by Robin Hill
“You cut off the crusts.”
“Just like your mama used to.”
She rounds the island with a bowl of soup in each hand, and I take them from her before helping her onto a barstool.
“Sometimes there is nothing we can do to help the people we love so we do what we can to make them smile,” she says as she adjusts herself in her seat. “Your mama said that to me after I lost my Theodore. Dios mío. That was a long time ago. I was still working for your grandma.”
“You worked for Gram?”
“Sí. It wasn’t until you were born that I came to work for your parents.” She pulls off a piece of her sandwich and dips it in her soup. “I have known you your whole life, mijo, and I mostly stay out of your business…”
“But…”
“But”—she smiles—“I have something to say. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but I want you to listen.”
I begin to protest but decide it’s pointless and swallow a spoonful of soup instead.
“I think you should talk to her,” she says, then pops the piece of dipped grilled cheese in her mouth.
My head falls back. “I’ve already been over this with Drew. I’m not calling Francesca.”
“I’m not talking about Ms. Frankie.” She pulls off another piece. “I’m talking about Ms. Julia.”
The little bit I’ve eaten settles in the pit of my stomach like a pile of bricks. I pick up my spoon, swirl it around my bowl, and then set it back on my plate. “Julia.”
“I was nineteen when I found out my Theodore wasn’t coming home from Vietnam, and I still talk to him almost every single day. You should try it. He gives me peace.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Everything, mijo. The weather, politics, you. When I’m sad, he makes me smile, and my smile makes him happy.” Her small hand wraps around mine and holds it tight. “Theodore was my first love, but that doesn’t mean he was my only. If I were to find love again, I know he’d be happy for me.”
“How do you know?”
She nudges my arm with her elbow. “I told you, mijo. We talk.”
“Talk to Julia,” Gloria said.
I don’t think she meant talk to Julia at the cemetery, yet here I am.
When Julia’s mom proposed headstones and cemetery space, I didn’t argue. It was something she said she needed, and I wasn’t about to deny her.
There’s nothing to bury, I screamed in my head, but my voice stayed silent.
I showed up for the funeral because it was expected of me, but I haven’t been back since. Not until today.
And now that I’m here, I feel even more pitiful than I did at home.
What do you say to the people you loved most in the world, the people you abandoned because they were just too hard to think about?
How’s it going? Sorry I haven’t dropped by in the last ten years?
I stuff my hands in my pockets, fists closed tight and nails digging into my palms.
Been keeping pretty busy. You know how it is.
My shoulders sag in a way they haven’t since I was seven years old. My eyes are so heavy with shame, they can only look down. I wonder what my family thinks of me right now, showing up after all this time.
“I am sorry.” Saying it out loud feels foreign and painful in my ears, but saying it out loud to them is gutting. “I miss you guys so much, and just thinking about you, it’s…impossible. I don’t do it. I can’t do it. It’s my fucking fault you’re gone.”
A wave of nausea washes over me, pitching my body forward until I’m hunched over, clutching my stomach. “Drew says it’s survivor’s guilt, but you know the truth. I put you on that plane—me—because I didn’t want to let Annie down.” My voice breaks and I can feel the tears welling inside me, stinging my throat, the backs of my eyes. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to stop it, but it’s no use, and as soon as my gaze locks on my little girl’s name, I begin to crumble.
“God, Annie.” I crouch down to her headstone, arms folded over the top, forehead resting on the beveled edge. “It’s Daddy, honey.” The tears I couldn’t hold back spill down the surface of her memorial, cutting through layers of dirt and grime. “It’s your birthday.”
With my hand clenched in a fist, I try to scrub it off, but if anything, I make it worse.
Next time I’ll bring something to clean it with, I think idly.
But there probably won’t be a next time. I don’t think I can do this again.
“You’d be starting high school this year. Can you believe that? My sweet girl, all grown-up.”
I picture Annie as a teenaged Julia, with the same wild brunette curls and big brown eyes. She looked so much like her mother at four; I’m sure she would’ve at fourteen. I used to joke, if it weren’t for her dimple, no one would believe she was mine. It was the only physical trait I gave her, and it was always visible, just like mine used to be.
“I wanted to teach you how to play guitar. I used to tell your mom we’d have our own band one day.”
Jules would roll those big brown eyes of hers every time I brought up the idea, but on Annie’s fourth birthday, she gave her a pink guitar.
“That would’ve been something, huh? We could have opened for Daddy’s other band. Your mom thought that was silly. She’d say, ‘No one wants to see you open for yourself,’ but I think we’d have been a hit.”
“Think of a name yet?” Julia asked as she put the last plate in the dishwasher.
“Sucks that The Doors is taken. What do you think about The Windows?”
She spun around. “Oh God, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“You don’t like it?” I shrugged. “I’ve got ten years. I’ll come up with something.”
“Ten years? You’re delusional. No way Annie’s going to be in a rock band with her daddy when she could be out with boys.”
I arched my brows at her. “You’re going to let her date at fourteen?”
“Now that I think about it, The Windows does have a nice ring to it.”
