For someone like me, happiness had an expiration date.
Today was that day.
WHEN I’M EIGHTY-FIVE AND SENILE, I’ll still be able to replay the events, word for word, moment for moment, as if they were happening all over again, right before my disbelieving eyes.
It was a routine play; second and eleven. The team formed their huddle, fans screaming around me. The mass of uniforms broke, the players took their positions, and the center snapped the ball to Lennox. There was nowhere for him to go. He caught the ball and sought out one of his wide receivers. Aaron wasn’t open, and the defense double-teamed Rick, making him obsolete. In what seemed like slow motion, Lennox scrambled in the pocket while I held my breath. Finally, he attempted a handoff to a running back who’d managed to escape his defender. The ball bobbled, the play hurried by the defense breaking through the line. It was a do or die moment that no one ever expected would end in die.
It was Lennox’s body that hit the ground, toppled by a lineman the size of a building, but everyone else felt it, too. Gasps. Moans. Hands rushing to mouths. It wasn’t just a sack. It was utter destruction.
We won the game. The team advanced to the Super Bowl a few weeks later. But none of that mattered because Lennox wouldn’t be part of the team. Or any other team for the rest of his life.
That sack crushed all three bones in his ankle. His career was over. It sent Lennox into a tailspin that no hero should ever have to endure . . . And it fucked up my life all over again.
“Noooo!” I screamed, dropping to my knees. Call it woman’s intuition, but the second Lennox fell to the ground, I knew his pain. I felt his pain.
Everyone rushed to him on the field. Helmets were hurled, whistles blew, yellow flags littered the green turf. Everyone in the lounge rushed to me. Food flew, tears flowed, hands reached out.
I heard murmurs, comforting words in fuzzy hums. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the tragedy taking place on the field. Close-ups of Lennox and the medics filled the Jumbotrons. I was surrounded by it. Drowning in it. Helpless.
“I need to see him. Take me to him.” My demands came out in garbled cries. Violet cradled my head in her hands and Rachel patted my back. Nothing soothed the ache of watching the destruction of Lennox. What destroyed him, destroyed me too.
After what felt like hours of sobbing, a security officer appeared in the lounge to escort me to where Lennox was being treated. I wanted him; I needed him; but I couldn’t even think what to say. How could anything or anyone comfort him at this time? I wasn’t enough. He loved me, but he loved this game, too.
I staggered into the locker room with zero life to my strides. I should have rushed to him, my brain told me to, but my heart knew it was the end and wanted to spare the rest of my body the realization.
The space was set up as a mini emergency room. Lennox once told me that the stadium was well-equipped to handle these kinds of injuries on site. The staff would never risk further damage to a player in an attempt to travel to a hospital. None of this comforted me, though, because Lennox’s screams and curses filled the air and deepened the gravity of the situation.
“This isn’t fucking happening! Tell me this isn’t fucking happening!” Lennox shouted, flailing uncontrollably. He was probably in shock from the pain, his mind warring between worst-case scenarios and miracles.
“Calm down, Dean. We have to get a better look. The MRI will tell us more, but you have to stay still.” Two men dove over the gurney and pinned Lennox down while the doctor further examined his ankle.
I winced because the sounds were grueling. Growls and groans. Cries and screams. All coming from a man who was always so strong and powerful. I hated seeing him like this. I wanted to turn back around like a coward because I didn’t know how to face him. But I couldn’t. He’d never turned his back on me in all the years of putting up with my misgivings, dealing with Violet. I had to go to him.
I swallowed my fears and approached him slowly. “Lennox,” I called out meekly as I made my way to his side.
His head snapped in my direction, his face dirty and sweaty and distressed beyond measure. “Edie? What are you doing here?” He tensed beneath the staff’s restraints and then resisted with a loud grunt. “Why is she here? What aren’t you telling me?”
I didn’t hear much of what came next. Medical jargon, mixed with football terminology, jumbled with more cursing and yelling. All I knew was it wasn’t good and the only thing I was good for in this moment was moral support.
I held his hand as soon as I was allowed to. I whispered comforting words, hopeful phrases, kissed his head and held my own tears at bay. It was all in vain, because later on Lennox’s worst nightmare materialized into a heartbreaking truth.
The results of the MRI and X-rays showed damage in the bone, muscle and ligaments. Lennox was given a morphine drip to ease the pain, and hushed voices threw around phrases like “healing period,” “recovery plan,” and “out for the season.”
When the room quieted a bit and the crowd of teammates and coaches dispersed, Lennox closed his eyes and gripped my hand tighter. “I can’t believe this, Edie.”
“One day at a time, baby. Let’s take it one day at a time.”
I tried to remain optimistic even though my gut told me there was no silver lining to look forward to. I wore a brave face for Lennox. I sat by his side. I did what I was told to make him comfortable. And all the while, I prepared for the worst.
Present
WATCHING HIM WATCH HER WAS like repeatedly stabbing myself in the gut with a dull, rusty blade. It was a harrowing reminder that he was never really mine. No matter how much I risked, regardless of all the wrongs I committed to make things right for us, his heart always belonged to her. I was nothing more than a pitiful whore for breaking the two of them apart.
