At Lou Lou’s, Alex lets me order for him. I get us my favorite—the pierogi special and an order of nachos. As we share and laugh over our food, I feel myself relax into it all.
In the middle of dinner, Alex’s cell phone rings. He checks the screen. “It’s my mom. I’ll call her later,” he says.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I respond. “Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. I’ll get to eat more of the nachos while you’re talking,” I joke, shoving one in my mouth for dramatic effect.
He nods, clicking the button on his phone. “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”
I feel a little odd suddenly, as if I’m listening in on an intimate conversation. Alex doesn’t look alarmed though.
“Yeah, maybe over Thanksgiving? That would be great. I miss you. I know… how’s Greg? ... Great. Uh-huh.”
I smile, watching Alex talk to his mom, sensing the connection just from the look on his face. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so close, even though they’re physically so far apart.
“I love you, Mom. I have to go. I’m out with someone,” he says. “Of course… yes… uh-huh. Love you too, Mom. Bye.”
Alex clicks the phone, rolling his eyes. “Sorry. She’s just concerned about me being so far away. You’d think I was sixteen or something.”
I grin. “It’s fine. No worries. She’s just being a mom.”
“You don’t think I’m a mama’s boy, right?” he asks, grinning, but I’m not sure he’s teasing.
“For the record, no. And for the record, I don’t think being a mama’s boy is bad. Having a mom that loves you like she clearly loves you is a good thing. Your family sounds awesome.”
It’s true. I’d give anything to have a mom in my corner the way Alex clearly does. I’d give anything to have an over-the-top somewhat meddling mother.
Because I’ve seen the alternative.
Not that I blame my mom. She’s made her mistakes, sure, but she’s also been dealt some tough cards. It’s not her fault, I remind myself. Even when I want to blame her, I can’t. It’s not all her fault. She loves me the best she can.
We continue dinner, talking more about Alex’s family and childhood. I strategically leave most of mine out, only focusing on the good stuff. I’m not ready to cross that bridge yet—no inside joke intended—even if we are out on a date.
When we leave the diner though, I’m feeling more confident. I’m feeling like we’ve taken a huge jump. I’m feeling like this thing with Alex isn’t just a tour guide kind of thing.
This might not work out. We might not be made for each other. This might all be temporary.
But for right now, whatever this is, whatever label we put on it, I’m happy. The girl on the bridge that night seems like a distant memory.
“So, tour guide, what is our next attraction going to be?” Alex asks as he walks me home.
“Tour guide, huh? So, do you take all your tour guides on dates?” I ask coyly.
“Only the ones who wear supercute red hats,” he says.
“And how many of those are there?”
“One. There’s only one.”
When we get to my house, this time he leans in to kiss me on the cheek. I think about turning, catching his lips within mine, the mere thought of it sending a jolt to all kinds of places.
But I don’t. I don’t want to rush this. I want to savor it, take it all in, and drink in this crazy thing growing between us.
Because I’m not standing still anymore. With Alex, I feel breathless, like I’m running a marathon without a finish line.
And I hope to hell the finish line doesn’t come into view anytime soon.
Chapter Seven
Marley
I wake up the next morning when the sun streams into my room, even the weather seeming to mimic my sunny mood. For once, the prospect of waking up doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. Life doesn’t seem so gray.
I feel like one of those cheesy girls in the movies, but I can’t help it.
I’ve got the day off, but Alex is working all day. We exchanged phone numbers last night, and although I try to tell myself I’m just checking for emergency messages, my heart skips a beat when I see a text.
Alex: I had a great time last night. I’ll call you after work to make plans for our next adventure.
I exhale with a smile, stretching my arms toward the sky.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I don’t want to get my hopes up. But I think it’s too late for that.
Suddenly, life doesn’t feel like this monotonous game of waiting for something to happen. Alex’s happened.
With a day of emptiness—the good kind, this time—ahead of me, I toss on my favorite outfit, add my red hat, and grab my journal, heading to the kitchen to grab a to-go cup of coffee to take to my favorite spot.
When I get to the kitchen, though, I startle.
She’s here. She’s up already. Seeing Mom up and dressed now—really at any time—is a miracle.
“Hey,” I utter, my mood turning serious automatically.
“Marley,” Mom says neutrally. She’s sitting at the table, a wrinkled gray T-shirt on. Her hair’s standing up in every direction.
“How was work last night?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I only stayed for half my shift. Didn’t feel well.”
I bite my lip, swallowing the building anger. “Where’d you go then?”
She glares at me. “None of your business, Marley. I’m not a fucking child.”
I inhale, reminding myself to build the patience I don’t have much of anymore.
“Mom, I’m just worried about you. Charlotte called me last week and said you’ve been missing a lot of your shifts. I’m just…. I don’t want you slipping again.”
I feel tears stinging in my eyes, the familiar tears of past pain. I feel the tears from my teenage years—tears over Dad’s death, then the tears of fear of losing another parent. I feel the searing agony of when I went to live with Margaret and Joe for a few months when Mom was away. I feel all the hurt well up from the past few years, the constant worry about her slipping again and the hellish guilt when she did over and over again.
