West of You

by Christina Metcalf

  “Same old, same old. Crops were coming in nicely. She sold a few things on Etsy, which she was really happy about. She mentioned going to see you and how she hoped you didn’t drone on and on about Mike or Walsey.”

  That hurt.

  “I’m just tryin’ to be honest with you. Give you the full piece of the puzzle.”

  He wasn’t very good at metaphors.

  “Did you go anywhere?”

  “Nope. Just what I told you, grocery store and the diner and the drive to clear my head. We had a cookout for friends two days before she…” He trailed off. “It was kind of a redo of a party we had about a month before. It got a little out of hand but in a fun way and people had been asking us to have another one as soon as they recovered from their hangovers. I think we were building kind of a reputation as a fun time. But M didn’t want anything to do with it, which I guess was weird. She had always enjoyed our friends. I was the one who wanted her to myself. I like it quiet, ya know?”

  “Did they notice anything?”

  “I never asked them. But if I didn’t notice anything and you didn’t notice anything, why would they?”

  “Because they don’t know her like we do...did...should have.”

  It’s really hard to find the right words for that too.

  I’m not sure how it happened but that night we called and emailed the original list of friends and invited them over to grill out the following night. I could tell some of them were surprised to hear from Luke. I refused to make any of the calls myself, even though it would’ve been more efficient. I didn’t want them thinking he had a new girlfriend.

  He turned in early that night and I sat by the fire pit imagining what it would be like if she was still here. Knowing what I know now, I guess I’d have to talk less about Mike and Walsey. Maybe ask her more about her Etsy store.

  Suicide has made me bitter. I’m the one left so I have to deal with all of the things I did wrong but she gets off scott free. I have to replay countless hours of conversation over in my head. Think about all the times I was selfish or needy in our relationship, all the cries for help I must’ve missed and she gets to be the patron saint of lost causes sitting on high.

  Don't you see the color of my pictures of you?

  Luke was out of the house early the next morning but not too early that he didn’t make coffee and leave me a note about how to turn on the TV. I guess he figured I was a mom and needed help with that sort of stuff. And I did.

  After reading the directions so many times I had to get a second cup of coffee to get through them, I finally landed on the motherload of DVR shows she had saved, still on there three months after she took her last drive.

  Gardening shows, cooking shows, first and last episodes of the Bachelor. She was right though, the middles were all the same. Seeing all of her unwatched shows waiting for her to have some time in her schedule to view them made me feel that same crushing blow I had when Luke asked me in our first tearful conversation if I believed in an afterlife. What if she isn’t at peace? What if she’s nothing? What if she’s worm food? The last question was one I had added and one he didn’t acknowledge. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say.

  ✽✽✽

  #1,000,283 on the list of things she’ll never do again: say something morbidly awkward to a man who just lost the love of his life, so awkward that he stops sobbing just to process the awful thing you just said.

  ✽✽✽

  Next, I walked into their bedroom. There were dead flowers on what I imagined to be her side of the bed. The room felt cold and damp like the door hadn’t been open in a while. Since he was staying out in the barn while I was a guest I knew Luke hadn’t been in this room for days but I wondered if he had been in it at all this summer.

  I fingered the clothes in the closet, willing them to tell me what she had been thinking those last few days. Her wicker hamper stood in the back like a relic from a bygone era. I lifted the lid and saw her things as if she had just cast them off yesterday.

  Three months. Three months these clothes had waited to be fished out and cleaned so they could be worn again. I pulled out a white tee and sniffed it. It smelled like her, that expensive lotion she’d used since college, probably before. I had never smelled it on anyone else, a mix of clean cotton and gardenia.

  I was surrounded by sundresses she would never wear, sweaters that would remain in this closet until he could deal with them. Memories of events. That purple dress she wore to my wedding. The boa she strolled around Vegas in that barely covered her rhinestone-covered bra. But she had paid hundreds at La Perla for it so she argued that she wanted it to be seen. A dress she bought on a spring break trip to Mexico over two decades ago, the kind that looks so awesome on vacation that you’re sure you’ll wear it when you get home so you’ll always remember the way you danced all night to the sounds of Mariachi bands. But after the tequila buzz wears off and you’re back on US soil, you realize you just can’t wear a dress like that to Walmart.

  She kept them all. In her drawers she still had every one of our sorority t-shirts that she had designed. I grabbed the stack and placed them on my duffle bag. I was torn about whether I needed to ask Luke for permission to take them or just stuff them in my bag and pretend not to remember if he asked. I figured I’d address that question after everyone left.

  If I was M where else I would go on that fateful day? She had mentioned she needed to do laundry and go to the grocery store. She never mentioned the argument with Luke.

  But that was also where he said he was because she told him she wasn’t feeling up to it. Why would she rush me off the phone to go to the grocery store when she knew that’s where Luke was? How did they not bump into each other?

  I sat on the cool cement steps that led out to the laundry room. The washer and dryer were empty but a basket of her clothes sat in between the two machines. I didn’t feel like smelling the clothes to find out if they were dirty or clean so I left them there like I left my children, under the care of someone else.

