by Polly Dugan
None of those things alone was a deal breaker, and neither were all of them together, but nothing was ever easy, and her other, conflicting traits were more revealing. Every time she cooked dinner for me, it was a new, elaborate recipe that she slaved over in the kitchen, like a surgeon fighting to save the patient; her concentration and desire were so fierce. And within the first two weeks, although it was too early to be leaving personal items at each other’s places, she had a new, full bottle of my favorite Scotch at hers. The way she clung to me, curled against my body, the mornings after we did spend the night together made me think she was trying very hard to seem one way but was really another. I would have preferred that she was genuine, no matter how she thought I might interpret her investment in our relationship, or her falling for me, or her ambivalence. I couldn’t stand a phony, and I could stand Celia easily and well enough, but early on I’d recognized that her approach to our relationship was contrived. Not trying too hard, not being too needy—it was like a romance recipe she’d researched and was following to the letter. The thing was, I had been with women who had been genuinely independent or transparently attached, and it never made a difference. I only wanted each of them as long as I’d wanted them. So, when the time came, the way it did, Celia was an easy one to leave.
When I called her, I checked the time, set the stopwatch on my phone, and after twenty-three minutes, Celia called me back.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry I missed you, I was in the shower. How are you doing? I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Can we talk? Can you come over?”
“Well, I’m meeting a friend for breakfast, how about later? Or tomorrow?” she said.
“I’m leaving town,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “For your friend’s funeral? I’ll see you when you come back.”
“I’m not coming back,” I said. “If you want to see me before I go, it has to be this morning.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll come over. Is now good?”
“Now is good,” I said. And I hung up.
She was at my place fifteen minutes later. Dressed and made up, not beautiful and barefaced with her hair still damp, like I’d expected, her coming over on the fly.
I let her in and we sat on the couch.
“I’m doing something you may not want to hear, but it’s what’s happening,” I said.
“You said you’re not coming back,” she said. “I thought you’d just be gone for the funeral.”
“Hang on,” I said. I went to the fridge and got two beers, came back, and sat down. “You want one?”
She shook her head. I opened one and set them both on the table.
“Celia, Leo’s family needs help,” I said. “What happened changes a lot of things for me, so I’m going to stay out there and help. It’s the one thing I can do.”
“I’m really sorry about your friend—”
“Leo,” I said. “His name is Leo.”
“I’m really sorry about Leo, I am. It’s terrible this happened, but what about your life?” she said. “I’m not talking about me. Garrett, you have a job.” She hadn’t planned for this. This wasn’t something she’d had time to research, or ask her friends about.
“I uproot pretty easily,” I said. “Like a weed.”
“A weed.” She crossed her arms.
“I hope this never happens to you,” I said, “but if it ever does, then you’ll understand.” I reached out to touch her hand—a gesture seemed called for, since what I was saying wasn’t doing any good—but she pulled it away. “Maybe I’ll see you when I’m back.”
“Do or don’t,” Celia said. “It makes no difference to me.” And she stood up and walked out of my apartment.
When things are messy, that’s when you learn what a person is made of. I knew everything about Celia I needed to that morning, and I guessed she learned what I was made of too. If I had loved her, or felt an affection on my way to loving her, I might have asked her to come with me, told her I needed her, bought her a plane ticket. And if she had had a shred of empathy—an unrehearsed selflessness and accommodation for me—things might have been different. As it was, Leo’s death shined the spotlight on the facade we were playing at, which, once illuminated, couldn’t return to the shadows. Leo, even dead, saved me a lot of wasted time with Celia.
I finished the beer, opened the second one, and kept packing. I put the socks with the note inside at the bottom of the suitcase. I left a message for my landlord and then called Mitchell Britton, the academic dean at Boston College.
“Good morning, Mitchell,” I said. “It’s Garrett Reese. I apologize for calling on the weekend. Can we meet sometime today?”
“Garrett, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m in Philadelphia for my granddaughter’s baptism. The mass is at eleven. Is everything all right?”
“No, Mitch, no it’s not,” I said. “I hate to do this over the phone. I have a personal emergency. There was an accident. My friend, my best friend, Leo, his wife called last night from Portland—he died yesterday. I’m flying out as soon as I can.”
“Oh my God,” Mitch said. “Garrett, I’m so sorry. Of course, go. I’ll take care of it.”
“The thing is, Mitch,” I said. “I’m going to stay out there for a while. I don’t know how long, maybe a few months.”
There was silence on the other end. I waited.
“Garrett, this is unprecedented,” he said.
I was on track for tenure along with the rest. We were like puppies scrambling to get to the tit first, the status, the title. The dangling security seized after years of scrutiny. “Mitchell, I know,” I said. “Of course it’s unprecedented. No one plans for something like this.”
“You’ll pardon me for saying so,” Mitchell said, “but this isn’t your family, correct?”
When I was quiet, Mitchell hurried to fill the silence. “Again, forgive me,” he said, “but we’re not talking about your wife, child, or parents. This isn’t your family.”
“They may as well be,” I said. “Mitchell, I’m sorry, I didn’t call for advice, and I understand you don’t understand. I’m only sharing my terrible personal news and how I’m handling it.”
