He stood there, his mouth open, dumbstruck. “I was having an orgasm. That’s all it was, an orgasm. I always have the same orgasm face, you should know that.”
“It was more than an orgasm, Vince,” I shouted. “It was truth. It told me everything about our relationship in those few seconds. I can’t do this, Vince. I thought I could be open and experimental, so that we could grow and be closer—more intimate—but last night I saw it was all a lie. We’re not closer. You just want to fuck. It doesn’t matter who.”
“How can you say that after everything we’ve been through? There’s no logic, no reason behind those words.”
“I can’t live a sham for another six months like I did with Ryan. I’m sorry, Vince”—I pressed the elevator door and it pinged, opening—“I can’t—can’t do it.” In the elevator, I tossed him his keys to the EverGo. “Don’t call me.”
The doors slammed him into my past, and my life blurred, devoid of reality. I felt all my walls crumbling around me, burying me with all the lies, all the pain, and all the love I had once believed existed.
OVER A MONTH WENT by and everything in my life had changed. Danielle had moved out, a married woman now. She pleaded with me to work it out with Vince, promising that what we had was worth breaking through whatever wall separated us. She believed I had overreacted, that I had misconstrued his expression. I argued that I had misjudged his character, and my own.
Crosswords became my best friend, and I spent most nights filling one in with Colby-Jack beside me. I had found a new job at a bakery, too. It wasn’t anything like owning your own place, but I had little to complain about—except the pay. My coworkers were nice and considerate, for the most part. I even had a new clunker. A beautiful ’93 Elantra named Ernie.
Vince hadn’t texted or called, or tried any form of contact. Given the time to think the night through, as well as the months spent together, it became a jumbled mess that my brain either couldn’t—or refused to—sort out. Worn, I eventually gave up, on the verge of an emotional breakdown.
Life dulled, colors faded, and I experienced it all on autopilot, getting up, going to work, coming home, sleeping. Day in and day out: it was all the same.
I had increased the frequency of calls to my mother from once to twice a week, sometimes up to four. She poked and poked me to get the dirt on what had happened between Vince and me, but I sealed that vault tight. She regularly told me to give him a call and to fight for him, since “men like him didn’t grow on trees.”
In mid-July, my phone rang during my lunch break on a Thursday. My brother, frantic, yelled at me to get to Providence Hospital down in Oregon City. “Her neighbors called 911,” he mumbled. “She’s in the ER right now, and I’m just now leaving work. You need to get here as fast as you can.” He hung up without much more than that.
My boss gave me the afternoon off. The drive tore at my stomach. I found my brother in the ER waiting room. “They haven’t told me anything. All I know is that Mrs. Davis found her passed out in the kitchen when she came over for lunch, and she called for the ambulance.”
I tried to find out more from the nurses after my brother’s failed attempts, but no one seemed to know anything. About twenty minutes later, a woman approached us and asked if we were related to Nora Goodwin. “She’s fine,” the woman said. “We’ve moved her out of the ER and we have her under observation. She should be released in a few hours.”
“What was wrong with her?” Donny asked.
“She had minor respiratory difficulties, but she’s fine now,” the nurse assured us. “You can see her now if you want.” She gave us directions to her room. Lying in her bed, my mother looked weaker than I’d ever seen her, her eyes sunken in and tired.
“These damn doctors don’t know what happened,” she snapped when I asked her. “They keep repeating I had minor respiratory difficulties like that means something. I guess I can go home after a few hours …”
Donny eyed me with worry. “You need to be more careful, mom,” he said flatly, like he had rehearsed the line a hundred times in his head.
“Be more careful? Be more careful of what?” Her fiery strength flared like her red hair. “I don’t even know what to worry about or how to prevent it from happening again.”
“Just be more careful,” he echoed. After half an hour, he got up to leave, heading back to the brewery. “You’ll be fine driving her home?” he asked me before he left.
“Yes, Donny. I know how to drive a fucking car.”
“Whoa, where did the attitude come from? I was just making sure, all right? I just want mom to be safe, that’s all.”
“She’ll be fine, I promise.”
“I know … I’ll stop by around six, okay?” He hugged us goodbye and left.
A nurse came in a short time after that, notifying us that my mother had been discharged. I helped her out of bed. “You okay to walk on your own?”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m 58, not 90. I don’t need to be treated like a fossil.”
“You’re at the hospital, mom. An ambulance drove you here. That’s serious.”
She waved me off. “I’m fine. I feel fine—the doctors say I’m fine … I’m fine, all right?”
“All right already, I get it. Let’s get you home.” Stubborn and persistent, she walked to the car on her own, though I stood right beside her in case she needed extra support.
“Are you still fighting with Vince?” she asked, as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
“No, we’re not fighting, mom. We’re through.” I hoped my tone ended the conversation there. It didn’t.
I desperately tried to ignore her intense gaze, but she had a knack for perseverance, and I finally broke, glancing over at her. “Whatever it is that caused the rift, just remember there’s no gap big enough that love can’t bridge. You just have to take the chance to build it.”
“That’s very wise, but I think that in this case you’re wrong.”
