Scrabbling every day since was the most exhausting thing he’d ever done. Survival was the reason she wouldn’t be able to find him online, the reason it took him an extra breath to recognize his name in her mouth. He could’ve been from Clementine, but he wasn’t. His name could’ve been Emmett Aaron Baker, but it wasn’t. Tallie had easily believed his lies, and he wished the telling had magicked them true.
TALLIE
When Tallie had been alone in the house with her mom, she told her not to mention anything about her being a therapist. No TLC discussions. And for as much as her mom loved to talk, she loved having secrets with Tallie even more. It really hadn’t concerned her, her mom stopping by, surprising her and Emmett like that. Immature as it might’ve been, Tallie liked how it made her seem mysterious, like she wasn’t the vanilla wide-open book everyone seemed to think she was. And things with her mom certainly could’ve gone worse. Once she started talking, there was nothing to do to stop it. At a young age, both Tallie and Lionel had learned to hold their breath and ride it out.
Tallie was used to making excuses for her mother. (“She didn’t mean it that way. She comes off rude sometimes, but she has a heart of gold.”) Her whole life, Tallie had suffered through her mom telling her things she should’ve kept to herself. From remarking on her new stretch marks as she bloomed into a teenager to trying to persuade her to take part of the blame when it came to Joel’s affair. (“How were things in the bedroom for you two? Were you closed off? Did you give him any signals that this sort of thing would be okay?”) Tallie became a therapist instead of going to one, and she knew well enough how deeply a trained mental health professional could analyze that decision. She automatically put everyone else’s feelings and situations in front of her own because she was raised by a self-absorbed mother. Judith had a way of making Tallie feel as if her life or problems would never be as important as Judith’s own. Tallie promised herself if she adopted a baby, she’d never make the same mistake. She was an easy forgiver but had realized early on that she and her mom would always have a complicated relationship. She didn’t know one woman who didn’t have a complicated relationship with their mother, and that was at least one thing keeping her therapy practice in business—in fact, she’d never met a client yet who wasn’t able to talk at loquacious length about their mama.
* * *
With her mother gone, Tallie sat at her kitchen table watching Emmett unload the dishwasher, then load it back up with their breakfast plates. She’d tried to stop him, but he told her it was therapeutic and that it really did make him feel better.
“It was probably therapeutic to burn your backpack in the grill last night,” she said. “It was for me…the wedding pictures.”
“Absolutely.”
Her orange cat made himself known, hopped up on the counter. Tallie stood, picked him up, and held him like a baby because he loved it. She petted his head.
“Want to know something else that’s hard for me to process?” Tallie asked Emmett after they’d been quiet for several minutes. Before he could answer, she continued talking. “I wonder who all knew about Joel’s affair. Everyone at the museum? All his friends? All her friends? Was I the only one who didn’t know? It’s all so embarrassing.”
“You aren’t the one who should be embarrassed. That’s on him,” Emmett said.
“That’s what I would burn if I could. Those obsessive, embarrassed feelings! But…okay! I know you’re not big on therapy or support groups, but there’s this concept I heard about that I think could be helpful for you. For both of us!” she said. She wanted him to know she’d been not only hearing him but also listening to him.
“Oh, really?” he asked from the sink with a light in his voice that relieved her. Like he’d flicked a lamp on in his throat.
“First, let me ask you this. What are some things worth living for? What makes you happy?”
“Suicidal the day before yesterday, making a list of things worth living for today…hmm.”
“Ah, joie de vivre,” Tallie said, putting the cat down.
“Um…days like this…the rain and nowhere to be. I love those days. And I don’t know…but yeah, that moment you realize you’re falling in love with someone who loves you back. That’s a good moment. And first kisses, first everything, really,” Emmett said. “Another easy one is the knockout of a home run on opening day,” he said, clicking his tongue to mimic the hollow sound. He turned to her, leaned against the counter. “And honestly? One time I had this peach at the lake…this perfect peach…when I bit into it, it bit me back. Second week in June some years ago. That peach…that peach alone is probably worth living for.”
