by Zeia Jameson
“Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you for asking me to help. I can’t explain to you how amazing that made me feel. I don’t even know really why it made me feel that way but just you thinking to include me made me feel...significant.”
“Is that why you’ve been so sad and closed off? Did you not feel significant?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain to you what it feels like to go through what I’ve been through these past six months. For a while, I worried constantly if I was doing everything right with Amelia—sometimes I still worry about that. But then, after a few months something just clicked and I went on autopilot and I began not to really care anymore if I was doing it right. Amelia was healthy and happy and that’s all that mattered. But then, I think I started to get bitter. Because, I was really proud of myself for figuring it out and not relying on your mother’s or anyone else’s help. I guess I was just waiting and waiting for the day that you’d come home and tell me you were proud of me for doing a great job.”
A knot wrenched in my gut. I can’t believe I just said those words out loud. Up until they passed my lips, I didn’t even really realize that’s how I felt. Deep down I’m not even sure if I was wholly mad at Jeremy for working so much. I was mad because I had accomplished doing the one thing I thought I would never be able to do—be a good mother—and no one was there to pat me on the shoulder and give me an atta-boy.
The elevator reaches our floor and I walk out without giving Jeremy a chance to respond to the epiphany I just blurted out. I don’t blame him for not responding immediately, because I don’t even really know what to say about it.
We make our way to our apartment and Jeremy unlocks the door. I feel as though our moods are a little deflated from what they were not just five minutes ago in the parking garage. After we are both inside and Jeremy closes the door, Jeremy starts, “Livy.” I turned to see Jeremy and the look on his face is heartbreaking. I almost wonder if he is about to cry. I immediately rush over to hug him. “What is it, Jeremy?”
“I’m so sorry.” He hugs me tightly. It’s not one of our normal get lost in each other hugs. This hug is desperate, as if he is holding onto me for dear life. Like I’m dying and he’s begging me to live.
“Jeremy?”
“I have thought a thousand times a day, ever since the day Amelia was born, that you are the most incredible mother Amelia could ever ask for. That I am so blessed to have found you to create and raise beautiful babies with. I can’t even begin to imagine how many times I’ve thought how lucky I am and how amazing you are. And not once have I told you that. Not once. Oh my God, Livy, I am so sorry. I think I might get it now.”
“Get what?”
“Why you were becoming who you were. Why someone gave us this trunk.”
I sit down at the breakfast table. His words are too heavy for me to continue standing. Jeremy moves a chair over and sits in front of me. He grabs both of my hands into his.
“First of all, I’m an asshole and I’m sorry.” I begin to shake my head. “Let me finish. You’ve been here day in and day out, raising our child, who is perfect. You thought I didn’t see what an amazing job you were doing. You thought I didn’t appreciate you and you began to question the point of it all. And on top of that, I made you feel ugly.” I shake my head more. “I did. By not telling you how beautiful I still think you are and by not being attentive to your needs, physically and emotionally, I made you feel ugly. You were right when you yelled at me the other day. I did break my promise. I was trying so hard to get my business on track so I could finally come home and be a part of this family, I didn’t see that I was breaking it apart in the process. Deep down, I knew that every day you were becoming less and less the Livy I married and I think you thought the same about me. And I never wanted to talk about it. I know I was never here, but if I had really wanted to talk to you about it, I would have made the time. I was scared, Livy. I was afraid that I was going to fail my business. And in doing so, I was afraid that I was going to fail you. I wanted to do it on my own because I didn’t want you to worry about that on top of the distress from raising a newborn. I forgot that you were my partner and my best friend and I shut you out. And you did the same with Amelia. You shut me out about how hard it was for you because you didn’t want me to have the additional stress. We stopped communicating and it landed us here. I want old Jeremy and Livy back. More than you know. I love you so much and when you told me you wanted to leave me, I felt like I’d been shot in the stomach. And when you did leave, I thought you were being selfish. But now I realize you weren’t being selfish. You weren’t even trying to prove a point. You missed us and you didn’t know how to fix it. You felt like you were failing and it was breaking your heart. You are so determined to fix everything with no one’s help, to validate your worth. And you don’t do it on purpose; it’s just how you are wired. But, Livy, you are worth more to me than you could possibly imagine. And I am so sorry that I haven’t told you that every single day for the past six months.”
We sat there staring at each other for a few moments, our hands entwined together. I try really hard to fight it, but I begin to cry. “Jeremy, thank you. But it’s not all your fault. You are right. I’m wired weird. But before Amelia, you made me feel ok about that. Even when you started the business and you worked all the time. We still made time for each other. And we just don’t do that anymore. Jeremy, do you realize that we haven’t had fun with each other, up until two days ago, since Amelia was born?”
Jeremy nods. “I realize that now. We both got so consumed at being responsible that we forgot how to be ourselves. That’s the whole point of the trunk, Livy, don’t you see? It was to help us remember who we fell in love with and bring that person back. At least that’s what I’m gathering out of it. And hopefully, we can let old Jeremy and Livy and new Jeremy and Livy coexist somehow.”
