Life Without You

by Liesel Schmidt

  “I think that’s a natural assumption. And much more logical that my mama’s actual reason for naming me Savannah, if you want to know the truth.” She laughed.

  I waited a beat. “So what was the reason?”

  “She thought it sounded classy. She’d never been to Savannah in her life, but she thought it would make me sound like a deb,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Never mind that we were hardly candidates for cotillion, either. But she was a dreamer, and she always loved the idea of being a Southern society lady.” Savannah shrugged, smiling fondly. “Lucky for her, she eventually got to join the local chapter of Junior League, but she was always so worried about impressing the other ladies that she never said no to anything they asked her to do. It got to be insane.”

  “They can be a little bit demanding,” I agreed, thinking of Bette and her fellow League ladies. It always amazed me to hear the stories she told after an event or a meeting. Some of those ladies had fangs. And very sharp claws.

  “You say was…?” I let the question hang in the air, unfinished.

  “Mama and Daddy both passed a few years ago,” she said. “They always encouraged my creativity, though. I think they would like my idea—at least, I hope they would.”

  “I bet they would,” Vivi said without hesitation. “Your mama always told me she saw big things for you, and I don’t think she meant sitting behind a big desk with a big stack of paperwork. Every time I saw her, she told me she wished you were doing something you actually love—and you love this.”

  “I do,” Savannah murmured, looking on the verge of tears.

  “And you know Caleb’s parents love you to death.” Vivi paused, looking slightly frustrated, as though she’d had this conversation with Savannah on more than one occasion. “Can you believe she hasn’t told them yet that she wants to do this?” she demanded, directing the question at me.

  I gave Savannah a scowl that I hoped would satisfy Vivi. “Why not? Maybe they’d offer to help you out, if you need it.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I haven’t. They’d offer, I wouldn’t know how to tell them no, and then when the whole thing failed, I’d have lost every cent they gave me. And then some.” Savannah’s face was glum, and she looked miserable.

  “Hush, now. Who peed on your pom-poms?” Vivi scolded. “You’re talking about failure before you’ve even started.”

  “I don’t know,” Savannah sighed. “I guess I’m just emotional. My mama’s birthday would have been this week, and it always makes me miss her.” She grabbed a handful of napkins from the dispenser on the table and dabbed at the corners of her eyes.

  “That’s understandable,” I said, thinking of Grammie and how much she’d been on my mind a few months ago, when it should have been her own happy day of celebration. But Savannah’s loss was even closer to home. Hers was not a grandmother, but her mother. I felt my eyes tingle once again at the thought of losing my own mother.

  “So what do you want to do?” Vivi asked.

  “Do?” I could hear the confusion in Savannah’s voice.

  “Yes, child. What do you want to do? How do you want to mark the occasion? It doesn’t have to be sad, you know. We can still make it feel happy, even though she isn’t there to share it with us.”

  I gaped at Vivi, surprised by the sentimentality of such a suggestion. Why hadn’t I thought of that? It was perfect.

  “I don’t know,” Savannah stammered, clearly still in her own state of shock. “I’ve never done anything like that before, so I guess I never really thought about what would be a nice way to celebrate the day and be happy about it.” She shrugged. “I kind of thought maybe being happy on that day would be disrespectful, somehow.”

  Vivi shook her head. “Not disrespectful at all. Actually, I think the more disrespectful thing to do would be to mope all day. I met your mama enough times to know that she was anything but a moper, Savannah.”

  Savannah smiled a little at the words. “She was a bit of a Pollyanna, sometimes, if you want to know the truth,” she said, looking at me. “Sometimes it drove me nuts; but most of the time, it was one of the things I loved best about her.”

  “What was her name?” I asked, imagining something dainty, almost fairy-like and feminine.

  Savannah’s grin widened. “Gertrude.”

  “Gertrude?”

  Savannah and Vivi both nodded, noting my reaction. “Gertrude,” Vivi repeated. “You were expecting something a little more…delicate-sounding?”

