by Jewel E. Ann
I grunted a breath, biting the corner of my lower lip and shaking my head. “I …” My voice cracked. “I don’t know h-how I’m s-supposed to live without you.” I fell apart.
My parents made their way to me, doing what parents did best—offering comfort in the face of grief.
Maybe Katie was okay because she didn’t understand like I did. I was a mom. I knew how special that bond was between a mother and a child. I knew firsthand what it was like to have another human need you for their own survival … their own existence. And I also knew that feeling never really disappeared. We never stopped needing our moms.
After my mind made its way to something resembling acceptance, we took the kids to lunch and the zoo. I needed to get home, but I couldn’t leave her yet, so we stayed for dinner too.
“Oh look!” I held up my phone to show Franz. “It’s Daddy. He’s probably wondering where we are.” I pressed the answer button. “Hey.” I tried to force some enthusiasm into my voice.
“Hey. I see you haven’t left yet. I’m not sure I want you on the road now this late at night.”
“I agree. I think we’re going to crash here tonight and head home after breakfast in the morning.”
“So what was the urgency?”
I closed my eyes and made my way down to my old bedroom, leaving the kids in the living room with my parents. Anya was fed and half asleep in my mom’s arms. After closing the door, I sat on the bed. It creaked underneath me. I couldn’t remember a time it didn’t creak.
“My mom’s cancer is back,” I said it as quickly as I could, feigning bravery in my voice even though tears instantly sprang from my eyes, and my body shook with silent sobs. So much for coming to terms with it. Clearly, it was still very raw and painful. I wasn’t sure “coming to terms” with someone dying, especially your mother or a child, was a real thing. An actual power humans possessed.
“Evelyn … I’m so sorry.”
I nodded and fought past the lump in my throat. Had I tried to say actual words past it, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my sobs silent any longer. So I just sat there, falling apart without making a sound while Ronin waited for a response I couldn’t give him.
“Are you still there?”
I had no choice. He deserved some sort of verbal response.
“Yeah …” I choked out the word.
“Oh, baby … are you crying?”
I responded with sobs—strangled, painful sobs that I couldn’t contain any longer.
“Oh, Evie …” His voice and all the sympathy it carried just made more emotion pour out of me.
“Do you need me tonight? I can drive down tonight. Do you want me to do that?”
I shook my head. If only he could have seen my physical gestures, so I didn’t have to squeak out the answers. “No … I’m … f-fine.” I grabbed a pillow and put it over my face to silence my grief, not only from Ronin, but from my parents and Franz too.
“Are you okay to drive home in the morning?”
“Yep.” Another clipped word made it out, each one clawing past the lump in my throat that had taken on a pulse of its own.
“Okay. Hug our babies and tell them I love them. I wish I was there right now to hug their mommy.”
God!
He wasn’t helping my situation.
“Hug your mom for me too.”
“K. Bye.” I ended the call, hoping he knew it was survival for me and nothing against him.
I held no illusion that my life was somehow exempt from loss and grief. Still … the pain cut deeply. There was no way to guard my heart no matter how hard I tried to see it through my mom’s eyes. We wanted the people we loved to live in our lives forever.
“Mommy …” Franz knocked on the door.
I opened it, hoping in the dim light he wouldn’t question my swollen eyes as I gazed into his innocent blue eyes. He was me. A crazy irony in our family. Franz had blond hair and blue eyes. I think it shocked everyone to see my genes expressed in him. Then Anya came along, the female version of Ronin with the darkest eyes and jet-black hair.
“I tired.” Franz rubbed his eyes.
“Oh … of course you are. It’s been a big day. Let’s wash you up. I think Grandma might have a spare pair of jammies here for you.”
I moved through the motions on autopilot, clinging to bedtime routine as a needed distraction. Franz nestled under the covers where the bed met the wall and wedged pillows filled the space between the two. I laid Anya in the middle of the bed and slid under the sheets beside her.
The door creaked open. “Night, baby.” Mom kissed my head.
I closed my eyes to ward off the tears. “Night, Mom,” I whispered. “I love you.”
“Love you too,” she whispered back, emotion thick in her voice.
I reached over and stroked Franz’s back. He sighed, drifting off to sleep. Then I did the same to Anya.
My world.
Somehow, maybe just the product of sheer emotional fatigue, I managed to close my eyes and find sleep. A reprieve from the day’s events.
I woke up feeling hot and disoriented. It wasn’t anything new. My kids had a gift of navigating toward my body in the middle of the night. But when I cracked open my eyes, they were both still on the other side of the bed, Anya crowding Franz. I was the one who had moved toward the middle of the bed. At that point, I realized the heat was at my back. A body was at my back, and familiar arms wrapped around me.
“Roe …” I whispered, turning toward his chest.
“Evie …” He kissed my forehead.
“You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
“For me …” I whispered over his lips, pressing my palms to his cheeks.
“For you.” He kissed me slowly.
I nestled my face into his neck, no longer caring how much heat our family of four emitted in that room. My Roe had come for me.
