I was fine subsisting day to day, going to work and coming home alone and being celibate and drinking myself to something like sleep, waking up and doing it all over again. Repeat as needed until I go to heaven or nirvana or wherever, and I get to be with her again.
Then Adrian sent me to this cabin, and then he sent Nadia to live next to me, and now I don’t know which way is up.
Because I could…I could imagine her being something that comes before THE END.
When I threw that one red rose and that handful of black loam onto the polished cherry wood coffin, that was me writing THE END. On me, on her, on us, on my life as I knew it. It was over. The rest was just filler, details not worth remembering. There would be no after.
And then Nadia.
Coffee. Pasta. Mimosas. A hike around the lake.
A few little things. I don’t know her middle name. I’ve never held her hand, or even thought about what she looks like naked. It’s not that.
It’s more. It’s deeper. Both innocent and indemnifying at the same time.
It’s putting the lie to THE END. It’s creating a possibility of AND THEN.
And I just don’t know how to reconcile the two.
I sit up in bed and twist on the bedside lamp and reach for the book.
At some point, I think you just have to jump. It’s hard and scary when you’re young, when your heart is new and fresh and unscarred. You’re risking so much, then. Trusting the virgin vulnerability of your precious, secret heart, and you have no guarantee how it’ll turn out. His POV. You dive in, headfirst, terrified. Wonder of wonders, it turns out more amazing than you could ever expect. Joy is such an effervescent thing, isn’t it? The giddy happiness of true love is the purest emotion a human can experience. That sacred falling, the majestic weaving of two lives, two souls, two personalities into a single entity…that, I believe, is the meaning of life. The big WHY.
And then it’s taken from you.
You hear those words, “I’m sorry, sir, but your wife didn’t make it. We did everything we could.”
And suddenly, you’re not you anymore. Your face looks back at you from the mirror and your hands are the hands that have sat at the ends of your wrists all these years of your life, but you’ve been scooped hollow by the vicious talons of Loss. And you’re not you.
You wallow. Grieve. Drown. Moving on is a joke, right? That’s for people who didn’t love the way you did.
But then. Oh, but then. You meet HER. And somehow, the sun might just be trying to peek out from behind the haze of storm clouds that have followed you. There just might be something like a tomorrow that doesn’t include barrels of whiskey just to be able to fake a semblance of humanity.
Only, how do you get past this mountain that is grief, that is sorrow? It’s insurmountable. You didn’t WANT to get past it, over it, under it, around it. You wanted it to just bury you and be done.
SHE makes you think maybe you’re not done. Not yet.
And what I’m coming to, what I’m realizing, is that you just have to jump.
It’s so much worse than the first time. Your heart isn’t whole. It’s not even a kintsugi heart, a fragile pottery thing broken into pieces and repaired with seams of gold and silver. It’s just dust in the corner on the floor, a few bits and pieces here and there to give you a hint of what it might once have been. You aren’t just vulnerable. You’re all exposed nerve endings. You think you’ve armored up against the assaults of the world, but that’s a silly lie, easily exposed. I mean, shit, you walk down the street and some lady you’ve never met walks past wearing her perfume and suddenly you’re fighting back sobs and hyperventilation. That one song you danced to at your wedding comes on the radio and you have to pull onto the shoulder because you can’t see and you can’t breathe. Armor? Ha.
Now, jumping is a thing of bravery. Before, it was bravado. They’re not the same. Before, you felt invincible. Jumping was a risk, but calculated. You stood to gain so much, after all, right? The love of a good woman is worth any risk. That’s what you thought, then.
Now, you know better.
Now, you know it can be taken away.
Tennyson can go to hell, right? “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Go to hell. You don’t know shit, Alfred.
But…she makes you wonder. It won’t be the same. You won’t forget. It’s not replacing. It’s different. New. Strange and hard to figure out and there’s no words in any language to express how scary it is. But…
Maybe.
