by Lori L. Otto
“Oh, yeah,” she smiles. “Nate-Nate’s in heaven.”
“That’s right,” Jennifer says. I smile, feeling the familiar lump in my throat and my eyes beginning to water. I stand up to get drinks so she won’t see me cry. She is such a sweet little girl, she normally cries with me when I begin. And I don’t want her to cry.
“Clara,” I tell her, carrying three bottles of water. “You can sleep with me any time your mommy says it’s okay.”
“Yea!” she exclaims. “Mama, can I tonight? Please?”
Jennifer looks at me, and I nod my head. “Okay,” she says. “But just tonight.” I know my sister is doing what she thinks is best for me. I mouth the words “thank you” to her.
“So, hey, Chris and I were talking about your birthday,” Jennifer says to me.
I groan and roll my eyes. “What about it?” I dread my birthday, coming in a little over a month. I will be thirty years old.
“What do you want to do to celebrate it?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I laugh. “Absolutely nothing. I’d like to stay in my twenties, thank you.”
“Not possible,” she says. “We can do a party here–”
“No,” I interrupt. “Not here. No party.” We had Nate’s 29th birthday here just five months ago. So much has happened since then. My whole life has changed, whole world turned upside down.
“Okay, we can go out...”
“I don’t know,” I consider the options. “What about just a family thing? Something low key.”
“We could do that.”
“Maybe at Chris’s apartment?” I ask.
“I’ll suggest it to him. I’m sure he and Anna would be happy to host it.”
After dinner, we continue to unload boxes, and again, I’m exhausted by the day’s end. After my bath, I go over to the bed, where Clara is already tucked in and fast asleep. I tell my sister good night and crawl under the covers of the king sized bed. I kiss Clara on the forehead, careful not to wake her. As I try to sleep, I do my best to think of anything other than Nate, but the image of his smiling face keeps making an appearance in my thoughts. I allow myself to think about kissing him goodnight. Instead of feeling sad, the usual longing, I feel okay. Hopeful that the healing is continuing, I focus on sleep.
~ * ~
“Son of a bitch!”
“What’s going on?” I ask my sister after she slams the door shut.
“You know how I couldn’t find that one box of Clara’s toys?”
“Yes...”
“Well, I realized I must have left it in the closet at the house, so I decided to stop by after I dropped Clara off at school. I tried to call Michael first, but he didn’t answer.” In the past two weeks since she moved in, we had unpacked every box, gone through every drawer, trying to find the toys that were missing. They had been boxed up for awhile, toys that Clara had outgrown, ones that my sister wasn’t ready to part with yet.
I have a feeling I know where this conversation is headed. “What happened?”
“There was a fucking woman walking around the fucking house in his fucking robe!” It was just as I had expected.
She sits down on the couch and starts to cry. It’s not fair that this has to happen to her, again. Her first husband cheated on her. And even though she was currently separated from Michael, it was far too soon for either of them to move on... at least it was too soon in her mind, and in my mind, as well. They had decided on a “trial” separation, but it was clear to me what his intent was from the start. My sister was hopeful she wouldn’t have to survive two failed marriages.
“Jen,” I tell her, putting aside my work, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just not fair,” she sobs.
“No, it’s not,” I agree, rubbing her back. “What did he do?”
“Nothing!” she yells. “He acted like everything was normal, like I should expect another woman to be in our home! He tried to introduce her to me, but as soon as I saw her, I just stumbled to the closet, found the box, and made my way out the door, as fast as I could.” She gets up off the couch hurriedly and walks into the kitchen, finding the nearest bottle of wine and pouring herself a glass.
“Jen, it’s not even ten–”
“Emi,” she warns. “Do not go there.”
“Sorry, you’re right,” I apologize. I’m pretty sure I’d need something to calm my nerves, too, if I was in her position.
“I might as well just file for divorce now,” she says. “I don’t know what we’re waiting on. If he can just move on and start fucking strangers so soon after we split... I don’t think he wants me anymore.” She weeps quietly, restraining herself from letting it out again. “What is wrong with me, Emi?”
“Nothing,” I assure her. “This has nothing to do with you. This has to do with an immature man who rushed into marriage when he wasn’t sure it was what he wanted. Period. You guys barely knew each other, remember?”
“But we were in love,” she explains. “He accepted me and Clara, both. I thought he loved us.”
“I’m sure he thought he did, too. In fact, I’m sure he did. I’m sure he acted on that passion... probably never considered any practicalities... consequences... sacrifices he’d have to make.”
“You know,” she says, “why couldn’t he have been the one to die?” My breathing stops, my heart stutters at her statement.
“Jen, don’t say things like that,” I try to reason with my sister.
“Seriously?” she says, her voice elevating and words quickening, becoming more and more irrational. “I don’t understand why Nate, who was so devoted to you, loved you completely, was well on his way to creating the perfect life for you both... why did he have to go? Why would God take him, one of the few genuinely good men of the world? And why would He leave this piece of shit excuse for a human behind?” She gets up to pour another glass of wine.
