This Close to Okay

by Leesa Cross-Smith

  As soon as he’d returned to her place, she’d handed Christine’s ring to him, and he’d put it into his backpack before bringing a big pot of water to a boil. Chopping the potatoes, dropping them in.

  “It’s hard to admit how much I love you making dinner so I don’t have to think about it. I usually make little meals. Or just snack all day. Some days I get takeout. It’s still kind of weird cooking for one. I’m not good at letting people take care of me,” she said. She kept her toes out of the kitchen, had them lined up perfectly where the tile turned to hardwood.

  Emmett let the gentle faucet water run over the steaks and patted them dry with paper towels before rubbing them with olive oil. Tallie leaned and watched. A small yellow meow from one of her cats floated across the kitchen air. Emmett turned on the stove, dropped a pale cube of cold butter into the skillet, and poured himself a glass of water as the butter warmed and sizzled.

  “Yesterday, the bridge, did that have something to do with your marriage?” Tallie asked as he put both steaks in the skillet. Bloody. Browning. Searing.

  “In a way, it did. In a way, it didn’t,” he said.

  “That clears it up.”

  He turned to her. Smiled. Tallie sat on the floor outside the kitchen and shook her head at him.

  When it was time, he transferred the steaks to the oven, then he took the empty skillet off the stove and added glugs of stock and cognac. Used the wooden spoon to get the delicious crispy bits from the bottom before returning it to the burner and turning the heat up, bubbling it down. Tallie talked while Emmett cooked, and he pulled the steaks out of the oven when he knew the insides were still pink and cool.

  “We’ll let them rest,” he said.

  “How did you and your ex-wife meet?” Tallie asked.

  “Are you going to tell me how you met Joel?”

  “Do you want to know how I met Joel?”

  Emmett nodded.

  “Do you want me to go first?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  When Tallie met Joel, he was a marketing manager at the health insurance company where Lionel was chief financial officer. They played on the company’s intramural soccer team together. Tallie saw Joel at the soccer matches when she would go, thought he was cute.

  “Joel had these black curls that bounced when he ran and an overly exuberant running gait, like a puppy. After I’d been to a couple of their matches, Joel asked Lionel if it’d be okay for him to ask me out. Lionel told me, ‘He’s a good dude. Kind of boring, but he’s a kick-ass soccer player. He’s smart, strong, wiry. He’s pretty, too,’” Tallie said.

  She had Lionel’s comments memorized. Emmett watched her mouth move as she talked. She told him how picky Lionel had been about her boyfriends, taking forever to warm up to them, and she admitted to being pretty awful to some of his girlfriends as well. But she talked about how much she loved her sister-in-law, Zora. She told him Zora was more than a sister-in-law to her; she was a real friend. Tallie mentioned Zora coming over and staying with her one night after Joel had moved out. How Zora had cleaned Tallie’s kitchen and made dinner for her, let Tallie cry in her lap while she petted her hair.

  “How many dates until you knew Joel was the one?” Emmett asked after listening.

  “I don’t know…maybe two months’ worth? I was seeing someone else off and on for a bit, but Joel was handsome, flirty, funny. Really sexy and aggressively confident, and he wore suits…a lot,” Tallie said. “He’s brainy and intrepid, too.”

  “Wow…intrepid,” Emmett teased in a deeper voice.

  “I know. But he is! Trust me, I’d never use that word to describe anyone else but Joel.”

  “Well, it’s a great word.”

  “Agreed.” Tallie paused. “And yeah, so…I’d had serious boyfriends, but being with Joel made me feel like I’d won something in a way I can’t explain. Like in choosing between him and the other man I was seeing…Joel made me feel like it had to be him. How could it not be him? He was Joel! He’d somehow convinced me he was the only man in the world.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I know better,” she said. “Your turn.”

  “Well…our story is that I used to work with one of her best friends, who started dating my best friend…they’re the ones who moved to Montana. I told you about them on the bridge. That’s how Christine and I got to know each other,” Emmett said, saying her name aloud for the first time to Tallie, filling in the relationship blank his letter had left open for her.

  “Christine,” Tallie repeated, like she enjoyed how it felt in her mouth. “And you haven’t changed your mind about giving your best friend a call? What’s his name?”

  “His name is Hunter. And I love him, but I don’t need to talk to him right now.”

  Hunter would want to beat his ass, dead or not, once he got wind of Emmett’s letter to his parents. An irreverent laugh knocked at his stomach, and he put his hand there.

  “How many dates until you knew Christine was the one?”

  “One,” he said.

  “Really? Wow…the dream.”

  Emmett turned to the stove, watched the potatoes rolling in the water. When they were soft enough he used a masher to smash them, added more butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper. He put their steaks and potatoes on the plates he’d gotten from her cabinet, spooned the skillet cognac sauce over the meat.

  * * *

  “My wife, Christine…what happened is…unfortunately, she died,” he said after sitting at the table and taking his first bite. Swallowing.

  Talking about Christine’s death was a surefire way to get him thinking about his own. Grief was so tedious, and his own death was the only escape from it. He told Tallie some truth and let it out—even if only a little—to avoid detonation. The only other option was to move forward with his original plan to make it all stop.