“This is suicide, Garrett,” he said.
“Well, I won’t have this job,” I said. “But not having it isn’t going to kill me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You know what I’m talking about. You won’t have a position to return to. And you’ll be damned for a position elsewhere. You’ve painted a very different picture of who we’ve come to know and the expectations we had.”
We weren’t getting anywhere. I already knew everything he was saying.
“Mitch,” I said. “You’ve got talented people who want what I have. I have a syllabus, and you’ve got resources to tap. I’ll send an email and take full responsibility. Thank you sincerely for everything these past three years. I’m truly grateful. But, really, I’m doing the only thing I can.”
He softened. “I’ll look for the email. I’ll get some things together—come by my office tomorrow. And, Garrett, I’m very sorry about your friend. I do wish you were making a different decision, but I wish you the very best of luck.”
I moved some money around, paid some bills, forwarded my mail. I drove to campus and packed my office. I cleared off my computer, saving what I needed onto a thumb drive. I made a folder for Leo’s emails. Some of them were years old, but I couldn’t delete a single one. A student had given me a jade plant that had survived its time with me despite my lack of doting. When I got home, I knocked on my neighbors’ door. Rob and Morgan had moved into the apartment across from me the previous summer, before the school year. They both taught at the college too, in different departments, and were pregnant and due in two months. I went into as much detail as I had with Mitch and told them I’d be gone for a while, and gave them the plant. I thanked them and declined their offers to do anything else.
I made coffee and wrote the ema
il for Mitch and everyone else who needed to know. A choice was easy to make, no matter how small or great, when you only had one, and sometimes the hardest one was the right one.
I booked a flight for six o’clock Tuesday morning, Valentine’s Day, and texted Audrey. I’m flying out early Tuesday. I’ll see you in the afternoon.
Garrett
I didn’t sleep on the plane—I never could. Sleeping is such a private, vulnerable state, I was always fascinated when adults packed in a plane among strangers surrendered to it. Sleeping together. So I felt ragged and useless when I got to the house. Audrey was sitting on the porch. She stood up and waited, and cried against me after I dropped my bag, and I wept too. There was nothing to say.
The boys were all so big. At fifteen, Christopher looked so much like Leo, with the same dark good looks, only a year older than his dad was when we met. Brian and Andrew were handsome too, with Audrey’s eyes and mouth, and both seemed more mature than middle-schoolers, having aged overnight, I thought. They all hugged me without hesitation. I hadn’t seen Audrey and the boys in six years, when Leo had brought them all east for a visit with both sets of parents. I’d rented a place on Martha’s Vineyard and they’d spent a week with me.
The house was much as I remembered it, but it had matured with the boys. What had been the guest room was now Christopher’s room, and what had been the playroom was the guest room, around the corner from the kitchen. The baby gates and the other children’s accessories that had littered every room the last time I’d been here were long gone. Because the family had filled as much room as the house had to offer, Leo had started the addition. Their bungalow in the northeast quadrant of the city had four bedrooms and was larger inside than it looked from the street, but with three boys, Leo had written in one email, there was no such thing as too much room. I thought the rooms downstairs were painted different colors than when I’d been here before. The dining room was red now, striking, and I didn’t remember it that way. Audrey and Leo might have repainted, but I didn’t ask. Maybe the paint was the same and I was different. I might not have noticed such things twelve years ago. Photographs lined the mantel. School portraits of the boys that I’d never seen. Several of all five of them. Leo and Audrey with Christopher as a baby. A portrait of Audrey and Leo on their wedding day, and one of the two of them from a day they’d gone skiing, their goggles pushed up, Leo’s bulky glove wrapped around Audrey’s shoulder. She had to know it was there. I’d only been in the house five minutes, but I felt like taking it down and putting it away. No one needed to see that. There were at least eight flower arrangements, a few sitting in each room, that looked like they had been set down haphazardly and without much thought.
“I made coffee,” she said, and poured me a cup. “How was the flight?”
“It was fine,” I said. “It got me here.”
“Did you sleep?” she said.
“Nah, I couldn’t.”
“Do you need to take a nap?” she said.
I sipped the coffee and shook my head. “It will just mess me up for tonight. I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she said. She hadn’t stopped moving since we’d walked into the house. “Listen. My parents and Leo’s parents are here, Maureen and my brother are too. Everyone’s at the same hotel.”
I knew Leo’s family—his parents Glenn and Libby, and his sister, Maureen—as well as I knew my own. I’d met Audrey’s parents, Marty and Claudia Lanigan, and her brother, Gabe, at their wedding.
She rested her hands on the counter and looked out the window above the sink. “Glenn keeps saying to me, ‘Whatever you need, Audrey, whatever you need.’ What I need he can’t give me, no one can. They’ve lost their son.”
“I know,” I said. I had traveled this terrain when my mother died, but hers had been a very different death. “People don’t think they know what to do, but they’re always capable of more than they imagined. If you can, just give them some direction. Or I will if you want me to. My father will be here on Friday.”
She turned away from the window and looked at me and nodded. “That’s so nice of him.” She got a tissue and blotted her face. “So I need your help,” she said. “Maybe you want to shower first, but I need you to help me buy a suit this afternoon. A suit for Leo.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what she meant.
