Here I Go

by Jamie Bennett

  “Come on,” Cain told me, and we got my giant pink bags and walked toward the parking lot and I took a deep breath of the Tennessee air. It was freezing and a little rainy and I was home.

  Cain got one of my suitcases into the trunk of his car, the one he’d bought when he’d been here visiting his aunt. “I had someone drop it off,” he mentioned to me, and then picked up the second bag. He didn’t say anything about how I’d packed almost all my belongings and called for a charity to pick up the rest, so I thought we both understood that this was a one-way ride for me. I got in, too, but I sat forward and watched as we passed familiar streets and landmarks. It was familiar, but the joy and relief that I had been expecting when Cain announced that we were going home just didn’t come.

  I’d probably feel it when I saw my family, I decided. “Are you going right to my grandmother’s house?”

  “What? No.” He looked over at me. “Did you think we’d stay there?”

  “Well, the apartment is basically empty,” I explained.

  “Right, I got a hotel room for us.”

  I sat back, not understanding. It felt like the dog bite had rattled me in a way I hadn’t quite recovered from, or maybe—

  Maybe it was knowing that my husband wouldn’t ever love me and that he was sorry that we’d slept together, that I was nothing but a big mistake.

  “Aria?”

  “Yes? Sorry.” Because there I was, crying again. Like a baby. I looked out the window and stopped myself from behaving this way, because there wasn’t any point. Tears weren’t going to make any difference.

  We drove to what I thought must have been the nicest hotel in Chattanooga. “I couldn’t go back to my aunt’s, not right away,” Cain explained as guys came to get my huge bags and his small one and then to drive his car away. We went up to the room which looked over the city. I could almost see the Law Offices of Gary Andonov and the sandwich place we’d always gone for lunch. I could see the county building where Cain and I had gone to get our marriage license, too. That seemed so far into the past that it might have been another woman who’d stood on the sidewalk with him and said she didn’t want a wedding or a dress or anything.

  “I did,” I murmured.

  “What?”

  “I said, I did,” I told him. “I did want a wedding and a big party. I’d been planning that since I was a little girl, every little detail. I mean, I even knew exactly what ties the groomsmen were going to wear.”

  “We could have a party. We could do that instead.”

  “No, it really doesn’t matter. A wedding would have been fun, but that was all it was good for. The part I should have planned was what would happen after,” I said. “That’s much more important than a wedding that only lasts for a few hours. That was what I should have been focused on instead of the height of my shoes and the gifts for my bridesmaids and who would watch my memaw to keep her off the Jack and Coke. She gets a little wild,” I explained.

  “I’ve met her,” Cain said, and for the first time in a few days, smiled a little. He did look so different that way. “Let’s go eat dinner and talk about it more.”

  “I’m not really hungry,” I said, and to my amazement, I realized it was true. It was the first time in my life that it wasn’t me wishing it was the case.

  “Come with me, anyway,” he said, and we walked out of the nice hotel and through downtown Chattanooga. As we got closer to the place I used to work, I found myself talking about Eimear and Gary, about what was happening at the law office.

  “Gary hired someone new, a guy who just graduated from UTC. He’s doing ok and Eimear thinks he’s a hard worker. But Gary’s not doing so well, because do you remember how his wife had a car accident? It turns out it was because she’s losing her vision, like, really losing it. They’re pretty upset about it. I’ll go there on Monday to talk to him—I know he’ll probably say no, but maybe he and Bevie need help.”

  “Would you want to go back to work there?”

  It hurt a little to hear him say that, because it was the first time he’d acknowledged out loud that I’d be staying here in Tennessee when he went back to California. I waited a moment to answer, so I could be totally calm. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Gary has the new guy now and they don’t need me, but he’d try to hire me for something just because he’s such a good person. I’ll have to find something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “You told me to wait to get a job in California to decide what I wanted to do. I rushed to get one because I was worried about money and I was so lonely, I wanted to make some friends. It didn’t work very well, did it?” I thought of how they’d escorted me out of the coffee shop to make sure I didn’t give away any more stale muffins.

  “Maybe you could wait this time and give it more thought.”

  “I could,” I agreed. I’d be living with my grandmother so there wouldn’t be any real pressure, except I’d want to give her money for food and bills. Also, with Bree and her kids there, it was going to be a little crowded. I’d probably want to get my own apartment soon or maybe Kayleigh would want to share again, when she got back.

  But maybe it would be better for me to live on my own. Maybe I just needed to stop being such a baby, like Aubree had always said.

  “Aria? I asked if this restaurant is all right.”

  I realized that we’d stopped on the sidewalk while I’d been lost in thought. “Oh, sure. I’m not that hungry.” When Cain ordered, though, I realized that I could eat something, and I got dinner, too. And after I did have a few bites, I started to feel a little better.

  “What are you going to say tomorrow at the memorial service?” I asked him when we’d finished.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s supposed to be our memories of Aunt Liddy, but I have other things I want to say.”

  I tilted my head, waiting, but he talked more about his aunt.

