by Sarah Jio
Red fish. She smiles to herself, thinking of Luca. She misses him. Before he left, he wrote his phone number on a piece of paper. “If anything goes wrong, if something breaks,” he said, “call me, and I’ll fix it.”
She looks at that piece of paper on the counter every morning. Sometimes she wishes the dishwasher would fail or that a cabinet hinge would appear misaligned or the faucet would leak. She longs for a reason to call him, to hear his voice again, to see him. He has been her friend all these months, and his absence now feels . . . achingly lonely.
Why not just call him? Mary thinks. Why not just call him to say hi? Like two old friends.
She picks up her phone and takes a deep breath. But she doesn’t dial Luca; she calls her husband. They’re estranged, yes, but Eli is still her husband. He’s still the man she married. Her heart pounds in her chest, two beats for each ring. She can feel the baby kick too, and she rubs her belly on the spot where a little foot or knee or elbow just poked out. Their baby.
After four rings, there is a voice. A woman’s voice. “Hello?” The voice sounds young, sexy . . . annoyed. Mary presses the end-call button quickly, then collapses into a chair at the table, in her perfect, lonely kitchen.
Chapter 18
October
Morning,” I say to Bernard as I step off the elevator with Sam.
“Morning,” he replies with a smile, patting Sam’s head as I exit onto the sidewalk. The Seattle air has turned crisp, and pumpkins are displayed on every available surface of the market. I stop at a vegetable stand to admire a row of sugar pie varieties. I buy three: one for Mel’s newsstand, one for Elaine, and a third for the flower shop.
“Hello, beautiful,” Mel says as I approach.
“For you,” I say, setting a pumpkin near his cash register. “Happy October.”
“A very happy October, indeed,” he says, stepping closer to me as if he is about to reveal a secret. “Yesterday we talked about Parliament.”
I give him a confused look. “Parliament?”
“Yes,” he says victoriously. “We have breakfast together every Friday—well, at separate tables, but just the same. We eat our eggs together.”
“Wait, Mel, who?” And then I see the sparkle in his eyes and it hits me. “Oh, yes, the Queen of England. Of course.”
He beams. “Yes.”
“Good for you, Mel. Why don’t you ask her out on a date?”
“I’d like to,” he replies. “I’m working up the courage.”
“Well, don’t wait too long,” I say. “She might think you don’t like her. We women can get impatient.”
I wink at him as I continue along the sidewalk, stopping in front of Meriwether to tie Sam to a lamppost. Inside, Elaine is busily stocking the pastry case with fresh croissants. She smiles when she looks up and sees me.
“For you,” I say, depositing a pumpkin on the counter.
“Aw, thanks,” she replies, setting down an empty sheet pan. “I’m glad you’re here. Do you have a moment to talk?”
“Of course,” I say. She brushes a dusting of flour from her cheek and walks around the counter. Together we sit at a table by the window.
“It’s Charles,” she says. “It’s the real thing, Jane. I’m in this. Truly, madly, deeply.” The words fall out of her mouth like an avalanche.
I remember the way my vision fogged over in their presence. Of course Elaine is in love. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
“People talk about soul mates,” she says, “and all my life I never bought it. The idea that two people are meant for each other.” She shakes her head. “But then I met Charles. And . . . well, I get it.”
“What is it that you see in him, Elaine?”
“Hot air balloons,” she says nostalgically. I notice the charm bracelet on her wrist.
I shake my head, not quite understanding.
Elaine smiles. “He loves hot air balloons. So do I. Matthew wouldn’t go up in one to save his life, even for me. But Charles?” She sighs, and smiles to herself. “He’s spontaneous, open, in a way that Matthew could never be. If I asked him to travel to Santorini with me tomorrow, by hot air balloon, he’d do it.