“Wow. These are the best answers. I’m truly impressed.”
“I told you I’m trying to impress you. Glad it’s working.”
“Stop it. Okay, so I asked because I heard someone mention ‘cleaning off your table.’ Like, you imagine taking off the shit that weighs you down and start simple. What would you put back on your table after you cleaned it off? What are the things you would keep? Like, for example, I would take my infertility off the table. In the past I had every pregnant woman in this neighborhood memorized. How far along she was, how big she was getting. Everywhere I went, it seemed like there were at least ten pregnant women there or women with newborns. I’d take that and those feelings off the table and Joel’s affair, his new life. But I would keep this house. I love this house. I don’t know how I would’ve survived my divorce without this house. My shelter…it’s protected me in more ways than one,” Tallie said.
She told him Aisha called Fox Commons Tallieville and often stopped by with wine so they could do face masks and watch Masterpiece or marathon trashy reality TV. She talked about how Lionel, Zora, and River came over for dinner often and how her dad and stepmother visited, too, but usually Tallie drove the thirty minutes to their farmhouse to see them. Only her mother liked to pop in unannounced.
“And in the spring and summer, I have peonies and black-eyed Susans, sunflowers and hostas, salvia and hyacinths in the garden. There’s a pair of pale blue hydrangea bushes back there the size of small hatchbacks…hot pink knockout roses circling the birdbath…Oh! And I like looking out the window and watching the squirrels eat. Sometimes I’ll be eating, too, and I like to think, look at us! Just little creatures, sharing a meal together!” Tallie said, remembering the last time she’d done that. Such a small, sweet light of pure joy.
Emmett was turned away from her, loading the utensils into their skinny dishwasher baskets.
“That’s pretty damn cute. And I do love this house,” he said, his voice ghosting into the wide-open appliance.
“So…what’s something you would put back on your table?”
“Peace.”
“When’s a time in your life you had peace?”
He turned to her and crossed his arms, put both hands under his armpits, his thumbs stuck up flat against his shirt. Tallie noticed the biceps she either hadn’t seen before or had ignored.
“Probably before I got married,” he said, kept his eyes on Tallie.
“Oh, no. I hate to hear that.”
“My wife was so beautiful, and I loved her deeply…every part of her. She had a sweet heart, too, but she wasn’t a peaceful person, and we didn’t have a peaceful marriage. She was dangerous at times…difficult…restless. Grew up having a lot to deal with. Our relationship was hard, to say the least, but I was wild about her. Pure madness. I will never get over her. She was my ace…my whole heart. Still is,” he said with an unquiet intensity that rocketed through the air and seemed to blow back her kitchen curtains. Tallie let it settle before speaking again.
“You light up when you talk about her. Through the pain and the blushes…you do. I can see it pouring out.”
The corner of Emmett’s mouth lifted. He raked at his hair. His face: like hard rain when the sun was shining.
“But you fought a lot?” she asked.
“Yes, we did.”
&nbs
p; “Understandable. You were so young. How bad did your fights get?”
“Sometimes I’d have to hold her to get her to calm down, and it worked, but she hated it.”
“Hold her like how? Show me,” she said.
Tallie stood and faced him with her arms at her sides. Emmett lifted her hands and put each of them on her opposite shoulder. He hugged her tightly; she tried to move but couldn’t. She tried harder, to no avail. When the fear snuck in, she told herself, It’s happening. I’m trusting him to do this. I’m trusting him to do this.
“You’re strong,” she said into his shirt, after squirming some more before giving up. He let her go. The blood rush of relief.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said.
“You didn’t hurt me,” Tallie reassured him. Breathing hard, she brushed her hair from her face and stepped back. “Um…do you have any sort of relationship with Christine’s family?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“And your relationships with your previous girlfriends’ families? How were those? Bad breakups can ruin all that, I know,” she said, leaving him plenty of room to bring up Brenna or whomever he wanted to discuss.