“You’re still young, darling, and you regard love as something wholly pure, but it’s not. There are mistakes with love just like everything else in life.” Her eyes shifted to the floor. “You have to remember that love has its good days and its bad days. It’s a give and take.” I could sense she was driving at something, but I didn’t know what.
“What are you saying? That I should go crawling back to Vince?”
“In love, you’re both on your knees. You’re both crawling, Maci.” There was still something inside her, on the edge of her tongue, afraid to come out. “I know this because I cheated on your father.”
I almost slammed on the brakes in reaction. “What? On dad? Why? When?”
“Before you and Donny were born,” she answered with deep regret in her voice. She stared out the window, or maybe at her own reflection. “I used to ask myself that question a hundred times a day. A part of me wanted to know if I was only with your father because he was the only man who paid much attention to me. Another part of me said I was foolish and young and not really in love. But God only knows the real reasons why … I got lost in a moment, a moment without love or connection. But your father, he built the bridge and crossed it on his knees with forgiveness and trust, and I met him on my knees with remorse and grief—grief that I had caused him so much pain …
“What I’m trying to say is that you don’t look for love in a man’s eyes; you look for it in his heart, you understand?”
Devastation and shock controlled me. I could barely focus on her point. A storm of mixed emotions swamped me—drowned me. How could my own mother have cheated? I knew their love. I remembered their connection—their affection for each other—it had been real, solid, unbreakable.
“Maci?” she prompted me after a long silence.
“I don’t get it. How did dad ever forgive you? How did you ever forgive yourself?”
“Because we broke down our insecurities,” she said. “You can only know true love when you face each other with bared souls, and you can only bare
your soul after you’ve broken down the walls you’ve made to keep from being hurt.”
“I never knew you could be so philosophical.” I could tell she didn’t appreciate my sarcasm. “What do you want me to say, mom? You tell me you had an affair and then go on to give me relationship advice?”
“You’re right. I made a mistake in my life—I’m human, like you, like Vince. Look, all I’m saying is that just because you were hurt, doesn’t mean it’s over. Just because there was a wrong done, doesn’t mean it’s over. I’m not saying to forget whatever happened. I’m saying to forgive it, to give it one big push before you decide it’s truly the end. Your father made the same kind of push and we had two kids and twenty blissful years together before he died.”
I turned into her driveway and parked the car. “Vince and I aren’t you and dad, mom. You can talk about building bridges all you want, but sometimes the gap is from the Earth to the moon.”
“Darling, one day you’ll understand what I’m saying … I just hope it’s not too late when you do.”
“Sure,” I said, nodding, disregarding her fairytale advice. “Whatever you say, mom.” I opened my door and walked around the car in case she needed any assistance. Still processing her confession, and conflicted about whether I should be mad about her affair, I studied her face as she slowly swung herself out of the car. A small part of me wanted to drop her off and leave, fuming. Another, larger part of me fell into silence, the shock of her tale overwhelming my brain. How could I be mad at something she did that seemed to have so little bearing on her life now, since she and my father had worked through it and come out together? And she looked so frail—it was hard to be angry with someone so feeble, especially my own mother, who had given me everything I could have asked for in life—from childhood until now.
A swarm of memories streaked through my head, memories that washed away the rage. The memory of her comforting me after Todd—my high school sweetheart—broke up with me before we went off to college, stood out amongst the thousands of times she had been there. On that night, over a carton of cookie dough ice cream, she had told me that I would find a man who was good for me, who would treat me right, and that there were only a few relationships worth fighting for. She had said I would know those, not by the pace of my heart, but by the dimples in my smile. If just the sight of that other person made me smile every time I saw them, then I’d know there was something worth the pain, something worth putting myself out there to bare my faults as well as my strengths.
My cheeks had never known what she meant until Vince. No other man had made me smile so much at his mere presence. Clinging to that memory, to those words of support, I realized I had unreasonably dismissed her advice this time, without considering the validity of her guidance. I had been too focused on the ache inside.
I offered her my arm as she grabbed the top of the doorframe. “58, Maci,” she muttered. It was easy to tell where I’d inherited my stubbornness. She heaved herself up, her back bent, her knees shaking.
“Everyone needs help every once in a while—even us Goodwins,” I said, extending my arm. “You taught me that.”
“Yes, but I also taught you the importance of independence, and right now I need to know I still have that.” She made her way for the side door from the detached garage. I followed behind her a couple of steps, worried that she might fall. Inside, I charged for the bathroom as she lumbered into the kitchen for a glass of water.
With the weight of stress, I hadn’t peed the entire time at the hospital, and now my bladder threatened to explode if I waited any longer. Examining the car ride and our conversation, I decided to apologize for shrugging off her advice the way I did. It was rude and disrespectful, as she had only wanted to share her life experience and impart the gift of wisdom. We didn’t argue like that; it just wasn’t us.
I turned the corner into the kitchen with the apology on the tip of my tongue ready to be fired, when I found her on the floor, the glass cup shattered, water pooling near her outstretched arms. “Mom?” I cried out, rushing to her side, forgetting the shards. “Mom?”