“But at the same time, it’s terrible,” she says. “I don’t know what to do. Last night, Charles asked me to make a decision. Leave Matthew and start a life with him. I know it’s agonizing for him to watch me draw the shades in our bedroom window every night. He sees me in the yard with Matthew and the kids, and all the while, he loves me, and I love him.” She sighs again. “To go on like this anymore, Jane, it’s going to destroy me. And it will certainly destroy him. He lost his wife recently. He’s had more than enough emotional upheaval in his life.”
“I worry about that,” I say. “Do you think he’s ready to love again? Could he be jumping in too soon?”
“I wondered that too. But I can see in his eyes that he is ready. He’s all in.”
“And his daughter? How does she fit into this scenario?”
She smiles. “We’ve talked about that. He’s always wanted to live on the water, just like I have, and we imagined the idea of us moving to a houseboat on Lake Union, maybe somewhere near Lo.” She pauses, as if to consider a beautiful daydream. “Bunk beds, barbecues on the rooftop deck, kids paddling around in kayaks.” Her expression gets serious again. “He wants a life with me, Jane. A beautiful life. And I want it too.”
“Wow,” I say. “What are you going to do, then?”
“I just don’t know.” She pauses. “I could leave Matthew, and I could follow my heart, and embark on this new, bold life with Charles.” She closes her eyes tightly. “I can see it, in all of its beauty. And it makes me feel absolutely alive. But there would be such regret—for my children, for my family. And I do love Matthew. I care for him, obviously. Hurting him was never my plan. I’m incapable of it, and yet, I . . . I would have to blow up my family to have Charles. And if I can’t do that, I stay. And I have to live with the realization that I let love go, that I stood in the face of true and beautiful love, love that completed me in a way I never thought possible, and let it go.”
“Oh, Elaine,” I say. “It seems like an impossible dilemma. But I think your heart already knows the choice you must make. Our hearts speak to us all the time, but it takes practice to learn to listen.”
In her eyes, I can see just how deeply entrenched she is. “No major decision is made without careful consideration,” I continue. “Tell Charles you need until January. That’s ninety days. Big decisions take time.”
And as I consider the enormous choice in Elaine’s life, I can’t help but also think of my own: Colette, the gift, love, Dr. Heller. In January, I will have succeeded, or I will have failed, perhaps miserably.
Lo has decorated the window of the shop with a display of pumpkins, some big and as bright as orange sherbet, others white and ghostly. “You beat me to the punch,” I say, setting my little pumpkin by the register.
“Grant asked me to go to Paris with him,” she says suddenly.
“When?”
“In December.”
“So he left his wife?”
“Not yet,” she replies. I can see that she’s deeply conflicted. “But he will. I know he will. He’s working through his process.”
“Process,” I say. “Sounds like a phrase from a business plan.”
She sighs. “I know.”
It seems almost incomprehensible that Lo could be in such a deflated state. She’s a force. And somehow a man has knocked the wind out of her sails.
“Don’t you worry about a thing today,” she says. “I know this is a big occasion for you. I’ve got everything covered here.”
Lo remembers, as she always does, the anniversary of my mother’s death. “Are you going to visit her grave?”
I nod. Mom wanted to be buried on Bainbridge Island, where she grew up
. As a child she came to love a little cemetery tucked away along the coastline, near Hidden Cove Road. When I was a girl, she’d take me there and let me wander the rows of headstones. When Grandma died, I remember sprinkling freesia petals, her favorite, onto her casket before the men lowered it into the ground. And now Mom rests there, in this quaint little cemetery overlooking the sea. Oddly, it doesn’t feel like a place filled with bones and sadness. It’s a garden in its own right, bursting with flowers, bright pink azaleas and rosebushes dotted with vibrant orange and yellow buds. Perhaps that’s why Mom loved it. And I do too.
“Here,” Lo says, reaching behind the counter. “Take these.” She hands me two bunches of red and orange dahlias, with sprigs of mint and greenery interspersed between the blooms.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling fresh tears sting my eyes when I remember the way Mom and Grandma loved fall dahlias.