“Jen, please,” I beg. “You can’t look for reason in Nate’s death at all. There is no reason behind why he is gone. I have just had to learn to trust that Nate was needed elsewhere and that He had other plans for me. It’s all blind faith... but it’s all I have to explain what happened.”
“And you just accept it?” she asks.
“I have to. What other options are there? Live in denial? Pretend he’s still here? Be angry at God? Kill myself?”
My sister sits in silence as she drinks.
“In the end, I just think about what Nate would want for me. I believe he’s watching me... that he looks out for me... that he really just wants me to be happy. That’s all he ever wanted for me in life. I feel certain that he still feels that way.” I become a little choked up and begin to cry. I quickly swallow the tears, not wanting to take attention away from my sister.
“I still don’t see why God just left me with trash,” Jen says.
“Because He knows you can handle this,” I tell her. “He knows you’re strong enough to take this experience, learn from it, and move on.”
“But why me?” she cries.
“Probably because He knows you can do better. There is someone better suited for you, and for Clara.”
“But I don’t want to be alone,” she says through her tears.
“You’re not alone,” I tell her. “You’ve got Clara, first and foremost.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Okay, so you’ll be without a man for awhile. You know, maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s ‘why you,’” I say. “Because you’ve never really been alone. You’ve always just gone from relationship to relationship... you’ve never been ‘alone’ in your entire adult life!”
“I’m not like you, Emi,” she says.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know myself well enough. I’m not comfortable with myself like you are. I’m not strong like you are.”
“Well, then this is your chance to get that way,” I laugh. “I am the way I am because of my past experience. I’m strong and independent because of the
many years I spent ‘alone.’ It’s really not so bad.”
“But Clara needs a father figure,” she argues.
“You know what, we have a great male role model in our family already. Her uncle Chris will be there anytime you need him or want him around. So that can’t be the excuse you use. Don’t just go out and find another man for Clara’s sake. She’ll be much happier being surrounded by people who love her and want her around... people she’s already built trust in.”
“I know you’re right,” she concedes. “What are we going to do?”
I smile, having thought that question to myself many times over the past few months. What am I going to do? How can I move forward with my life?
They were constant questions that plagued me, but every day, I came up with one or two more answers. I was building a powerful arsenal of weapons to fight a sad and lonely existence, living in the past. Some days the answers are earth-shattering; other days, they’re barely a blip on my radar. Together, though, they give me hope of some sort of future. At this point, I’ll take it. I’ll take what I can get.
“We’re going to live here together, and we’re going to help each other, one day at a time. That’s what we’re going to do,” I tell her. “We’re going to help each other make smart choices. We’re going to be honest with each other and, more importantly, learn to be honest with ourselves. And we’re going to heal, we’ll move on from all this pain and find our happy ending... somewhere. Maybe a man will be involved, maybe not. But we’re going to be happy with the outcome, whatever it is.”
“Where’d you get all the answers?” Jen asks me. “You’re my little sister. You’re not supposed to be smarter than me.”
“I’ve done a lot of growing in the last few months,” I remind her. “Plus, I’ve had years of self-introspect. That’s what being single does to you.”
“Scary,” she jokes.
“Not scary,” I correct her. “Healthy.”
After a few more glasses of wine, Jennifer falls asleep on the couch. At two-thirty, I decide to take her car to go pick up Clara. I leave her a note on the coffee table so she won’t worry. Maybe a little sleep will do her good... and she’ll have some time to pull herself together for her daughter this evening. I decide to spend the afternoon with my niece, and grab a few pieces of bread on my way out.
Clara is happy to see me when she hops into her booster seat. I turn around to buckle her in.
“Where’s mommy?” she asks when I start driving.
“She’s at home sleeping. She wasn’t feeling well.”
“She’s sick?”
“Just a little,” I tell her. “I’m sure she’ll be all better tonight.”
“Okay,” she says, content with the response, as any five-year-old would be.
“How would you like to go to the park?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she exclaims. “Can we feed the ducks?”
I pick up the bread that I stuffed in a baggie before I left the apartment. “I brought the food!”
“Yea!” she cheers.
After a few hours of playing in the park, feeding the ducks and geese, Clara and I make our way back toward the apartment. I stop at the nearby deli and pick up some pasta for dinner. Clara insists on having a pink cupcake, so I get one for each of us as a special treat. When we reach the door, I hand her one of the cupcakes and encourage her to take it to her mother.
“Mommy?” Clara says, navigating to the guest bedroom.
“Hey, baby,” my sister says. I peek in and see my sister lying on the bed, reading.
“I brought you a present,” Clara announces.
“Is that a cupcake? For me?”
“Yes. But I have one, too.”
“Well, that’s so sweet! We need to eat dinner first, though,” Jen reasons with her daughter.
“I brought that, too,” I tell her holding up the bag. “Hungry?”
“I could eat,” she smiles, walking toward the kitchen to get some plates. I grab the silverware and some water, and we all meet at the table.
“How are you feeling, mommy?” my niece asks.