“This is our world.” I kissed his neck and ghosted my fingers along his bare back.
“It is.” He slid a leg between mine, probably to keep from falling out of bed.
“My mom is dying.” I would have cried had I not drained the tears earlier. I think by that point I was a little numb.
“Yes. I’m so sorry, Evie.” Ronin buried his nose in my hair.
“I can’t let it shatter our world.”
He inched his head side to side. “It won’t. I’ll hold it together. I’ll hold you together.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“He’s a natural!” Ronin declared, beaming with pride as the skiing crew filed into the house with their newest member—Franz.
My almost four-year-old could out ski me. Lovely.
“Mommy! I did it!” He ran into my arms.
“I’m so proud of you. I knew you’d be amazing.” I kissed along his rosy cheeks and neck until he giggled and squirmed out of my arms.
“Bathroom, buddy.” Ronin pointed toward the hallway, recognizing Franz’s potty dance.
“Be quiet. Anya’s napping.”
For Christmas, Santa brought Franz skis and a snowboard. The previous year, he got a sled. I preferred the sled. It was an activity I could do with him.
“He’s really good,” Graham smirked, peeling off his jacket.
I didn’t even care that my friend used my son’s achievement to poke fun at me. Governor Porter took the day off to see Franz go down the mountain for the first time on skis. My feelings of neglect, from both of my best friends, took a back seat that day because life had changed, and Franz mattered more to me and clearly more to them as well.
“He didn’t get too cold or scared or—” I started my mom spiel.
Lila wrapped her arms around me from my backside, nuzzling her cold nose into my neck as I made hot chocolate for everyone. “I played the mom role. He was fine the entire time.”
“I see. Did it make you want to play the mom role in a more permanent way?”
Lila stiffened just before releasing me. “Ha!” She returned a nervous
laugh, which died completely as soon as Graham looked at her.
He didn’t utter a word, and I couldn’t detect any decipherable expression on his face, but something clearly passed between them that was awkward and uncomfortable.
“How’s your Mom? I sent her a Christmas gift, but never got a reply,” Lila grabbed one of the mugs of hot chocolate and sipped it.
“They went to Italy. I told you that in a message I left you.” I couldn’t help but add the jab. Even if Lila had a long list of things she accomplished as the governor’s wife, being a good friend to me wasn’t on that list. Not anymore. After trying and failing to reach her numerous times after my mom shared the news about her cancer returning, I finally gave up and left Lila a message … a freaking message on her phone about my mother dying. I think I could have forgiven her for not answering my calls had she called me back, but she didn’t. Her condolences came in the form of a three-word text: “I’m so sorry.”
Lila ignored my jab. “Yes, but I thought it was only for two weeks.” She sat on the opposite end of the sofa as Graham preoccupied with his phone.
“It was. But then Ronin’s parents invited them to France for two more weeks.”
She stared into her mug of hot chocolate. “Oh, you didn’t tell me that part.”
I tried so hard to bite my tongue, but I felt too slighted by her lack of acknowledging me most of the time. “Well, you only respond to ten percent of my messages, so I probably didn’t figure it was worth mentioning. I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop with the big things … like when she dies.”
“Evelyn …”
I turned as Ronin said my name, a look of shock held hostage on his face. Graham and Lila had the same look.
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“A word, Evelyn.” Graham stood, tugging on the sleeves to his thermal pullover.
On a sigh, I stomped to the bedroom, ignoring Ronin’s eyes on me. Graham closed the door and leaned against it.
“We love Lila more. Weren’t those your words?”
I grunted a laugh, gazing out the window at the snowy Rockies. “That was about you and me. This is about me and Lila, about more than thirty years of friendship, about my mom stepping in to love her and treat her like a daughter after Lila’s parents died.”
I turned, crossing my arms over my chest. “Or maybe this is between us, Graham. As I recall, you made it clear that once you became governor I wouldn’t get to spend as much time with Lila. So here it is … I got the news that my mom’s cancer was back and had spread to her brain. I got the news that she has, at most, one year to live. And when I needed my best friend, she didn’t answer her phone. When I finally gave up and left a message, she replied with a text. A fucking text!”
Graham flinched.
Biting my upper lip, I shook my head. “So are you blocking me from Lila or is she just blatantly ignoring me? Giving our friendship the middle finger? Because I’m hurt …” I blinked several times to ward off the tears. “And I’m angry. And I just want to know why this is happening. I want to know why, when I need her the most, she’s not here for me. You’re not here for me.”
“Evelyn …” He took slow steps toward me. “I’m here for you. Do you need money? Do you need—”
I shook off his attempts to take another step, pressing my backside to the windowsill. “You are emotionally dead. I hate that I feel so indebted to you. I hate that you think everything can be solved with a check. I’m so glad I have Ronin and my kids because you are not my friend anymore. You don’t understand that what I need are people who will try to fill this huge fucking void that will be left in my heart when my mom dies. A void that can’t be filled with all the money in the world. And I hate that you’ve taken my best friend from me. I hate all of it, and I fucking hate you right now too.”
