Bittersweet

by Noelle Adams

  “No. I woke up earlier to feed Logan.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I just felt lazy, so I got back in bed. But I wasn’t asleep.”

  “Ah. That must explain it.” It sounded like there was a smile in his voice. “How’s Logan?”

  She knew his question was genuine. He’d warmed up to Logan a lot in the last few months, and Logan obviously adored his Uncle Lala—the name Adam seemed to be stuck with. “He’s fine. I think Mom must have played with him all day yesterday. The poor little fellow is exhausted.”

  Adam chuckled, and for some reason the sound of it made Zoe’s chest hurt. His laugh just then sounded a little bit like Josh’s.

  But Adam wasn’t Josh, and he never could be.

  Adam must have said something, but Zoe totally missed it. There was a pregnant silence and then Adam prompted, “Zoe?”

  “I’m sorry—what did you say?”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “You were kind of quiet on the way home yesterday. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Of course,” she said again, starting to get a little annoyed that he was pushing this. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you call, anyway?” It wasn’t unusual for Adam to call, but he always had something particular to ask or tell her. He never called just to chat.

  “Oh, yeah. The Moscow Ballet is in town next weekend. I was wondering if you wanted to go on Friday.” The invitation was friendly, casual. No expectations or implications.

  Zoe understood all of that, and two days ago she would have accepted without hesitation. She did a lot of things with Adam, and she always appreciated the chance to get out of the house and do something with adults.

  But now she couldn’t stop thinking that it would look kind of like a date. It didn’t matter that a date was the last thing on Adam’s mind—she obviously knew he hadn’t dreamed of anything romantic in his invitation—but it would still look that way to other people.

  After her odd moment the day before, she was afraid it would feel that way.

  And there was absolutely no way she could go on a date with Adam.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t,” she said, managing to sound light and natural.

  “Oh.” Adam’s voice sounded a little surprised. “You already have plans?”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she knew what the silence meant. He was holding himself back from asking the next question, the obvious question.

  She prayed he wouldn’t ask what her plans were. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she couldn’t go to the ballet with him and she couldn’t tell him why not.

  “The whole weekend is sold out. I could try to get tickets for Saturday instead—”

  “Oh, no,” she interrupted, feeling a flare of anxiety. “There’s no need to rearrange all your plans. Why don’t you just find yourself a gorgeous date to take who you could suitably impress with the best seats in the place?” Her voice was teasing, and she really hoped he’d take it that way.

  She assumed Adam dated. She wasn’t actually aware of anyone he dated, and she'd never really had any interest in knowing details. But he was a virile, very eligible man, so she never doubted he’d have a line out the door of potential dates.

  She didn’t like the idea of women he might date. She didn’t like it so much that she felt that sick churn in her stomach, telling her that things just weren’t right.

  “I can find someone to take, if you really can’t go.” Adam sounded still confused and a little distant.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you? Thanks for asking, though.”

  “Sure. Of course.” There was a pause, as if he were again keeping himself from asking what he wanted to ask. “I’ll let you get back to your morning.”

  “Thanks again for yesterday,” Zoe said, afraid she’d hurt his feelings.

  She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She just didn’t know what else to do.

  “No problem. Talk to you later.”

  When she hung up, Zoe wondered if she’d messed things up again.

  She should have done better. She should have realized that she was leaning too much on Adam, using him to replace the companionship she’d lost with Josh.

  He wouldn’t know why she was pulling back now. He might think she was rejecting him.

  Zoe wanted to redo the phone conversation. She wanted to redo the last three months.

  She wanted to be friends with Adam without any complications. She wanted to be safe and comfortable with him again.

  Mostly, she just wanted her husband back.

  Six

  Zoe stared up at the auto mechanic with his scraggly beard and greasy ball cap. “You’re kidding me,” she said, feeling a drop in her gut at the estimate he’d just given her.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” he replied, not looking particularly sorry at all. “That’s what it comes to. You need to get all this done before we can get you safely on your way.”

  Zoe stared down at the piece of paper he handed her, on which was listed all of the repairs that evidently needed to be made to her vehicle. She was fairly ignorant about cars, so she didn’t recognize half of the words on the page, and the rest of them blurred together as frustration and discouragement overwhelmed her.

  She and Logan had left that morning to drive out to visit Nora, one of her college friends, who lived in a small town a few hours away. She’d been wanting to catch up with her anyway, and she needed something to do that evening since she’d told Adam she couldn't attend the ballet because she already had plans.

  Zoe had never liked the enormous, black SUV—it made her feel like she was driving around a tank or a house. But Josh had picked it out. Josh had loved it. And she hardly ever drove anyway, so it hadn’t seemed worth the trouble of swapping it out for a smaller car.

  She’d been less than an hour outside of the city when an indicator light signaled that her engine was overheating, so she’d stopped at the first town she came to and pulled into the only full-service gas station.

  “It seems kind of high,” she said. “What exactly is wrong with it?”