I let Sam leap into the back of my ailing Volvo station wagon, Mom’s old car, which I’ve never gotten around to replacing, and set out for the ferry terminal on Alaskan Way. It’s midday, and there isn’t a line of cars waiting, so I drive right on and secure a primo spot at the front of the vessel. What did Mom used to say about ferries? I smile to myself. Yes, that they’re the cheapest, most beautiful cruises in the world. She’d ride them back and forth when she wanted to clear her head.
I breathe in the smell of seawater and engine fumes, and at once, I am eleven again, sitting in the backseat with Flynn, who has his headphones on because he’s annoyed that Mom’s listening to her Billy Joel tape again, rewinding the song “And So It Goes” and listening to it over and over again.
I see tears in Mom’s eyes. “You still miss him, don’t you, Mama?” By “him,” I meant my dad, the man I could barely recall.
She nods. “Yes, sweetie. I will always love him.”
“How can you love him when he left us?” I ask.
“Yes, he left us,” she says. “But when someone does a bad thing, a hurtful thing, it doesn’t mean you stop loving them. You just change your course. You make adjustments. But love lives on.” She presses her hand to her heart. “It lives here. You’ll see, someday.”
Love lives on. And I suppose I know that now, because I’ve witnessed it. The concept lingers in the eyes of Mel, when he speaks of his late wife, and in the interactions between Cam’s parents, still connected after forty-five years of marriage. And I suspect it will for Elaine—no matter what her choice, she’ll keep Charles, or Matthew, in a quiet corner of her heart forever. I think about all of it as the ferry glides across the calm October water. The sky is blue and clear, one of those stubborn fall days that’s holding on, desperately, to summer.
My phone buzzes, and I look at the screen and find a text from Cam. “Thinking of you.” I smile and write back, “You remembered. Thanks.” He knows it’s the anniversary of Mom’s death. I told him on the phone last night, even though my first instinct was to keep it to myself. Mom was, and is, sacred.
I leave Sam in the car and walk up the stairs to the upper deck, where I buy a coffee, settle into a booth, and look out the big windows toward the water and the distant dot that is the island. A few moments later, I hear applause all around, and cheers from fellow passengers. At the center of attention is a couple in their thirties. They look like they stepped out of a Pinterest page. She’s tall and stunningly beautiful, wearing a striped knit dress and a stylish denim jacket. I admire her wedge heels. He’s handsome in a David Beckham way, with his dark fitted jeans, plaid shirt, and sport coat. Together they look like perfection, and I can see that the assembled crowd thinks so too, especially since he is down on one knee and has just presented her with a ring. A photographer in a navy sweater and a pair of blue Converse high tops snaps a photo.
All around, mouths are agape and eyes are wide as she lets him slide the diamond onto her hand. She hesitates for a moment, looks at the ring, then back at him, and smiles, then covers her mouth. “Yes,” she says, finally. “Yes!”
Cheers and applause break out again as he takes her into his arms. I don’t bother looking away; I’ve already seen too much. I brace myself for the foggy vision, the pressure, which is inevitably coming. I expect it to be intense. I mean, look at them. But I wait, and I wait. And it doesn’t come. I blink hard. I take a deep breath and I refocus on the beautiful couple ahead. A couple that is seemingly wholeheartedly in love.
Except . . . they aren’t.
The island is in sight now, so I get up, toss my coffee cup into the trash can, and head to the restroom, thinking about how someone can say yes to a marriage proposal when she is not in love. As I’m washing my hands, the newly engaged woman walks in and sets her purse down on the countertop in a defeated heap. I see the enormous diamond on her hand. It sparkles under the fluorescent bathroom lights as she looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are searching, unsure—frightened, even.
“Congratulations,” I say to her when her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I saw the proposal.”
She forces a smile. “Oh, thank you. I . . .” She catches her own eyes in the mirror again and looks away quickly, as if she can’t even bear the sight of herself.
“Something’s weighing on you, isn’t it?” I ask.