  I tipped my head noncommittally, not wanting to offend Savannah. “Um…”

  Savannah giggled, rising from her seat. “Don’t worry, Dellie. Most people didn’t think she much looked like a Gertrude. It was a family name, and she hated it. Which is why she used her middle name most of the time, which was Grace. People called her Gracie, and Gracie Leigh made the best flower arrangements in town,” Savannah murmured. “Oh, how she loved her flowers. Unfortunately, I have a thumb that’s blacker than coal; and I can’t even grow a weed to save my life.”

  “Maybe not, but you can bake like nobody’s business,” I said, laying my hand lightly on her arm with a smile. “You’re amazing, and it sounds as if your mama believed you were, too,” I said. “So, Savannah. How are we going to celebrate your mama’s day? What did she like to do? Did y’all have any traditions or anything like that?”

  Savannah pursed her lips in thought. “Well, we did like to go to the grocery store sometimes when I was little to buy one of those helium balloons so that we could send it to Grams, up in heaven. Mama always said that if we made a wish before we let one go, that wish would hang on tight to the string and catch a ride all the way up to Grams’s cloud, and then Grams would do her best to make it come true.”

  “That’s sweet. Maybe we could buy a balloon and send it to your mama, then?” I suggested.

  Savannah smiled. “I’d like that,” she said looking a bit more relaxed at the idea of her mother’s upcoming birthday. “And we loved to go to the park near our house—even when we moved here and I was in high school, we still did it about once a month. We’d to go with a packed lunch and sit outside in the sunshine and have a picnic. Virginia ham and tomato sandwiches on Wonder bread with mayo. Always with potato chips.” Savannah’s eyes were glittering at the memory. “And sometimes, if it was a very special day, we would get Slurpees from the 7-Eleven.”

  “Guess I know what we’ll be doing that day, then,” Vivi said, breaking the spell a bit with her voice. “Balloons, park, ham sandwiches, and chips.” She paused, grinning widely. “And Slurpees. Sounds like a party to me!”

  Gertrude Grace Leigh’s birthday came a few days later, with weather that was well deserving of celebration. The sky was a vivid shade of blue that matched Savannah’s eyes, and the conditions seemed perfect for the release of a single yellow balloon—Gracie’s favorite color—tied with an extra bits of ribbon streaming down, each invisibly tethered to a wish, a prayer, a message. And while the day might have been planned in recognition of Gracie, Vivi and I each bought our own balloons to release. Vivi, a pink one for her mother. Mine was lavender—Grammie’s favorite color. I held on tight to the string and closed my eyes, picturing her both as I had always known her and as the young woman she had once been, then opened my hand to let go, releasing it not so much with wishes, but with hopes—hopes that maybe she’d realized before it was too late that she had been beautiful and loved and treasured, hopes that maybe we’d all been able to show her how special she was.

  And while those hopes for her held on to the balloon’s strings, so, too, did hopes for me and my own future.

  Hopes that I would be strong enough to move past the fears that been holding me back for so long and stealing my joy.

  Hopes that my dreams of a truly successful writing career would happen.

  Hopes that I would be able to prove to everyone—my friends, my family, and myself—that I really was more than just okay.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I t
hink I found the stink,” Bette said, her voice triumphant on the other end of the phone.

  I heard myself groan, dreading what she might be about to say. “Do I want to hear this?”

  “Actually, it’s quite interesting. And you’ll be happy to know that it has absolutely nothing to do with your garbage disposal. In fact, it doesn’t have anything to do with your kitchen at all.”

  “Oh, God, Bette, are you telling me there’s a dead animal decomposing in the walls of my apartment or something? Please, just tell me,” I begged. “Put me out of my misery!”

  “Take a deep breath, Dellie, you’re liable to keel over dead. And then where would we be?” Bette scolded. “Really, it’s nothing to worry about.” She paused. “Well, maybe it is, since you actually have to live here all the time, but it’s nothing that’s going to require any kind of action from you.”