A small smile pulls at my lips as the memory fades. “I think we were both delusional. I’m sure you would’ve had a boyfriend by now, and I would’ve hated him. Dads are supposed to, you know.”
I push to my feet and dry my eyes on my shirtsleeve.
“Your mom wasn’t allowed to date until she was seventeen, but since we were together all the time anyway, your grandma caved. Our first date was at a botanical garden not far from here. I wanted to surround her with flowers that were still growing and not stuck in vases in the back of our delivery van.”
I turn toward my wife’s headstone. “Do you remember that, Jules? I promised I’d marry you and build you a house in a field of flowers.”
Reality was a two-story walk-up in Coral Terrace. It wasn’t much, but it was ours. We talked about moving, and when things with the band started to take off, it became a possibility. But then we booked a tour, and…
“I know how much you hated me being gone all the time, and Annie was so young. If I could go back, I swear, I’d quit the band and live there forever with the two of you in that tiny apartment.” I drop to my knees in front of her headstone. “Why did you get on that plane, Jules?”
A sharp pain stabs my chest at the sight of her name—the name her mother started and I completed—etched forever in a dusty slab of granite.
Julia March Fox.
I tear my gaze away and stare straight ahead, past the nameless, faceless graves that don’t belong to me. Past the chain-link fence on the other side of the cemetery. Past the line of palm trees that border the street. Then I look up as pinks, purples, and oranges absorb the baby-blue sky and I know it will be dark soon.
“Do we have to leave right now? And miss the sunset? Annie’s having so much fun building sand castles, and it’s romantic.”
“Who am I to stand in the way of sand castles and romance?” I pointed a finger at my wife. “But she’s going straight to bed when we get home. And so are
you.”
“Mr. Fox, what do you have in mind?”
“Well, Mrs. Fox, I thought I’d bend you over our bed and fuck you so hard, you’ll—ouch! You hit me!”
Julia’s hands flew to her hips. “Stop teasing me!”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“Oh please, Jules,” I begged. “It’s so fucking cute when you say it.”
“Fine. I want you to make love to me.” Her face turned crimson. “Now stop laughing!”
“I can’t help it. You turn bright red every time. Say it again.”
“Make love to me.”
“One more time.”
“Make love to me, Darian.”
“I miss you so fucking much. Why did you listen to me? Why did you get on that fucking plane?” I drag my hand down my face. “You didn’t want to go. Why didn’t you refuse? Not once in our whole relationship had you ever backed down from me. I loved that about you. So why the hell did you choose that day to finally do it?
“Every morning for years I’d wake up, expecting to find you lying next to me. But it’s not you anymore, Jules; it’s…her.”
My confession knocks the wind out of me and I fall forward, gasping for air. I close my eyes and breathe through the pain. Deep, palliative breaths.
Inhale.
“Baby, I met someone.”
Exhale.
Other than the faint sound of a lawn mower buzzing in the distance, the cemetery is peaceful and quiet.
Inhale.
And when the wind blows, there’s something sweet in the air, like jasmine or…honeysuckle.
Exhale.
“She’s different from you in so many ways, but she has your quick wit and determination.” I push off the ground and sit back on my heels. “And she can definitely put me in my place, as I remember you doing often.
“She loves me, Jules. She’s beautiful and strong and she loves me and I let her go.” An angry, hollow groan rips from my throat. “She was just supposed to be a distraction, someone to take my mind off you, but I fucking fell in love with her. And, God, now I miss her like I miss you.”
“Then you should get her back.”
My heart stops at the sound of her voice. A voice so similar to Julia’s, it takes me a minute to digest that it isn’t her but her mother, who’s standing behind me.
Evelyn.
I buckle and my body collapses in a ball on the grass, trembling from sobs that make no sound.
“Shh…there, there,” she whispers, kneeling beside me. Her arms wrap around me with a familiarity I haven’t felt in years. “My sweet, sweet boy. How I’ve missed you.”
She holds me close to her, rocking me as she smooths her hand over my back.
“This girl, this woman you speak of—she sounds pretty special. Do you really think so little of my Julia? Do you honestly believe she wouldn’t have wanted you to move on? Be happy?”
Bravery pushes through her brittle voice. She’s trying to be strong for me, and even though I know I don’t deserve it, I need it. I need her. I slowly lift my head, and she tucks it into the crook of her neck. She smells exactly the same, like flowers and cinnamon. It’s comforting, and I don’t deserve that either.
“I miss them so much.”
“I know, baby. I do too. But you can’t stop living because they’re gone. You’ve been lucky enough to find love twice? Are you really just going to let it slip away?”
“It was my fault. If I’d…”
“Hush now. I never want to hear you say that again. You didn’t cause that plane to go down. You didn’t take them from me. God did that, not you. But you, my love, you broke my heart. I shouldn’t have had to mourn you too. I come here almost every day, hoping against hope you’ll show. I guess today is my lucky day. On Annie’s birthday no less.”
