When it was just Ben and me and miles and miles of distance between us, I said, “You didn’t have to come over.”
“I know,” he said back.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know that too.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets and stood there stoically. He didn’t make a move toward the kitchen even though the kids were calling his name. He watched me instead, without saying anything, without seeming to want to say anything.
The quiet was too much for me. I couldn’t look at him there without filling up this space that separated us in some way.
“How have you been?” I was thrown off by how much I wanted to touch him. I had broken it off with him in an attempt to end my heartache, but ending things with Ben had only worsened the pain. I had been a mess before Ben left, but now… now I was a disaster.
Maybe on the outside things had gotten marginally easier. We could make it to school on time this year. I didn’t forget nearly as many after school activities. Dinner had fallen into a routine. My kids brushed their teeth twice as much as they did last year. But internally… internally I was a pile of ashes. I was broken, jagged pieces that cut and tore and damaged everything they touched.
One of his eyebrows rose in a challenge to my inane question. “How have you been, Liz?”
I cleared my throat and banished the tremble that threatened to give me away. “Oh, you know… holding it together.”
He took four steps forward until he stood just a few inches away from me. His dark, stormy gaze hit me with the power of a hurricane. “Liar,” he accused.
My lips parted, something was bound to come out of them. I just had to think of it first! He turned away from me and walked into the kitchen. I stared at his back and decided that was probably a good thing.
I didn’t know what I would have said. I doubted it would have been kind. Or maybe it would have been the truth.
I missed him…
I needed him…
I didn’t know how to reconcile my feelings for my husband and for him, but I wanted to try it again…
Those thoughts scared me more than anything. So, like the pro I was, I buried those thoughts as far down as I could and moved on to helping Abby with her science project.
While Ben helped Blake with his homework and talked to the kids about school and the rest of their summer, I made the best damn monkey diagram this world had ever seen.
Okay, it was probably a B+ effort. But we tried.
I worked with Lucy on her flashcards while Ben and Blake made dinner like they promised. We sat down to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup as a family with the addition of our estranged next-door-neighbor.
“How are your parents, Ben?” I asked over the laughter of children.
He looked up from where he had just painted Abby’s nose red with tomato soup. The wide grin he wore died as he looked at me from across the table. His shoulders stopped shaking with laughter and his entire demeanor grew serious.
He hated me.
And why shouldn’t he?
“They’re good, Liz.”
Okay, that attempt at conversation was a bust. Apparently he didn’t want to make this easy on me.
“How’s work?”
He took a patient breath and said, “It’s good, too.”
I was too stubborn to give up. I should have stopped but I couldn’t. “Lucy’s art project is going to be featured in the school art fair next month.”
His level gaze held mine, “I know. Emma told me.”
Betrayal hot and sharp cut straight through me. “Emma?”
“Yes, Emma.”
“When did you talk to my sister?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Liz, Emma and I never stopped talking. We’re still good friends.”
“She never said anything.” I couldn’t believe my sister had kept this from me this whole time! I made her come over and eat boxes of chocolate with me just so I didn’t have to face this alone and this whole time she had been talking to him?
“She was probably afraid of your reaction.”
I glared at him, “I wouldn’t have reacted.”
“You can be very irrational. She probably didn’t want to risk it.”
He had a point. But I didn’t want him to know that. “She’s my sister. I will love her no matter what she chooses.”
“That’s funny,” he said with the driest expression ever. “Because I feel the exact same way about her sister.”
The breath left my lungs and I nearly knocked over my bowl of soup. “Ben-”
“Who wants dessert?” he asked loudly. “I saw popsicles in the freezer!”
I watched my kids jump around his legs as he pulled out the leftover boxes from summer, all but Blake who sat at the table pensively watching the excitement. Ben dealt with each kid patiently, making sure they walked back to the table with their icy dessert and had everything they needed. He held out the box to Blake and then pulled back just as Blake went to grab one. Maybe it was a little cheesy, but Ben got Blake to smile and that was all I cared about.
“Liz?” he held out the box to me. “Would you like one?”
“No, thanks.”
“They look pretty good,” he pushed. “Might help cool you off.”
“I’m not hot.”
He gave me a smoldering look. “Are you sure about that?”
I reached for an orange one.
My kids had asked about Ben every single day since our “breakup.” That word… that whole idea… Breakup. It seemed so childish compared to what actually happened.
We didn’t break up. I ended things between us and set my world on fire, burning what little remained to cinders. I removed Ben from our life and watched my heart abandon me completely.
He had never been my boyfriend. Boyfriend was a word used for girls who had never been through what I had. For girls that still believed in love. For girls that still believed in happily ever afters.
I knew better.
Ben had been my savior.
Ben had been breath back in my lungs. Beats back in my heart. Blood back in my veins.
Ben had been found instead of lost. Home instead of wandering. Life instead of death.