  “I remember the first day that I came to her house. They brought me there in a police car. My first experience in one,” he said, and shrugged. “I think I still had blood on my clothes. Aunt Liddy ran out from her front door and put her arms around me and I’d been trying not to cry, but she said it was ok. ‘Go ahead, Cain, you’re safe now,’ she told me. And I was.” He reached across the table to take my hand.

  “I’m not crying,” I said. I gritted my teeth to stop and made that true.

  “I never trusted anyone before I met her,” he said. He put his other hand around mine, too, holding pretty tightly. “It was a weird thing, because I never felt like I had any place I could come home to, either. Even out in San Francisco, even after I bought that big house, when I thought about ‘home’ I meant her.”

  I nodded, understanding what he meant. “It’s not so much the place,” I agreed, because I’d been considering this since we’d landed in Tennessee. “It’s like my mom and how she missed our old house so much. It was my dad, that was what she was lonely for. She missed her life with him, with all of us together in that house. It’s why she always kept tabs on our old neighbors—that’s why she knew that Miss Liddy was sick.”

  “It’s why you came over and climbed through the bushes.”

  “You always talk about that,” I said, kind of annoyed. “You always think of me as a silly girl in the yard with sticks in her hair.”

  He sat up straight and blinked, like he was shocked. “What? No, I don’t at all.” He shook his head. “If I talk about it a lot, it’s because it meant so much to me. I told you how happy we were to see you but I don’t think you understand. That day was so bad. Aunt Liddy was down, sadder than I’d ever seen her. I didn’t know how I could help her or how I was going to manage anything with my company. I heard what I thought was someone breaking in, like she had anything to steal. And I came out, and there you were. Like a damn vision or something.”

  I must have looked confused, because he explained.

  “It was like you stepped out of a dream.
You stood there smiling at me and holding out your hand, so…nice. Just acting like it was normal that I was there, not that I was an ax murderer, and wanting to help us. Helping instead of trying to get something from me like everyone I knew in San Francisco. It was like opening a window and letting in the cool breeze. Or like, the sky clearing and sunshine touching your face after a rainstorm. I thought I was imagining you.” He shook his head again. “You know how beautiful you are.”

  “I’m—I’m—”

  “That’s why I was upset when you cut off your hair. I like how it is now, too,” he stressed. “But I’ll always think of you in Aunt Liddy’s yard with that smile, glad to see me, and your red hair swirling in the wind. Like you were sent there by magic, a nymph from one of your myths.”

  I swallowed. “Thank you. I didn’t know you saw me that way.”

  Cain took out his wallet and looked at the bill that the waiter had put down on our table. “Everyone sees you that way. Those women in San Francisco were so jealous of you, they were spitting nails.”

  “Because of you.”

  He looked up at me. “Huh?”

  “Because they thought that I had you, of course,” I explained. “They were jealous that I was married to you. They told me you’d been with everyone but you hadn’t settled down. And somehow, I was this dumb, cheap-looking girl but I had managed to snag you. They couldn’t believe it.”

  “None of that’s true.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We had walked for a while on the sidewalk towards the hotel, pretty fast and almost a whole block, before Cain came to a complete stop.

  “None of that’s true,” he said to me again. “First of all, I hadn’t been with all those women. Not even with most of them. Some,” he admitted, when I stared at him with a big question on my face. “A few. I went out with them not really believing that they were interested in me. Of course, they weren’t. They were interested in the money I had, the name I’d made for myself. I wasn’t the same as the other men they knew. I didn’t give a shit about most of the things they cared about, like their stupid sororities and the boarding school they went to in New Hampshire and how they were captain of the tennis team or whatever the hell else they did.”

  “They liked you,” I agreed.

  “Not me, the idea of me. The idea that I was different from them, but if they’d really known the guy who’d spent so much time in juvenile detention centers in Tennessee, they would have run the other way screaming. Probably in French or Latin or something.” Cain smiled a little. “None of them, not Blayden or anyone else, bothered to find out what I was really like. Not how you do.”

  Did I really know him? I didn’t know what he was thinking right now, why he was looking at me so…like there was something so important about me, something he didn’t want to miss.

  “There’s nothing dumb or cheap about you and I’m sorry they made you feel that way. I’m sorry you thought you had to change for them. I thought they’d all love you. Why wouldn’t they?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. There had always been so much that I wanted to change, not just for those people. “I’ve always thought that I wasn’t quite enough,” I said, and that was the best way to describe it.

  Before I really knew what was happening, I wasn’t standing on the sidewalk anymore. I was up in Cain’s arms and he was hugging me, crushing me so tightly that the air rushed out of my lungs and I couldn’t take another breath in. I didn’t mind at all. He was kissing my cheeks, my ear, my neck, and any other part of me that his lips could reach.

  “You’re enough. You’re so much more than enough,” he told me, and it was so confusing! If I was more than enough then why—

  He kissed my forehead and pulled me even closer and I coughed.

  Eventually, he realized that I wasn’t getting air and let me down, but he kept his arm around me, holding me very close to his side. He waited on the bed as I changed into my pajamas in the hotel bathroom and when I came out and crawled beneath the sheets, he got under too and hugged me again, spooning his body against mine and wrapping me up in his arms.