  He watched the cloud swish over Tallie’s face before she put her fork down. He’d suspected that Tallie would be a cloud-swish person, although some people gave a sad gasp. Others seemed to be attempting the quick math in their heads, turning away or lowering their eyes as they considered his age and how young Christine might’ve been. But Tallie didn’t turn away. She looked right at him, and her eyes were so sweet. Her bright heart, tender and open, spread across her face. Emmett sat there, staring back, vibrating from the small comforts of normal domesticity. Unlocking in that safe space felt both as dangerous and as freeing as speedily descending a hill on a bicycle and letting go of the handlebars, holding his arms out straight.

  TALLIE

  “I’m so sorry. Completely. How heartbreaking,” Tallie said, holding her hand to her chest. “The ring you left me earlier? That was hers?”

  Emmett nodded and drank more water, took another bite of his steak.

  “Bless your heart. Bless her heart. How long ago, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Three years.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Four and a half years.”

  “You…didn’t have children together?”

  He shook his head without looking at her.

  “How old was Christine?”

  “Twenty-six,” he said, meeting her eyes again.

  “Lord have mercy, that’s too young. Do you…want to talk about how she died?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Grief is complicated…bizarre…it can make us do all sorts of things,” she said.

  Acute grief from the death of his young wife three years ago. An accident? Cancer? Can’t ask who Brenna is, but dyyyyying to know.

  He stared at his plate.

  “This is unbelievably delicious, truly hand-to-God the best steak I’ve ever had, by the way,” she said after waiting a respectful amount of time to mention it.

  “Glad to hear it. It’s my favorite thing to cook and eat. I haven’t cooked like this for a long time, so this is nice.” />
  “No, really, though. It’s literally the best steak I’ve ever tasted. Like, wow.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, modest as fresh-cut green grass. “I’ll do the dishes, too.”

  “No. You absolutely don’t have to do that. You’re my guest.”

  “Guest,” he repeated.

  “Yes. Like the candle singing in Beauty and the Beast. You’re my guest.”

  “Lumière?”

  “Exactly,” she said, laughing. “I should’ve known you were a Disney fan. I knew I liked you.”

  “Not to brag, but I’m a wealth of pointless knowledge.”

  “How are you feeling tonight? Compared to yesterday?” she asked before taking another bite of food.

  “I don’t have anything to say about it.”

  “Are you feeling anxious or worried? Unbalanced? Like you want to hurt yourself?” she asked, realizing she was sliding into tricky territory. These were the same questions she asked her clients, carefully, in her office. Emmett put his elbows on the table, laced his fingers together. Not his energy, but deep in his spirit, hidden away—it was Vantablack, and he was protecting it. Tallie couldn’t get there on her own; he was going to have to take her hand.

  “Do I seem unbalanced to you right now, Tallulah?” he asked after eating more of his steak and taking a drink of water. Each shiny gold syllable of Tal-lu-lah that escaped his mouth tingled her thighs, the top of her head.

  “Not really. Does this happen to you often, these huge shifts in mood?” she asked, hoping she sounded more like a concerned friend than a mental health professional.

  “Yesterday was a difficult day for me.”

  “You understand why I’m asking, though.”

  “Yes. You have every right to ask. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he said.

  “It’s fine. We can stop talking about it.”

  Tallie was so looking forward to taking Emmett to the Halloween party. Imagined the two of them there together, away from the stress of the world, not worrying about anything. The party would be a great distraction, and she knew it. And she tried not to think past Saturday night, Sunday morning at the latest; the weekend could be a hermetically sealed capsule floating in space.

  “What else would you ask Joel if he’d open up to you?” Emmett asked, that gravity returning her back to earth.

  “Wow. Well…,” she started. She wanted the spotlight to be on Emmett, his feelings, but she didn’t mind having someone listen to her for once, either. Pop! A ticker-tape parade of expletives and frustration went off in her brain. She took a deep breath. “I’d like to know if the love he feels for her is different from the love he felt for me. If it’s the same love, but it shifted from me to her. Also, I’d like to know how it feels for him to be a father. I know how much he wanted it. Now he has it. What happens when you get what you really want?”

  “But you’ve gotten what you’ve really wanted before, right?”

  “I have. But specifically this…having a baby. It was something we wanted so much…together. Now he has it without me. What’s that like? Doesn’t it feel kind of…I don’t know…wrong?”

  “Heavy.”

  “Too heavy.” She let out a flat, nervous laugh.

  “Let’s lighten it up again. I really am going to do the dishes,” he said, looking toward the sink.

  “And I’ll make us pumpkin spice tea. What else can I do?”

  “You can keep me company. Keep talking to me. Do you feel like talking some more? We can take a break from the too-heavy stuff. I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

  “I won’t tell, I promise. Sure. I mean, I guess. Or…I don’t know. I could read. I could read to you. Too weird?”

  “Nope. I dig it. And you’ll have to try harder than that to weird me out,” he said, standing.

  “Okay, challenge! I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  She reread at least one Harry Potter book every October because they were autumnal and she’d read them so many times that revisiting them was soothing—no surprises. She was halfway through the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, so she went and got it from her bedroom. After making the tea, she sat outside the kitchen with the mug next to her, the book in her lap.

