by Suzie Carr
She pointed a pen to a notecard. Just thinking of you sounded too bold.
She looked down to Rosy, then back at the note she began.
Just thinking of you, and hoping you are well. Here’s some yummy treats for Bee. Just don’t let her bite off those pretty fingers of yours. (smile)
Too flirty.
Rosy glanced up at her as if on cue.
She tore it up and started a new one.
Just thinking of you, and hoping you are well. She hesitated, searching for a good hook. She looked back at Rosy who blinked. “You’re right. This is ridiculous.”
She went back to the living room and sat down. She flipped through a Cosmo magazine. Not long into an article on fall fashion, Sophie returned home.
“Hey kiddo. I thought you were going to Ashley’s for a sleepover tonight?”
“I am. But not until later. First I have some research to do.” She wheeled her laptop case over to the couch and then plopped down.
“That hard of a day?”
Sophie propped her feet on the coffee table. “I went over to the apiary after school and was surprised to find Brooke with a new trainer. Did you know she hired a new one?”
Pins pricked up her spine, like someone squeezed a voodoo doll and stuck her with hundreds of needles. “I had suggested Greg.”
“He wasn’t Greg.”
“How did Bee act around him?”
“She humped his leg.”
“Really?”
Sophie nodded as if numbed by the news herself. “And that happened at the end of the training session.” She climbed to her feet and wheeled her case off to her bedroom, leaving Jacky with a rabid bite of jealousy and longing.
~ ~
Halfway through her plate of mashed potatoes, Brooke’s phone rang.
It was Jacky. Her heart soared.
“I hope this isn’t a bad time?”
“Your call saved me from eating a whole plate of lumpy mashed potatoes.”
“Mashed potatoes? Lumpy at that? Oh, geez, I’m sorry I interrupted.”
Brooke giggled.
“Would you settle for a cup of coffee in lieu of lumpy potatoes?”
Brooke loved hearing her familiar voice. “I can have it brewing in five minutes,” she said with a skip to her heart.
“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.”
~ ~
Just as the sun started to set behind the carriage house, Jacky pulled into the driveway. When Jacky rang the doorbell, Brooke had just finished pulling chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. She ran out of the kitchen to grab the door. Bee went crazy on the ledge of the bay window.
When Brooke opened the door, she didn’t try to stop Bee from jumping. She wanted Jacky to see how her absence affected them both.
“I’ve been a terrible student,” Brooke said, closing the door behind them.
Jacky bent down to pet Bee. “Some students require lifelong learning.”
Brooke nodded. Jacky had summarized her perfectly.
Bee sniffed the bag Jacky carried. Reaching into it, she pulled out an adorable mason’s jar filled with treats the shape of hearts. Jacky handed the jar to her. “I almost mailed them to you.” She pulled in her lip. “I suck at writing though. I couldn’t come up with anything clever to say that would clear my jerk status for backing out on my commitment to you and Bee.”
Brooke opened the jar and handed Bee a treat. “Trying to mail anything to a carriage house is impossible. My grandparents would’ve signed for it and forgotten about it. It happens all the time. Once they forgot to hand over a Christmas package for my ex. Her parents had mailed it to her, and it sat in my grandparent’s foyer for weeks. She cried thinking they had forgotten about her. Probably served her right to suffer a little.”
Jacky chuckled.
“I’m rambling.”
Jacky remained fixated, dispensing a yearning. “I missed you.”
“I’m glad you finally called,” Brooke whispered.
Jacky pulled in her bottom lip, looking shy and vulnerable. “I heard about Bee humping your new trainer’s leg. I guess I’m not Bee’s only one anymore.”
Brooke laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“Your new trainer.”
“What new trainer?”
“Sophie told me you have a new one, and Bee humps his leg.”
“Is that why you called? Were you jealous of this new trainer?”
Jacky opened her mouth, and closed it. Then, reopened again. “I guess I am.”
“I wouldn’t hire a new trainer.” Brooke warmed at the idea that Sophie wanted them to spend time together. “I think your daughter pulled a fast one on us.”
Jacky blushed, and blossomed into a relieved smile, one that spread through her entire being. “It would seem so.”
Brooke placed her hand on Jacky’s arm. “Come in. I baked some cookies to go with that coffee.”
Jacky followed her into the kitchen, over to the same spot where Sophie caught them dancing.
“So what else besides a little jealousy brings you by?” Brooke asked.
“I wanted to thank you for taking Sophie under your wing as you have. She’s loving this whole beekeeping thing.”
Brooke wanted more of a reason. “She’s great at it.”
“She’s opening up again. Little by little.”
“Little by little is good.” Brooke walked toward the coffee pot.
Jacky followed. “I worry about her, you know?” She fidgeted with the bottle of peppermint oil on her counter. “For so long she just hung out in her bedroom and read books. Since coming here, she regained a part of her innocence and zest for life. I suspect you have a lot to do with it.”
Brooke reached for the peppermint oil and added a drop to each of their mugs. “We have the bees to thank for that.” She stirred one of the coffees.
“You’re too humble.”
“I can’t take credit for what they teach us.” Brooke circled toward the living room.