Panic quickly struck. I fought through it and pulled out my phone, calling 911. The woman on the end gave me instructions to place her in the recovery position, so that her airway remained open. Waiting for the ambulance, I showered her with tears, begging for her to wake up. I swept away the glass, and cleaned her hand and arm, barely able to breathe.
By the time the ambulance arrived, her chest had stopped rising. The EMTs tried to revive her in the back as they sped for the hospital, but they forced me to ride up front.
They pronounced her dead when we pulled in front of the emergency room doors. The world shrank, sounds dulled, and every part of me went numb. Then it all went black.
MY EYES FELT LIKE BRICKS weighed them down. I opened them slowly, squinting into a soft yellow glow. Donny sat in a chair, his head slumped back and to the left, asleep against the wall. Even with cloudy vision, I could see his puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “Don—” I rasped. A fit of coughing broke out as I tried to talk.
He woke instantly, his eyes half-open and groggy. “You’re awake,” he said, smiling. “You remember what happened?”
I shook my head. He handed me a small paper cup of water.
“You fainted. You were out for a couple of minutes. I got here as soon as I could. Do you remember that? Remember talking to me?”
“No,” I answered.
He got up and squeezed my hand in his strong grip. “You were feeling dizzy, so they admitted you, and you fell asleep not long after that. They told me you might not remember what happened for a few hours.”
As I gazed at his exhausted face, the reason for his tears hit me. “Mom died, didn’t she?”
He inhaled a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah,” he croaked. “Doctors say she had a stroke near her brain stem, which I guess affected her breathing, and her lungs couldn’t remove the carbon from her blood. They called it acute—acute something failure. I can’t recall it right now …” He was holding back a lake of tears as he talked with a lump in his throat.
“I dreamed about it,” I said after a few minutes, letting the tears flow, as I looked up at him. “I dreamed I saw her on the kitchen floor … I can’t believe it was real.” My voice trembled. “How could it be real? She was only 58?”
“They told me, but I don’t remember now. Something to do with one of her blood vessels rupturing.” He fought a sputtering spell to get the words out. He blew his nose, but it quickly clogged again. He shook his head. “I don’t know.” After a long pause of silent weeping, he said, “I want you to come stay with us tonight. I’m not going to argue with you about it either. I’ll go let the nurse know you’re awake.”
I made no attempt to defy him, glad to have him at my side.
I STOOD IN FRONT of the casket, my hair swaying in the warm, gentle breeze. The sun beat down on my face as the Tuesday afternoon warmed up from an overcast morning. Donny and his family mourned at my right, Danielle at my left. Other friends and family members were gathered around as we put flowers atop the thick oak coffin. My mom’s plot lay beside my dad’s. Nana and Pop Pop—my mom’s parents—were only a few plots away.
Both my brother and I gave eulogies at the church. I endured through the speech, even though my voice locked up more than once. Only her pastor spoke at the cemetery though. I buried my eyes into Danielle’s shoulder as the funeral ended.
Distant relatives I’d only met once or twice came up to me and gave their condolences; I barely recognized their faces. A bunch of staff members from the middle school where she worked paid their respects. Old friends attended—people I’d only heard about through childhood stories.
In the distance, through the sea of faces, I recognized one I never thought I’d see again and my face lit up for an instant. Vince laid a bouquet of vibrant mums, lilies, and roses down by a dozen others. When I first saw him, my stomach knotted and twisted, but then my mother’s voice entered my head.
He’s a keeper. My feet carried me toward him, my mind unsure about the idea.
But before I could reach him, Donny grabbed my arm and stopped me. “We need to talk.” He pulled me away from the crowd. “I wanted to talk about mom’s will.”
“Mom’s will, really? We’re at her funeral, Donny. Don’t you think it can wait? And since when have you cared about money and inheritance?”
“Since I talked it over with Evelyn, and even though we’re supposed to split everything, we decided that you should take all the money from selling the house.” That came as a shock. He had two kids to support and a business to run. “We want you to start up your business again. We want to see Friends Bakery and Brunch House alive and thriving.” He put up his hands before my tongue could react. “Look, I know the case against the inspector isn’t going to end any time soon, and I know you are going through some hard times—with Vince, the fire, and Danielle moving out. We want this for you, Maci. You deserve it.”
Tears had never really left my eyes, but they began streaming once more, a horrible mix of emotion overwhelming me. It was a terrible price to pay for my dreams to live on, and I would gladly sacrifice those dreams for ten more minutes with my mother, but Donny’s sentiment wasn’t lost on me. I hugged my big brother with all the strength I had.
“It’s what mom would’ve wanted, Maci,” he said, as if he knew what I was about to say, the words of rejection on the verge of slipping out. He made me choke them back down. “We can talk about it more later. I just wanted to tell you that we made that decision.” He hugged me again, and then returned to the crowd.
Donny’s news didn’t make me any happier. No, it was devoured by despair, tainted by the way in which the money would come. I sat alone on a bench in front of a random tombstone: I couldn’t read it as the tears blurred my surroundings.
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