“So, wait,” I said. “In addition to running the food pantry, you also volunteer at the children’s hospital? So you can sing to the dying children?”
My mind flashed to the ICU where Joel spent the last weeks of his life. I couldn’t imagine a musician coming in to perform in those corridors. But the nurses and doctors and entire ICU staff appreciated Joel’s music playlist that flowed out of the small portable speakers I brought over. So I got it . . . sort of.
“So anyway, got a full schedule these next few weeks, but I want to make sure you’re in it. Sound good?”
I nodded . . . confused. . . smitten . . . interested. Is Marcos a modern-day Jesus? Is he the Devil? I had no idea. But I knew I wanted more of him.
At night, when I was going to sleep, I would pray for Joel to come visit me. I missed him so much. I had so much to tell him.
I had a dream once that was so real and vivid, it brings me to tears every time I think about it. In our neighborhood, there is a main road that connects via a bridge. Most drivers don’t even realize they’re driving over a bridge because the body of water it covers is a thin, mostly concrete section of the Los Angeles River that serves as an overflow space for when it rains. When you walk across the bridge, however, you realize that you’re walking from one side of town into the other. You’re “crossing over.”
In my dream, I was on the north side of the bridge walking south. The sun was shining. It was a beautiful and clear day. I looked up and walking toward me on the other side of the bridge, waving wildly with the biggest smile I had ever seen, was Joel. I couldn’t believe my eyes! There he is! My love, my everything. It took my breath away to see him like that—so alive! So healthy! I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe it was him! I smiled and started to wave back. I called out his name, Joel! I kept thinking, He’s so happy! And he’s right there; he’s RIGHT THERE!
He continued to wave with his entire arm. Broad, wide air strokes with that big smile. It was so real. He is so close. He is real! He is alive! My heart was going to burst from happiness and also, confusion.
But you died! I rationalized in my sleep.
And the minute I had this thought, I woke up.
It was so cruel. But it was also encouraging. I saw Joel. He was there. He was happy and excited. He saw me! He was working so hard on his end to prove that he was there. I felt like he had not only heard my prayers—Come see me in my sleep, hun. Please?!—but also answered them. It was a gift.
“Daddy was in my dream last night,” I told Sophie when she woke up that morning. “It was so real. He was alive—” I started to cry. She cupped her elegant hand on my cheek.
“I’m sorry you always see me crying,” I said, sniffling.
“I don’t mind,” she said. I kissed her hand and squeezed it.
“I forgot to tell you,” she said, stretching awake. “I saw a hummingbird yesterday.”
One of the gifts we got Joel for his fiftieth birthday was a hummingbird feeder. It was a plain glass cylinder that could be filled with liquid food, and it had a red ledge for the birds to perch on while feeding. Joel loved it. He loved nature and hummingbirds in particular. The red color supposedly attracts hummingbirds, and Joel hung it in our backyard within minutes of receiving it. He never got to enjoy it as much as Sophie and I do. We still have it, and it has seen more hummingbirds than I ever thought lived in all of Los Angeles. Every time Sophie and I see one, no matter where in the world we might be, we believe that it either is Joel, or that Joel sent it to us to say hi.
When Joel died, every little scribble he left behind and all of his love notes to us became frame-worthy. Every silly doodle and sketch, whether on cheap refrigerator stationery left in our mailbox by a realtor or the bottom corner of a take-out menu, became proof that Joel lived, that he was here, that we shared our lives with each other.
Somehow, my life was moving forward without him.
With multiple unsuccessful attempts at planning our next drinks date, Marcos and I decided to meet one morning for coffee. I suggested Starbucks.
“It’s the one that’s right on the boulevard, across the street from the Gap,” I said. “Know which one I mean?”
“Um, no actually,” he replied.
“Really? It’s the Starbucks on the boulevard, near the CVS?”
He had no idea. We lived one mile from each other, but in totally different worlds.