Once they sat on the couch, they sipped. “So how have you been?”
“I’ve been fine,” Jacky said.
Brooke scanned her face and it told a different story. She sat before a woman who was sinking into a well of loneliness. She had shame and regret written in the fine lines around her eyes. Her left eye twitched, indicating lying didn’t come naturally and the weight of all she carried began to take its toll. Just like her bees, Brooke learned to read body language. It offered a lot more information than did words. Words often misguided reality. They said one thing but meant an entirely different thing. “Really?”
Jacky sipped her coffee. “Yeah.” She bounced her head up and down as if convincing herself of that lie. “I’m doing fine.”
Brooke braved forward. “I don’t believe you.”
Jacky scoffed, then hid her resistance in another long, drawn-out sip.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Jacky eyed her and labored for air. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning?”
“Do you have all night?”
She had the rest of her life. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Jacky rubbed her eyes. She looked exhausted and beat down by life, like she’d been in the ring for too long and took on too many punches.
“Go on. Just let it out.”
Jacky inhaled deeply. “I lied to you about something.”
“Oh?”
“I haven’t been busy at the school this week.”
“I know. Sophie fills me in.”
Jacky winced.
“It’s okay.” Brooke placed her hand on her knee.
“I’ve got a lot of baggage, even for a friendship.”
“Baggage can be unpacked.”
“Mine is awfully wrinkled.”
“It means you’ve lived,” Brooke said.
Jacky’s jaw tensed, and her eye twitched again.
Instinctively, Brooke de
licately smoothed her finger along Jacky’s lid, easing the twitch into submission. “Talk to me.”
“Our dance.” She met her eye. “It opened my heart again, and that scared me.”
“Of course it did.” Brooke placed her hand on the side of Jacky’s blushed face, trying to soothe her.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then, help me to.”
“The reason goes deeper than my desire.” Jacky paused. A reservoir of silence permeated the space between them. Then, she spoke again. “It’s my fault Drew died.”
Brooke cradled Jacky’s cheek. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were having a fight. It got ugly. I said things I never should’ve said. And it kills me that I can’t take them back. There’s no rewind and erase buttons.”
“Every couple fights. It’s natural. It’s conflict.” She dropped her hand and caressed Jacky’s wrist now.
“I can tell Sophie blames me. Hell, I blame me. When Sophie looks at me,” Jacky groaned, “well, I wonder if she wishes I had died that day instead.”
Jacky’s face took on a fresh layer of agony. Brooke tightened her grip on her wrist, urging her to continue.
“I know we’re all in this to die. I get that. Maybe we’re all in line to die on a certain prearranged day, even. Maybe she died that day because the day belonged to her. I want to believe that because that’s the only way I can forgive myself.”
Brooke didn’t agree. Fate didn’t work that way. Living constituted a series of choices and those choices dictated life, not destiny.
“I said many things to Drew that I shouldn’t have. God, we could argue. But we loved each other. Couples fight. Right? I mean, that’s what we do. What we did. We’d argue our sides, stubbornly at best, and eventually we’d forget why we stopped talking for a time. We’d just pick up one morning where we left off before a fight. She’d pour me cereal, I’d pour her milk. We’d crunch, pass the paper to each other, and carry on with our lives. We learned to forgive and forget, just as much as we learned to hide our feelings. Only the words I tossed at her that day weren’t meant to be the last ones she heard. Why did the universe decide those had to be the last words she’d ever hear and the last words I’d ever speak to her? It’s so unfair.”
Brooke had a pretty good idea of the nature of those words. She’d tossed them to Penelope a few times herself. They were like bricks in a foundation. They weren’t the entire foundation, just a part, woven into the whole, not as support, but as a component. Not a very important component. Just a part of the sum.
“If you truly loved her, she knew it.”
“I did. I loved her with all my heart. And it sucks that I get to carry on and she doesn’t.”
“You can’t think that way.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You realize that by carrying that regret around you’re doing her a great disservice, don’t you?”
Jacky sniffed. “I don’t know about that.”
“By not getting on with your life, you’re saying to everyone around you that she ruined you. That her death destroyed you.”
Jacky gasped and nodded.
Brooke continued, “You and Drew built a beautiful life together, and her spirit still lives on in that world and in the love you have for your daughter. To fall to the ground in defeat over some words, that in hindsight meant nothing, isn’t honoring her legacy the way I know you want to honor it.”
Jacky’s chin quivered. “You’re so right.”
Brooke paused, thinking how best to help her. “Most of us have been taught that we need to be strong, always moving forward no matter what. But that’s not always easy, is it?”
Jacky shook her head. “It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted.”
Pain etched on her face, and all Brooke wanted was to wipe it away with something clever and wise; something her Nana or her meditation teacher would’ve said.
“If we never give ourselves a break from trying to be strong, we welcome disaster to come in and destroy everything we’re working so hard to maintain.”
“I just want to feel at peace, but reminders pummel me down whenever I open up to it.”
Jacky equated strength with peace. Brooke didn’t see it that way. “We have to get beaten down from time to time. That’s part of the human experience. We have to fall to the ground and learn to accept defeat and mistakes we’ve made.”
