by Renee Fowler
There are so many things about her mother Sarah doesn’t know, and it’s unfair to her, and to Claire too really. Talking outloud about her is hard, but keeping all that to myself is selfish.
Claire never ran from things that were hard. If something scared her, she was determined to overcome it.
I really have been a pussy about all this, haven’t I?
And of course she doesn’t answer. She never does, because she’s not here anymore. All I have left are memories and pictures.
As soon as we get home, I’m having serious regrets about promising to find those photographs. I know exactly where they’re at. They are tucked away in a box in that room, which I haven’t stepped foot inside of for… three years? Four?
It’s not just our old bedroom. I’ve hidden away every single thing that reminds me of her up here. To deal with later. But I never dealt with anything. I just kept shoving it further and further into the future, to some unknown time and place when it might feel possible to face it.
I ask Sarah to wait in her bedroom, but she doesn’t listen. She’s asked about this room plenty in the past. It’s the only place in the house she’s never been allowed to venture.
Sarah wiggles from foot to foot as I reach up above the lip of the doorframe for the key. My fingers shake as I fit the key into the lock, and my heart hammers within the confines of my chest as I swing the door open. I reach blindly for the light switch. The bulb is burned out, but there’s enough light streaming in from the hallway to see.
I’ve closed this room up like a tomb, and it almost feels like one, with a heavy air of solemnity. I think Sarah feels it too because she quiets and tiptoes inside behind me. We both sneeze a few times from all the dust. The bed is unmade, with unwashed sheets. The closet door is hanging open with Claire’s clothes still hanging from the rack inside.
This is the real reason I’ve never sold the house. It would mean going through all her things, choosing what to keep, what to discard. Her hairbrush is still on the dresser, and it still has strands of her hair caught in the bristles. There are pictures tucked into the mirror frame that I can’t look at straight on, but I can’t avoid altogether either, all besides one.
“This is you when you were a baby in your mommy’s belly.” I snatch the ultrasound picture down, and try to show Sarah, but she catches sight of something more interesting propped in the corner.
“Oh, it’s so pretty.” Sarah pets the mounted and stuffed deer trophy along the nose. She runs her small fingers over the antlers.
I can’t help but laugh. Pretty isn’t a word I’d use to describe it. That thing always creeped me out. “That was a real deer, Sarah.”
“I know. It’s just like papaw’s.”
“Your mommy shot that deer.”
Her eyes light up. “Really?”
“Yup. Really.”
“Can I put it in my room?”
“You really want that thing?”
Sarah nods vigorously.
Adam mentioned taking her with him once or twice, and I put my foot down. You hear about hunting accidents all the time, and she’s just so… innocent. I can’t imagine her being able to stomach it, but maybe she’s like her mother in that regard too.
I can still remember Claire staring down the scope of that gun. “Look at him. He’s beautiful,” she’d whispered. I thought so too, and I couldn’t take the shot, even with my father-in-law crouched close on my other side. I couldn’t do it. So she took the shot, and she didn’t give me a hard time about it after the fact. “I got my first one when I was eight,” she’d explained later. “I guess I don’t look at it like that. Everything that lives, dies, and people need to eat.”
Maybe when Sarah’s eight I’ll let her go, but we’ll see.
In the semi darkness, I fumble along the top shelf of the closet. Nothing in here has her scent anymore. It all smells of dust and disuse. I hand the shoebox of pictures to Sarah, and I grab the trophy to put up in her room.
I close the door behind us, but don’t lock it this time. Sarah should be allowed to go in there if she wants, even if I can barely tolerate it. Eventually I’ll have to deal with the rest. I can’t avoid it forever, but I’ve faced about as much as I can today.
It’s a first step.
But shortly after I drill the mounting bracket into a spot in Sarah’s wall, I learn there’s more to face. She’s not content to just look at those pictures. She wants to know where they were taken, how the rigging and harnesses work. She’s full of questions, and I’m the only one there to answer them.
I sit down on the floor of her room, and decipher Claire’s familiar, careful slanted cursive on the back of many of those photos. Some of the locations I remember well, nearby places we went to over and over again. A few were more far flung that we scouted out ahead of time and drove for long stretches to reach.
Seeing her hits me like a punch to the gut. Claire with her sunburned face, muddy boots, and huge smile. It’s brutal and overwhelming. Before long I can barely make her out with the tears clouding my vision.
God, we were young, and happy, and fearless. She made me fearless, and it seemed impossible that anything terrible could befall us, even hanging to the side of a sheer rock face with nothing between us and death but some nylon cording and metal carabiners.
Sarah’s attention shifts from the pictures spread out in a circle around us back to me. Her little hands are on my face, wiping away the tears I can’t stop no matter how hard I try. “Are you sad, Daddy?”
“Yeah, I’m a little sad.”
“Because you miss Mommy?”
“Mmhmm.”
“But she’s an angel now, and she doesn’t want anyone to be sad.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right about that.” I gather the pictures back up and shuffle them back into neat piles. “We’ll have to get some photo albums to put these in. We don’t want them to get crinkled.”