That is how we came to have coffee at his house. Marcos lived a block from Sophie’s school, and while I continued to be a nervous wreck—Someone may see me standing at your door!—it was a nice surprise to find that he made excellent coffee.
What I thought (and hoped) might be a lust-filled morning romp was instead time spent getting to know each other because his son was asleep in the next room.
Marcos had recently taken Davis out of his conventional high school and enrolled him in a nontraditional high school with a flexible schedule, with most of the actual schoolwork being done at home. So while I felt free and unencumbered while Sophie was in school during the day, Davis’s classroom was Marcos’s kitchen table, where we sat between drinking our strong morning coffee and having furtive make-out sessions on the couch.
We continued to meet at his place for a few mornings and got to know each other in an old-fashioned kind of way—by talking. Over coffee. I learned that his father was born and raised in Peru and that Marcos spent his childhood summers in South America with his grandparents. I learned that he had been married before, but not to his son’s mother. I learned that bass, not guitar, was his first instrument and that he had students as young as five and older than either one of us.
I still had only told Jillian about him. “I don’t get it. You haven’t slept with him yet?” she’d say. My answer was we couldn’t find the time or place.
We were adults, planning and sneaking around so that our kids wouldn’t find out. Our schedules didn’t align because Marcos often worked nights—teaching or performing—and as always, I wanted to be available for Sophie.
I met Davis awkwardly one morning when we were both walking into Marcos’s house. Me from morning drop-off, Davis from a night out. He gave me the once over, and later Marcos told me that Davis liked me on sight because I didn’t look like I’d be moving in anytime soon.
While I had been in a committed relationship with Joel since I was in my twenties, Marcos had had many relationships. Many. Mostly with beautiful actresses and/or models, like Davis’s mother. She and Marcos were never married, although they did live together for years. They split up when Davis was a toddler, and while Davis had a relationship with his mother, Marcos was the one who was raising him during his teenage years.
I wasn’t looking to be in a relationship. I thought that whatever happened between us would be a fling, at most. I didn’t have time for much more than that; neither did he. Our make-out sessions reminded me that mutual desire overrides things like self-consciousness over an aging body and worry if he would ever call me again. I was a widow. I was in my forties. I had already lost everything there was to lose.
I got a text one morning while I was at Clooney.
Come over. Now. It was from Marcos.
All clear? I wrote back.
Yes! he said.
I had never finished Clooney so fast in my life. It didn’t matter that I was sweaty when I got to Marcos. Davis would be gone all day and this was our chance.
Marcos answered the door naked. Absolutely nude. With a big smile.
“Welcome!” he said.
Maybe it wasn’t romantic, but I found it very funny. And sort of charming. I, too, was naked by the time we got back to his bedroom.
This was not how I pictured our first tryst. Or my first tryst with someone other than Joel. I thought it would be at night, first of all. I thought I may have a buzz going from a romantic dinner date, with wine, that preceded nudity. But then again, all my expectations about Marcos were wrong from the start.
I liked that he knew Joel. He often mentioned him in con
versation. He didn’t seem scared or daunted or even nervous around The Widow. He saw me as a whole person, and just as I found him interesting, he was interested in me. Whatever was happening between us felt different, for both of us.
I loved how he kissed me. I was comforted by the weight of his body next to mine.
Afterward I admitted to him, “You know, I was actually surprised you called me that day. About the tattoos.” I started to laugh.
“You’re the one who asked me if I had any!” Marcos said.
“Yeah, like a week earlier!”
Marcos smiled.
“I didn’t think you were interested,” I said.
“Well, your husband had just died. I was proceeding with caution.”
“Yeah,” I said and sighed.
Joel.
Tears came to my eyes. Marcos squeezed me. I lay there with Marcos but was thinking about Joel. Are you OK with this, hun? Are you mad at me? If so, can you forgive me?
“It’s alright. You’re going to be OK,” Marcos said.
I wiped my tears from my face and cried quietly into his arms. He didn’t seem to mind.