“I’m sorry…I was so lost…I…”
Evelyn’s arms tighten around me. “No more apologies, baby. I think you’ve done enough of that today. Everyone has to grieve in their own way. I know how hard it has been for me. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for you. I’m just happy you’re here now.”
I look up at her. Her straight, chin-length hair is almost completely silver, and her beautiful brown eyes—identical to Julia’s and Annie’s—are framed by a new set of wrinkles. But it’s her smile that stands out to me; it hasn’t changed.
All the pain I’ve caused her, and her smile for me is the same.
"Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Oh, my boy,” she says with a resigned laugh. “I’ve known you since you were sixteen years old. I know you did what you had to for your own survival, and I accepted it because, well, what choice did I have? But don’t think for a second that you were out of my life. I was just out of yours for a little while.” She presses a kiss to my temple. “What’s her name?”
“Francesca.”
“Francesca. That’s a beautiful name,” she says. “And you love her?”
“Yes, I love her. I love her and it’s killing me to be away from her.”
“Does Francesca live here in Miami?”
“Texas.”
“Texas,” she says. She combs her fingers through my hair, fussing with it until every strand is back in place. “Sounds to me like you have a plane to catch.”
“I can’t. I hurt her. She deserves better. And Julia…” I turn to face her headstone. “She deserves better.”
“Julia’s gone. And, Darian, honey, you’re the very best there is. Julia knew it, and I know it. Francesca will too.” She cups my chin in her small hand and draws my gaze back to her. “You had a horrific thing happen to you. Just be honest with her. And patient. She’ll come around.” Her eyes are warm as they rake over me. “How could she not?”
She uses my shoulders to push herself up, then holds out her hand. “You go fix this mess you’ve made with Francesca, and then you come see me. Do you hear me? Darian Thomas Fox, I swear to God, if you disappear on me again, I’ll stalk you like the crazy lady you know me to be.” Her shoulders sag in a sigh. “I’ve never lost sight of you, sweetheart. All these years, I’ve kept up with you. Kept tabs. But staying away from you has been the worst kind of torture. Please don’t make me do that anymore.”
“I promise you, I won’t.”
I can’t.
I stand up, forcing a heavy swallow down my throat as I take in my mother-in-law. I did what I thought I had to do to survive, but it doesn’t make it right, does it?
“I love you so much,” I say to her, “and I am…I’m so—”
“Shh,” she says, squeezing my hand. “I love you too.”
Evelyn’s right; I have a plane to catch, but it’s too late to charter one. So I do the one thing I swore I’d never do. I drive to Miami International and buy a one-way ticket for a commercial flight.
I refuse to wait another second. I miss her that goddamn much. For the first time in ten years, my mind’s at peace, quiet, but for one thought: go to her.
But once I get to the terminal, it’s all I can do to keep it quiet. It remembers being here, and it remembers the agony that followed. It’s telling me how stupid I am. It’s asking me what I’m thinking. It wants to know how I can board a flight to see her in the very same airport I last saw them.
It’s just a place.
I draw in deep breaths.
It’s just a building with walls.
My ears swallow the noises around me until they all blend together in a single shrill ring. Sweat begins to bead on my forehead.
It’s just this place. It’s this building, these walls.
A chill shoots up my spine, causing my damp skin to prickle. I rub my arms to warm them and close my eyes.
Once I’m on the plane, I’ll be fine.
Memories of that day begin to circle like sharks, smiling at me with razor-sharp teeth, mocking me before dragging me under.
“Bye,
Annie, honey. You be a good girl for Mommy, okay?”
“I will, Daddy.”
Panic tears away every last stitch of calm, and I know I need to move.
Stand, Fox. Just stand up.
I push out of my chair, my eyes darting around the busy terminal.
Move, dammit!
My feet are as heavy as lead as I drag them away from the gate. It’s like trudging through quicksand, each step more grueling than the last. I don’t make it far before they stop, leaving me stranded in the middle of the busy concourse with tingling limbs and a roiling stomach. The room begins to spin, and then everything goes dark.
“Sir, are you okay?”
“It’s this place,” I say.
“What place, sir?”
I pull myself together just enough to get out of the goddamn airport, and twenty long-as-fuck minutes later, I’m getting into my car. The pressure in my head eases to a dull thud, and I sit there with my door cracked, enjoying the stale air of the valet parking garage until a tap on the passenger window urges me on. I shift into drive and roll away from the curb.
Get me the fuck home.
I exit the airport and travel south toward my neighborhood, but as soon as I reach the interchange, my heart takes control of the wheel.
A nervous laugh bursts from my throat as the runway lights of Miami International fade in the rearview mirror.
I head east on the Dolphin Expressway and barrel north on 95.
Out of Miami.
Out of my past.
And straight to her.
CHAPTER 15
Love Her Madly
Drew: Making sure you’re alive. Call me.
Drew: Where are you? And where the hell is Gloria? Please don’t make me resort to calling She Devil.
Drew: Guess what I learned today? Amanda responds to expensive chocolate.
Drew: And you might want to call her. She’s not very happy with you right now.
Darian: Sorry. I’ve been driving. In Tallahassee, headed to Texas.