by Tiara James
“Talk to me,” she said.
“I’m glad you broke the ice because I wasn’t sure how to break the news to you all.” I admitted.
“What news?” Rita furrowed her eyebrows.
“One moment,” I held my index finger up to her and cleared my throat. “Hey you guys,” I called to the table. “I have something I want to tell you.”
They all looked up from their conversations with surprised expressions, probably amazed that I’d even opened my mouth to speak due to the fact that I hadn’t been talking much lately. “What is it darlin’?” Kate asked.
My eyes scanned over all their faces and I sighed. “I…I wanted to let you all know that I’m moving away for a little bit.”
The girls gasped collectively and exchanged concerned glances with each other.
“Away? To where?” Yvonne asked.
“I’ve decided I want to go to Quebec…in Canada.” I told them, trying for a firm voice so I sounded confident in my plans. I knew exactly how crazy I sounded to the girls but I’d been thinking it over constantly for the past few weeks and I had come to the point where I was sure it was what I wanted to do.
“What? No.” Sarah looked upset. “For how long?”
“Only for the rest of the year.” I assured her and the rest of the girls who were looking at me with questioning expressions. All besides Kate.
“Canada? What the hell is in Canada?” Yvonne questioned. “Why are you leaving, Eva?”
“There’s nothing specific that I’m looking for in Quebec…besides space between me and this place. I can’t take being here anymore.” I shook my head slowly, eyeing each of them.
“Why not? We know it’s unfortunate that your father’s in jail…but you don’t have to leave.” Rita’s voice trailed off as she crossed her arms across her chest.
I moved my chair closer to Rita and embraced her. When I had been considering the move, I knew my friends would be very upset. But something in me was just telling me to go. “The stress of everything is really taking a toll on me and I feel like it’s keeping me from being happy. You guys can’t say I’ve been myself these past few days.”
“We’ve noticed…you’ve barely been here with us.” Sarah noted.
“And that’s not how I want it to be,” I said. “I feel like getting away will give me time to get my thoughts together and learn how to live for myself.”
“Because for too long you’ve been living and breaking your back for other people.” Kate looked proud of me.
I smiled warmly at Kate, who always understood where I was coming from. “Thanks Kate.”
“What if you forget about us? Or you like it there so much you don’t want to come back?” Yvonne proposed.
I shook my head. “Oh come on Yvonne, you know there’s no souls in the world that could replace you guys. You guys are more than my best friends, you’re the sisters that I never had. I’m so thankful for you guys for always being there for me when I need you the most. I would never forget about you guys, never.” I promised.
“It’s gonna make her happy you guys,” Kate told them. “We have to support her decision…whether we agree or not.” She shrugged.
“When do you leave?” Sarah wondered.
“Two days,” I answered.
“Only two questions: when is the packing party and when is the going away party?” Kate raised her glass of champagne with a mischievous smile.
“Kate!” I exclaimed and laughed but cheered along with the rest of the girls, holding my glass up as well. “No packing party, unfortunately, but you all can see me off at the airport for sure.” I answered with a smile when our cheering died down. It felt nice to laugh and it felt nice to smile but above all it felt more than amazing to have such a solid group of friends that I knew would support me in all that I do.
“I have a question,” Rita held her hand up for everyone’s attention.
“What is it, Rita?” I asked.
Her face grew more serious. “What’re you gonna do about David?”
It was the same question I’d asked myself over and over as I made the decision to leave Illinois. After I told my mother she was sad but understood why I needed to go, she just told me to make sure I always wrote my father while I was gone. Subconsciously I wished she would forbid me from leaving so I wouldn’t have to deal with the debate of leaving David or staying in town and waiting for everything to gradually get better. It was a hard choice but I knew I couldn’t stay.
I sighed. “You all know David is my first love…and that will never change. I’ll always feel deeply for him. But David’s dealing with some things on his own at the moment. Some things that he doesn’t think I can help him through. I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to get through everything he’s dealing with. Maybe when I get back he’ll be better, I’m not quite sure. But what I do know is that when he’s ready to be with me again, I’ll surely be waiting. But I can’t wait here, my heart won’t let me.”
“‘Whatever else I may do, my love for you will live ‘til time itself is through’,” Kate quoted our favorite Doris Day song and smiled at me from across the table.
I was overwhelmed by joy to have the support of my friends. They made me feel even more confident in my decision to leave town. I had gotten the green light to go from my mother and now my friends…there was only one more person I had to let know. I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell him. Maybe a letter would do? Either way, I believed he deserved to know where I was going and why I was leaving. Yes, my love deserved that much.
38. Life Goes On
As I showered I decided that it would be the day I went back to my father’s house.
I had to collect anything I wanted to keep before I had workers empty it out. I was amazed at the progress I was making in my life. Weeks before, I couldn’t even think about my father without wanting to die right along with him. Though he’d been tough on me, I always had love and respect for the man and it truly hurt me that we had just gotten on better terms before he passed and didn’t get to bond closer. I always had to tell myself it was what it was.