And yet there was still too much between us… too much that kept us apart. I couldn’t just move on with him. I couldn’t expect my kids to move on. Ben wasn’t the answer to all of my problems. He might have eased the burden, but he didn’t take them away.
Dinner ended and I shooed the kids upstairs for their baths. They couldn’t go without giving Ben a hug first though. The sight of three of them clinging to his legs and waist twisted in my guts. Maybe the kids didn’t need to move on before they could accept Ben.
Maybe he had been right. Our heart just accepted new love by expanding, not by being exclusive.
Blake didn’t hug him or jump all over him, but he did walk over to ask when he was coming back.
“Do you need more help with math?” Ben didn’t even glance at me to see if I approved. I would have told him not to worry about it at all, but he wouldn’t look at me. He stared straight into Blake’s eyes and let my oldest answer on his own.
“Mom’s not very good at math,” Blake confessed.
“I do just fine,” I said to no one because no one was paying any attention to me.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, yeah?”
Blake’s mouth split into a big-toothed grin. “Yeah.” He held out his fist to Ben and they did this silly fist-bump thing they’d worked out over the summer.
“Alright, ducklings, up the stairs you go! Go brush the Popsicle off your teeth!” After a few more minutes of wrangling, they finally listened.
I moved toward the door to let Ben out. We were alone again after several hours of screaming kids and other things to occupy our attention. I didn’t know what to do with him except shove him out of my house.
“Thanks for helping Blake,” I told him. “We would have figu
red it out, but it was nice to have the extra hands.”
“Do you know what I keep thinking back to?” Ben asked seriously. I shook my head. I had no idea. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “The time you tried to overpay for our dinner at Sullivan’s. The waitress kept trying to give you the change back and you kept trying to hand her more money. It all makes sense now. You can’t add.”
A surprise laugh bubbled out of me. “I can add! I was confused that night! They write their receipts weird there! And Blake’s homework is just insane. It’s like they expect fourth graders to have nothing better to do with their time than work on math problems. I didn’t learn that stuff when I was in school!”
“Don’t you have a masters in education?”
“Well, look at you. Successful lawyer and math genius. Congratulations on being awesome.”
“I miss you.” His words killed our laughter. Murdered it. My breath hitched in my chest and any coherent thought I had left disappeared.
“Ben…”
“I’m not going to apologize for coming over tonight.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“And I want to keep seeing your kids,” he pressed on. “And you. I’ve thought about this for months, Liz. I’ve thought about coming over here night after night. I’ve thought about what you said and the space you needed. But I’m tired of it, Babe. I’m so tired of it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I want to be a part of your life. However much you’ll let me. We were friends before we were anything else and if that’s all you’ll give me then so be it.”
My stomach fluttered, butterflies awakening from a dormant sleep. They stretched their wings in my belly and took flight, lifting their faces toward the sun for the first time in months. “You want to be friends?”
He laughed darkly, “No, Liz. I want to be so much more than friends. But if this is all I can have, then I’ll take it.”
“You should move on,” I pleaded with him. “You are such a great guy. There are so many girls out there that would love to be with a man like you.”
His jaw tensed and his eyes heated. “I don’t want to be with other girls, Liz. I want to be with you.” I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he held up his hand and stopped me. “Listen, I get that Grady was your first great love. I get that you had this incredible marriage with him and he was your soulmate. I understand that. And I would never want him to be anything else. Never. I have endless respect for him. For loving you the way that he did, for raising these amazing kids. I don’t know if I can ever live up to the legacy that he left behind. I don’t know if I want to. But Liz, he died. And you’re still alive. And there is so much left of your life to live. I want to live it with you. I want to be a part of everything that remains for you, good and bad. I want to be there for your kids, for your stressful days, for your amazing days, for all of your nights and for every moment in between. We tried the time apart, but we are better together. Both of us. Yes, Grady was your great love, but you are mine. And if you would let me, I would be yours too. There isn’t a limit on how much we can love, Liz. You had Grady. Now have me.”
“Ben, I-”
“Forgive yourself, Liz. Give yourself the freedom to be alive again.” He put his hand on the door and swung it open. I couldn’t stop him tonight. I couldn’t even make words to respond to that speech. He gave me a slow, hopeful smile and disappeared into the sleepy twilight.
I watched him walk across our lawns without looking back. He’d said everything he had to say. He made his point.
And like so many times before, he challenged everything I thought and believed and then asked me to believe it too.
Could I do what he asked?
Did I love him enough to give us a chance? A real chance without the walls I’d built around my heart or the ghosts of Grady’s life haunting us?
Could I do as he asked and give up this buried existence that I’d entombed myself in and live again?
I would never forget Grady. He was my true love.
But maybe some people were allowed to have two. Maybe my love story didn’t end with one man, but continued throughout the course of my life.
