by Shannon Hale
Except that Felix part of her. Except her liver.
The phone rang.
The cordless was lying on the carpet a couple of feet away. She didn’t want to answer it. But what if it was one of the kids? What if they needed her?
She reached, clicked the Talk button, rolled it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Becky. Are you all right?” It was Felix. They’d spoken a few times over the past year, but she’d mostly avoided him. Probably because he was a comfort, and she didn’t deserve comfort.
“Sure,” Becky said. All she said was “sure.”
He must have understood everything in that word. He was in Chicago. He said, “I’m coming.”
In which Felix wears tourist shorts
Fiona found her mother splayed on the carpet.
“Honey . . .” Becky had forgotten Fiona was coming home from a summer study in California that day. She tried to remember if Fiona had asked her for a ride from the airport—no, a friend was going to pick her up. That was a relief, at least.
“Let me get you a snack,” Becky said, hauling herself up to a sitting position. “I’m fine. I’m just—don’t worry. I’m fine. We have some apples and cheese, and there’s some banana bread . . .”
“Mom,” Fiona said with such tenderness it made Becky’s eyes sting.
Fiona didn’t ask what was wrong, didn’t panic to see her indestructible mother in a heap on the floor. She just helped her stand, walked her to her bed, and tucked her in.
Fiona melted cheese on crackers and made fruit and yogurt smoothies. She hauled the small family room television set into the bedroom and lay beside Becky, watching soap operas with the sound muted, making up her own dialogue to try to get her mother laughing.
“ ‘And that is why, I say, that is why, I intend to turn myself into a dog.’ ‘If you think I’ll rub your ears, then you have another thing coming.’ ‘Oh no? Then I will glare at you. You see me here, glaring at you? I am the master of the glare. I have a Ph.D. in glare.’ ‘Well, I can glare too! Watch me glaring. Tremble at my glaring.’ ”
Becky wanted to laugh, but mostly she stared at Fiona, pondering with a sublime ache how beautiful her daughter was, how kind and precious and clever. With the fl oodgate so recently opened, Becky had little control and that set her off again.
“Sorry,” Becky said through sobs.
Fiona fetched a box of tissues and lay on her side, looking at her mother matter-of-factly. “I’ve heard it said that it helps to put words on feelings. What’s it feel like, Mom?”
“A whole zoo on my chest.” She was breathless with sobbing. “Noah’s ark, boat and all.”
“First step, we drown them.” And Fiona drew her mother a hot bath.
Around noon Fiona made a couple of calls in the kitchen, then marched back into her mother’s room and commenced packing a suitcase.
“Honey, what’s—”
“Everything’s taken care of.”
“But I can’t go anywhere. It’s the year anniversary. We should be together as a family and—”
“They’re fine. Grandma and Grandpa will keep them for a week.”
“Sweetie, I—”
Fiona shushed her, stuck her in the car, and drove her to the Salt Lake Airport. Felix was there, wearing a bright blue sweater that looked wonderfully soft. Becky hadn’t seen him since the funeral. She barely had time to notice how blue his eyes looked before his arms were around her. She tucked her head against his chest, softening into new sobs. The sweater really was delightfully soft. Fiona kissed her good-bye and before Becky fully realized what was happening, she was flying first-class to Mazatlán.
“I’ll pay you back my half,” she squeaked.
Felix laughed. He was going to win this one.
“It was about time you left the country,” he said. “You don’t know how your domestic-bound life has haunted me. Without a passport, this was the most exotic location I could take you. Well, there was Puerto Rico, but they didn’t have available first-class seats.”
“We could’ve flown coach.”
That made Felix laugh.
They settled back to watch the in-flight movie. Unbelievably, it was a clever if overwrought thriller called Run Cannibal Run! starring one Felix Callahan. This set Becky into a fit of giggles. The laughing felt strange in her throat, raw and thick, scratching her as it came out. She wondered when the last time was that she’d had a genuine laugh. She wondered if laughing was a betrayal to Mike. She was certain she didn’t deserve it. But it was hard not to relax around Felix; it was hard not to fall into the old Becky, the Becky who laughed, the Becky who didn’t ache everywhere. He pulled that Becky out of her as easily as he’d waltzed her on the dance floor.