She wiped the counter and loaded the dishwasher. She was back to moving again, confused but committed. “I have to take his clothes to Matt MacKay, to the funeral home, and I need a suit,” she said. “I’m sure everyone expects me to bury him in his dress blues, but I won’t. I’m not putting anything in the ground with him that he’s ever touched or worn. So I’m buying a suit for him to wear for one thing only. And with a closed casket, it doesn’t matter anyway. Let everyone think they know what he’s wearing inside.”
“Okay,” I said. Now I knew what she meant.
“You have to try it on,” she said. “I know if it fits you, it will fit him.” I felt like I was scheming with the wife of someone who was still alive, a wife who wanted to surprise her husband with a gift.
“Okay,” I said for the third time in a row. Maybe that’s all I was going to do while I was here. Agree with everything Audrey said.
We drove out of Portland, to a vast mall, and when we walked into Jos. A. Bank, four salesmen descended upon us, and one woman. She was the one Audrey spoke to.
“We could use a little help,” she said. “Can you give us some time to ourselves after we find what we’re looking for?”
“Absolutely,” said the woman. “I’m Deirdre. I’m here to help as much or as little as you want. Please let me know what you need.”
“Thank you,” Audrey said. “Can we look at some of your nicest suits? We’re looking for navy.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “For him.”
We followed Deirdre and we weren’t there fifteen minutes before I was wearing the suit—Leo’s suit—Signature Platinum Wool, Navy Thin Stripe. It was five dollars shy of $2,200.
“If you don’t mind my saying,” said Deirdre, “this is beautiful on you, and the right size, but taking it in a bit”—she pulled at the back of the jacket and looked at Audrey—“don’t you think, will make it exquisite.”
“Thank you,” said Audrey again. “It’s actually a surprise for my husband and I think it will be a perfect fit.” I felt lightheaded. I realized I’d been holding my breath. I exhaled. “If he tries it on and we need to adjust it, we’ll be back.” I needed to sit down. I wanted to take the suit off.
“Oh, I’m very sorry,” said Deirdre. “I thought you were together.”
Audrey smiled. “Thanks again for your help. I think we have what we need, but we’ll let you know if we want to see something else.” I knew she was doing what she needed to, to get through this purchase she insisted on making, but I was about to come undone.
Thank God Deirdre got the hint, since those people don’t always, and she left us alone.
“Thank you, Garrett,” Audrey said. Her eyes filled. She put her arm through mine and we looked at our reflections in the mirror staring back. “This is what I wanted. It’s close enough to his uniform. Leo always looked so good in blue. So do you.”
“It’s a good suit,” I said to the mirror. “It’s a beautiful suit.” I couldn’t wait to rip the fucking thing off.
Audrey wiped her face. She seemed at once the most fragile of creatures and a peerless force to be dealt with. “I’m going to pick out a shirt and tie,” she said. “I’ll take this with me.” She slipped the jacket off my shoulders. She patted my back, draped the jacket over her arm, and walked away.
I went into the dressing room, sat on the bench with my face in my hands, and took deep breaths until I was ready to meet Audrey and hand over the pants. The fatigue from the flight and the weight of buying Leo’s suit combined and refused to waver. I couldn’t look in the mirror and acknowledge the image of my living self, so I turned my back while I changed. I don’t know how many men had tried on
that suit, but I was going to be the last person who did before Leo wore it till the end of time.
Audrey
The day after I bought Leo’s suit, I went to Ann Taylor alone. Erin offered to come with me. “You need help,” she said.
“No, I can do it by myself,” I said. “But if you could, would you take the boys shopping and I’ll meet you downtown? Christopher is the only one with a suit.”
“Done,” she said.
I didn’t think about it until I was shopping alone. How Garrett had tried on that beautiful suit while I lied to that nice woman who helped us. He looked sick by the time I paid, and I wondered if I had asked too much of him. How would I have felt if someone had asked me to be the model for a dead woman who would be the next and last person to wear what I’d tried on? Garrett hadn’t said anything, of course he hadn’t, and by the next day it felt too late for me to bring it up. After we’d left Washington Square, I’d dropped him off at the house and had taken the suit, shirt and tie, socks, and boxers I’d bought to the funeral home. This is what he’s wearing, I told Matt MacKay.
I knew what I wanted at Ann Taylor and declined all the offers for help. A dark gray suit—I refused to wear black, and I refused to wear a skirt or a dress—and one was easy to find. I was in and out of Pioneer Place in fifteen minutes. It had taken me longer to park.
Erin had picked up Brian and Andrew when I’d left the house. I texted her as I walked the few blocks to Nordstrom. We’re here, in the Boys Department, she wrote back.
By the time I saw them, Erin had already found each of the boys a dress shirt and suit; navy for Brian and gray for Andrew. No black for them either, and I was so relieved and grateful for Erin’s having made exactly those choices, even though I hadn’t said anything the way I’d meant to but forgot. The boys were both quiet and stoic, Andrew looking angrier than Brian, and Brian looking like he couldn’t leave the place soon enough.