  Cain must have been nervous about the memorial service, I thought. Nervous and very sad, I was sure, which was why he was holding me like this. I listened to his breathing get slow and even and I knew he was asleep.

  But I lay there thinking about things for a long time, all snuggled against him but still not comfortable. I thought about the service the next day for Miss Liddy and how it was going to go and I also thought about what we were going to do after that. I needed to get braver, that was for sure.

  Maybe I could say, “Cain, we have to discuss our future. The way I see it, my future is right here in Tennessee. Where’s yours?” That would give him the opportunity to tell me when he was going back to California and if he thought we should get a divorce.

  That wasn’t very brave, not at all. Brave would have been telling him, “Look here, Cain Matthews! You nearly broke my heart in two when we slept together and you acted like it was a huge mistake. It kills me every time I look at you to know that you’re sorry that we’re together. I want you to love me, and if you can’t, then I’m leaving!”

  If he said that I was right, that he was sorry we’d made this mistake, then I could trot myself over to my memaw’s house and live there for a while until I got myself on my feet. My San Francisco bills had eaten up most of my savings and I got hot and angry about that. I would leave him, so there! Maybe Amory could even kick him in the privates for me, like she’d done to Aubree’s husband.

  No, I didn’t want him to pass out from pain, even if I was angry. So, what did I want out of all this? Did I actually want to leave him? I sighed unhappily because I really wasn’t sure. I loved him: that was a definite fact. But was it better for us to be together and me miserable or apart and miserable that way?

  Either direction I went seemed like it was going to lead to a lot more heartache. I would just have to be tough and get through it. I wiped my eyes on the pillowcase. I would try.

  Chapter 14

  Once again, it was hard to breathe, and I was so glad for it. When one relative let me go, another one grabbed me in the next hug.

  “We missed you so much!” Cassidy told me and she sniffed hard. “I know it hasn’t been that long but it felt like forever. I have so much to tell you.”

  “You two haven’t been on the phone every time I’ve looked up?” Bo asked her and she told him that obviously it wasn’t the same as having me here.

  “And I wouldn’t have thought it, but I really miss Kayleigh, too. We got along great when she wasn’t acting terrible. You know she’s off visiting Aunt Jill’s cousin in Alabama,” Cass answered, with a face to tell me that there was more to the story. I gave her a nod back to answer that I understood completely and had more to say myself. It was so nice to be with my best friend again, so that only one little look told us everything we needed to know.

  “Aria!” My sister Amory ran up and picked me off the ground and shook me. “Oh, sorry. I probably shouldn’t scream at this kind of occasion.” She glanced around the reception hall of the church. “Wow, the flowers are amazing.” She dropped her voice even more. “They’re even nicer than Amory’s wedding, and do you remember the bill for those?”

  I did. We hadn’t been able to speak when we’d seen it. “How is she doing?” I asked my sister, and she made a face which told me that things were not great. I would check on Bree later.

  “How are you doing yourself?” Mory asked, and I wanted to let everything pour out like I had a spigot instead of a mouth.

  “Let’s talk after,” I answered. Cassidy went with Bo to find seats and my sister stayed with me. She put her arm around my shoulders.

  “Are you ok?” she asked. “Is that man treating you well?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aria!” she exclaimed again. “I can see if things aren’t right with my little sister. For one thing, you look s
o skinny that it’s freaking me out.”

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I don’t have to say anything. You do look like you’ve lost weight and you know you don’t need to,” she told me, and when I shook my head, she took her arm off my shoulders to punch me there.

  “Mory!”

  “Well, you deserved it,” she said, like that made it acceptable to hit your sister in church! “You’re always worrying about your weight and there’s no reason for it!”

  “Except that I’m the family ‘biscuit,’” I reminded her.

  “When you were six! You were chubby, sure, but you grew out of it by the tenth grade. Don’t argue with me,” she ordered when I opened my mouth. “Ari, you borrowed my wedding dress. I wouldn’t fit into it myself anymore, not even if I greased my body with lard. So tell me again that you’re overweight.” She waited, eyebrows up, but I didn’t say anything. I guessed she was right, even though I’d never considered myself as the same size as my sisters. “You take our clothes, still, and you did all through high school. People called you ‘biscuit’ out of habit, not because you still had that baby fat anymore.”

  “I still think of myself in that way. In California, I wanted to get really skinny so I’d fit in better. None of them liked me.”

  “Idiots,” she said briefly, and I shrugged.

  “They were, pretty much everyone he knew out there. I was trying to change myself because I thought it was so important that they liked me. I thought they were Cain’s friends, but it turns out that he doesn’t care for them much, either. They sure liked him, though.”

  “Is that why you did that to your hair?”

  “What’s wrong with my hair?” I asked her quickly. “Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s great,” she said, running her hand over it. “Just not very…dressy, is it? I mean, it’s plainer than I’m used to. It’s so straight!”

  “I’m thinking of letting it go natural once this treatment wears off. You know, not curling it, not straightening it.”