If I hadn’t made such a big deal of getting Eden here to help him with his addiction, I would have raided his stash right there and then and shot up with something to numb my mind. Numb. I needed to be numb. How else was I supposed to sit here as he eye-fucked the one and only love of his life while scratching his skin raw?
No one had said a word since we all entered the house. My eyes sharpened on Lennox as I watched his every move. His eyes perused Eden’s body as if deciding whether she was really here or merely a drug-induced hallucination. Eden kept her eyes closed, her fingers rubbing her temples, stress and disgust written all over her face.
The awkward silence lasted far too long for my liking so I broke it when I couldn’t take him drooling over her for one more second. “Babe,” I purposely used the term of endearment with an exaggerated whine. “Why don’t you go upstairs and—”
“Yeah. Uh . . . Good idea,” he interrupted me, standing from his seat at the table and walking up the staircase. I was thankful for the disruption, not only to break the quiet, but because I had no idea how to vocalize what I knew Lennox needed to do to survive this situation.
Get high.
He read my mind—or did what came naturally—and disappeared to medicate himself as he occasionally liked to refer to it. My sister and I were left alone in the living room that harbored a variety of memories. Some good, but mostly bad, ugly, disturbing. I tried as hard as I might not to dwell on the past, but let’s face it, my present wasn’t any prettier.
Take my living arrangements, for example. I shared this shitty place with a junkie and a drunk. It wasn’t by choice; it was necessity that drove me here when I found myself stuck between begging my father for shelter or succumbing to life on the streets. Homelessness almost appealed more than dealing with William again, but I swallowed my pride for Lennox’s sake. Daddy balked at first, making me feel like the lowest of scum for needing him. But it turned out that offering to mind after the house, cook a few meals, and serve as his punching bag from time to time was a small price to pay for a rickety roof over our heads. Crawling back to my father—a man who hated my very existence—because my options were depleted was not part of my game plan.
Then again, I never actually did have a game plan. Poaching a fallen hero from my own flesh and blood was not part of the plan. Falling in love with him was not part of the plan. Squandering my life on another waste of life was not part of the plan. None of anything I envisioned for myself when I was sitting pretty in Rittenhouse Square. What I wouldn’t give to go back and do it all differently.
“Say something, would you?” Eden’s voice cracked when she spoke, startling me out of my haze.
I huffed and reached for another cigarette. “What’s there to say?” It was a flippant, stupid remark. There were a million things to say, but I didn’t know where to start. I’m sorry, Eden. That’s where I should’ve begun.
“Why am I here? What do you expect me to do? Haul him off to rehab with my bare hands? I’m not exactly the right person for this job, Violet. There has to be someone else.”
That was the thing. There was no one else, but I was open to suggestions. My well of knowledge was bone fucking dry. “Like who?” I smarted.
She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her honey-swirled eyes narrowed and ready to make accusations. “Well, for starters, I see you’re living here with William.”
“Is that a joke?” I interrupted with an obnoxious laugh. I couldn’t help it if I tried, even though there wasn’t an ounce of levity in this situation. “You’ve obviously forgotten who he is.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I haven’t. But you sure have. Living under his roof again—this morbid, decrepit space—and playing happy family. How the hell did this happen, Violet? Why would you ever come back here?”
The true, snarky bitch that lived inside me would have answered with a wisecrack, but the desperate, washed up mess answered instead. “Because we had nowhere else to go.”
There was no pity, not even a splash of understanding in her tone. “What about all his money? His parents? You had to have options other than William and me!”
“It’s all gone, Eden. They’re gone, too. They don’t want anything to do with us. They haven’t since—” It was too much to bring up, too hard to relive. Not only for me, but especially for my sister.
“Nice,” she smarted. “A real fucking mess.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“No!” She was out of her seat now, coming closer, venom in her eyes. “Tell me what I don’t know! How did it get this bad? You love him, no? How could you let someone you love do this to himself?”
And there it was. She was right. As always, one million percent right versus my two million percent wrong. I was as much to blame for this mess as Lennox was for becoming a slave to his addiction. This was my fault, but I couldn’t admit that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. So instead, I pointed that blame elsewhere so it would leave me the fuck alone and stop haunting me for one damn second. “You loved him too, remember? How could you let this happen? How could you leave? You walked out, left us for dead and went on with your life as if we didn’t exist. Did you ever think about that?”
I saw it coming and didn’t even try to deflect it. Her hand hit my face with an angry slap of skin on skin, and the burn that followed brought tears to the corners of my eyes. I cupped my cheek to quell the pain and blinked to stop the tears from shedding. But my stomach lurched, churning with disgust and reminding me that I could still feel. My innate emotions were not dead the way I imagined them to be long ago. No, they were alive and kicking, and these physical and internal reactions to my sister’s hatred was as crippling as admitting I was at fault for the mess my and Lennox’s lives had become.
Present
EVERYONE HAS THEIR BREAKING POINT. I passed mine years ago at the sight of my sister in the arms of my boyfriend, high off his mind, his lips dancing around her skin the way they used to dance around mine. That was my low. Unfortunately, many other lows followed, resulting in the loss of the two people I loved most in the world and then turning that love into pure hatred for what they did to me. Moving on and starting over when so much of who I was was no longer a part of me. Spending countless nights alone in a city that was foreign to me, crying myself to sleep and begging my mind to forget.