“Much better, honey. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank Auntie Emi for her help today.” She smiles and mouths the words “thank you” across the table.
“After everything you’ve done for me, this is the least I could do.”
When dinner is finished, I clean the dishes while Jennifer turns on a children’s DVD for Clara to watch.
“I’ve been thinking,” my sister says to me. “I’ve been trying to figure out what drew me to him in the first place.”
“Okay.”
“And I remember thinking back then that all the good guys were taken, and literally, as soon as he did something nice for me, I just pushed and pushed to get married... assuming he was one of the good guys and thinking that I better not let him slip away.
“After I got that in my head, really nothing could convince me otherwise. There were big warning signs all along the way, but once I put him in that “good guy” category, I wasn’t moving him anywhere else, no matter what sort of bullshit he put me through. Did you know that he asked me early on in the relationship if Clara could go live with her father?”
“No,” I said. “Wow. If only Michael knew him.”
“Yeah,” she continues. “He just wanted me all to himself, and I made promises to him that I’d leave Clara with her grandparents and you and Chris on weekends so we could have that time to ourselves. I never intended to do that. I just said it to smooth things over, so that this fairy tale would continue moving forward. We fought about it all the time.”
“He didn’t eventually come to accept her as a permanent fixture in your life?”
“Never,” she says. “He resented me for ‘tricking’ him into marrying him, he said.”
“Well, he’s an asshole,” I tell my sister. “If he couldn’t love Clara like we all do, then Jen, he is not worth crying over.”
“I know,” she says. “In my mind, I know. In my heart, though, it just hurts.”
“Believe me, I know,” I assure her.
“So, do you think there are any good guys left?” she asks me.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “For years I didn’t think so, and then found one staring me in the face all my life. I was looking in the wrong places, or looking for the wrong person. So, yeah, I think there are some good guys left, somewhere. When we’re both ready, I’m sure we’ll find one for each of us. Right now, though, we just need to focus on us. We don’t need men in our lives right now.”
“But I want one,” my sister whines.
“You’ve got to be happy with yourself,” I tell her. “Let’s just focus on that for now.”
She nods, but I’m not convinced she believes me.
~ * ~
Who would think that I would actually feel younger on my thirtieth birthday?
Chris and Anna were hosting a casual barbecue at their apartment. It was an unseasonably warm May day, so it was the perfect opportunity to wear the green striped sundress I bought on clearance last fall. It fits me even better now, since I had still not put back on the weight I had lost earlier in the year. Jennifer, Anna, Teresa and I had spent the morning getting manicures and pedicures, just a fun day with the girls. We had a light lunch after that, followed by some window shopping in White Plains. It was probably the most carefree day I’d had all year. The conversation was good, for the most part, except when my sister would begin her “all the good men are taken” rant. Anna and I had become quite adept at changing the subject, wanting the mood to be a positive one today. Teresa supplied her own form of entertainment, catching me up on the tales of her love life. Even Jen found reasons to smile and laugh at her story-telling.
By the time we get to the apartment, Chris, Dad and my stepfather are all gathered around the grill in the backyard drinking beer. My mother and stepmom are in the kitchen with Clara, preparing some side dishes. I love that my parents and stepparents are so accepting of
each other. Even though the divorce was tough, my parents’ second marriages are much happier, and this crisis seems to have brought the whole family together.
“Honey, you look beautiful!” my mother says excitedly, having not seen me in a few months.
“Happy birthday, sweetie!” Elaine adds. They both come over to hug me, then Jennifer and Anna.
“Thanks, thank you for coming,” I tell them.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Mom says.
“Emi, you want some wine?” Anna asks.
“Of course,” I smile, heading out to the patio.
“Men?” I announce my presence.
“Em!” Chris says, hugging me and kissing my forehead. The dads do the same.
“Happy birthday, baby,” my dad says.
“How is the grilling going?” I ask.
“Just fine,” Don, my step-father, says. “We’ve got a little of everything.”
“Perfect. Are you guys having fun?”
“It’s a nice, relaxing day. The weather’s perfect.”
“I know,” I say. “Well, I’ll leave you to your man time,” I joke with them. My father grunts, playing along.
The women sit around the dining room, sipping wine and having good conversation. We snack on vegetables as we wait for the main course to finish grilling. I really couldn’t have asked for a better day. The weather, the company, the conversation... I just feel at home and at peace. Every day gets a little better. I can see changes in myself daily. I still miss Nate, would have loved for him to be here with me, but I’ve come to realize that life goes on without him. It has to. At first, I wasn’t willing to accept it, but over time, I have learned to. My prospects no longer look bleak, the future no longer shaded by a dark cloud of sadness. There are still moments here and there that I might shed a tear, but having Clara and Jennifer in my apartment, I reserve those moments for my own private time. I have more memories of the happy times, I smile more, I can talk about Nate in everyday conversation and not feel overwhelmingly sad. I am thankful for the years we had together as friends and the weeks we shared as lovers. It was how it was supposed to be. A little regret lingers, but I’m able to push it to the back of my mind most of the time.