  Logan was sitting on her lap, fortunately not screaming or crying. Zoe hated the cramped, dirty sitting area of the gas station and the strong smell of gasoline. And she hated that damned huge SUV—particularly since it decided to break down at the most inconvenient of times. And she hated having to deal with car maintenance problems, since auto mechanics so often talked down to her and made her feel like an idiot. And she had no clear way to prevent being taken advantage of.

  She felt stupid and helpless and overly emotional.

  And she couldn’t help but think that, if Josh hadn’t died, she wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of situation on her own.

  The mechanic rambled out a mostly incoherent explanation of the problem with her vehicle, and she didn’t know if he was trying to make it confusing on purpose or if the needed repairs were genuinely that convoluted.

  She was greatly relieved when a car pulled up outside and the driver laid on the horn, so the mechanic—with a promise to return quickly—headed outside to deal with the new customer.

  Zoe pulled out her phone and tried to call Dan, Jane’s husband, who knew all about cars. When he didn’t answer, she disconnected with a sigh. She scrolled down to Adam’s number and almost hit send, but she stopped herself just in time. For the last week, ever since she’d gone sailing with him, she’d been trying to create just enough distance between them—not enough so he would notice, but enough that she could feel more comfortable with the way things were between them.

  She wanted Josh so bad she could taste it. Her chest hurt with it. It just didn’t seem fair that she had to try to get over the grief of losing him and also deal with all of these annoying life issues all by herself.

  She stared back down at the estimate. The easiest thing would be to just pay it, have her car fi
xed, and get on her way. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it.

  But she really hated to be taken advantage of.

  She wished she knew whether or not she was.

  As she tried to read through the list of repairs, she recognized something. The page said she needed a new air filter, but she knew something about that was off. They tried to get her to replace the filter every time she got her oil changed, and she’d just gotten a new one not long ago.

  Surely she wouldn’t need another new one already.

  She looked over the list again, seeing if she could recognize anything else. A couple of months ago, she’d taken the SUV in for scheduled maintenance, and some of these other things on the list looked awfully familiar.

  But she couldn’t be sure unless she checked the glove compartment, where she kept all the service records.

  Holding Logan on her hip, she stood up and went over to look into the garage. The gigantic SUV was up on a lift, and a mechanic—not the one she'd been speaking to before—was working on another car.

  “Excuse me,” she called, “I’m sorry, but I need to get into my car. Can you lower it please?”

  “Sorry. We’re in the middle of working on it. You'll have to wait.”

  Zoe’s back stiffened. “Actually, you’re not working on it, since I haven’t approved any work yet. And I need to get into it now. Please.”

  The man started to lower the SUV.

  “Cah!” Logan cried ecstatically, pointing at their big SUV as it descended to the floor of the garage. “Cah!”

  “Yes, that’s our car. We can’t get into it quite yet.”

  When she was able to pull out her service records, she gave the mechanic a smile, although she didn’t much feel like smiling. “Thank you.”

  She went back to her seat in the waiting area and started comparing her records with the estimate. And she used her smart phone to check a few details in an online search.

  When the original mechanic returned, she was ready.

  Very calmly, she told him that she didn’t need most of what he’d listed, since she’d just gotten it done within the last year.

  She took his pen and circled the one thing that seemed legitimate. “If you would please just do this, I would appreciate it.”

  The mechanic stared at her, and she could swear she saw a glimmer of something akin to admiration in his eyes. “All right, ma’am. If you want to risk drivin’ without the rest of it done.”

  “I do.”

  He told her it would take a couple of hours, and Zoe resigned herself to the long wait—pleased that at least she hadn’t let herself be taken advantage of.

  It was nice not to feel quite so helpless.

  Although it would be nicer if Josh was still around.

  “When you get old enough,” Zoe said, trying to keep Logan from pulling on her hair, “You’re definitely going to learn about car maintenance. And then maybe you can teach your mommy.”

  “Momma,” Logan said with a smile, as if pleased at the sound of the word.

  “Yes,” Zoe said, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “That’s right. You’ll have to teach your momma.”

  * * *

  The following day, around dinner time, Zoe finally made it home again.

  She’d spent the night with Nora and her family, since she hadn’t arrived until mid-afternoon. It was nice to see her friend and meet her husband and their four children.

  But Zoe was relieved to be home.

  She was exhausted, not having been able to get much sleep the night before, and she was stiff from driving. Not only was she out of practice in driving in general, but she was always tense when driving the SUV, since it never seemed to fit properly into a lane.

  “Maybe I’ll have to sell the monster,” Zoe said to Logan, whom she’d put on the floor so he could have some physical activity after being stuck in his car seat for so long.

  Logan babbled a reply, repeating “Momma” a couple of times. He released a delighted exclamation when she put his Wheely Bug on the ground. He immediately began to push it around.

  She sent Adam a text message that simply said, “I’m home,” since he’d asked her to let him know she’d made it back. Then, before she started to fix dinner, she turned on a cable news channel so the apartment wouldn’t feel so silent. Nora’s place had been constantly loud and active—with so many kids of different ages.