“Marley, I’m fine. I’m not perfect, but no one is. I’m fine. I’m doing my best.”
Mom’s face, grayer than usual today, is marked by hardship. The fine lines age her well beyond her actual age. Most of all, though, the pain in her eyes screams at me.
If I’ve known pain, she’s known sheer horror.
I remind myself she is, in fact, doing her best. Best for Mom is a little different than some would consider, but I’ve learned to love her harder for it. She needs me.
“Do you work today?” I ask gently, heading to pour myself a cup of coffee.
“No. I’m going to stay in today.”
I sigh. She probably is on the schedule, but I know better than to ask.
“I’m heading to the park for a while. Do you want to come?”
She just shakes her head, heading to the sofa to tuck herself under the old plaid flannel blanket and fall asleep.
And just like that, our interaction is over. Even though Mom says she’s not the child, I sigh to myself, tears still singeing my eyes.
She may not be the child, but she’s also not the mom here.
When Dad’s life ended, I didn’t just lose one parent. I lost two.
Heading to the park, the sun still shining, the day still empty like it was when I got up, my optimism is slipping away.
Nothing’s changed, yet, just like so many times in life, everything, everything has changed.
***
The words won’t come.
I sit and stare at a blank page in a new journal, the one I hoped to start today. Something about Alex, about our few times together, has made me feel a new resolve to pursue my writing, to write out my heart.
But now, the stark reminder this morning that Mom’s never going to be completely okay again slaps me in the fac
e.
No matter what happens, no matter what I do, I can’t leave.
I just can’t leave. I’ll always be standing right here.
I want to hate Dad for what he did. I want to hate how he took all our seminormal lives and crushed them with one decision. I want to curse him out, curse out the universe for taking Mom’s happiness and her hope for the future. With it, it took my own.
Margaret and Joe have talked to me over and over. It’s not my fault. It’s not my responsibility. They’ll help in any way they can.
But, how can they? They aren’t her daughter. They can’t possibly know her, care for her like I can.
And how can I abandon her?
My dad already did, and look how that worked out. How can I, knowing the pain she’s battled every day since that fateful night, leave her alone?
She’s not perfect. Hell, some would argue she’s not even deserving of my love. There have been plenty of times I’ve come second to all sorts of things. Boyfriends and alcohol have stolen my mother over the years for stints of time. I spent plenty of nights alone and scared. I spent plenty of nights with Margaret and Joe, pretending I just wanted to visit when, in truth, I just didn’t want to go home alone.
I spent years worrying I’d get that knock on the door, that phone call that she, too, was gone. I spent years worrying there’d be a knock on the door taking me away to a new life, to strangers, because someone found out Mom’s secrets.
I spent those months Mom was “getting help” feeling helpless, feeling lost.
And I vowed to myself, smiling for the first time since Dad died, I’d never leave her.
She’d walked in the door, home from one of her times away to recover. I was seventeen, and it was her fourth stint—this time, for rehab for alcoholism.
“Marley, I missed you. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry for everything. I don’t ever want to leave you again,” she’d said, and my seventeen-year-old self clung to those words like a miracle. Mom was back. I wouldn’t leave her. I would make sure she never went away.
Now, the promise seems like a pipe dream. I didn’t leave, but I still lost her over the years. Her battles with the bottle and depression have made keeping her happy a daily struggle. Guilt racks me even now for losing the battle with her.
But to leave would be to give up completely. I can’t do that.
I lean my head against the solid oak tree, feeling pity rise for Mom, for me.
For the whole situation.
“Why’d you have to do it, Dad? Why weren’t we enough?” I whisper into the silent breeze, only a few buzzing bees around to hear my plea.
I swipe at the tears. I know I should hate him. I know I want to.
But I can’t.
Because the pain we feel in his absence must be nothing to the agony he felt that night. I don’t understand what drove him to it. I probably never will.
But I do know that night on the Cedar Bend Bridge was a night I can’t even imagine. To do what he did, to leave us like that, it must have been some hell he was going through.
Thinking about it, my mind goes to a more recent place, to the night Alex found me.
Alex.
He’s an amazing man. And sure, he’s probably not perfect. But hell, he’s a whole lot more perfect than me.
My family’s baggage is too much. I’m too much.
I can pretend to the world I’m all okay, that Marley’s this sassy, sarcastic, strong girl. But deep down, I’m broken. Every piece of me is just a jagged shard waiting to stab into everyone around me, into everything I touch. No matter how good things feel with him, I know it’ll never go anywhere. It can’t.
Once he finds out just how broken I am, he’s going to realize even he, a doctor, can’t fix me. Some things, some people just simply can’t be patched.
***
When I finally trek home, I’m feeling glum. I’ve gotten myself into the way too common Marley funk, and I hate I’m letting all this family stuff put a damper on how happy I was this morning.
I pause at my door, knowing going home isn’t what I need.
I turn around, walking one house over, to my refuge. This is exactly what I need, like so many other times in life.
I don’t bother knocking, knowing Margaret will be on the back porch with Smoky.