The problem is, you can’t inch your way into these waters. There’s no acclimating yourself to the depths, the unfamiliar currents and swirling cold.
It’s dark down there, in the unknown.
Hic sunt dracones.
You just have to fucking jump. You may hit bottom and be broken further. There’s no guarantee. There may be nothing but an endless fall down a well of infinite depth.
Or…or there could be new life. Happiness in a strange, unfamiliar guise. Hands which do not yet know yours. Eyes which have not plumbed your depths. A kiss unpracticed and hesitant. Secrets of your past life must be, yet again, revealed, painfully, fearfully. And now you have more secrets, more pain, more sorrow. It’s all so much.
But the question which drives you onward resounds deafeningly, tolling like a bell in the tremoring depths of your little boy soul: Would it be worth it?
Is SHE worth it?
Only one way to find out:
Jump.
A knock on my door startles me. I step into gym shorts but forget a shirt. Stumble out to the door, tug it open.
Nadia. Pale pink cotton shorts with fraying, rolled-up hems, short enough to leave a good ninety percent of her legs bare. A white ribbed tank top under a thin gray zip-up hoodie made from T-shirt material; the hoodie is unzipped, the zipper pull dangling at her hip, the edges pulled closed far enough to provide a covering over the fact that she’s not wearing a bra.
She’s holding her big stockpot in both hands, with the glass lid with the black handle covering it. “I made oatmeal.”
I blink. Stammer. “Um, I…yeah. Oatmeal.” I step backward. “Come in. I’ll…shirt. Coffee. Just hold on.”
She takes one step inward, over the threshold. No further.
I fumble into a shirt, trying to fill the electric kettle at the same time. Grind beans. Pretend her presence isn’t flustering me.
The book is on my bed, visible from the front door at certain angles.
Fortunately, her eyes are on the table, which is covered in shavings and wood peelings and finished carvings, and my half-finished scale model of these two cabins and the curve of the lake they’re on, with the stand of pines behind them—it’s all made from one piece of wood, a large section of pine I found sliced up near the roadway, where a storm in the recent past knocked trees over.
Somehow, I manage coffee. Pour us some the moment it’s done dripping, and bring bowls and spoons out onto my porch. It’s the norm, now, it seems: breakfast on the porch.
I’m trying to not think about how much of her legs are visible. How they’ve gained roundness, regained what I imagine is their former and natural plushness.
Her cheeks have normalized, her waistline no longer frighteningly tiny. Her shoulders no longer look like they could snap if you touched her wrong. The shadows under her eyes are fading, even if the shadows in her eyes have not.
The edges of the hoodie bulge over breasts, where before it wouldn’t have.
I turn away and stare at the sunrise over the lake. “You’re up early.”
She shrugs. “I fell asleep early, I guess, and stayed asleep.” Her fingers touch my forearm, a brief, light moment. “Thank you for carrying me inside.”
I clear my throat. “I, uh, yeah. You were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to wake you. Hope it’s all right. That I didn’t invade your privacy or anything, I mean.”
“Not at all,” she murmurs. “I’m grateful.”
&n
bsp; “Thanks for breakfast,” I say.
She pulls off the lid, revealing thick oatmeal liberally sprinkled with fresh blueberries and quartered strawberries, and my nose detects a hint of honey, I think. “My grandmother’s recipe. A stick to your ribs breakfast, she used to call it.”
It’s delicious. Wakes me up, fills me, warms me.
“I was going to head into town later this morning. Go to the library, return books and check out new ones. Probably grab lunch at one of the cafes.” I glance at her over my bowl. “You wanna come with me?”
She smiles. “Absolutely! I haven’t been to the library yet.”
“Great. I like to take my time there. Read bits of the books I’m gonna check out. I kinda make an event of it, I guess. Just so we’re on the same page. I don’t just pop in, find books, leave again.”
Another smile. “I haven’t been to a library in ages, actually. It sounds fun.”