  They were very happy with their small-town life and big family, and Zoe was happy for them, but the visit had been hard in a way she hadn’t expected.

  Every time she’d seen Nora’s husband play with the kids, hold the new baby, or help Nora out, it reminded Zoe that Josh would never be there to do the same thing with her.

  And it hurt. Even after more than four months, it still hurt that she would never be able to have those experiences with Josh.

  Zoe wanted to talk to someone. She wanted to call Adam. She felt alone and blah and like she could very easily start to feel sorry for herself.

  And she really didn’t want to do that.

  But she was trying to do better about not depending on Adam unnecessarily. Plus, it was Saturday night, so he more than likely had a date.

  She knew he’d found someone to go to the ballet with him the night before.

  So she didn’t let herself call. Instead, she fixed a salad and warmed up some of the soup she’d made a couple of days ago. She cut an avocado for Logan—since that was his new favorite food, and she put a few slices in a plate with some puffed baby crackers.

  She’d taken Logan’s hands to help him walk over to the table for supper when the phone rang.

  She saw it was the doorman before she picked up, but she was still surprised when he told her that Mr. Peterson was downstairs, wanting to come up.

  Feeling off-stride and confused, Zoe told the doorman to let him up and then held Logan’s hands as he walked—too quickly for good balance—toward the front door.

  She’d opened the door just as Adam was approaching down the hall.

  “Hey,” she said, “What are you doing here?”

  “You said you were home,” Adam replied, as if that answered her question. He was dressed casually, in a camp shirt and khakis. “Hi Logan.” Although his tone didn’t change as he spoke to his ten-month-old nephew, his lips did quirk up in a smile.

  “Lala!” Logan exclaimed, dropping his mother’s hands in his excitement and promptly falling down, since he could only walk when she held his hands. “Lala!”

  Adam reached down to help Logan up from his tumble. “It’s Adam,” he corrected gently, “Uncle Adam.”

  “Cla Lala!”

  Zoe couldn’t help but chuckle at Adam’s longsuffering expression. “We were just about to eat dinner. Did you want anything?”

  “Sure.”

  They all trooped into the kitchen, where Adam put Logan into the highchair while Zoe split the salad into two servings and warmed up more soup.

  “How was your trip?” Adam asked, taking two bottles of sparkling water out of the refrigerator and putting them down at the table, and then finding a bread knife to cut off a few pieces from the loaf Zoe had bought before she left.

  “It was good. It was nice to see them. They’re doing really well.”

  Adam glanced over his shoulder with that sharp, observant look that always seemed to see more than it should. “You look tired.”

  “I am,” Zoe admitted, leaning against the counter and pushing her hair back behind her ears. “It felt like a really long weekend.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened—not really. Aside from a little car trouble on the way there. But it just felt really long.”

  Helping her carry the soup and salad to the table, Adam asked, “What car trouble?”

  Zoe sighed, resigning herself to telling the whole story—since he wouldn’t give it up otherwise. So she explained her engine overheating and what the mechanics had repaired.

  “Nice job,” Adam said, an app
reciative smile on his face, when she finished telling her tale. “Not everyone would have known the rest of the estimate wasn’t necessary.”

  She felt like preening a little, but that inclination made her feel silly. So she arched her eyebrows instead. “Well, I might not have known it either. I always feel intimidated by car mechanics, and all of what they say just sounds like gibberish. I even tried to call Dan, but he didn’t have his phone with him. Fortunately, I happened to have recognized enough to make me wonder.”

  She recognized her mistake a little too late.

  “When you couldn’t reach Dan, why didn’t you call me?” Adam asked, his expression changing.

  Zoe tried to sound nonchalant. “Right—I was going to drag you out of an important meeting to give me car advice.” When he started to object, she spoke over it. “I was fine, Adam. I appreciate your willingness to help, though.”

  To her relief, he let it go with just another sharp look. "You should probably sell the SUV, since you don't like it. You don't need a car in the city, and you can always borrow one of my cars if you need to take another road trip."

  Zoe started to argue—but she recognized she'd be arguing merely for the sake of arguing, since she was already considering selling the SUV. "I'll think about it."

  That seemed to have completed the car conversation. As they ate, they spoke idly when Logan wasn’t insisting on making himself heard.

  When he’d finished his avocado and crackers, he demanded, “Mo! Mo!”

  “Do you want something else to eat?” Zoe asked mildly.

  “Yesss.”

  He stretched out the last sound for a long time, obviously pleased when Adam chuckled.

  Zoe got some soft peach cubes for him to eat.

  When they finished dinner, Adam helped her clean up and then they went into the living area. Zoe put Logan's big blocks on the floor for him to play with, and then she collapsed on the couch.

  “Why was the weekend so hard?” Adam asked, lowering himself into the leather chair. His eyes rested on her face, and there was an obvious question there.

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t bad. I mean, they were great, and it was really nice to see them. It’s just…it’s just kind of hard to know that I missed out on that kind of life.