It couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes that had passed, but it felt like it had been an hour, me sitting there frozen in my seat. “What are you going to do?” Robin asked.
I glanced over just in time to see Frank setting his money on the bar, getting up off the stool. Before I could answer, before I had time to think about it, I bolted right up out of my chair and, with the ladies calling after me, I was out that door, quick as a wink. It took me about until I got to my car to realize I’d left my purse on the table inside the Beach Pub. “Shit,” I said under my breath.
“Diana,” I heard that strong, deep voice say. Oh God, that voice. Even after all of it, after how he hurt me, after all the history we had together, that voice still made me weak in the knees. Don’t look at him, I thought. If you just don’t look at him, he’ll go away and it’ll be like this never happened.
Then I felt his hand on mine, that prickle on my skin, the way his touch almost burned it felt so good. I exhaled slowly, trying not to remember it, the way it took my breath away when he held my hand, the way my heart told me he was the one I should be with forever.
“Was it all that bad that you had to run out of the bar like that?” Frank asked.
Then I made the worst mistake a girl can make. I looked at him. Straight in the eyes. Those deep, navy-blue eyes, the ones I thought I’d be looking into at the altar, the ones I thought our babies would have. I felt that familiar pang in my heart, that emptiness in my belly. Our baby.
My heart stood stock-still for a few seconds until I got the nerve to say, “You know, Frank? Yeah. It was that bad. In fact, it was worse than that bad.”
His face fell. “But, Di, come on. My parents. And I was just a kid.”
“You were just a kid?” I practically spat at him. “No, I was just a kid! You were old enough that you should’ve known better. You were old enough that you should’ve fought for me.”
He nodded and swallowed hard. “I know, Di. I knew it then; I know it now. I’ve known it the whole time.” He paused. “But, damn, Di. You were the one that left me. It took me a long time to figure out why, but back then, you broke my heart. I was devastated.”
But I bet you still don’t know why.
I shook my head. “I find that hard to believe, that you, smart as you are, couldn’t figure out where I was.” I tried to turn away from him, but he grabbed my hand. “Where have you been for twenty years, Frank? What have you been doing all this time that kept you from coming back before now if all that’s really true?”
He stared at me and burst out, “My dad, D, he’s gone.”
And just like that, I was in the past, back in Frank’s house, laughing on his porch while his daddy grilled hot dogs. I put my hand over my heart as my breath caught in my throat. I had loved Frank’s daddy. He had loved me. I used to dream that I had a daddy out there who was just like him, that he would come find me one day.
“Frank,” I said, his name tasting warm and familiar in my mouth, as if it hadn’t been twenty-two years, as if no time had passed at all. “I am so sorry.”
He shook his head. “For all these years, Diana, I haven’t been able to move on. All I’ve dreamed about is you.” He seemed sort of out of breath, and I found myself, as much as I didn’t want to, reaching over to touch his arm, to steady him. “I just wanted you to be happy. I thought my staying away was the best thing, even if it meant that I would be miserable.”
“So why now? Did you suddenly decide that you didn’t care about me being happy?” I was trying to lighten the mood, but I could tell by his serious expression that that wasn’t in the cards.
“No. I’ve known all this time that I’d never really be happy without you.” He took my hand in his and said, “But it took me until now to realize that maybe this is how it is with true love, that it never goes away. And I thought that maybe you couldn’t really be happy without me either.”
CHAPTER 9
gray: a summer thing
It had been three weeks. Three weeks of no Wagner. Three weeks since I had ruffled his shaggy blond hair or kissed his sweet, doughy cheeks—which were losing their doughiness by the minute, much to my chagrin—or pulled him into me for one of those great hugs where his entire body went slack. I was literally counting the minutes.
Sure, I wasn’t thrilled about having to see Greg, but it was totally worth the trade-off. Despite being at odds, we were able to keep things civil around Wagner.
I’ll just say, I gave myself most of the credit for that. My mom taught me to be the bigger person, to turn the other cheek. Some days it was harder than others to think about my husband—and, even more so, my son—with another woman, but I was tolerating it.
As I sat on the porch waiting for my boy to get back to me, I automatically picked up my phone. When I realized what I was doing, my throat burned. Almost ten months later, ten months after she had died, I was picking up my phone to call my mother. I wanted to tell her how excited I was that Wagner was coming home. Would this feeling ever go away? Would it ever get easier?
My phone dinged, breaking me out of my unhappy thoughts. Andrew. I don’t think I can make it a whole week.…
When I had decided that I couldn’t fully let Andrew go despite my initial intentions, I’d mustered up the nerve to tell him I didn’t want him around Wagner. Andrew had laughed, and, oh, the dimples. “Well, I’m around him all the time, G. I’m his badass, supercool tennis teacher.”
My turn to laugh. And roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
He nodded. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you just need to relax, babe. We’ll let it play out like it needs to.”
I smiled in spite of myself, thinking about it. I had expected the tennis pro situation to be a one-day thing that maybe turned into a two-day thing. But, as Marcy sagely advised, why couldn’t it be a summer thing?