The muscles in Graham’s jaw pulsed steadily as he stared at me. Finally … finally I could see the tiniest hint of emotion in his eyes. Maybe saying that I hated him was going too far. Maybe telling Lila that I’d message her when my mom died was going too far. But as badly as words could hurt, the unspoken words hurt more. I’d rather be emotionally invested to the point of stepping out of bounds than emotionally dead. At least I cared enough to be hurt and angry … and say it.
I honestly felt as if Graham and Lila didn’t care at all. Feeling like I’d lost my two best friends felt like its own death.
“I love you, Evelyn.”
I laughed. “No. You don’t. You’re just proving a very important point about my marriage. You see … I’ve never said I love you to Ronin and he’s never said it to me.”
Graham’s eyes widened a fraction.
“Shocking, right?” I continued, “We missed the opportunity to throw that phrase out there like the next step in our relationship. And by the time we felt the desire to say the actual words, it was too late. We’d become so much more than a common and overused phrase. And you just proved that point. You throw it out there like it can solve every problem. But after a while, people build up this immunity to those words. They lose their effect. They become a crutch when you’re too lazy to go the extra mile and actually show someone how you feel. Show them how much you love them.
“I’m immune to your empty words, Graham. I’m immune to your money. I need more from you. And if you can’t give me more, then we don’t have anything left to say.”
After a heartbreaking silence settled between us, Graham left my bedroom. I heard a few indecipherable mumblings in the other room, then the front door clicked shut. Several seconds later, Ronin stood in the doorway to our bedroom, holding Anya as she yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
Ronin cocked his head to the side as Anya grabbed his cheeks, rubbing her hands over his stubble. “You do?”
“You’re going to say I was too hard on them.”
“I was going to say you stood up for yourself and your emotions, and I’m incredibly proud of you. I was going to say if they are truly your friends, they’ll come around and see how inconsiderate it was of them to not be there when you needed them. Then I was going to say we should make cookies with the kids.”
Didn’t see that coming.
“I think I just lost both of them.” I frowned.
“I think time will tell.”
That night we put Franz to bed, and Ronin rocked Anya to sleep while I called Lila. Screw Graham. Really, I had no feelings left to spare for him. But Lila was family. It would have broken my mom’s heart to hear our friendship had been severed over something so undefinable. Also, calling her was a test. I wanted to see if she’d answer her phone, if I meant enough to her, if she held any regret.
“Hey,” Lila answered in a solemn tone.
She answered. That was all that mattered to me. It meant something. A big something.
“Hey,” I replied on a sigh. A little relieved. A little sad.
“Evie, I don’t know what you said to Graham, but he’s visibly disturbed by it.”
“I don’t want to talk about Graham. I want to talk about us.”
“You don’t know what my life is like now, Evie. You don’t understand that my lack of being there for you isn’t because I don’t want to, it’s because I have so much pressure on me every single day. And it’s not an excuse for not doing more when you told me about your mom, it’s just my truth.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know your truth or understand how much pressure you have on you because you don’t talk to me. And if you’re really too busy to have a conversation with your best friend, then you need to give something else up before you lose yourself completely. That should worry you more than losing me. And if Graham doesn’t see it, then you need to make him see it. I worry you’re losing yourself in this new role, under the high pressure of being a Porter.”
“It’s just … I think it’s just the extra everything that comes with him being the governor. Once it’s ove
r, things will go back to normal.”
“Normal? What is your normal? I’d love to have lunch with my best friend some time to get to know her again, to get to know this new normal. I have a new normal too. Do you ever wonder how my life has changed since I got married and started a family? I realize our lives have gone in two very different directions, and there’s not much relatability anymore between our lives, but there’s history and friendship. There’s this comfort in feeling like you can confide in this person because they know you better than anyone else. Don’t you miss that? Don’t you miss having that safe zone where you can truly be yourself?”
Silence took its turn on the line. It was hard to say everything because some things weren’t definable. My reaction with Graham was a culmination of feeling the loss of my friends mixed with the extreme toxicity of my mom’s situation. Maybe … maybe I didn’t hate Graham, but I hated the situation. And … well, he should have shown the fuck up for me. Just once, I needed something from him that money couldn’t buy. I needed him to give me back my Lila.
“Tuesday afternoon. Lunch. I’ll come to you. Graham will be gone all week.”
I laughed a little. “What if he weren’t? Can we not have lunch when he’s in town?”
“Evelyn …” Lila sighed. “I’m trying. I want this. I’m sorry that my life isn’t as simplistic as you’d like it to be. But … I’m trying.”
Simplistic sprinted out the door when cancer attacked my mom’s brain. Lila was right; gone were the days of spur of the moment lunches, giggling over guys, and shutting down the bars because we had nothing better to do.
“Text me the time and place.”
“Thank you,” she whispered before ending the call.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I’m nervous. That’s crazy. Right? Why should I be nervous about lunch with my best friend? Well, other than the fact that I’m taking two young children with me, and we won’t actually get to talk that much.” I brushed through my hair and applied moisturizer to my face while Ronin finished showering.