I smile. “Well the trunk isn’t empty yet.” I look inside, “There’s only two envelopes left.” I was slightly saddened by that fact. I was terrified really. I didn’t want to go back to what we were just a week ago. I never wanted Jeremy to look at me the way he did when I came back from my granddad’s. And I never wanted to feel the anger I had in my heart for the man that took a chance and taught me how to love.
“Well, we should probably get started. We are already half a day overdue.”
***
47
Jeremy
Envelope #5
I pull out envelope #5. I eagerly open it, just like I’ve done with all of the others. I can see that there is more than one item inside, so I turn the envelope over and dump the contents on the table. There are three envelopes, similar to what was in envelope #1. I’m dreading this a little. I don’t want to have to do anything else negative. Livy and I are past that point and I don’t want to drudge up anything else. But if the trunk says we have to, then we have to.
The envelopes are lettered, just like the first ones—A, B, C—Livy grabs A and opens it. She pulls out the folded piece of paper, unfolds it and begins reading.
“Where did we put our journals?” She asks
“I think they are under the coffee table. Why?” I ask back.
She proceeds to read the instructions.
Jeremy and Livy,
A few days ago, you wrote things in your journal that were good and bad. You told each other about the bad. And, hopefully, with all of the other things you’ve done by now, you’ve moved on from the bad. Now, it’s time to read the good to each other.
Livy places the letter on the table and smiles. Her remembering what she wrote about me is making her blush. She grabs my hand and walks to the living room. We sit on the sofa and she grabs the journals, handing mine to me.
“Who goes first?” I ask.
Livy shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t care. I can go first.”
“Ok.” I lean into the arm of the sofa, preparing for her words. If she’s blushing there is no telling what she’s about to
tell me.
Livy clears her throat and begins reading:
The first night I met you, you had my back, just in case. You didn’t insist on being my protector. You didn’t want to prove you were big and strong.
You never used any cheesy flirt lines with me. You were just yourself. All of the time.
You were patient with me.
You made extra efforts to make me feel comfortable in a relationship.
Your hugs were magical.
You always looked at the positive in a situation.
You put up with my bullshit.
You helped me understand that I deserved to be loved. That I wasn’t broken or damaged. I was just Livy.
You treated me like a person. Not like a conquest.
You arranged Christmas for homeless children and you found my grandfather.
You made me feel beautiful. Something I never cared if I felt. But you made me feel that way, as exactly who I was.
You never asked me to change anything about myself.
Our sex was volatile. We were never shy with each other. Never questioned each other. We were always both assertive and sure of ourselves. We were experimental. Kinky, sometimes even. We were never embarrassed. Never hesitated. Never too tired for each other. We were the epitome of passion.
Livy looks up at me and stops reading. “And up until last night, I thought we’d lost that altogether. It really made me sad. To think that at one point in our lives we craved each other so much and three days ago, we couldn’t even sit in the same room with one another and look at each other.”
Pangs in my heart grip me as I think that if something—or someone…whatever—hadn’t intervened, we still might be heading down that same destructive path that we were on three days ago. All because we are both so damn stubborn.
I nod at her in agreement to her last statement. “My turn.” I smile and look down at the page on my journal.
I loved everything about you.
I loved your voice
I loved your eyes and your hair.
I loved your scent.
I loved your bravery.
I loved your independence.
I loved that you rarely wore makeup.
I loved that you wore t-shirts and jeans.
I loved that you wore dresses and heels just for me.
I loved your determination and your perseverance about everything you cared for.
I loved how you loved everyone around you and you didn’t even know that’s what you were doing.
I loved the noises you made when we were naked with each other.
I loved how you weren’t afraid to tell me what you liked and you weren’t afraid to try new things.
I loved how you spoke your mind no matter the consequences.
I loved listening to you sing in the shower when you didn’t think I was listening. Or even if you knew I was listening and you didn’t quit because you weren’t afraid to let me hear you sing.
I loved that you were a tomboy.
I loved your boobs and I loved your ass and every body part in between.
I loved your heart and I loved that you gave me a chance.
When I’m finished reading, I lock eyes onto Livy’s eyes. She’s smiling. “I want to be all of those things you used to love. I miss that girl,” she says, as a tear rolls down her face.
“You are still that girl, Livy, and I’m still that guy you wrote about, too. We just needed a swift kick in the ass to remember that.”
Her eyes are searching for my trust. She wants to believe that we aren’t going to go back to what we were a few days ago. I lean in and give her a hug. “It’s going to be ok. I swear.”
Livy doesn’t respond with words. She just nods.
***
48
Livy
Envelope B
Jeremy hugs me and I want to believe him. And I want to believe that he believes it too. I nod to assure him that I heard him.
It’s going to be ok.