  I felt my eyebrows furrow. “Bette, could you please stop being so cryptic and just get to the point?”

  “Fine,” Bette sniffed, sounding mildly offended, but mostly just amused. “You have a new neighbor downstairs, in the unit right below yours. Apparently, the vents from her apartment feed into yours; so every time she cooks some of her very fragrant, very ethnic dishes, the smell comes in through your kitchen’s air vents. And believe me, the woman has some doozies. Tell me, how have you never noticed this before?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, looking down at the worn wooden boards under my feet. I was currently perched on the wooden porch swing suspended from chains underneath the gazebo, which had been added on to the original deck of my grandparent’s house at some point in my early twenties. I’d never quite gotten used to this particular part of the structure—it still seemed oddly like it didn’t belong. In my mind, at least.

  But then again, I was the one so resistant to change.

  “You don’t know?” Bette repeated. “Either your nose is dead, or you just stopped paying attention.”

  “Or,” I argued, feeling my defenses rising for some reason, “it could simply be that the people who lived there before never actually cooked anything that wafted with such tenacity through the air vents.”

  “It could,” she replied. “But I’m guessing that you just stopped noticing.”

  The words, so unrelated as they might have been to anything other than the topic at hand, made a pang shoot through my insides.

  I just stopped noticing. It was true, on so many levels; I had stopped noticing.

  Not just smells in my kitchen. I’d stopped noticing life, and I’d stopped letting it notice me. I’d practically begged it not to notice me, in fact. It had seemed safer that way. I tried to evade criticism by blending in, by disappearing as much as I could into the shadows. I even dressed not to be noticed; again, something I’d learned during my marriage, when the only comments I ever received on my clothing choices were to be told I looked okay—even on things that had earned me interested looks and complimentary words from men in the past.

  “Well, I’m glad you figured it out,” I murmured, trying to hold back the tears that felt like they might be forming.

  “Me, too. I guess the lemons I used in your disposal worked that one day because they were nice and fresh and masked the smell for awhile, but I knew something else must be going on the next time it happened,” Bette chattered on. “On the upside, you have a new neighbor who, despite her penchant for cooking up smelly foods, is generally very lovely.”

  “So you’ve met her, then?” I asked, feeling my interest piqued.

  “Only once, when I was on my way upstairs after work one day. She was going out to dinner with a few little old ladies in her book club.”

  “Bette, how long are you going to be staying over there?” I asked, suddenly realizing that we hadn’t even touched the subject of her marriage lately. “What’s going on with you and Steve? Has he come to any startling realizations yet?” I closed my eyes and let the soothing, swishing sound of the swing work its magic on my overworked brain.

  Bette sighed heavily, and I felt a mixture of guilt at not being there to give her a hug as well as frustration at Steve, whom I’d always assumed was so level-headed. Why was he doing this?

  “Not yet. We’re talking, but he still says there’s no affair—emotional or otherwise—with anyone. What else could it be, though? He’s never home anymore; and according to him, it’s because he’s been putting so much time in at that damn office. But I’ve talked to his office assistant; Barbara shoots as straight as an arrow, and she says there’s no special project or anything like that that should be keeping him so tied up at work—especially not with his lovely colleague, whose name, by the way, is Andrea,” Bette said, the hurt cutting plainly through the anger in her voice.

  “Bette, why have you been letting me go on and on about my own problems this whole time? I may not exactly be the wisest counsel, but I can at least be a good friend. Talk to me. Make me shut up about my own mess and tell me about what you need from me,” I urged, hoping she could hear my sincerity.

  “Need?” An odd sound emanated from her end of the line, something I’d never heard from Bette before. A sob. A real, true sob. And it made my heart ache all the more.

  “What I need is for my husband to give me some proof to back up what he says about not having an affair. What I need is for him to show me that he loves me, and that this is just some weird phase he’s going through. I love him, but I’m not even sure that he loves me anymore,” she whispered. “I feel like he’s slipping away, Dellie. And he won’t tell me why.”