  Sitting on the other side of the machines was a large cardboard box with the words “Red Cross” emblazoned on the tops and sides. So maybe he had boxed some of her stuff up. Maybe he had started to do so before I called him to tell him I was coming. Relief washed over me until I viewed the contents.

  I took one item out and then another. They looked nothing like what was in her closet. Her closet was a museum to her life. What was in this box would be clothes she would wear every day. Clothes in her current size and in today’s styles. Why would someone give away all of their good clothes and keep all of their relics? I double-checked the handwritten Red Cross. It was her writing. She packed this bag and for some reason she didn’t think she’d ever need any of her cutest clothes again. Everything sexy, trendy, and form-fitting was going to make some person who had lost their home due to fire, flood, or tornado very happy, and their spouse as well.

  I sat at the kitchen table picking at my split ends until well into the afternoon. I had a staring contest with the air plant in the magnet planter on the fridge. It was the only plant in the house, barn, and yard that was still alive, if you didn’t count crops. Why is it that some plants were designed to subsist on air and others need nurturing and the right pH balances in their soil? It just doesn’t seem fair, some are destined for destruction because they require too much, things they can’t get for themselves. Even if they can lean into the sunlight and grow to reach it, if Mother Nature or some kind benefactor isn’t there to provide the water, they’ll never make it. I don’t want to be a plant.

  After moping around her house, I realized he had touched absolutely nothing since her death. It was like he wasn’t even living there. Her coffee cup with her favorite red lipstick stain was still on her bedside table. A few of the dead flower petals had even dropped into it.

  Luke and I had a lot to talk about. I wondered if he had been seeing someone. Maybe she found out. His guilt kept him emotionally locked up. Maybe all of his plea
dings for me to help him understand it was really him just trying to figure out how much I knew.

  But would she really kill herself if she knew he was with someone else? Wouldn’t that have made her angry enough to kill him and wouldn’t she have told me? Friends always tell friends. Unless they don’t want the relationship to end. You can never tell your BFF that your guy is a slimy cheat if you want to stay with him because that girlfriend will have a much longer memory than you do. When all is forgiven because of the diamond tennis bracelet, fun night with a little too much wine, followed by breakfast in bed and flowers at work, when you’re laying in bed enamored of all he’s capable of in wooing you back, your girlfriend will remember and she won’t let you forget.

  When I told M about Mike cheating on me and how it was over, she asked me if we could go to counseling and work things out for the kids. I said no immediately. She asked how I could be so sure. And I said because I had just told her. If I wanted to stay, it’s a secret I would’ve had to bear.

  “Well, if my guy ever cheated on me, I’d cut off his balls. No. I’d make him a eunuch using a dull, rusty knife.”

  “You would not. Not if you had kids with him.”

  “Well, if I already had the kids, why would I want him to have any more?” She laughed at herself and I joined in but only because it seemed like the polite thing to do. In truth, I wasn’t laughing. I was crying but from 2,000 miles away she didn’t know and I didn’t say.

  “But seriously. You are really brave to end it. Even if you have reason. I can’t imagine being a single mother. I would never want to do that, not ever.”

  While it sounded at the time like a compliment to my strength, I had yet to tell her that Mike requested the divorce and gave me little choice. He was already in love with a spice.

  Love Vigilante: fight your secret war

  While waiting for Luke it occured to me M might want to see her house one last time. I had every intention of leaving tomorrow or the next day. It was too easy to be here in this tiny Texas town where I was staying with the brother of the sheriff and neighbors, while visible, weren’t up in your business and where ex-husbands didn’t procreate with anyone other than their beloved wives. And where men didn’t wear skinny jeans and didn’t complain about needing things like a mentor to be a man. It was too easy to stay in this place that the years had forgotten and where the trains still ran on time.

  Being here with Luke showed me exactly how predictable those trains were. You could set your watch by them or end your life that way, whatever suited you. But either way, you’d know exactly when it would happen.

  I hadn’t thought that leaving her out in the car would make her any worse for the wear but the baggie did seem somewhat softer to the touch likely from the over 100-degree heat she was sitting through for the past two days. I guess I should’ve thought of that but I figured plastic could stand the heat. Weren’t the environmentalists always talking about how plastic stayed around for billions of years. If the Texas sun was enough to melt plastic then they should just bring all the plastic baggies to a landfill in Texas. Problem solved.

  I left her out in the car for a little longer while I ran in to get a new baggie. It reminded me a little of an I Dream of Genie episode in which they had to find her a new bottle, probably because she did something to the last one. That genie was always getting into trouble. At least she was pretty. She was dust now too.

  After rooting around in Luke’s drawers...wait, that doesn’t sound right….the only baggies I could find had hearts on them for Valentine’s Day. Good enough. But there is a huge amount of irony putting M into a heart bag when she cared so little for herself. I wonder if she ever thought how close to trash she would be.