I pull back and look into his eyes. The one thing that I know I’m not going to do is waste time dwelling on whether everything will be ok. Either it will or it won’t and I understand that only time will reveal the outcome.
“Shall we open the next envelope?” I ask Jeremy with a smile.
Jeremy smiles back and brushes my face with his hand. “I don’t see why not.” His touch raises goose bumps the entire length of my body. It makes me happy to have that feeling again. Before the trunk showed up, it had been so long since I’d felt that way.
I walk over to the trunk to find the next envelope. It’s a small plain white letter envelope. I open it and take out the folded paper. Unfolding the paper reveals the familiar typed font as previous instructions.
Your first date was quite significant. Bring it all back by doing it all over again. From start to finish. When you are done, open envelope C.
This note saddens me. “We can’t recreate our date. We started it with Porters at Joe’s. We can’t do that. What are we supposed to do?”
“We could skip the Porters, Livy. That’s no big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me Jeremy.”
Jeremy rubs his chin with his hand and looks up into the air, as though he’s trying to figure out an alternative. Finally, he looks back down to me and smiles. “You know how we were watching that cooking show once and one of the chefs made a deconstructed shepherd’s pie—he took all of the components of the traditional dish and modernized the recipe?”
I tilt my head to the side and wonder where this is headed. “Uh, yeah?” I vaguely remember, but I just go along with it.
“Well, you know, architecture has kind of worked in that trend too, taking old style designs, picking apart the details and reproducing new styles with similar attributes of the old style in order to appeal to modern design enthusiasts.”
I’m quickly losing interest and am growing impatient. “Jeremy, thank you for that educational tidbit, but what is the point you are trying to make?”
He smiles. “Sorry. My point is why don’t we take our original date, pick apart the details, keep the important ones and make a brand new date?” He shrugs, “It could be fun.”
I think over his suggestion for a moment. We can’t bring Joe’s bar back. But we can try to be creative and have fun with the time we have alone with each other. I grab Jeremy’s hand and smile. “What did you have in mind?”
Jeremy walked over to the office desk we have by the window and opened his laptop. He sat down in the desk chair and began browsing the Internet. He did a fair amount of searching before speaking.
“So, here’s the plan,” he began. He pointed to his laptop, inviting me to look. “This bar has five-star reviews on its tap selection. We can start there for Porters.” He looked at me and I returned his gaze and smiled.
With the click of his mouse, he showed me a new window on the laptop screen. “And here, this is a family-owned Italian restaurant that’s uptown. They’ve been open since 1927 and they make their mozzarella fresh. And our wine is on their menu.” He points to the online menu to verify.
“Sounds delicious. But do they—” I begin to question, but Jeremy quickly interrupts.
“Tiramisu? Yep.”
I smile, knowing he knew exactly what I was thinking warms my heart.
“Afterwards,” he continues, “we can walk a few blocks to here,” he says, clicking and pointing to yet another window. “We can do some disco bowling.”
On this, I become apprehensive. “Disco bowling? What the fuck is that?”
Jeremy laughs. “Starts at nine. They turn down the regular lights and turn on the black lights and strobe machines. And play seventies music while you bowl.”
I think on this. This idea seems a stretch. I’m not so sure about being in a dimly lit area with a lot of people and loud music. It reminds me too much of clubbing, which is certainly not something I want to experience again. However, Jeremy’s sweet, pouty eyes are asking me to trust him and gi
ve it a shot. It’s really hard to say no to that face. “Ok, I’m in. Is that all?”
“No,” Jeremy says, with a sly look on his face, “but the last part is a surprise.”
“A surprise?”
Jeremy stands and wraps his arms around me. “Yes. A surprise.”
I hug him back. We are lost in our own world with this hug. “When do you want to leave?” I ask, while Jeremy is still wrapped around me.
“Whenever you are ready.”
“I think we should call Rosalie and let her know our plans. For emergency purposes. In case she needs to know where we are.” My maternal instincts kick in, alerting that we should let someone know where we’ll be.
“Ok. That’s not a bad idea,” Jeremy agrees.
~~~
After we notified Rosalie of our evening whereabouts and she responded with a delightful, “Oh, that is so lovely! Have fun my loves! Amelia, Maggie and I are doing just fine.”, we took a cab and headed to the five-star bar.
The Porters were of a brand I’d never had and were delicious. And not to discredit our favorite little trattoria, but this new restaurant had the best mozzarella I’d ever tasted. Over dinner, Jeremy and I talked and laughed right up until our last bite of heavenly, delectable tiramisu.
The disco bowling was quite an event. It was a laborious task attempting to bowl in semi-dark with nothing but black light and strobes of fluorescent illuminating our lanes. But the music was entertaining and by our second pitcher of lousy, domestic beer—all that was available—we gave up on keeping score and took turns trying trick shots with the bowling balls. I started with trying to bowl with my opposite hand. I caught four pins. Jeremy’s finale move was rolling the ball through his legs while facing away from the lane. He got a strike. Lucky duck.