I inhaled him in and it soothed me. He smelled masculine. His hands and arms were strong from playing guitar every day. I loved how smooth his skin felt and how his hair curled under at the base of his neck. I dried my tears on his chest.
“I’m here,” he said, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m right here.” He kissed the top of my head.
Wherever this man is, I thought, is where I want to be.
SEVENTEEN
Every Everything
I continued with my healing rituals every night (read a passage from Healing After Loss, shared a memory of Joel with Sophie, watched my Real Housewives, read Iyanla, listened to the Other Joel . . .) and still cried my way through a lot of my days. But I was also in joyful anticipation of meeting up with Marcos, which was about once a week.
Where I seemed so confused in other aspects of my life, with Marcos things were crystal clear. My needs, which were surprisingly physical, were getting met, and neither of us had an issue with that. I never worried that he was overstepping or taking advantage of my vulnerability because we were on the same page. It was a casual fling.
We would meet at his place when the coast was clear, and about an hour later, I’d be home. Our time together was tender, but when we were done there was no pretense that we would spend the rest of the day or night together. Every so often we’d have coffee and talk and laugh in his kitchen. We tried a few times to meet for a drink or go on a “real” date, but it never worked out. We were getting to know each other in spurts—but in an effort to keep things easy, I didn’t overthink it. I also didn’t think a relationship was necessarily in the cards. I didn’t always follow what he was saying, but I liked his company.
Marcos thought like an artist, always just a few inches off the ground, his mind in other places. He was a fierce blues musician but wasn’t familiar with bands I loved, like Wilco and the Avett Brothers. He was only aware of pop music because his students would come in wanting to learn the latest Taylor Swift or One Direction song, but otherwise he knew nothing of pop culture. He didn’t even own a TV.
He had no idea who the real housewives were, had never seen an episode of Game of Thrones, and once referred to Kourtney Kardashian, who he saw in our neighborhood one afternoon, as some girl who had a bunch of paparazzi following her around when all I wanted to do was get a cup of coffee.
He loved talking about movies from any genre and era and believed that his film tidbits and comments were common knowledge. He would also refer to actors and directors by their last names.
When I mentioned that I had seen Juliette Lewis at the gas station, he commented that her father was a character actor frequently seen in “Eastwood movies,” but he didn’t know that she was rumored to be a Scientologist, which to me was far more interesting.
Marcos was hard to follow at times, and he seemed to say things that didn’t necessarily pertain to anything he and I would be discussing. If I read him something from the novel I was working on, and I told him that my writing group seemed to like it, he would offer, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
“Huh?” I’d say.
“Patton. Famous saying of his. Just read his biography.”
Our trysts were brief, but meaningful. It was hard to leave him sometimes, and regardless of our differences, our connection felt magnetic. But he always had a student about to show up, or a board meeting to attend, or a gig to get to. And I always had something that needed to get done. I was an only parent now. I was responsible for everything.
Everything.
In between the work I was doing for Joel’s company and my writing, I walked the dogs, took the trash bins in and out, changed the lightbulbs. I did all the driving, and shopping, and laundry. I found tutors and doctors and attended parent-teacher conferences alone because I had no choice. I made sure the grandparents—all four sets!—received their birthday cards on time and phone calls from their granddaughter. I made appointments with the electrician to fix the backyard lights, and the painter about the fence repair, and the tree trimmer when a huge tree branch fell down and cracked our driveway. I attended school board meetings and community meetings, and took the dogs to the vet, and planned every breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner. I cancelled subscriptions, made sure we had health coverage, tried to get some writing jobs. I made sure the car was clean and had gas in the tank and air in the tires. I changed the batteries in the smoke detectors, usually in the middle of the night because that’s when they would unnervingly beep. I had to manage when the air conditioner needed repair and when the washing machine wouldn’t spin. When we found a giant bug in the house. When one of the dogs got sprayed by a skunk. When the refrigerator started leaking. And every thought, feeling, emotional outburst, and mood, both mine and Sophie’s, were mine to manage.