“I mean, I dunno if fun is the right word, but I sure enjoy it.”
* * *
We’ve been browsing separately for an hour. We cross paths now and then; she has a small stack under one arm: a biography of Amelia Earhart, a Jack Reacher novel, and something by Nora Roberts; I have an Agatha Christie mystery, a Tom Clancy novel, and two small sci-fi space operas by writers I’ve never heard of, chosen for the blurb, the cover, and the first few pages.
I find her, later, sitting in a corner with her books on the table beside her, reading the Nora Roberts book. I sit next to her, place my books on hers, and dig into one of the space operas.
We read quietly for…well, I’m not honestly sure. It’s quiet, only a few other older folks browsing here and there, the librarian gliding around with a cart of books to be reshelved, and there are no clocks.
It’s easy to sit here with her, in the silence, reading.
It’s not until I hear her stomach growl that I glance at the windows and see that, judging by the movement of the shaft of sunlight, we’ve been here reading for several hours.
“You wanna go get lunch?” I ask, in a whisper.
She nods. “Yeah, I’m hungry.”
I smirk. “I heard.”
She gives me a droll eye roll. I take our whole stack of books, carry them to the check-out. This is when she realizes she doesn’t have a library card here.
“It’s fine, I’ll check them out for you,” I tell her. “No worries.”
“But…” she starts, and then trails off, appearing to reconsider her protestation. “Okay, thank you.”
Lunch is cheeseburgers and beer at the bar, with ESPN running highlights of college football. The books are in my truck. The bill arrives, and Nadia frowns.
“I don’t have my purse,” she says, her frown deepening. “I didn’t even think about it. It’s been so long since I’ve even needed it.”
“Nadia,” I say, tossing my card onto the tray. “It’s fine.”
She shakes her head, and seems unduly upset. “It’s not. You shouldn’t pay for me.”
“It’s like forty dollars. No big deal.”
“It’s…” She lets out a breath. “It’s not about the money. It’s about the principle of the thing.”
I nudge the tray toward the bartender as he passes by with a pair of beers for a couple of local old guys. Then I glance at her, toying with the leather stitching on my wallet. “Doesn’t make this a date, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She blushes, rolls a shoulder in a vague, unsure gesture. “I…I don’t mean anything against you, Nathan.” A deep, delicate pause. “I…I enjoy spending time with you.” Another pause. “It’s just…I don’t know if I’m…”
“It can be just two friends having lunch, Nadia. I get it.” I try to catch her eyes. “If anyone gets where you are on this, it’s me. Okay?”
She seems to be struggling with what she’s feeling and how to express any of it. Boy, do I get that, too. “I’m really confused, Nathan.”
“Like I said, I get it.”
“Are you confused, too?” she asks, looking at me, finally.
I nod slowly. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Or you mean you’ve have been confused like I am now, so you get it?”
“No, I’m pretty damn confused right now.” I’m the one wrestling with what to say, now. “I like you, Nadia. You’re easy to be around. Easy to talk to. I don’t have to…explain things that most other folks just won’t ever understand. I like that, around you, it’s…it’s easier to not think about…all the heavy shit.” I lick my lips and wish the pint glass in front of me wasn’t empty. “But I feel guilty about not thinking about it…”
Harsh, thick, acid pause.
“About her,” I finish.”
She tilts her head back, sniffles at the ceiling, and the sniff is not quite but almost a laugh. “Yeah,” she murmurs, wiping under her eyes with her two middle fingers. “What you said.”
“You want to head back?” I ask, after a minute.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
We drive back, and it’s silent between us. I let it be, that silence. Sometimes you just can’t talk your way out of awkward silences. Sometimes, the awkward silences are important.
When we get back to the cabins, she stops halfway between my cabin and hers. Her blue jeans fit her just right, and she fills out the plain white V-neck T-shirt in a way I’ve not noticed, until now.
“Nathan?”