I wanted to be respectful so I dressed myself in jeans and a button-up. My hair and beard were unruly but I’m sure my father wouldn’t have minded that. After retrieving an empty box from my garage, I got in my car and was off to my father’s house. I rode with the windows down, loving the slight chill in the wind and the sweet, comforting smell of oncoming autumn. As I rode past Eva-Marie’s house I saw that her car wasn’t in the driveway – as it hadn’t been for the past few days. From the day I began making progress in overcoming my depressed state of mind, I had racked my brain trying to figure out what to say to her. Finally one day I decided to just pick up the phone. I called her multiple times with no answer every single time. When that didn’t work, I took it upon myself to go knock on her front door and I still got no answer! Where was she? What was she doing? I hadn’t seen any of her friends either, I was worried because I was running out of options to get in contact with her. I hoped she hadn’t given up on me. I wouldn’t give up. I would wait until the end of the world for that woman.
Upon pulling up to my father’s house, I began to grow nervous. I looked at the house that I’d grown up in only to find that I barely recognized it. It had gone from teeming with life when I was younger and me and my parents were living happily inside of it…to cold and empty with both parents deceased years later. The thought gave me chills but I knew that I had to be a man and get over my uneasy feeling. I pushed my door open and walked across the lawn with the empty box in hand. The only sounds to be heard were my breathing and my footsteps as I made my way to the front door. I took a deep breath before entering the house.
It was awfully quiet but surprisingly peaceful. I didn’t feel grief or anxiety when I entered the house, I felt nothing but serenity. The evening sunlight was streaming in through the windows and birds could be heard chirping from outside. I looked around with a slight grin and sighed. The photograph of my mother and my f
ather’s certificate for Chief of Police caught my attention first. There wasn’t much from the house that I wanted to keep, only the important belongings. I grabbed the two off the shelf and placed them in the box. I decided to take a framed photo on the wall of Timmy, Chris, and myself when we were in high school. I chuckled as I thought of how cool we thought we were and smiled warmly to myself as memories of Chris came back to me. Oh, how I missed my dear friend.
Next, I headed up to my father’s room to see if there was anything worth taking. His room was organized as ever, of course. The bed was made, the drapes were open to let in the sunlight, there wasn’t a single spot on the carpet, and not a single item was out of place on the dresser. I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the picture on his nightstand. It was a photograph of him and my mother when they were younger; she had a grand smile on her face with her arms around his neck and he was looking at her with the look of admiration in his eyes. The look in my father’s eyes reminded me so much of myself and the way I watched Eva whenever we were together – in a state of pure awe. It dawned on me in that moment that even though I was making progress, I still felt incomplete. Without Eva in my life, I felt incomplete.
As my father was passing, he only asked that I do what made me happy and I knew Eva did just that. I knew that in order for me to feel complete I needed Eva in my life, I wanted to share my life with her. I wanted Eva to be mine forever because I knew the life that I’d lived before her and the weeks I’d spent without her was like going through the day without the sun and going through the night without the moon and the stars. She was everything to me and the depression of the recent events had almost made me lose sight of that. Eva was my priority. She was who I had left to fight for. She was the one I had to live for. There was no way I was going to let her go.
I opened the drawer on the nightstand to see if my dad kept anything important inside. The first item that caught my eye was the Bible my father would always take to church when the three of us went when I was a toddler. I took it out and put it in the box with the other cherished belongings I was taking. Next, I found a letter from my father to my mother. Upon reading it, I found that it was in fact the letter my father had written to propose to my mother before he went off to do work in the military. Digging deeper into the drawer, my hand came across a small, white square box. I was curious to see what was inside. As soon as my eyes landed on my mother’s glistening engagement ring, my heart melted. My eyes bounced from the ring to the proposal letter and back to the photograph of my joyous parents. I rubbed my chin as I came to terms with myself on what needed to be done. I had a plan.
39. Gone Gone Gone
October 1950
The day had finally come.
It was the day I would finally be able to get out of the state of Illinois and go live on my own! In the days leading up to my move, Mama and I had been unbelievably busy to the point where we were barely home! If we weren’t packing up all of our belongings then we were moving a great deal of them into storage. If we weren’t dealing with my belongings then I was helping her reorient the layout of the offices and cleaning at Ace Cigars, preparing the building for a reopening. I had no time for anything and next thing I knew, it was time for me to leave. Throughout the whole morning my nerves had been making me jittery; I had to calm myself down and make sure I had everything I needed and did everything that I needed to do before I left for the airport.
“Eva, honey, the mailman is here! Are you ready?” Mama called from the bottom of the staircase.
“Uh yeah, I’ll be right down Mama!” I shouted down. I asked my mother to notify me when the mailman arrived so I could have him drop my letter off in David’s mailbox. Writing the letter hadn’t been easy, in fact it was quite an emotional thing for me to do. Yet, I felt I’d done the right thing in letting him know I was going out to try and start a new stage in my life. I hadn’t talked to David in a long while so I didn’t know how he would react to me leaving…I didn’t even know if he cared. I would say I was a bit upset that he hadn’t made any effort to contact me in the weeks following Chris and his father’s deaths, but I also knew he was beyond my helping so maybe I couldn’t blame him. Or could I? I didn’t want to argue with myself about it, I decided it was best to just let his grief run its course.