Yeah, I struggled through many lows, during both my childhood and adult years, but hearing my sister spew poison at me just to make herself feel better—I wouldn’t allow that to be another. I had to fight back.
I hated to admit it felt good when my palm connected with her cheek. The sound was gratifying, and the shock on her face even more rewarding. I held back from smirking, from enjoying how it felt to see her hurt. There was even a brief moment when I wished I could bottle up my retaliation mixed with her humiliation and wear it like a perfume of victory. But I wasn’t that broken. I was here, wasn’t I?
I summoned inner strength and swallowed the urge to say things that would break her for good. I had to set some ground rules if she expected me to stick around for this shit show; otherwise, I’d abort this mission without looking back. “I’ll only say this once and I expect you to listen so you don’t make the same mistake again.” I spoke through gritted teeth, my hands in fists at my sides. “If you say something like that again, I’m out. Done. I will not allow you to blame me for your mistakes and the mess you’ve made. I was a good sister. I tried to help you time and time again. And Lennox—” I stumbled to a stop. For some reason, saying his name this time pricked my heart and stung the back of my throat. I had loved him. How dare she dangle that in front of me as if it were in question. I gave him everything and he threw it away. They threw it away. “This is not my fault. You get it? You understand?”
Violet nodded, her hand still cupping the spot where I slapped her.
“Say it, then,” I demanded.
“I understand.”
It wasn’t enough. “No. Say it’s not my fault. I want to hear it from your mouth. I want you to know it so it never crosses your mind again.”
Defiance glistened in her glassy eyes, but it was quickly snuffed out by submission. Game over. “It’s not your fault, Eden. It never was.”
Past
ONE, TWO, THREE. ONLY THREE? I held the pills in one hand and the empty bottle in the other, thinking back to how long it’d been since I picked up the prescription from the pharmacy.
Today was Saturday. Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday. I picked them up on Wednesday. We were out of eggs and I stopped by the pharmacy on the way home from the market. But how could that be? These were supposed to last way longer than four days. I had to be missing something.
“Hey, Lennox?” I called as I walked upstairs to the spare bedroom where he’d decided to hole himself up the last few days. It was a change in scenery from his usual lounged position on the oversized sectional in the den off the kitchen. There, he spent way too much time wallowing in his misfortune by observing Sports Center and any other channel that replayed football highlights. I hoped today I would find him watching something else, a comedy to lighten his mood, perhaps. Or maybe it’d be best if he was asleep. This injury and its aftermath was exhausting. For all of us.
“Babe?” I crept into the darkened room, whispering, “You awake?”
“Go away,” he grunted, pulling the duvet tighter around him. His voice was groggy and dull—something I’d gotten used to over the past month—but the dismissal was something I’d never accept.
Summoning indifference to his sour tone, I insisted, “You can’t keep pushing me away, Lennox.” Although I knew he’d object, I walked over to the window and drew the blinds, allowing sunlight to paint the shadows with much needed life. “Let’s let some light in this—”
“Shut that! I’m trying to sleep! Why can’t you leave me alone already?”
I was starting to think it was better when he was drowning himself in Sports Center clips rather than hiding in here, away from the world. Away from me.
A good part of me thought about leaving him be a little longer. I could be coming on too strong. Expecting too much, too soon. It was only a month ago that his hopes and dreams were crus
hed along with his ankle. Maybe I should’ve been more sympathetic. But I couldn’t bear to see him like this. He wasn’t the Lennox I knew and loved. He was despondent and irritable. And that was on a good day. At his worst he actually screamed and shouted hurtful things at me and Violet. His parents had already come and gone. They came to stay with us immediately following the accident, and even they decided to grant Lennox’s wish to leave him alone by going back to Florida. I wanted to be mad at them for abandoning their son in his time of need, but I guess there was only so much abuse one could take before they had to remove themselves from the situation.
I didn’t have that luxury, however. It wasn’t an option. I loved Lennox unconditionally. We hadn’t taken marriage vows—yet—but I was in this for better or worse. This happened to be our worse. We would get through it. Eventually. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up, even if it meant fighting enough for both of us.
After leaving the blinds closed, I sat on the edge of the bed and dared to touch him. My hand hovered over his body before I thought better of it and withdrew. It wasn’t time yet. It felt like forever since I felt his hands on me; intimacy was so far out of the realm of his awareness. I was okay with that, though. I knew what he needed now had nothing to do with sex or lustful affection. He needed comfort and support. I could do that. I would take care of him forever if I needed to; it was a promise I made to myself that day at the stadium. And part of fulfilling that promise was figuring out why there were only three pills left from a one-month prescription.
“How many pain killers did you take today, Lennox?” I cut right to it, knowing it would be a matter of seconds before he ordered me to leave him alone again.
Without lifting his head or making eye contact, he barked right back, “I took what I needed. I’m in pain, Eden.”
Garden of Goodbyes Page 10