I ordered copies of death certificates and birth certificates and marriage licenses and was put on hold for hours and transferred from department to department every time I changed a utility bill from Joel’s name to mine and had to explain every single time that the reason for the transfer was because my husband had died.
I was responsible for every everything, and I cherished my time with Marcos, because when I was with him, it was a reprieve from the every.
While I was Responsible Mom, I also wanted to be Fun Mom, but Sophie’s idea of fun was shopping, something I can’t bear. I would feel so old, taking her to the mall and not being able to tolerate the loud music in Forever 21. I’d last two minutes; she could last two hours.
She liked getting manicures, me not so much.
“Come on, let’s get our nails done together. It will be nice,” she’d say on a Sunday morning.
“Total waste of money,” I’d counter. “The nail polish will start chipping the minute you dig into your backpack for your notebook.”
“Fine!” she’d say, crossing her arms.
“What if we do Clooney?” I’d suggest.
“I don’t like hiking,” she’d say, considering. “I’d go horseback riding!”
“Horseback riding?! No. You know I’m not an animal person.”
“Bowling?” she’d ask. I’d roll my eyes.
We’d go back and forth like this all the time, until one of us would give in, usually me, and we’d end up either back at the mall or out to dinner somewhere.
I wanted to give her the world. I had Joel for twenty-five years; she only had him for thirteen and a half. She deserves everything and anything she wants. But then I’d hear Joel’s voice telling me, You’re spoiling her, hun. If I was, I couldn’t help it. Sophie didn’t act spoiled, because like Joel, she was good to her core.
Her middle school graduation was upon us. Tickets were limited. I couldn’t accommodate all of the grandparents, or Jillian, who also wanted to be there. I wanted Sophie to have a father’s presence, so I invited Hal to sit with me in
the audience.
It was hard to smile through the ceremony when Joel’s absence was felt so overwhelmingly. I could picture him there, sitting right next to me in the folding chairs on that warm summer morning on the PE field, balloons adorning the stage. Joel would have stood up, elated, applauding wildly as Sophie’s name was called to receive her diploma. He’d look over at me, a tear in his eyes, saying, She did it, hun! Look at our beautiful girl! And afterward, he would have given her flowers and posed for pictures with her, never taking his eyes off her, proud dad that he was.
I don’t know how Sophie did it. How she walked across the field in her sweet summer dress, diploma in hand, big smile on her face, while everyone in attendance knew her as “the girl whose father died.” I kept waiting for her to break down or have a tantrum that year; it never came.
Earlier in the year, I had decided to take her to Paris as a graduation present. Sophie wouldn’t be going to summer camp that summer, so the cost of a trip to Paris felt justified. Plus, I had a free airline ticket and enough points to cover most of the cost of our hotel. Hal gave us a ride to the airport, and fifteen hours later, we were wheels down in Paris, France.
We had a full itinerary with a walking tour of the entire city one day, a bike ride excursion in Versailles on another. A close friend from London was coming in for the day to explore the Jardin des Tuileries and Musée de l’Orangerie with us and make quick stops at the Galeries Lafayette and Le Bon Marché. Another friend of mine from our neighborhood was also in Paris with her teenage daughter, and we met up with them a few times for dinner. If it sounds wonderful and ooh la la, it was. We were comfortable in Paris, even though we didn’t speak the language and it rained almost every day. We ate crepes and ice cream in the shape of roses. We walked almost everywhere and saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the Arc de Triomphe.
But oftentimes, Sophie was moody and tired and wanted to go back to our hotel. She took comfort in her laptop where she could get on Wi-Fi and watch her shows and get on social media. At times it seemed that the only reason she wanted so many photos was so that she could post them, rather than take in the fact that we were in Paris! I tried to be patient, but I got annoyed, and we argued.
Widowish: A Memoir Page 15