorway, next to his wife , child, and sister-in-law.
When our eyes meet, it’s a sort of self-inflicted torture. As though the thickness of the air has been shoved down my throat.
My mouth opens and closes silently.
The letter slips from my fingers and drops to the porch with a soft thud.
I turn around as the first tear falls.
In a daze, I hurry across the yard.
“Birdie!” It’s Bo’s voice that calls my name, but I don’t stop. He invited me here to see his wife?
Somehow, I’m in the minivan, turning the key, shifting the gear.
Reverse to drive.
Forcing one breath, then two.
When I look in the rearview mirror, he’s standing in the middle of his driveway, hands by his sides, shrinking as I drive away.
A mile down the road, I pull over, fall out of the door onto my hands and knees, and vomit.
I don’t go to the visitation. After seeing Bo—Mandy—it felt like too much.
I swirl my hand around the warm water of the bathtub. Veda’s funeral is in two hours, and as much as I can’t fathom seeing them all again, I have to go. For Veda.
Just like I refused to let Bo stop me from taking the job with her in the first place, I refuse to let him stop me from saying goodbye.
I slide under the water, hoping for the dozenth time it will make me feel better. For the dozenth time, it doesn’t.
Bo called me four times last night. Four times, I didn’t answer. His text of please call me, it’s not what you think, almost made me laugh from the irony. The same words he said the day I found out about his wife in Veda’s living room. If it wasn’t happening to me, I’d laugh and wonder if Veda planned this too… just to see my reaction.
How I’m supposed to love him in any capacity after that seems both improbable and impossible.
I can accept he’s mad at me. I can even accept he blames me for how Veda ended her life. But to just let me walk up to that?
It’s a kind of punishment I didn’t think him capable of.
It takes every ounce of energy to get dressed. Black fitted pants, black turtleneck, black peacoat. I put makeup on, trying to make the bags under my eyes less obvious, but everything feels like a lie.
At the church, Bo is waiting at the top of the steps outside the door, greeting everyone who walks in. I watch him through my windshield. He’s in a suit, handsome with his hair pushed back, beard trimmed short. People shake his hand, no doubt giving canned condolences, and he smiles kindly at them.
A smile he’s given me so many times but never will again.
I imagine what I’d say to him if this were a different life. I’d be standing next to him, holding his hand, squeezing it every time someone said, “She was a great woman, Bo.” A message would travel between our connected palms that would be as much about our love for each other as the woman we were saying goodbye to.
But that life is a foolish fantasy stolen by a secret I kept and a wife he has.
When the last people enter, I get out of my van and blow a steadying breath. As if he senses me, his gaze lifts across the parking lot and zeroes in on me. The door opens next to him. Mandy appears, tapping him on the shoulder, saying something, and gesturing inside.
He nods toward her, looks back to me—unmoving across the parking lot—before going inside.
I let out the breath I’ve been holding, ignore how the scene just sent a million splinters into my gut, and walk to the church.
The service inside and then by the grave happen around me. The words float in one ear, out the other, with only a few catching.
The people tell stories of versions of Veda I didn’t know. They aren’t the woman who yelled at me to wedge clay or forced me to hold a joint to her lips. They aren’t the woman who blew out a candle because I was scared of the toxins or watched me fall hopelessly in love with her grandson. They are, however, Veda just the same. The pieces I do catch, make me smile. Because yes, Veda was who she was with me, but she was also someone else before that too.
In the church, Bo sits in the front row, Mandy on one side, Lucy on the other.
At the grave, Bo stands in the front row, Mandy on one side, Lucy on the other.
In both places, I stay in the back. Alone.
In both places, as if we can’t not, our eyes find each other’s more than once.
Every time, I look away first, feeling my own pain metastasize within me.
Because: Veda is dead, Bo blames me .
And when I see his wife standing next to him, I remember the next line—Mandy came back.
“Birdie?”
I’m unlocking the door of my minivan when I hear a woman say my name. I pause, turning to look. Mandy.
Instinctively, my eyes dart around for any sign of Bo, but she’s alone. Beautiful in black with long, silky dark hair. I never asked what kind of music she sings, but she looks like a country music singer as she stands in front of me.