“I never saw this one,” Felix said. “The premiere conflicted with Mike’s funeral. Bless his heart, he saved me that day from the red carpet torture.”
“Yes, in those last moments, your premiere was foremost in his mind.”
“See what I mean? A gentleman’s gentleman.”
They wore the ear jacks in only one ear so they could whisper to each other through the movie. There were some tense moments, some clever lines, but despite Felix’s brilliant character part, the clumsy post-production meddling of a dozen separate producers had put a crimp in the overall appeal.
“See how handsome you look in gray,” she’d say. “Ooh, you’re so serious there!”
Felix groaned a lot. The people across the aisle kept staring.
It became easier and easier to fall into a laugh with Felix, in part because he hadn’t been around during Mike’s illness and the year after, her relationship with him untainted by the crippling gloom. Suddenly, she was four years younger sitting beside Felix on the movie set and giggling into her script to keep quiet. Besides the giggle, Becky discovered other forgotten friends popping up—a carefree tone of voice, a relaxed right shoulder, a twitching smile in the corner of her mouth. It felt good, like pressing heat on a strained muscle. But she was also afraid. Being with Felix was keeping that hulking slobbering beast of mourning at bay—temporarily. Soon her reprieve would be over, and she’d fall back into that horror story again. Hitting bottom was sure to hurt so much more than if she’d never crawled up.
The lady at the resort check-in said, “All right, I have a nonsmoking suite with a king-size bed—”
“No, no, we should have two rooms,” Felix said.
“Oh for goodness sake, yes, two rooms. Felix snores like an elephant. Or so his ex-wife assured me. Though I was never clear on how she’d come to hear elephants snoring . . .”
“But with connecting doors.”
“Oh yes, connecting doors. I don’t want to have to go into a hallway to see him. But with locks on the doors. I can’t have him barging in while I’m dressing.”
“It’s for my protection, really. She wears the most ridiculous smalls.”
“You wish you’ve seen my ‘smalls.’ ”
The lady stared. “Um, I’ve only been working here for a couple of weeks and I have no idea how to respond to that. Would you please pretend that I replied appropriately? Great. Here are your room keys.”
Becky thanked her and felt certain that if they’d been neighbors, she and the check-in lady would’ve been friends. The thought tingled inside her that this world was full of wonderful people.
And then she felt it again like a slap—but Mike is gone.
Her breath caught and she stopped walking. Felix took her arm.
“Hey, hey there, are you all right?”
Her chin trembled. As much as she tried to ignore the thought, it was there, the elephant in the room. The huge, attention-hungry, snoring elephant—Mike is gone, Mike is gone . . .
“I can’t have this. I can’t have you unhappy.” Felix picked her up under her knees and carried her to the elevator as if across the threshold of a honeymoon suite.
She squirmed. “You can put me down. Never mind, I’m fine. It was just momentary panic.”
&
nbsp; He hefted her as if testing her weight. “Either you weigh near nothing or I’m terribly strong. I think it’s the latter. Definitely the latter. I had no idea I was in such excellent shape.” He caught his face reflected in the elevator’s polished chrome. “And so indescribably handsome. You are one lucky lady.”
They went into their separate rooms and Becky might’ve been inclined to sit on her balcony and feel melancholy, but Felix had unlocked his side of the connecting door and was already rapping.
“Hallo?” he said in falsetto. “House keeping. I bring you fresh towels and chocolates. And an indescribably handsome man to do your bidding.”
She opened up. He was wearing a towel over his head, giving him the look of an awkward Madonna sans child.
“Let’s do dinner followed by a pedicure,” he said. “Isn’t that what ladies like to do to indulge? Come on, I’ll let them paint my toenails whichever color you choose. It’ll be fab-u-lous!”
“I’m not going to let you pay for everything, you know,” Becky said.
Felix removed the towel. “You have no choice, darling. Fiona and I conspired on every detail, including the surreptitious removal of all your credit cards.”