  “Oh, Bette,” I said, feeling my throat swell around tears. I was so powerless to help her, so lacking in any kind of real insight.

  How could I have any, when I had no idea myself what might be going on? The last thing Bette needed to hear were empty platitudes and clichéd phrases about how it would all be okay.

  “Bette, I may not know why Steve is doing any of this, but I do know one thing—I’m going to be there for you whenever you need me. Even if you just need a place to crash, I’m there.” I paused thoughtfully, hoping that my next words would lighten the mood, rather than making her more upset. “Both me and my smelly apartment.”

  A laugh broke through the end of the line—a snotty, wet bubble of laughter—and it gave me hope, even just a small sliver, that she would be okay.

  That we would all be okay.

  I opened my eyes and looked out at the sky, turning pinks and lavenders now as the day drifted out.

  No, I reminded myself, thinking back to my lavender balloon.

  We would be more than okay.

  “So, Dellie, what’s the plan for today?” Grandpa asked me as he sat across from me at the table, two weeks into my stay.

  Two whole weeks.

  Had it not been for the fact that it was a Saturday morning, the leisurely tone of his question would have seemed out of the ordinary for what, by now, had become a routine: breakfast together before work—an open-face English muffin with sliced tomato, two eggs, and a piece of turkey bacon for him; oatmeal with a sprinkle of cinnamon and Equal for me. He read the paper, I read a book, and the local news hummed away in the background, largely unnoticed as we ate in companionable silence.

  I peered at him a moment before speaking.

  Really, in the two weeks that I’d been here, we hadn’t spent that much time together. Sure, we ate breakfast at the same table every morning and had supper every night, spent a few hours in the den watching television after the dishes were cleared…but we didn’t do a whole lot of talking. Not about anything important, anyway.

  Not that I had been expecting otherwise, but still. There were a few things on my mind that I really wanted to talk about with him, and if I didn’t bite the bullet and start the conversation for myself now, I might lose my chance.

  “I don’t know,” I said slowly in answer to his question, wondering if he’d look up from his paper. “Do you have anything you have to do today, or could I spend it with you?”

 
He shook the paper to snap it straight, then folded it in on itself before sliding a glance in my direction. “Well, I’ve go to run to the hardware store and pick up some things for a project I’ve got at work, but if you want to come along, we can go and have lunch together afterward,” he said finally.

  I smiled at him.

  Perfect. It would be something that interested him, something where he was in his element and might actually be comfortable enough to shift into real, meaningful conversation rather than just small talk and idle observations.

  “That would be fun,” I replied, genuinely beginning to look forward to the outing with him. “I’d love that, if you really don’t mind having me tag along, of course.”

  “You might get bored,” he replied, looking dubious.

  I shook my head. “Not at all. I like hardware stores,” I said, hoping that he could hear my sincerity. “And it would really be nice to spend some time together.”

  “We spend time together, Dellie,” Grandpa said, clearly confused by my lack of acknowledgment of our shared mealtimes and evening easy chair stints.

  I nodded, conceding the fact. Yes, there were those times—and there were even some hours on Sundays that we spent in one another’s company, going to church and then to lunch afterward. But the real, frustrating fact remained: I’d been here two weeks, and he’d given me a mystery to mull over without providing me with any resolution.

  And I still didn’t feel like I knew how he was doing. He was running around, going, going, going like usual—but how was he? How did he feel? He’d been married to my grandmother for more than sixty years; and now he was alone, having to do everything for himself, all on his own.

  How was he processing that? Was he processing that, or was he just so tightly wound all the time that he wasn’t really giving himself a chance to feel anything?

  I wanted to know—needed to know—that he really was going to be okay.

  “We do, but I’d still like some more, if that’s alright?” I hoped he didn’t think I was being pesky. “I really don’t need to do anything special, so let’s just do whatever it is that you need to do today. I’d really like that,” I repeated.