  It had been strange to me when she died and her parents took over all the planning. I guess Luke was too overcome with grief to handle any of it or maybe they guilted him into handling it because he wasn’t “technically” her family. Boys and girls….this is why marriage matters. Because when one of you dies the other should have a say in how your mortal remains are disposed of. I don’t know if Luke handed her over freely or not and honestly, I’m not sure how much of her was gatherable. Some poor soul had a terrible job on the 26th of June.

  As I placed her old baggie within the safe confines of her new one, it occured to me this might not be M at all. It could be Merlin. Ain’t that a kick? My last and only road trip with my friend and I’m actually hauling her dog around.

  This realization makes me laugh a lot more than I probably would have without easy access to the keg and growler. A growler is a safe bet. When Luke asks me how much I’ve had to drink, I can tell him one bottle. A growler is still a bottle. I’m very smart when I drink. Plus, it’s not like he had any Mountain Dew. I was parched.

  I guess my mind was on ashy Merlin and how good the beer tastes when it’s really hot. That’s the only reason I can figure I didn’t hear Luke. When he came up behind me and asked, “Is that her?” I almost dropped the baggie.

  Sober me would’ve told him something dumb like “Naw, it’s my other best friend who was incinerated.” But drunk me is a lot more witty so I said, “It’s either her or your dog.”

  Upon being told this, if I was still seeing my shrink, he probably would’ve said something like, “Do you see where that might not have been the right choice of words for the time? What other solutions or phrases could you have chosen?” Noted.

  I put her in the house next to my growler and went out to help him carry in all the “fixins” for tonight.

  “So you went to the grocery store?”

  “How drunk are you?” he asked holding the screen door open for me. “Is there any of the keg left?”

  “No. I mean the day of…”

  He puzzled over my words for a moment.

  “Ahhh. I told you I did.”

  “That’s not the same thing as actually going.” I reminded him as I pulled out ear after ear of corn out of the bag. “Are your friends chickens? How much corn did you need?”

  “You can never have too much.”

  I expect him to crack a smile but he looks very serious. Texans take their flag, and apparently corn, very seriously.

  “You told me you guys had a fight because she wouldn’t go to the store but she told me on the phone that’s one of the reasons she had to get off so she could go and you told me there were unpacked groceries on the counter when you got home. You said you cleaned up a puddle of melted ice cream while you were yelling for her. And then you couldn’t find her.”

  “Yep.”

  “So why’d you both go? And why didn’t you run into each other? If she thought you were going, why would she rush off the phone with me to go herself?”

  “We fought about how there wasn’t anything fresh in the house. She didn’t see a reason to go because we had plans for the next few nights, a dinner with friends, our anniversary, and then a cookout with Roger. We bickered about which one of us was right, which is weird because it’s the only time I can remember really arguing. So I stormed out.”

  “She didn’t kill herself because you yelled at her for not having milk in the house, ya know.”

  “And she didn’t kill herself because she was tired of hearing you talk about Walsey.”

  We exchanged small smiles.

  “I don’t even know why I cared. When I took over my dad’s farm, she was so excited. I never expected her to do anything here. This was my dream but she did. And I guess I got used to it. But lately...I mean before…” he made a motion with his hand that apparently stood for a locomotive barreling down the tracks and killing her, “...she hadn’t been doing anything around here. Not in the house or the property or with the animals. It’s a lot of work, especially that time of year. I was really tired, not at my best.”

  “You don’t have to justify it to me. Couples fight. It’s okay.”

  “If I could have that day again, I wouldn’t have picked on her. Why does she have to be the one to go get the groceri
es? No reason I couldn’t have done it. So I stopped at the farm stand. I purposely went there because I knew they wouldn’t have the one thing she had added to the list. I did it to spite her.”

  “What one thing?”

  “Tampons. I didn’t feel like buying her tampons.”

  “Did you usually?”

  I hated buying my own tampons. I couldn’t imagine a man buying them for me.

  “I would if they were on the list. So I was sitting there in the farmstand parking lot trying to decide if it was too early for a beer and she texted me and said she was sorry. She would go to the grocery store and do our usual shopping. Do you know what I texted back?”

  “Get your own tampons?”

  “Nope. Well, I did say I didn’t get them and she said she didn’t need them anyway. Then she asked if I wanted her to go to the store...and this is the part that kills me. I texted ‘do whatever you want. You always do anyway.’ What does that even mean? Those were the last words she saw from me. She texted ‘sorry’ and I went radio silent.”

  “Oh, Luke.”

  He pulled open his phone and handed it to me.

  “Here. Read it for yourself and then tell me she didn’t kill herself because of me.”

  Good times fade into you

  If you absolutely hate someone who loves you and you want to punish them, kill yourself. As the saying goes, “The pain doesn’t end with suicide. It’s just given to someone else.”

  At that moment as I read over their last text conversation I knew Luke would never love anyone else the way he loved her. He just wouldn’t be able to take that kind of pain. How could any of us?