Because that’s all I have left of that time. Pictures. Memories. Maybe there will come a day I can look at these again without bawling like a baby. That’s what I want, to be able to remember without being overwhelmed by grief. If I hadn’t avoided this for so long, maybe I would be at that point already.
Chapter 22
Anna
That full day off yesterday to recuperate did wonders for me physically, but my chest aches and I can’t get Jack out of my head. It only makes it worse than I can’t fall back on my old, familiar routine. My balance isn’t back fully yet, so I don’t feel safe dancing alone at the studio. Besides I have too many other things to do.
Tuesdays are a short day for me. Only one class. Laura offered to handle it for me, but I declined. I do go light on the demonstration today. The doctor said these small bouts of vertigo might come and go for a week or so, but I can’t afford to sit on my butt for that long. And I don’t want to. I just have to stay busy, keep moving forward, and eventually I wont feel like curling into a ball and dying.
Minutes after the last student departs, the door opens again, and in strolls Jack. I breath out a small, anguished sigh that sounds deafening in the silent studio. “You don’t have to drive me anymore, and it’s not even dark yet.”
Jack starts to shake his head.
“And I’m scheduled to take my driving test, so you won’t have to worry about it anyways, as long as I pass.”
He takes a few tentative steps in my direction. “That’s not why I’m here, but I know you’re going to pass.”
“Thanks to you.” I cross my arms over my chest, wishing I could muster up a little bit of anger. I feel naked and vulnerable standing in front of him. Loving Jack makes me feel so… weak. He has too much power over me. “What are you doing here?”
“Anna, I’m sorry for the way I talked to you. That was uncalled for. You didn’t deserve it.”
“You really don’t have to do this.”
He comes closer, cautiously. “Yeah I do. I’m crazy about you, but I’m also… I haven’t been with anyone els
e since Claire died. I went on a few dates a few years ago, but it didn’t feel right. It never went anywhere. Things felt so right between you and me, up until… I don’t know how to put this.”
“You’re just not ready.”
He nods grimly. “I want to be ready. I want… you. But you deserve better than this. I haven’t even thrown her clothes away yet. I can’t even look at her picture without… I’ve known her since we were kids, practically my whole life, maybe that’s why.” He tucks his chin down to his chest, and swallows audibly a few times.
Watching him try to hold it in is almost unbearable. I hug him, and he makes a small, mournful sound near my neck.
“Anna, this is bullshit. I shouldn’t be laying this on you.”
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt to be holding the man I’m in love with while he cries over another woman, but it hurts to see him hurting, and it hurts to not see him at all. “You can talk to me, Jack.”
“It’s so damn confusing. When we’re together, you’re all I see, but every so often it hits me again, that’s she’s really gone. I know it doesn’t make any sense. I keep trying to put her behind me, and forget about things. At this point… I don’t know how.”
“But you can’t forget about her. She’s Sarah’s mom.”
Jack leans back away from me, and wipes under his eyes. “I’m starting to figure that out,” he says, staring away from me.
“I know it’s not the same thing, but the only connection I ever had to my mother was things my grandma told me about her.” Most of which were lies I found out shortly after my grandma passed, but that’s totally irrelevant. “And after my grandma died, when I had to go through her things… It was hard. Her sister came over and helped me. We made little piles, to keep, donate, or throw away. And at first I wanted to keep everything, even a shoe that we couldn’t find a match for. I could’ve never done that on my own. Maybe you should ask someone to help you.”
“Maybe I should. It’s way past time. God knows I’ve had people offer. My family has been on me about it for years.” Jack shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back on his heels. “I’ve been thinking I should… go talk to someone too.” He pauses to shake his head down towards the ground. “That sounds so stupid. I just need to deal with it. This kind of thing happens all the time, and people manage. They get on with their lives.”
“It’s not stupid. I talked to a therapist for a few weeks after my accident, and it helped a lot.”
“I guess it couldn’t hurt,” he says reluctantly.
“Exactly.”
“Anna, I’m not asking you to wait around on me. That wouldn’t be fair.”
Maybe he wasn’t asking out loud, but it was written there in his features, shining in his eyes, or perhaps that’s only wishful thinking. In either case, I’ve never felt like this about someone else before, and I’m not sure I could walk away right now even if I should.
I hug him again, and speak over his shoulder so he can’t see the lie on my face. “I’m fine with being friends if that’s what you need right now.”
“Thank you, Anna. You don’t what this means to me, being able to talk to you, and… I feel like such an ass about the other night. I really am sorry. I didn’t mean it. I was just lashing out.”
“It’s okay.”
“Well, since I’m here, I may as well drive you home.” But Jack holds me in his arms for another long moment. Then he waits for me to change my shoes. When I finish he gives me a hand up, and I try to ignore the warmth of his fingers pressed against mine. He rushes ahead to hold the door open for me, and stands close to block the wind as I lock up. He holds the car door open for me too.
Is this what friends do? I have no idea. I’ve been friends with plenty of men, but never one I’ve been intimate with. Never one I loved.