The reality of my situation began to hit me as I looked over my shoulder at my empty room. I smiled to myself as I remembered all the nights my friends and I spent in my room gossiping and making each other laugh until we cried. I also remembered the times I would stay up late reading Giada and the even later nights when I would keep myself up by thinking about the days I’d spent with David. Though the times were over, they made for the most cherished memories I had by far. Knowing I was only going to torture myself, I crossed the room and kneeled on my bay window to peer out at David’s house through the trees, just one last time. Since autumn was approaching there was a scarcity of leaves on the trees, making it easier for me to see through to his house. Immediately upon catching sight of no car in his driveway, my mind began to race! Where was he? Was he still alive? Was he doing better? I needed answers! Oh I knew I shouldn’t have looked out the window!
“Eva, you’re friends are here let’s go! And I can’t hold the mail man up forever!” Mama shouted.
I bit my lip and shook my head, realizing it was too late to get answers. I forced myself to back away from the window and headed down the stairs in a rush, busting out the front door to catch the mailman. “Wait!” I yelled before he got situated back in his truck. “Wait,” I breathed when I reached him. I held the letter out to him, “It’s not far. I need this to be delivered to the house on the next street as soon as possible.”
The mailman smiled at me and nodded. “Will do, Mrs. Hutchinson.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and backed away. “Thank you, have a nice day sir.”
“Eva you have us waitin’ out here and then you have the audacity to run right past us?” Kate asked.
I whirled around to see Rita, Sarah, and Yvonne sitting in Kate’s convertible with Kate out of the car with her hands on her hips and eyes squinted at me. A giant grin danced its way across my face as I made my way over to them. “I’m so glad you guys are here!” I bent down and gave them hugs.
“Wouldn’t miss seeing you off for the world,” Sarah told me.
“Oh I know you guys wouldn’t!” I gushed, loving how they never let me down.
“So whaddya say we get this show on the road?” Yvonne honked the horn.
“Your mom wouldn’t mind if you rode with us, would she?” Rita asked.
I shook my head. “Of course she wouldn’t mind me taking a joy ride with y’all just one last time.”
“Eva, dear, you have everything? I’ve checked your room, the bathroom, the living –” Mama came out on the porch, clearly stressed.
I half-smiled at her warmly. “Mama, I’ve got everything. I’m good to go. I’m gonna ride with the girls if that’s okay with you.”
She looked as if she wanted to protest but she nodded in agreement anyways. “Alright darlin’, you all drive safe and I’ll meet you there.”
“Thanks Mama,” I kissed her on the cheek before I excitedly took my seat in Kate’s car with the rest of my friends. “Ladies, we are outta here!”
40. Racing the Clock
I pulled up to the police station, ready to finally return to work after a month of being gone.
I felt confident. I was the new Chief of Police dammit! Looking up at the building with my hands on my hips, I smiled to myself knowing that I was ready to make my father proud. I reached in my back seat and pulled out the box of belongings I had gathered from my father’s house; I wanted to put most of the pictures in my office since that was where I’d be most of the time. People smiled at me as I made my way through the lobby and that only boosted my mood even more, I was actually…happy to be back! Initially, I thought all the feelings of rage toward Clayton and sadness over my father would come running
back to me, but I was at peace. It was a great feeling.
“It’s nice to have you back,” the secretary on my floor told me with a grin.
I nodded at her and smiled. “It’s great to be back.”
“Your new office is right this way, sir.” She stood and directed me.
As I followed my new secretary, I felt more assertive with each step. This was my new life. I was in charge. With that thought, my chest puffed out a bit more and I stood up taller. It was going to be a nice thing to get used to. I arrived at my office and thanked her for directing me.
“Any time you need anything, don’t be afraid to call.” She looked up at me with big, round, light brown eyes. I could see she was trying to be suggestive and sexy when she half-smiled. I figured since I had shaved and cut my hair I was looking like a new man! Though the secretary enhanced my ego, she was no Eva-Marie. I made a mental note to be sure that I move her off of my floor.
“Will do,” I said curtly before shutting my office door on her. I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief.
It finally felt as if I was where I was meant to be. There were still a few things that felt off, but it was nice being in a place that my father put so much energy into. It was almost if he was standing right there next to me. I set the box down and began unloading the pictures of my parents and my friends. I pulled the Bible out and saw the small white box at the bottom. I opened it to take a look at the ring once again before shoving the box into my pocket. Sighing, I took my seat and pulled out the mail I picked up before leaving for work. I nearly skipped through all of my mail until I saw an envelope from Eva-Marie. My hands began sweating immediately and my heartbeat picked up speed. Not being able to handle the anticipation of what was inside, I ripped through the envelope! My eyes scanned the paper, reading in record time:
To my love,
I haven’t had the chance to speak to you in the past few