by Claire Adams
“That sounds riveting,” I said, popping a grape into my mouth and grabbing the basket for the garden. “All I ask is that you send me home some for my freezer. I’m almost out from last year’s crop.”
“Of course,” she said, scoffing. “Like I could eat all of this on my own.”
“No, but the ladies at your church could.” I laughed, walking out the back door.
I spent every Sunday with my mother, even those that I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. Actually, especially those days that I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I did chores for her, things she needed help with, but lived alone the rest of the time. In between, I got to listen to her harp on me for not having a boyfriend, something that I had given up on a while ago on, though I would never tell her that. My mom, though, was relentless in the pursuit for grandchildren, and these Sundays were less of a relaxing day at Mom’s and more a penance for being a single woman. Most of the time, I was fine with it, but other times, I considered just getting into a non-serious relationship with someone just so that she could stop harping on me, though I knew that was never going to happen. If I had a boyfriend, she would then start asking when we were getting married. If I was married, she would be hounding me for grandchildren. It was a never-ending cycle.
I smiled as I plopped the basket of tomatoes on the counter and grabbed my mom’s keys, watching her put together her tools. She loved doing this. I went out to the car and popped the trunk, lifting the two cases of mason jars and shutting the trunk. I set them down on the trunk and shoved the keys in my pockets, knowing if I dropped and broke her jars, the world as I knew it would end. As I went to pick them back up, I paused, seeing a familiar figure walking down the street. I squinted for a minute, but then realized I wasn’t seeing things. I pushed the boxes back up on the trunk and made sure they weren’t going to fall before taking off in a jog down the street.
“Ollie,” I called out, jogging after him.
He didn’t hear me at first, so I picked up the pace, realizing that I needed to start working out more often. I was losing my breath like I smoked a pack a day. I called out to him again, and his pace slowed, allowing me to stop jogging. Slowly, he turned around and blinked, almost as if he was expecting someone else. His face was white at first, but when he realized who I was, the color started coming back to his cheeks. I wondered if he thought he was losing it, hearing Lillie’s voice like I had thought I had heard many times over the last five years. He was clearly not expecting to see me standing there, which was exactly what I was feeling when I saw him jog straight past me, his eyes zoned out on the road ahead of him.
I was more than a little confused, seeing his face in this neighborhood. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing all the way out there. He looked almost bewildered to see me, like he wasn’t expecting it, or maybe like he wasn’t expecting to find me so easily. He had been to Lillie’s parents’ house before but never to mine, so even though he knew I lived in this neighborhood, he couldn’t have known where exactly I was going to be. I had told him that I was coming there, though.
In reality, our dinner had been a complete disaster on Friday night, the evening ending in a ball of tears, valium, and really awkward feelings. The tears and valium being my side of things, once I got home. It was hard for me to believe that he would actually come looking for me. I was pretty sure after that disaster, he wouldn’t even think about trying to seek me out again. Maybe I was wrong. He seemed lost, and it was only natural to move toward what was familiar. I knew that in this town, with our past, I was pretty much the only familiar thing left.
He knew what my plans were for the day because I had told him on the car ride home. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had purposely tracked me down. The question brought feelings to my chest that I hadn’t felt in a really long time. It was like a mixture of excitement and confusion fusing together and creating a knot in my stomach as he breathed heavily, walking toward me in the street. He definitely looked lost, like he was searching for something. In the end, though, it turned out that finding me was not what he was doing all the way out there. Instead, the reasoning was a lot sadder and way more depressing than I was expecting. This guy was having a really hard time, and I was almost glad that I had seen him in the street. Five more minutes picking tomatoes, and I would have completely missed him.
“Hey,” he said, walking up.
“Hey,” I replied. “What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sighing. “I thought I knew when I started out, but now I am wondering the same thing. I woke up this morning thinking about Lillie, so I went for a jog. That jog turned out to be a little longer than usual, and I ended up here, my feet carrying me before my mind could catch up. I’ve just been walking around the neighborhood because it was where Lillie grew up. I’m not sure what I hoped to find; maybe a spark for my memory, something to fill the void since I moved back here. I don’t know. It’s stupid really.”
“No, that’s not stupid.” I smiled kindly. “I used to do laps around this neighborhood looking for the same thing.”
We stood there in the street for several moments, just looking at each other. Ollie had a look on his face that was all too familiar, the look of being completely and utterly lost. I realized then that he was where I was four years ago, a place I visited from time to time, and more frequently since he had returned. I had almost forgotten that he had run away, leaving all of this in the past, and I knew he had to work through it to have any chance at a happy life.
My eyes scanned his face, and I recognized a very familiar beast lurking in his eyes. It was grief, the shadowy figure that followed us both wherever we went, relentless in its path to cause as much suffering as possible in this life. Ollie was still grieving, just like me, but for him, it was like reliving everything all over again. For him, I realized, leaving Madison was just a pause, not a fix. He had paused the grief and sorrow, thinking that he could outrun it, but coming back to this place made him realize that he had been tricked, and he had never actually gotten away. Instead, he had spent all that time just waiting for it to rear its ugly head again.