  “Talking Disney and now you’re reading me Harry Potter. We’re some grown-ass people tonight,” Emmett said and laughed—one peppy ha—and turned to look over his shoulder at her. The water hushed hard into the sink as he rinsed the dishes. He’d taken his flannel off, stood in her kitchen in his own white T-shirt. Clean, fitting him perfectly, his shoulder blades angel-glowing, making two low, snowy peaks.

  Tallie sat cross-legged on the floor, drinking her tea. Opened the book and began reading. She had to raise her voice so he could hear her over the rain, the faucet water, the sparkling, chippy clatter of dishes.

  * * *

  When he was finished loading the dishwasher and washing the skillet and pot by hand, he threw the dish towel over his shoulder.

  “Well, I’m invested now,” Emmett said, pointing at the hardback book in her lap.

  “I’m way too old to be this in love with them, I guess? I don’t have kids. There’s really no excuse,” she said, feeling her heart light dim. It was still a bit embarrassing, her body failing her in that way. And it’d taken her awhile to stop feeling guilty about it. She focused on the positive, the possibilities. She hadn’t looked at the adoption websites since Wednesday; she’d return on Monday, click around and daydream.

  “Well, I don’t have kids, either, and I loved listening to you read it to me. So thank you,” Emmett said gently.

  Tallie flipped through the book for a moment before closing it and putting it down. “So did you tell your family you were leaving town?” she asked him.

  “No. And if they got the letter today, they’ll think I’m dead. If they didn’t get it today, they won’t be worried yet,” he said. He wiped his dry hands, unnecessarily.

  “They haven’t tried to call or text you?”

  “It’s a new phone. I didn’t want anyone to have the number. Clean break.”

  Tallie wanted to ask him about his childhood, more about his family. But when he was done answering questions, she couldn’t get anything new out of him. She went to her bathroom, googled Christine and Clementine and obituary and got several hits for years going back, but none of them mentioned an Emmett, and the ages were off. Too old or too young to have been his wife. She searched for Clementine and man and missing and found old Golden Alerts. And she knew attempting to search for Hunter would be a waste of time. The internet wasn’t helping. After she peed and washed her hands, she stood outside the kitchen.

  “Emmett, if you gave me more information, I could reach out to your family. Maybe that would help? If you don’t want to do it…I could do it for you,” she said.

  “I won’t let you,” he said with that shadow falling across his eyes. The rain was sideways now—striking the windows with horror-movie intensity.

  EMMETT

  A large section of Emmett’s heart had been wrapped with concertina wire. Compartmentalization: it’s how he got through his life after. Talking about Beauty and the Beast, listening to Tallie read from Harry Potter, those things smoothed inside him like a letter opener, peeled back, ripped him open. The tears that came in Tallie’s presence were only a peek at the whole story—the teeniest tip of glowing ice blue poking out of the inky black.

  He looked at Tallie and smiled slightly, left her there outside the kitchen watching the rain against the window and excused himself to the bathroom with his backpack and his phone. He hadn’t responded to Joel’s email when he was in the parking lot of the grocery store because he hadn’t wanted to make Tallie seem desperate, waiting around for his reply. She was a busy woman.

  He closed the bathroom door, stood against it.

  From: talliecat007@gmail.com

  To: joelfoster1979@gmail.com

  Subject: Re: i still care a
bout you too

  hi joel. i’d like to start out by saying i agree! I AM AMAZING.

  you obviously blew it. but yes, you already knew that.

  i will never understand how you can say i know you, even though there is a HUGE part of you i obviously don’t know. the part of you that decided to break our marriage vows. i didn’t do that. i would’ve never done that to you. but like i said before, we’ve been over this.

  i do have more questions for you since you’re opening up. the love you feel for her…how is it different from the love you felt for me? is it different? it’s the same love, but it shifted? also, how does it feel to be a father? i know how badly you wanted it. or how badly you thought you wanted it. well, now you have it! without me. doesn’t it feel kind of…i don’t know…wrong? what happens when you get what you really want? do tell.

  i appreciate the sentiment of your email. you seem to finally be…trying. men need to get better at taking care of the women they claim to love so much.

  tallie.

  He was stung by those words, his own choices. Tallie had invaded his privacy, and now he’d properly invaded hers. Started it drunk, but still keeping it up sober. Maybe he could spin and sweeten what he’d done by forwarding the emails to her real email address as a gift when he left her. Spill the secrets of what Joel obviously hadn’t been man enough to tell her before, help her heal.

  Emmett used the bathroom and ran his hand through his hair—an oil slick. He poked his head out the bathroom door.

  “Miss Tallie, it’s okay if I take a shower? I haven’t taken one since Wednesday. I plumb forgot to this morning, with everything going on,” he said loud enough for her to hear him. The Miss had escaped accidentally, out of country-boy habit. The cats walked down the hallway to investigate what the fuss was about. He opened the door all the way and crouched to pet them as they purred and filled the hallway with their tiny-thunder meows.

  “Miss Tallie? That makes me feel old,” she said, now standing across from him.