I force a tight smile. “Hi,” I say, which sounds lame on my lips.
“You know who I am,” she says, hands shoved in her black coat pockets.
I nod. “I do.”
“And you slept with my husband anyway.” She raises her eyebrows.
Really? This is what she wants to do?
“And you left him anyway,” I say, deciding not to shy away from whatever this is.
Her laugh is almost an unsaid touché.
“Do you love him?” she asks.
“Do you?” I hurl back at her.
“Do you love Lucy?”
The question makes me stand taller. “Do you? ”
Her eyes narrow, slightly, as she stares at me before she drops her head back. Perfect chin pointing up as she blows out a breath that sends a grey puff into the cold air.
When her gaze meets mine again, she surprises me by asking, “Do you ever feel like you’re trapped in your life?”
I don’t know what I expected the woman who left Bo and Lucy and never looked back to be like, but the question is one I am not prepared for. I have no idea how much she knows about me, but yes, I absolutely feel like I’m trapped in my life.
“Daily.” I’ve shocked her because her eyes widen instantly. “But never with Bo.”
Lips pressed together, her tongue moves around the inside of her mouth, as though she’s batting her unsaid words between her cheeks.
When the heavy silence hangs between us too long, I break it. “Would you have done anything differently?”
“Is it ever that simple?” she volleys back.
This time, it’s me who almost-laughs. Because no, it’s never that simple.
I imagined once that if I ever met Mandy, my disdain for her would be black and white. But standing here with her between all the words we are and aren’t saying, I realize it isn’t. I can’t imagine leaving everyone the way she had, yet I understand why Veda did it. Why I’ve never let myself get close to anyone.
A thought smashes into me, sticking. Mandy and I aren’t that different .
Veda asked me once what I would do when she came back—she knew she would. For this. I told her I’d let him decide. I meant that. But when I imagined the scenario, she was still here guiding me, and Bo and I still loved each other easily.
As sure as Mandy is standing in front of my face, Bo and I are over.
Yet when I open my mouth to talk, “I love him,” is what I hear myself say. Ache building in my chest like single bricks with every word. “I love him the way wildflowers love the warmth of the summer sun and the way Veda loved having her hands in the clay. I love him with Lucy and how he has a casual intensity on his face when he’s stacking logs on top of one another. I love that he hikes on Sundays and spends Saturdays with your sister laughing in her kitchen.” At the mention of Libby she winces, but I don’t stop. “I love the way he sees other people and knows how to hold me upright when the world feels too heavy on my shoulders. I love how he loves. How he laughs. How his goodness is a deep well that gives and gives and gives.”
Her eyes squint, like she’s trying to see me, and her lips tug to one side, almost a smirk. Something between amusement and admiration flitters across her face. As if the whole reason she walked over here was to hear me say that.
“And I know you think those same things, at least some of them, or you wouldn’t have come back.” The final words that come out of my mouth burn my tongue as I say them. “I love him but we’re over. I won’t interfere.”
She nods—slightly.
Then we’re looking at each other—staring. The woman who gets to love him at the woman who can’t anymore.
“Mandy,” a voice calls, making us both turn at once.
It’s Libby, beautiful in black like her sister. Her red lips force into a tight smile toward me when our eyes meet. A silent, Everything okay? telegraphs from her to me. I smile and give her a nod, my, Yes .
“I’ll be right there,” Mandy calls, making cold clouds float around her face from her breath. Then she turns back to me. “I’m glad I met you.”
“Me too.” Oddly, I mean it.
Then she’s gone, walking toward Libby, where they meet John—looking shockingly tame in his suit when he lifts his chin toward me with a small smile—and walk across the parking lot together. I wish I was walking with them.
When Bo walks across the parking lot, my fingers lift in a slight wave as our eyes meet. He stops, just briefly, and we look at each other through the people dressed in black that walk all around us like a colony of ants.
Looking at him look at me sends a deluge of thoughts rushing through me. I love him; I hate him. I want to hug him; I want to slap him.
When someone calls his name, he turns, shakes a hand, and I take the opportunity to slip into my minivan. My eyes meet his through the windshield as I’m driving away.
The next tears that fall on my drive home aren’t for Veda—every single one is for Bo.