I took in a deep breath and realized I couldn’t just leave him like that. I couldn’t let him run off, circling the block over and over again, searching for something that he would never find. Maybe it was a good thing I was there, having already moved past that place. I could lend a helping hand and show him that he wasn’t alone. I reached out and slid my arm through his, patting it with my hand.
“Come on,” I said quietly. “Come inside.”
He sighed and forced a smile, knowing that the best thing he could do at that moment was go with me wherever I wanted to take him. When I walked through the front door, though, my mother stopped what she was doing, surprised to see a man with me. I instantly regretted my decision as hope started springing to life in her eyes. She hadn’t recognized him yet, which was going to make things a little bit more awkward than they already were.
“Mom, this is Ollie,” I said. “We were really good friends in college. You met him once before.”
“Yes,” she said happily. “I remember you, Ollie. Welcome to my home. You can call me Tammy.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, smiling uncomfortably.
“Ollie has been gone for about five years, but he just got back into town,” I said, trying to keep the details distant, seeing in my mom’s eyes that she knew who Ollie was without me having to say it. “If it’s okay, he’s going to stay for dinner and some good company.”
“That is perfect,” my mom said, walking over and giving him a hug. “Well, come on in, and make yourself comfortable.”
I watched as my mother flitted around the room, grabbing Ollie a beer, and then putting him to work helping us out with the task at hand. It wasn’t quite what I was looking to have him do, but after watching him loosen up a bit as he grabbed the mason jars, I realized that keeping him busy was probably the best thing I could offer him. He
needed to remember that life was continuing on, with or without him, and that it was a lot easier not to fight the tides.
We spent the afternoon in the kitchen, peeling and stewing tomatoes, and sealing them in the jars. My mom really liked showing him how to do things, and I was just glad that his mind was on something other than Lillie, even if it was only for a short time. None of us really talked that much, which I appreciated from my mother. Instead, we went to work getting the task at hand out of the way so that we could relax and maybe even watch a little football together. I couldn’t help but notice how nice it felt to have him there, almost like it was natural.
Chapter 9
Ollie
The day had gotten away from me before I even knew it. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but I had found myself sitting in Elana’s mother’s living room, a TV tray full of spaghetti and meatballs in front of me, the Packers game on the television, and questions floating through my head on how my day ended up unfolding like that. Surprisingly, I didn’t mind it much at all, and I was content with where I was. I was feeling better in that moment than I had felt since I returned to town. There was something comforting about being in Elana’s childhood home, surrounded by people that cared about me and getting to be comfortable and relaxed. Relaxed was a word that I barely even recognized before, even when I was in Phoenix. I had told myself that relaxing was something that people with no history, no sadness in their past did. Me? I was always thinking and remembering, leaving me incapacitated and unable to slow my mind enough to relax.
I had never actually been to Elana’s house before, but it fit her perfectly, and so did her mom. It was still decorated more like the eighties than present day, and her mom was exactly what I imagined, with dark hair and the same blue eyes, but a bit of a mess, like the teacher from the Magic School Bus. I could totally see Elana turning into her mom later on in life, only a bit calmer and interested in books and not stewed tomatoes. I had forgotten completely that she lived in the same neighborhood as Lillie, which I was starting to think was a happy accident for me.
Ever since the moment I dropped Elana off at her house after our disastrous time out, I had been chasing Lillie’s ghost. I couldn’t get her off my mind, so I had let it take me over, letting myself wallow in the grief over my beloved. It had gotten so bad that I found myself walking through all the places that we had spent time together. I was up all night Saturday, retracing the steps of when I had proposed. It was agonizing and self-destructive.
When that had become too little to keep the fire of grief going, my mind took me to her life before me, her childhood. I wanted to see what she saw growing up, feel the feeling of being where she had been. So, I ended up searching out the neighborhood and street she grew up on. It just so happened that I had been there a couple of times to visit her parents when we first met, and my mind had remembered exactly where it was, guiding me there like I was in a trance or was being controlled from another realm.
Her parents had sold the house our sophomore year in college, but it didn’t matter to me. I still walked all the way over and stood in front of it, almost able to hear her laughter coming from inside. I could remember being incredibly nervous to meet her family, but she took my hand and pulled me playfully up the walk, trying to make me realize they were people, too. I had gotten irritated with her for never taking anything seriously.
As I stood outside of the house, I could feel the guilt run through me for being upset with her. It was so stupid. Every couple fights, but most have a chance to spend the rest of their lives making up for it. It had actually been one of the very few times we ever bickered over anything. She was so lighthearted that it was impossible to stay mad at her, and she avoided conflict like the plague.