Maybe Grady had been able to love the woman that I was, but Ben would get to love the woman I had yet to become.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I pulled the van to the side of the narrow road and slowed to a stop. I hadn’t been here as often as I should have, but this place had a special familiarity I felt every time I came.
I turned the car off and sat in the still quiet of my car for a very long time.
I needed to face something today and I didn’t necessarily want to.
Gravestones spotted the rolling hills on every side of me, making neat, evenly spaced rows. The grave markers came in every size and shape, but they all declared the same sad event- someone had died.
I had always thought gravestones were fascinating. Rarely were they designed by those that rested beneath them. They were in fact, made from the projected feelings of loved ones that remained alive. Or the nearest living relative. Or maybe by the state.
They said what we wanted them to. They represented a part of the deceased that we decided should be displayed.
Grady and I had talked a lot before he died. We had hours to plan his funeral while he wasted away in the hospital. We had long days to make decisions about the kids and their future. We talked about the past, the present and the future. We talked in hopeful tones and despairing ones. We whispered secrets and sweet nothings to each other. And we held on to each other as if our love had the power to keep him alive, to make him healthy again.
Not once did we discuss his gravestone or what would go on it.
After he died, it was the very first realization I had that I would not be able to do this without him.
The man had helped me plan his own funeral. He picked out the songs that would be sung and the people that he wanted to speak. He chose his pallbearers and the minister from his closest group of friends and relatives.
And yet, he had never mentioned what kind of gravestone he wanted displayed above his lifeless body.
When I sat down with the undertaker and he started asking questions about what kind of casket Grady would want to be buried in and what the stone should say, I completely lost it.
Emma and my dad were there to hold me as I collapsed on the floor and wept. The director handed my sister a box of tissues and excused himself from the room. It was obvious he had seen his fair share of grieving widows.
It took me six more hours before I could decide anything.
I cried the entire time.
I just couldn’t bring myself to make such a lasting decision about Grady without him. The color of the stone… the shape… the words engraved into the smooth surface… No matter how much I loved that man, I did not feel equipped to write his final message to the world.
Even now, as I looked at the stone through my windshield, I didn’t like it. It wasn’t Grady. It was my pain and grief. The words weren’t from Grady’s mouth; they were from my broken heart.
This place didn’t remind me of Grady and the life we lived together. This place reminded me of loss and misery. It reminded me of everything that had been taken from me.
When I wanted to see my husband, I looked at his children. I looked at the house he had built for me.
I looked in the mirror at the woman he had loved with everything that he was.
This morning, I had woken with the desperate need to talk to him. I had reached over in our bed and felt the searing slice of loss all over again. He wasn’t there, but I couldn’t shake the pressing urge to talk to him. I had questions I needed to ask him. I had thoughts I wanted to run by him. I needed him here.
I needed him.
Except I couldn’t have him.
So, I had done the only thing I could think to do. I called up Emma and asked her for the millionth time to come watch my kids. For a split second I had contemplated bringing
them with me. I dismissed the idea as soon as Jace knocked his full cup of water onto the floor.
I needed peace and quiet or this trip would be for nothing.
When I told Emma what I wanted to do, she canceled her plans and raced over. I told her she didn’t need to do that, but she completely supported this mission of mine. She’d told me so at least thirteen times.
With a heavy sigh, I opened my door and stepped into the crisp morning. October had turned beautiful in the last week. The big trees rustled with bright yellow and orange leaves. The grass had turned brown beneath the layers of fallen leaves. The air smelled like football and harvest.
I pulled my jacket tighter around my waist and trudged toward Grady’s plot.
There wasn’t anyone else around on this Thursday morning. I had the place completely to myself. The only people around to keep me company were the ghosts of other lives.
I ran my fingers over the rough top of the gravestone for a few minutes, familiarizing myself with the feel of the rock and glittery surface. I walked to the front of the plot and began carefully removing the sticks and leaves that had cluttered up the space.
I walked the length of the plot and then back to the end. I stood several feet from the stone and tried to force myself to be comfortable here. I struggled to find Grady in this place, to feel him close to me again.
But he wasn’t here.
He had departed from this earth more than a year ago and there was nothing I could do to bring him back.
He was gone forever.
I could accept that now.
I finally settled on sitting down. I tucked my long pea coat underneath me and leaned against the headstone. My legs stretched out in front of me and I picked up a rust-colored leaf to shred to pieces.
“I met someone,” I began softly. I had a lot to say, but I was in no hurry to get it out. “Well, really, he met me. He lives next door. You know, in that house that took forever to sell? He moved in about six months after you left. His name is Ben.” I stopped talking and listened for a response, some sign that Grady could hear me. The wind blew, the leaves skittered along the pavement, the sun shone brightly in the sky, but Grady did not answer me.
The Five Stages of Falling in Love Page 26