I stood up and stretched, thinking, How on earth did I get here? I couldn’t count the number of times I had thought that nothing would ever come between Greg and me. Nothing would break us up because we were as solid as couples came. Even on those days when our relationship wasn’t thrilling, we had something deeper, a firm foundation that would help us weather any storm. Boy, had I been wrong.
Part of me hated him for abandoning me. The other part of me, the part that didn’t mind having a tennis pro pining after her, texted Andrew back. Friday night I’m all yours.
He texted me back immediately. Great. I’ll pick you up at 7.
I laughed. He was good for that, making me laugh. After the year I’d had, I needed to laugh. The thought must have softened me a bit, because I texted back: How about I call you tonight after Wagner goes to bed?
How about I drive over there and kiss you good night when Wagner goes to bed?
Greg’s car appeared in the driveway. I think it must have been the sight of Brooke behind the wheel that made me type back: We’ll see.…
Greg was having fun. Why shouldn’t I?
But, really, this was nothing compared to the way my heart leapt as I ran at top speed down the four steps to the driveway and opened my arms for my little boy to fly into.
“Wags!”
“Mom!”
I kissed the top of his head. “I missed you so, so much. I can’t even tell you. I want to hear about every detail of your trip.”
He grinned up at me, his arms still around my waist. “Look. I lost a tooth!” He opened his mouth to reveal that the stubborn straggler in the bottom row had finally given up the ghost.
I gasped. “No way! Did the tooth fairy come?” I could totally see Greg pulling some crap about the tooth fairy only coming in the continental US or something.
So I was shocked when Wagner nodded enthusiastically and said, “She brought me twenty euros and wrote me a note with glitter and everything! Can you believe that?”
This was actually worse. Not only had the tooth fairy come, but now Brooke was besting me at the game.
“Wow!” I said.
“Am I taller?” He pulled away so I could inspect.
“I don’t even recognize you!” I said.
“I need new shoes too. My feet have grown.”
I nodded, and said, “We’ll get some new ones this afternoon!”
“I’m going to unpack my stuff,” Wagner said, whizzing by me into the house. The mushy time was over. On to logistics.
No doubt about it, he was his father’s child. Greg and I had butted heads constantly because I was a total mess and he was a complete neat freak. Everything had to be organized at all times.
“Hi, Gray,” Brooke said sunnily. I had never seen the woman not perfectly dressed like she was ready for a night out. Looking down at my workout clothes, I thought that maybe that’s what had happened in my marriage. Maybe I had quit caring so much. But they were such cute workout clothes.
I tried to smile, hating her and her perky, never-breastfed boobs the whole time. Before I could ruminate further, I heard footsteps behind me in the driveway.
“You must be Greg.”
Greg looked at me questioningly, then asked, “Who are you?”
Diana stuck out her hand to shake Greg’s. “I’m the new Maria.”
I burst out laughing and put my arm around her. “Greg, Brooke, this is Diana.”
She gave Brooke a once-over that would have made anyone feel extremely self-conscious. “Geez,” she said to me out of the corner of her mouth, “neither one of you can date someone age-appropriate.”
“What?” Greg said.
I elbowed Diana. “Nothing. Thanks, guys, for bringing my boy back in one piece.”
Greg squeezed Brooke’s arm. “I’ll be right there, hon.”
She rolled her eyes and turned to go to the car, obviously irritated that she was being sent away. But this was what you signed up for when you set out to marry another woman’s husband. I wanted to tell her thank you for making the tooth fairy so special, but the words got stuck in my mouth. Oh well. I was trying. For today, that was enough.
Greg looked at Diana, then back at me, and said, “I’m glad you found someone to help you, Gray. You deserve it.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Then he said, “Are you doing okay? I mean, I know this is hard for you.”
“Yeah,” I said, “not seeing Wagner was a nightmare, but I’m glad he had this opportunity.”
He nodded. “Good. But I really meant with the whole Brooke thing.”
I was feeling warm toward him for a half second until he said that. I thought Diana was going to choke beside me. I smiled tightly. “I’m a grown woman, Greg. I’m fine.”
Diana chuckled. “I’d say she’s more than fine.”
Greg looked at her questioningly again. “Okay. Well, good. Because Brooke and I want to go on a trip this fall, and we really want to take Wagner—”
“Greg, you just got back. I am dying over here and have hardly been able to function for the last three weeks without him, so maybe we could talk about this—”
“Why don’t you let me finish?”
I crossed my arms.
“What I was going to say is that Brooke and I want to take Wagner to Disney World for a week this fall, and we were thinking that maybe you could come too. I know you don’t want to miss that.”
I could feel my stomach turning over. I had had more than a year to get used to the Greg and Brooke situation. Things were better. I was feeling stronger. But a joint vacation? He couldn’t be serious.
I didn’t say anything, and Greg continued, “You were the one who was so big on us still doing things together as a family, on not having to have separate birthday parties and trying to keep Wagner’s life as normal as possible. So why don’t you come?”
“You’re bringing Brooke,” Diana chimed in. “Shouldn’t Gray get to bring somebody too?”
“Diana,” I said sharply, under my breath.
Greg looked amused. “What? You mean you?”