“I need to give you my new number,” I say, picking his phone up from the center console. I put it in for him while he drives.
He smiles at me. That devastatingly sexy smile of his that melts away so much of the anguish I’ve felt over the past day, but not all of it.
There’s a question burning through my mind as we drive the short distance. I don’t want to ask it. If I do, it’s going to betray too much, but I can’t hold it in. “Were you thinking about her while we were together. When we had sex I mean?”
“No, of course not.” His fingers brush against my cheek, and I resist the urge to lean into his touch. “Anna, I was there with you, all the way. The whole time. I promise. You two are so different.”
Different because I’m alive and she’s dead?
I can’t believe how irrationally jealous I feel. “Okay. I just wanted to ask.”
“I’m glad you asked. I’d hate for you to think something like that.” He’s still touching my face, and looking at me just like he did a few days ago.
God, I’m confused, and that confusion only increases when he presses his lips to my forehead, then the top of my cheekbone. Lastly he gives me a light, lingering kiss close to the corner of my mouth. It takes everything in me not to turn my head slightly and kiss him for real, but I’m not going to do that.
Not this time.
I want Jack. All of him, and I’m determined to wait for him to come to me. It’s not until I’m alone inside my apartment that I wonder, is this me being patient and compassionate, or am I rolling my heart out like a doormat for him to stomp all over?
Later that night he sends me a text. Thank you for talking to me tonight. I really needed to hear some of that.
I’m glad I could help, and thanks for driving me again.
Pretty soon you’ll be driving yourself, and you won’t need me anymore.
I’ll still need you.
I need you too. Goodnight Anna. Sweet dreams.
Sweet dreams, Jack.
And just like that, we go from a couple, to broken up, to friends.
Friends who get coffee together in the mornings, text each other all day. Friends who occasionally hold hands, or hug for way too long. I secretly thrill when he kisses my cheek, or lets his fingers brush against my shoulder, or the back of my neck.
It’s confusing. Not what I want exactly, but if this is the way Jack needs to do things right now, I can be patient.
Gregory has plenty to say about it when I tell him over the phone a few days later. “I’m trying to understand this. You’re not friends with benefits?”
“Nu uh. It’s like the exact opposite.”
“It’s like you’re stuck on a million first dates.”
I groan. “Hopefully it’s not a million.”
“So basically you put yourself in the friendzone.”
“Ugh. I don't know what the hell I’m doing.”
“That’s blatantly obvious.”
“I think he just needs time.”
Gregory sighs loudly. “Just be careful, Anna. It sounds messy, and complicated.”
And he doesn’t do messy or complicated. He never has. That’s why all of his relationships are so short lived. At the first sign of messy or complicated, Gregory bails. I used to be the exact same way before I got involved with Mikhail, and the truth is, I was seriously thinking about bailing on him right before my accident too. Things were starting to get very messy, and all kinds of complicated after we moved in together.
But that all feels like ancient history when Mikhail shows up unannounced on friday afternoon again. He’s here for business, a mutually beneficial arrangement is how he phrased it before. He came because he couldn’t get ahold of me. I have a new phone, and a new phone number.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I should’ve called. It’s been a crazy week.”
As I go on to explain how that week started with me being robbed, and suffering a concussion, his face forms an almost believable mask of shock and concern. Mikhail must really want me to do this show, that’s all I can think as he embraces me.
I give the back of his shoulder a dismissive pat, and extricate myself from his arms. “I
’ve survived worse,” I remind him, and turn in time to see Sarah charging through the door.
She gives me a hug too, and she starts excitedly telling me all about her first experience with indoor rock climbing. “I can’t wait to hear all about it, but let me finish talking to my friend first, okay?”
Sarah wanders over to stand with Jack by the door, and I turn back to Mikhail. “I’m sorry. I already have plans. If I had any idea you were coming today…”
He gives me a tight, forced smile, which falls to a grimace when his eyes flick over to Sarah. Mikhail dislikes children. When we first got together, he stated clearly and plainly that he’d never had any for a reason, and I shouldn’t expect any from him. Which is all neither here nor there now.
“I’m staying in town tonight,” he explains. “Maybe we can meet tomorrow for breakfast or brunch and start hammering out these details.”
I nod. The spring gala is months away, but it takes lots of preparation. He needs to start laying down the groundwork now if he wants the event to be a success. I give him my new number, and we make make arrangements to meet the following morning.
Sarah gives him a vigorous wave as he starts to go. “Bye Anna’s friend.”
Mikhail says farewell awkwardly as he departs.
“That man talked funny,” Sarah says when we are all seated in Jack’s car.
“He has an accent because he grew up in another country.”
“Which country?”
“Russia.”
The whole drive to the restaurant, Sarah asks me all about it, and I try to satisfy her curiosity as much as I can. I only visited once, shortly after we were engaged. From my recollection, it was cold and miserable.
That whole trip had been miserable. His family was more well off than I’d imagined. I was as much intimidated by their wealth as the language barrier, and the fact that they all seemed to hate me for some reason.