“They were all fine, I guess. Until they weren’t.”
“I keep asking you to talk about everything because I want to help, if I can. I know it’s been a hard few days for you on top of the fact you’re still grieving. And for some, that never goes away. People like to say time makes it easier, but that’s true only for some people. All this to say I appreciate you letting me keep an eye on you this weekend, Emmett,” she said.
“You always focus on how everyone else is doing, so maybe I’m keeping an eye on you, too.”
His words, that truth, made her dizzy. After her divorce, she’d begun thinking of herself as a piece in an art museum—she had to be handled a certain way in the right environment or she’d be ruined. She hadn’t been able to say this aloud to anyone, but it was as if Emmett had listened to all she hadn’t said and somehow knew. She hugged him, comforted by his body heat in that white shirt, those muscles she’d admired earlier, his strong arms now pressed to the sides of her neck. I’m trusting him to do this. And as she imagined him restraining her like that, hugging her and squeezing and never stopping, she relaxed into him more.
“You’re my friend now, you know that? I like you. We’ve shared heart energy so we can never be true strangers again,” she said against his ear.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. And I like you, too,” he said against hers.
* * *
Tallie had put on jeans and a comfy oversize black turtleneck sweater after she showered. She’d done her three-minute face of makeup, pulled half her hair up in a messy-on-purpose bun, and left the rest loose to curl and kink in the humid autumn air. When she came out of the bathroom, she found Emmett scrolling through his phone on the couch with her cats purring beside him.
“They’re going to miss you when you leave tomorrow,” she said.
He put his phone in his pocket, stood. “They’re my buddies,” he said, leaning over to pet them one more time.
Tallie expounded on her knowledge of therapy pets, going over to stand in front of the cats, getting on her knees before them, petting their heads, scratching the base of their tails.
“Might be something to think about. There’s been so much scientific research done on therapy animals if you want to read up about it. They’ve started using dogs in courtrooms to soothe anxious people on the stand. Did you have pets growing up?” she asked.
“I had an orange cat named Ginny, after my grandmother. And a big, sweet mutt named Moe.”
She suggested they go for a walk through Fox Commons to one of the restaurants for lunch before they got ready for the Halloween party. Tallie put on her wellies and rain slicker. Emmett picked up his flannel shirt from the couch, and as she watched him slip his arms inside, she wondered if their kitchen hug had lasted too long.
* * *
Tallie pointed to one of the golf carts as it made its way up the street.
“I have one of those. Oh, you saw it in the garage. Lionel bought it for me when I moved in, but I prefer to walk most of the time,” she said.
She’d tried to talk Lionel out of it, telling him she’d buy one for herself later, but he’d insisted, assuring her it was the way to travel around the posh neighborhood. Her golf cart was myrtle green with cream vinyl and a canopy. She enjoyed driving it and would occasionally scoot herself to the farmer’s market or the bakery in it. Or to the coffee shop to read or poke around on her laptop and scroll through beauty blogs and pin recipes, fashion, and home decorating ideas to her Pinterest boards. In the summer, she and Aisha would drive it to the gelato shop and to the amphitheater to watch the sun set over the lake or to hear free live music on Wednesday nights. Lionel had gotten TLC detailed on the side in leaning white cursive. She liked how the wind felt on her face, how it blew her hair back when she was driving it. But at times she’d felt lonely in it, not having a husband anymore or a boyfriend or a child to fill the passenger seat. It annoyed her that the positive sisters are doin’ it for themselves articles and girl power anthems she read and listened to so often didn’t reach out and touch every shadowy, thorny corner of her anxieties and insecurities.
“I’ll tell you what…on Thursday, I didn’t picture myself walking around this fancy neighborhood, hanging out with a woman. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life,” Emmett said.