Becky rushed to her luggage and checked her wallet. Empty slots stared back. She watched it, waiting for the cards to reappear, wondering if she should insist or declare something or be willful and stubborn. She sighed defeat.
“In that case, for dinner I want filet mignon.”
“I love it when you’re bloodthirsty.”
Six days they spent in Mazatlán. Mostly they ate.
The mornings they communed by the water, finding hammocks or beach chairs, reading paperbacks or just talking in that leisurely, oceanside way, the push of water and wind cleaning all worry and hurry out of them. Nothing seemed really important or devastatingly sad on the beach. The rhythm of water rushing and slapping the sand trumped the rhythm of days and years, and all of time seemed enfolded into the present moment.
After a rest and shower, they would meet up again for lunch. Felix emerged from his room, the tip of his nose bright red.
“You got Rudolphed,” Becky said with a laugh.
“Explain.”
She pointed to her nose. “The sun kissed you here, my friend. You must have been a good boy.”
He nodded slowly. “Rudolph. I am often compared favorably to the noble caribou. No, of course you were referring to Valentino. He could learn a few tricks from yours truly.”
Through the hot afternoon, they sat on the floor of Felix’s room and played whatever games the hotel concierge could supply—Sorry, gin rummy, Candy Land. Their favorite was a board game called Zombies Attack!, which they played for hours on end, ordering room service and partaking of it on the rug so as not to interrupt their last stand against the tiny plastic zombies plaguing the board.
“I’ll show you, you brain-sucking deadhead,” Felix shouted. “Eat my shotgun!”
They went shopping at the faux-markets and challenged each other to look the most like a tourist. Becky did well with a Hawaiian shirt, sarong, huge hat with fake mums, and grass purse. But all it took was seeing Felix in some well-chosen Bermuda shorts pulled up over his waist for her to gracefully concede the contest. They wore the outfits whenever they went out, especially to nice dinners. No one asked Felix for an autograph.
Becky phoned home every day. Fiona was fine. Polly and the boys were fine. Grandma and Grandpa were fine. In fact, they all seemed to be enjoying the holiday. Her mother said, “Don’t rush home!”
In the absence of anything to worry about, Becky teetered between panicking at the hostile entropy of the world and actually relaxing. If alone, who knows what madness might have consumed her. But Felix was there, wearing Bermuda shorts pulled high.
On their last evening, they were standing on the hotel balcony and watching the ocean. There was something about large bodies of water that tugged everything out of Becky’s soul and left her clean and float-ing. So she floated, watching the waves curl far below, letting her gaze try to spot the point on the horizon where the ocean disappeared. At the moment, she couldn’t feel any invisible animals gnawing on her flesh—not so much as an unease mouse nibbling her toenails.
She looked at Felix. He was staring at the ocean too. It looked like a movie shot, the light outlining his face so perfectly it seemed artificial, the breeze playing in his hair, his expression wonderfully conveying the peace of the moment. He turned, saw her looking, and smiled the sweetest smile, a smile for a best friend.
It wasn’t a movie.
She started to cry. She didn’t even know why. Felix put his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She cried on his flowered tourist shirt. He rubbed her back. He kissed her hair. There was a loosening in her heart, an unclenching. They didn’t say anything for a long time.
When they finally let go, night had begun to recline over the ocean and the breeze was wet. She shivered. She hadn’t been cold inside his arms. He ducked into his room and came back with a sweater, draping it over her shoulders.
“Thanks,” she said.
But when he looked at her, there was something different in his eyes. She didn’t think about what it was then. She only knew that it made her stomach squeeze as if she were about to go on a roller coaster and was shying in anticipation.
They decided to go to dinner and chose a noisy, seaside jazz club that served huge fish sizzling on wooden boards. The music, the people, the fish sizzle made it almost impossible to talk. Which seemed to be what both of them wanted that night. She leaned against him in the booth to watch the musicians, her body positioned so that she couldn’t see Felix’s face. His arm draped around her shoulder.
She said a prayer. Thank you, Father, for this man. And help me know what to do.