“So just give up?”
Brooke half-smiled, taken in by Jacky’s need to make things right with Sophie, with Bee, with her obvious struggle. “No. You don’t give up. You allow yourself to feel those emotions, but then, you have to climb back up on your feet and move on after you’ve learned the lessons. You have to get back up because there are victories waiting on you.”
Jacky searched her eyes. “How do you know just what to say?”
Brooke released a soft sigh. “I’ve had my share of disappointments in life. Of course, nothing compared to yours. But, nonetheless, I’ve suffered heartbreaks that have brought me to my knees; my parents uprooting without inviting me along and my girlfriend leaving and taking our dog. My nana helped me through them. She’s wise and her advice sunk in I guess.”
“To look at you, I’d never know you suffered heartbreak,” Jacky said. “Your positivity gives me hope.”
“You have to believe that only the best of all the love, pain, suffering, and healing will stay with you. From there, you’ll have new shades of colors to draw from.”
Brooke paused again, watching as Jacky absorbed what she said. She desperately wanted Jacky to release her pain. “Sometimes it takes a while for the dust to settle. Trust that it will shortly, and when it does, you’ll find your new building blocks somewhere in there.”
Jacky teared up.
Brooke placed her hand on top of Jacky’s. “You need to forgive yourself.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You turn to those who love you and let them help you heal. Support systems are vital.”
Jacky drew a deep breath. “I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point when I’m not trying to get somewhere. When I’ll look around and be happy right where I finally am.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to slip into that peaceful pocket. You deserve it. Life will continue to tumble around you, it always does. That’s the ebb and flow. That doesn’t mean you should stop and let it suck you down and drown you.”
Jacky wrestled with pain. “It’s hard to inhale air when under the water.”
“I would imagine so.” Brooke paused and took in the recognition surfacing on her face.
Jacky fidgeted with a string on her shirt.
“It’s time for you to get back up.”
“I feel it, too.” Jacky swallowed hard.
Brooke stepped onto the ledge of boldness. “I don’t think Drew would want you to stay down like this. She’d want you to get back up on your feet and live your life.”
Jacky squeezed her eyes closed for a few emotional seconds, then met Brooke’s eyes again.
Brooke continued, “If you stayed down, I would imagine she’d be very upset with you. She wouldn’t want you to fall to the ground and let life flush you away.”
“I wouldn’t want that for her, either.”
“Exactly.” Brooke paused, allowing for some breathing room. “I also don’t believe she’d want to be the cause of a great life wasted. You’ve got time left. What if it’s another fifty years? You can’t go on carrying this weight for the next fifty years.”
Jacky swallowed hard. “I’m tired of carrying it. It hurts.”
“Let it go.”
Jacky frowned. “I sometimes wish I never met her so I’d be ignorant to the pain of it all.”
“If you knew ahead of time that you’d suffer this way, would you really have walked away from her?”
Jacky blinked. “Impossible. I fell head over heels the first moment I met her.”
“Every woman dreams of being loved w
ith such passion.” I sure as hell do.
“I did love her with every part of my soul.”
“That doesn’t have to stop for you to move forward.”
Jacky ran her fingers through her hair, then rested her chin in the palm of her hand. A peaceful glow began to surface.
“Keep honoring her as you do. Keep those pictures hung on the wall and continue to love her. And, know that it’s okay to be happy. She would never want to see you live any other way, just as you wouldn’t want that for her if the situation was reversed.”
“Yeah.” Jacky nodded, still visibly struggling.
“You’re very tense.”
“Hm. Yeah, I am.” She released a half beat laugh. “Maybe what I need is a set of earbuds and one of your guided meditations.”
“I can do better than that.” Brooke placed a pillow on her lap. “Here. Lay back.”
“A personalized one?”
Brooke reached out and caressed Jacky’s hand. “There’s a first time for everything.”
Jacky smiled, then did as told.
Brooke ran her fingers through Jacky’s hair, easing her into a relaxed state. “Take a nice deep breath.”
Jacky inhaled deeply and a lopsided grin grew.
“No giggling,” Brooke whispered.
“No, ma’am.”
“No calling me ma’am, either.”
Jacky chuckled, then nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Good. Now inhale again. Let it penetrate all the way down into your belly. Enjoy the gentle expansion as you inhale.”
She voiced her words slowly, carefully.
“Let go and surrender all worry and stress as the breath glides in.” She paused. “Now let it out.”
Jacky exhaled, slow and steady.
“Inhale again and allow your breath to travel through your body, cleansing all the fears and pains.”
“You’re good at this,” Jacky said.
“Shh. This isn’t about me. This is your time. So enjoy it. Ease into it. Let it dissolve your negative emotions.”
Jacky nodded and swallowed hard, tensing her jaw.
Brooke whispered slowly, “Imagine that you’re holding in the palm of your hand, a big problem.” She rested for a few seconds, then eased ahead. “Make it the one big problem that is getting in your way every day as you wake up, as you brush your teeth, as you stare in the mirror at your reflection.” She rolled out her words one easy beat at a time. “The one that sits on your shoulders and presses them down. The one that pinches your heart and tears you up inside.”