“That’s depersonalizing. It’s not someone else’s life, it’s yours. And I’m glad you’re here,” Tallie said, touching his arm.
“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter,” he said after they’d walked a bit more.
“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter, either. No one does. None of us know what’s going to happen one day to the next in this life. We just…keep going,” she said, surprising herself by being so bare with him. She could’ve tried to pretend like the winter would be no problem for her, that she was translucently optimistic about her future. She’d gotten used to pretending with people who didn’t know her well—and her family, too, when she didn’t feel like discussing it. It was easier to act like she’d always be fine, but she knew better. Even people without a history of mental illness had to go to great lengths to protect their mental health.
Taking Friday off from appointments was one of the self-care boxes Tallie checked. In the past few months, there had been a rising energy to Tallie’s diligence about her own mind and feelings. She’d sometimes write the letters m and h on her hand in black ink, a reminder to recognize the need for protecting her mental health. She thought of her good and bad days as Morse code messages—every little bit recorded in her bones—wanting to honor the time and energy it took for them to be translated and transcribed.
“Everyone needs someone to trust, someone to talk to. It sounds like you’ve been doing all this emotional work on your own, which is so hard it can feel impossible. I could help you find a therapist if you’d give it a try. You can look at it as adding tools to your toolbox. We all have a toolbox,” she said.
“Ah, a toolbox. So there’s a hardware store down here somewhere?” he asked, looking around.
“You’re—”
“Oh, yeah? I’m what?”
“Wow,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.
Another golf cart passed them, the sound zipping over the wet road like a record needle on vinyl. Tallie waved, and the man in the cart waved back, a neighbor she recognized but had never actually spoken to.
Tallie took Emmett’s hand as they continued walking. Not interlocking fingers but holding his hand as if they were grade-school friends, making a connection: a red rover chain blocking out the rest of the world, if only for a moment. She imagined the neighbors whispering to one another about how they’d seen her dressed like Paddington Bear, holding hands with a young man on Halloween. They’d gossip about how Tallie and her new beau had
stopped in front of the trattoria and Thai noodle shop before ultimately deciding on the Irish pub across the street. How the green bulbs framing the sign shone on the wet sidewalk and eerily flickered the gloss of their rainwear—those two ambling aliens aglow.
EMMETT
He’d been Emmett since Thursday evening, and he would continue being Emmett to Tallie, everyone he would meet at the Halloween party, and anyone else he came across. His real name was too recognizable. And although Tallie had been the first person to use the word striking directly to him, he was all too aware that he had a unique, memorable face. He imagined it plastered on posters around his hometown. Wouldn’t his family put up MISSING posters, even when they thought he was dead? Wouldn’t they still be looking for his body so they could put him to a proper rest? What picture would they use? One of him smiling next to Christine, Christine cropped away? One of him holding hands with Brenna, Brenna snipped out? One of him from the restaurant, tired and smoking in his kitchen whites? One of him on the church camping trip, wearing his backpack, glancing over at the camera a moment before he knew the pic would be taken? He’d always stood out in his little town: his hair, his freckles, the unmistakable mix of blackness from his father’s side with his mother’s whiteness. Christine’s dad, Mike, had said the word quadroon in front of him once, as if it were a word he used or heard every day and not an obscene word written in pale pencil in a slave auctioneer’s ledger, next to a dollar amount and sold.
People often told him he looked familiar, and he could read the surprise and horror on the pitying faces of the ones who knew why they recognized him. As if he’d morphed into Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son or the hellscape in Hieronymus Bosch’s Last Judgment—those terrifying paintings that revealed something new and fearsome every time they were examined. Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Crucifixion—wriggled, bloody flesh devouring itself. Emmett had spent hours, weeks, months with that art history book in the library. Flipping, absorbing, memorizing, wanting to be emptied out and filled up with something else. Anything else. It didn’t matter what.
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