She realized that the new look in Felix’s eyes was hope.
In which Felix plays Santa Claus for the first time
After Mexico, Becky no longer felt pianos dropping on her head. It’s a shame we can’t say she was all better forever; but heartbreak is a wily, vigilant rodent always finding a new hole to hide in, a new way to burrow through. The heartbreak rat still scratched at her, woke her up at night, provoked sudden tears, and perhaps would for the rest of her life. She loved Mike. He loved her. He was gone. Yes, she believed his spirit lived on, that they would be reunited in a very real way after death. But what about now? What about the growing-old-alone part and the nine-year-old-boy-without-a-father part?
“I hate death,” Becky would mutter to herself.
Nevertheless, the weight of the grief lifted, just a little, just enough to let a breeze into the room. It was a miracle in Becky’s eyes, as much as water turning to wine (though water would do just fine, thank you). Of course, getting better also meant growing a new half of herself so she could stand upright again. That hurt. A lot.
So she began to grieve in earnest—not in the fold-herself-up way, not as a pillar of salt, but grieving as a way of putting names to her sorrows, understanding them, and yet still choosing to live. It was as if she’d broken all her bones and untreated they healed wrong, so now she had to rebreak them and set them right.
Looking inward made her want to howl, so she tried to look outward. The Sunday after she returned from Mexico, she made three pies, a tradition she’d put on hold for a year and a half. Mike wasn’t sitting there across the counter, talking to her while she baked. She hoped her bitterness wouldn’t infect the pastry.
The kids ate one pie that night, and per usual, Becky kept the other two for giving to persons yet unknown. She waited, but no names popped into her mind. Monday afternoon passed, then Monday night, and still she had no ideas. She leaned against the counter and said a prayer. Who should I give these to? Who is hurting and could use a pie?
You.
It was the warm, quiet kind of thought she’d always believed didn’t come from her own mind but from God. Not a word or an image, but an idea, simple and sweet, and it made her heart bur
n.
You, Becky. You.
She felt noticed, and that both sang and stung. She sat on the kitchen floor and cried. Then she ate half a pie.
Over the next few months, Becky cried so much she feared she might sustain permanent water damage. Hyrum as a baby had been constantly wet—drooly, weepy-eyed, runny-nosed, his chin and nose covered in red prickly rash from the constant moisture. She’d kept him in a cloth bib so she could wipe him down at will. That was how she felt now. If only she could find an adult-sized bib.
Between the sobbing and breathing, sobbing and healing, she found a new sensation entering into her hollowed parts—mystification.
But I wasn’t supposed to be alone, she thought. The kids keep growing up and they’ll have their own lives, and I’ll be alone. I’ll always be alone until I die. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
Noise, chaos, ruckus were Becky’s lullabies. Mike’s snoring had soothed her to sleep. Now she was standing in the hurricane-swept desolation of her life and wondering how on earth she had ended up there.“
What haven’t you taken care of that you should?” Alice Hyde asked Becky during their now-weekly lunch. It had been ten days since the Mexico trip, and Alice was looking over Becky with a shrewd expression.
“Nothing, I’m doing better, really.”
“Rebecca Louise, I’m asking you again as your mother. What do you still need to take care of ? What’s hanging over you the heaviest?”
“The bedroom,” Becky said. Even as a child, she couldn’t lie to her mother.
The bedroom had been the site of her companionship, her quiet love with Mike, where they met up and checked in with each other after the kids slept and the house was still. “I hate being there. Alone. I detest it. I . . .” She choked, surprised to discover a sob in her throat.
Alice nodded. “Let’s reinvent it.”
“I don’t want to disturb anything that would upset the kids.”
“Nonsense. It’s been a year. This won’t bother them.”
“Mom . . .” But Becky didn’t argue. Her mother’s gaze was distant and calculating, and Becky well knew there were no words to bring her back now. Besides, her other reason for leaving the bedroom intact was too horrible to speak. (I need to keep it as-is, just in case it was all a mistake, just in case Mike’s alive and coming home any day.)