“Nope,” Diana said, grinning broadly, “I most certainly do not.” She paused. “Although I have always wanted to go to Disney World.…”
I grabbed her wrist and spun around, calling to Greg, “I’ll think about it, okay?”
He just stood there, looking confused—and kind of pissed. And I have to admit that that made me happy.
“Are you crazy?” I said to Diana, laughing.
“What?” She shrugged. “I’m not going to let him stand there all holier-than-thou like you can’t move on. Hell no. My girl’s already found her the hottest, youngest piece of meat on the beach.”
“I thought you thought he was too young for me. I thought you said it was inappropriate.”
She stopped walking and shrugged again. “What the hell do I know? I’m forty and single.”
That quick wit was one of my favorite things about Diana. What I loved the most about her, though, was how, already, she always, always had my back. No questions, no hesitations. She was Team Gray all the way. I hoped I was showing her that I was Team Diana too.
“I’m coming in to make dinner in a minute.”
“It’s Saturday, Diana. You don’t have to. Get some rest.”
She smiled. “I need to get to know that cute boy of yours. Now seems like as good a time as any. What’s his favorite dinner?”
I could feel a lump in my throat, the burn that meant I was in danger of crying. “Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and butter beans.”
Diana nodded slowly, registering the tears in my eyes. “Your momma’s specialty, huh?”
I nodded. She acted like she was going to say something else, like she wanted to ask me something more. But instead, she said, “Okay. I’m going to the store. I’ll throw in some of my best-in-the-world biscuits.” Then she winked at me. “Then I’ll butter ’em both up.”
I smiled even though I still felt like I was going to rip at the seams to keep from crying. That’s the thing people don’t tell you about losing a parent, how many times a day you think about them, how many times you need their advice or wish they were there or want their fried chicken. Not somebody else’s. Hers. Mom’s.
I snapped myself out of it and walked to Wagner’s room. He was mid-unpacking when I squeezed him to me. “Mom, come on,” he said. “You’re going to suffocate me.”
That was okay. I felt the tears coming to my eyes, grateful for him again, thankful that while, yes, I had suffered a loss, it was a loss in the natural order of things. I was always going to lose my mom. It had happened earlier than I thought it would, but no matter what, my son was still here. My beating heart outside my body was standing here sorting his socks and his Nintendo Switch.
Our children are on loan, I could hear my mom saying. She knew all about that. There wasn’t one single day that I didn’t catch her in a moment, know that she was thinking about the brother I would never know.
I heard her talking on the phone one time to a friend of a friend who had lost a child. She said, “You will never, ever be the same. You will never be whole in the way that you once were, but you have others to live for. You’re going to keep waking up. When you do, get out of bed. Do something he didn’t get to do. Some days you won’t want to, but while you’re here you have to make the choice to live.”
I used to wonder how my mom found the courage, later in life, when she and Dad weren’t so strapped for cash, to travel with reckless abandon despite malaria warnings and terror threats or to take her morning run through the bad part of town.
Once I became a mother myself, I reasoned that, in losing her child, the worst that could happen to her already had. Her life meant less because a part of it had passed on before her. Or maybe that’s just the pessimist in me, and the optimist in her would say that life is short and fleeting, and living full-throttle is the only way to go.
Either way, I felt like when she found out she was sick, she was relieved. She didn’t have to put on her happy face anymore. She didn’t have to get out of bed. She didn’t have to pretend. She could just go meet my br
other where he was. Quinn and I were furious when she refused treatment. Dad too. She said she knew that treatment would only make what could be a dignified death an undignified one.
“But what if it works really well for you?” I remember asking her, nearly hysterical. “What if there’s a miracle?”
She smiled sadly and patted my hand. “Honey, if there’s going to be a miracle, it won’t be because of any treatment.”
In the last couple of weeks before she died, I was by her side almost all the time. One afternoon, I stood outside the door to her room, tears coming down my cheeks as I heard her laughing with an old friend.
“Are you scared?” I heard the friend ask.
“Oh, heavens no,” Mom replied. “When you have lost a child, death comes as a relief.”
I couldn’t stay after that. It was childish, I knew, but I was furious. She had confirmed what I had thought all along. Instead of wanting to fight to stay with us, she was practically choosing to go. She had left me. And Wagner. She hadn’t even tried to do anything to save herself. She didn’t know it, but she had left us when we needed her the very most.
“Mom,” Wagner said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked down. I was still squeezing him to me.
“Oh,” I said, laughing. “Sorry, bud. I wanted to tell you that we have someone new staying with us. Her name is Diana, and you are going to love her.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“She’s making fried chicken and macaroni and butter beans and biscuits for dinner.”
He brightened. “Yes! I like her already.”
“Hey,” I said. “You doing okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah, Mom. I’m good.”
“Is it weird? Being with Dad and Brooke?”
He shrugged. “Nah. Brooke’s cool. Dad too.”
In the land of eight-year-old boys, that was a pretty deep talk. I would take it.
“All right, cutie. You know Dad and I both love you more than anything in the world, right?”
He smiled. “I know, Mom.” Then he said, “I’ll be down as soon as I finish putting this stuff up,” gesturing to postcards and trinkets he’d collected from the trip.
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