She rubs her forehead, then looks around the restroom, which is now empty. “God, what is wrong with me? I should be happy,” she says, and points to the doorway. “The most amazing man I’ve ever met just asked me to marry him. I should be doing cartwheels right now. But I . . .”
“But you don’t love him.”
She nods. “I don’t love him. I could learn to love him. I mean, look at him. He’s—”
“He’s not your love,” I say, as my heart begins to beat faster. It isn’t my place to interfere, but she already knows.
She nods. “You can see it, can’t you? Is it that obvious?”
“No,” I say. “It’s not obvious at all. I just have a . . . well, a knack for these things.”
“My mom’s going to hate me,” she says. “She wanted a summer wedding. She’s already booked the ballroom at the Fair-
mont.”
“But it’s your life, not hers,” I say. “And besides, your love is out there. Just be patient, and keep your eyes open.”
She sighs. “I wish it were easier. I wish I could know my heart better.”
“You already do,” I assure her. “In fact, you’re one of the brave ones who listen to it.” I place my hand on her forearm. “You’re listening to it right now.”
The ferry horn sounds, and the captain announces over the loudspeaker, “Now arriving Bainbridge Island. Passengers, please return to your vehicles.”
“Thank you,” she says to me as we walk out together.
“You’ve got this,” I reply, noticing the handsome, short-lived fiancé who waits a few feet away.
Sam wags his tail excitedly as I return to the car, and together we drive off the ferry onto the island, passing Winslow and continuing on for several miles, until I see the sign marking Hidden Cove Road beside a bank of big, fluffy fir trees. The cemetery isn’t far. A moment later, I pull into the driveway, park, and let Sam out for a break before taking the flowers and walking along the moss-covered stone path to my grandmother’s grave. I place one of the bouquets beside her headstone and smile. “Hi, Nana,” I whisper. “It’s me, Jane. I miss you.”
Beside her is my mother’s grave. “Oh, Mom,” I whisper, as tears stream down my face. “How I’ve missed you.” I set her flowers on a mossy patch, then kneel beside the grave. I hear the crunch of gravel behind me, but when I turn around, no one is there. “I’m so lost, Mom,” I continue. “You see, I have this gift, this ability. The eye problems I’ve had all my life are not a neurological disorder, though Dr. Heller would beg to differ. Mom, I have the ability to see love. The first person to show me true love was you. And now I have to figure out what to do about it. How to go on. Wha
t it means for me and the people I care about. And, Mom, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I wish you were here.” I place my hand on her headstone, just as the wind picks up and blows a stream of chilly air through the cemetery. I shiver. A single red-tinged leaf drifts from a maple tree overhead and falls beside my leg.
I turn around when I hear footsteps behind me. A man is standing uncomfortably close, as though he might have been there for a while, listening to me talking. It takes a moment to connect the dots, but I recognize him, the photographer from the ferry. I notice his Converse sneakers, because in high school I had a weathered pair in the same shade of blue. “Excuse me,” he says. “Do you think you can give me directions back to the ferry? I’m a little turned around, and the navigation function in my rental car doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Sure,” I say. “Just turn right out of the cemetery. Then take a left at your first stop sign. Follow the road as it winds up to 305, then take a left. That will get you back to the terminal.” I pause for a moment. “I think I saw you on the ferry earlier. You were taking a photo of that couple who got engaged.”
He grins. “Yeah, they were cute, weren’t they? I couldn’t help but get a shot.”
“What brings you here?”
“Oh,” he says, pausing, “I’m a freelance photographer. Just taking some photos for an assignment.”
I nod. “Well, good luck.”
“Wait,” he says. “Do you mind if I take your photo? I just noticed your green eyes. They’re rare, you know. Green eyes. I’m doing a photo collection of green-eyed people. Just a little pet project, not sure if I’ll do anything with it. I’d love to get your photo, right here, if you don’t mind. The light is so gorgeous, the way it’s filtering in through the fir trees.”