“Hello,” I yell into the Cape Cod once I swing open the familiar yellow door. I always loved that sunshine-yellow door. It screams “welcome.”
“I’m out back, dear,” Margaret yells. In her inviting voice, though, it sounds more like she’s singing.
I traipse down the hallway and through the kitchen, swinging open the screen door to the familiar screened-in porch. My mood instantly lightens at the sight of my favorite place.
Margaret is dressed in a pink pantsuit, Smoky purring on her lap as she scratches his chin. She’s got her English Breakfast tea on the mosaic stand beside her.
I notice there’s a second cup on the other stand by my spot on the glider.
I smile.
“How’d you know I was coming?” I ask, sitting down beside her, grabbing the steaming cup and warming my hands, putting my face over the liquid that always instills nostalgia in me. I spent so many afternoons here as a teenager, right here, gliding on Margaret and Joe’s porch, feeling love and peace, something I didn’t get at home. This porch was my sanctuary, my refuge, my safe spot.
Margaret smiles, readjusting her glasses and fluffing her perfectly permed hair. “I just had a hunch, I guess. It’s good to see you.”
I smile. “You, too. Sorry it’s been a while. Work has been keeping me busy.”
Margaret winks at me. “Just work, Marley Jade? Come on. You know I have ears and eyes all over this town.”
I give Margaret what I hope to be a look that discounts the rumors. Instead, a smile spreads on my face. “So I may have had a few adventures with the new doctor in residency.”
“You mean the hunk who saved you, huh?”
“Margaret, we’ve been through this. It wasn’t a big deal. I was just being klutzy.”
Margaret had swung by the day after the fall with flowers and a worried expression, even though Joe had explained to her numerous times I was fine.
“I’ve heard the doctor in residency is spending every free moment with Rosewood’s favorite black-haired girl. I think it’s great, honey. I swung by the hospital myself the other day just to scope him out. Seems like a great man.”
I shrug. “Yeah, he is.” No sense in denying it. I raise the tea to my lips, blowing on it, my eyes traveling to the tropical plant in the corner of the porch, my favorite here.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I turn and look back at her. She’s studying me with a frown.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t nothing me. I know you too well, Marley Jade. You’re forgetting I can always tell when something is wrong. Tell me.”
I sigh. No use lying to Margaret. She’s got intuition that’s so strong, she knows when I’m going to be stopping by. “I’m just… worried.”
“About what?”
“I think this whole thing with Alex, although fun and wonderful, might just be a waste of time. He’s a doctor. From California. And I’m… me.”
Margaret extends her hand toward me, patting my hand. “And you’re wonderful, Marley. Don’t be ridiculous. That boy is lucky to get time with you.”
I smile. “I think you might be biased.”
“So what if I am? You’re an amazing girl. Don’t give me this load of crap about him being better than you.”
I shake my head. Margaret never minces words. “I’m just worried he’s going to be scared away by my past. It’s messy. You know that better than anyone. I have a lot of baggage. And with Mom the way she is….”
“Honey, we’ve been telling you for years you can’t let the past or your mom hold you back from your own happiness. It’s not your responsibility. I know you love her, and you’re an amazing girl for sticking by her through
everything. But Marley, you have to let go, even a little. You can’t let everything that’s happened be a roadblock.”
I sigh. “You make it sound so easy, so logical.”
“I didn’t say it was easy. You know why? Because you have such a big heart. Your heart’s so big, you feel everyone’s pain. And your family has a lot of it, I know. But I want you to find happiness. I want you to be brave enough to try. And if that happiness is with Alex, then go for it. Life’s never easy, and everyone has their baggage. Your hunky doctor isn’t perfect either, I’m sure. He has his issues and complexities, no doubt. But that’s the thing. Everyone does. If you can find someone who makes those struggles seem a little less, who makes it seem bearable, then cling to that. Don’t be afraid to show him all of you, every part of you, even the hard parts. Because there are so many good pieces to you. So many. And if he’s half the guy I think he is, your cracked pieces aren’t going to scare him away. They’re going to make him love you more.”
I inhale, feeling the happiness of the morning seep back in. Margaret always grounds me. She always makes me feel better, makes me feel like I can be happy.
“I just worry. Because if I find too much happiness, I’m afraid it’ll take me away from her. And I don’t think she can handle it. She’s not well today.”
“Your mom is stronger than you think. She needs to find the bravery to be happy again too. I still haven’t given up on the fact she will. But until then, you know Joe and I are here. We’ll watch over her. You’re both like family to us.”
Now I reach over and squeeze her hand, thankful for this angel in my life.
“I love you,” I say to her.
“I love you, too, Marley Jade.”
I smile, taking a sip of my tea, thankful to have such an amazing woman who helped me feel the love my mom sometimes couldn’t show.
And for helping me, even now, see what I need most of all.
Chapter Eight
Alex
I flip through the pages of the medical encyclopedia, it’s dusty brown cover barely legible at this point. This relic from the past doesn’t really have much practical use with the invention of Google. Still, as I run my hand over the cover, sitting in my bed with the blankets kicked off, I can’t help but smile, thinking about the day he gave this to me.
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