I kick at the grass. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I freaked out.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Nadia. I told you, more than anyone else, I get it. No apology is ever necessary.”
“Can I apologize in advance for the fact that I think I need some space for a few days? To…think?”
“No,” I say. “You can’t apologize for that.” I leaven it with a smile. “I’ll still bring you coffee. I’ll just leave it on the porch like I used to.”
“I can make my own,” she protests.
I snicker. “No, you can’t.”
“Nathan.”
“Kidding. I mean, you can’t make coffee for shit, but I’m just teasing. And it’s fine. Take whatever time you need.” I let out a slow breath. “I’ll be around.”
“I know you will,” she says. “I just need to—”
I hold up a hand. “Explanations are as unnecessary as apologies.” I take the burden of ending the exchange on myself. “I’ll see you when you feel talking again. No worries.”
She wants to say more, but I go inside, because it’d just go around in circles.
Shit, I think I need to think, myself.
Heart Work
He brings me coffee in the morning. I leave him offerings of food in return—I’m relearning how to cook. I used to be good at it, used to love it. I used to cook on the weekends, when I wasn’t working. Every once in a while, Adrian would get a hankering for something in particular, and I’d oblige. But now, I’m cooking for me.
I make biscuits, the way Mom used to make them, light and flaky and buttery. Beef stew, with thick chunks of meat and big wedges of potato and slices of carrot. Chili, as taught to me by my college friend Tanner, who learned Tex-Mex chili from county fair cook-off winners. I even figure out the trick to my aunt’s bread, which took a whole day of try, try, try again until I got it just right. I bake pies and cakes, pain au chocolat from an internet recipe, which is nowhere near as good as it was in Paris, of course.
I make some for me, and some for him.
I told him I needed to think, but really, I’m just scared.
I like him.
I like his coffee. I like his big, rough, strong presence. I like the occasional Louisiana twang in his voice. I like how he’s so smart despite having never been to real school. I like that I can sit on my beanbag chair late at night, reading, and hear him on his porch playing his guitar. I hear him playing Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles and Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw and songs I don’t know. I hear him play that one t
une he wrote, for his wife I assume. He plays it a lot, and seems to be adding to it, perfecting and polishing it. I like that he can sit in silence with me and not need to fill it. I like his eyes, big and deep and brown. I like his hands, which are the size of dinner plates just about, scarred and weathered and lined like a map of the world carved into old hickory.
I hate that I like these things. That I’ve noticed them.
That they’re lessening the pierce of sorrow.
I hate that it’s easier to wake up, now, and that it seems to be, in some ways, directly attributable to him. But it’s not, not entirely. I’m sleeping, and eating, and relaxing, and I’m not dehydrated constantly and I’m not stressed out about work. These things help. I’m learning that waking up and missing Adrian is just part of living, not the entirety of me. I’m learning that if I read and bake and cook and paint and walk along the shore in the Georgia fall sun, that I can go hours now without missing him so bad it hurts.
I’m learning to sit through the missing him, to let it dwell in me, and that eventually, the sharpness of it will subside. Like being hungry in the middle of a long shift with no opportunity for lunch—ignore the hunger, and it fades. It’ll still be there, later. But your body seems to just go, oh, we’re not eating now, huh? All right, I’ll wait.
Sorrow, with the space of weeks and months between the event and emotion, seems to function much the same. It hurts, hurts like a motherfucker. Hurts like it did the day he died, some days. But you just have to sit in it. To let it run its course. It’ll fade.
You’ll make it through it.
You won’t actually die from how bad it hurts, even if it feels like you could, even if, in the midst of it, you almost want to.
It’s all so confusing.
And I don’t know what to do.
Because as a day turns into two, turns into a week and there’s no more breakfast on his porch or mine and no more lazy afternoons on the dock, and his understanding presence always seeming to be right there when I needed it and comforting in a way I didn’t know was possible.
The Cabin Page 20