The house was quiet when I got there, no cars in the drive, but it didn’t matter to me. I had just wanted to feel close to her again, to know I was standing in a place that she once stood. But now, without even thinking, I had become immersed in Elana’s world, a place of laughter, loud voices, sarcasm, and a warm and comforting feeling I hadn’t even known with my own family. It wasn’t as scary or heart wrenching as I thought it would be, and I was finding myself hoping the day would drag on. Maybe it was because we were somewhere where Lillie wasn’t, or maybe I was so engrossed in my grief that she pulled me up for air, but either way, this had turned into an unexpected afternoon, something I realized I needed.
To top it off, when I got there, they were canning, which I had never done before. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt good to be helpful to someone else. I lifted the heavy things and had the pleasure of letting Elana’s mom teach me how to do it. Of course, I really didn’t need to know how to jar tomatoes, but I could tell it made Tammy feel good to have someone to teach, so I listened intently, smiling at her quirks and looking over at Elana, who seemed miserable with the process. I guessed when you’ve done it a hundred times, it wasn’t quite as exciting as I found it.
All in all, this Sunday had turned out a hell of a lot better than I thought it was going to. I was pretty sure it was going to end with tears, suffering, and Jack Daniels. Beer, spaghetti, and football was such a better alternative, not to mention having Tammy and Elana as company: two people that were very unexpected in my life at that time. Maybe things didn’t have to be so hard between the two of us. Maybe there was an opportunity to start over with Elana in my life. Just as I thought that, Elana walked around the corner, shaking her head at me and sighing. She looked over her shoulder to make sure her mom was out of earshot and then sat down next to me. I steadied my tray as the couch shook beneath me and looked at her with a smile. Only this time, my smile was actually genuine, not faked like it was at the start of the day. She smiled back and let out a deep breath, obviously wanting to say something. She looked at the doorway again and leaned in closer to me.
“I’m so sorry for throwing you into the canning festival my mother was having,” she said. “I just thought it would be best if you came inside, and she gets excited to have company. She doesn’t have anyone to show all her proud secrets to, so you were pretty much in for it the moment you jogged past my house. Actually, I’m convinced now that you actually brought this upon yourself.”
“Oh yeah?” I laughed loudly at her sarcasm. “But don’t apologize. It’s actually been really cool. Thank you for having me here on your Sunday with your mom.”
She beamed at the thank you, and I couldn’t help but smile back, almost like it was catching. She was so funny and sweet, and I felt like this day had helped her too, in a way. She was struggling as well, but I had been so absorbed when she found me walking the neighborhood that I didn’t even think about it.
“Really, I appreciate everything,” I said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but sitting here and reflecting, I realized this might have been exactly what I needed, at exactly the right time. You must be a wizard.”
“The wizard actually,” she said, straightening her shoulders before bursting into laughter.
Her smile was beautiful and bright, and I realized once again just how gorgeous Elana was, something that, for some reason, I had never really seen until I came back to Madison. I knew it wasn’t her silky long hair or her face without the glasses, though those definitely highlighted her beautiful face. It was more than that. It was the way she looked at me, the way she brushed her hand across my arm when she laughed, and the fact that we got each other’s humor better than anyone I had ever met.
However, mixed in with the butterflies in my chest was a bit of an awkward feeling, making it hard to swallow sometimes. It was definitely a strange feeling, this attraction to my deceased fiancé’s best friend. I had known her for a long time, but I had never truly seen her until this moment. My emotions were mixed all over the place, and I didn’t know whether to beam or run away, chastising myself for what I was feeling. I wondered if the same thoughts were running through her head.
Just before the silence got weird, Tammy turned the corner carrying two trays
. She set one of them up by Elana, next to me, and the other at the chair across from us. Elana jumped up and went into the kitchen, helping her mom bring out their dinner and beers. We sat there and ate our delicious homemade spaghetti and meatballs and watched the game, laughing and talking as we did. It felt so natural and so real, and I wasn’t even going to try fighting it. I hadn’t felt like that in a really long time, if ever.
Tammy pushed her tray to the side when she was done eating and sat on the edge of her seat, cheering every time her team made a touchdown and booing at every call against them that the refs made. She was boisterous and loud, and it made me laugh, thinking about my dad and how loud he was at football games. As her team made another touchdown, she got up from her chair and did a victory lap around the living room, slapping our hands and embarrassing the hell out of Elana. I thought it was awesome and considered joining in with a little end zone dance to help make her feel less awkward. We laughed and joked through the whole thing, and I didn’t even think about Lillie once. When it hit halftime, Tammy ran off to refill us on beer and snacks, and I looked at Elana and smiled. She wasn’t boisterous at all during the game, but I could tell that she was enjoying watching it. Not to mention she knew the calls and the plays without me coaching her. I was a bit confused by the change of heart.
“What has happened to you?” I asked, smiling. “I used to have to practically drag you and Lillie out to football games. You guys would be literally kicking and screaming. I remember because you accidentally kicked me in the shin that one time and gave me a limp for a week.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, throwing her head back and laughing hard. “I had completely forgotten about that. We were literally kicking and screaming, trying to give you a hard time. Lillie thought it was hilarious that an injury came out of the whole ordeal, and I felt terrible for like a week.”