“That’s me,” I tell him as he hands me the bouquet and walks back to his yellow van.
After I close the door, I walk into the kitchen and place the roses on the table then pull the card out. Finding the front of the white envelope blank, I turn it over and flip up the flap, taking the card out.
Thank you for opening that door one year ago and changing my life.
Forever Yours,
Eric
The sob escapes me no matter how much I try to fight it. My hand covers my mouth, and my legs get wobbly. My hand holds the table as the card falls to the floor, floating left and right before it lands right by my foot. My hand shoots out, tossing the vase to the floor and shattering it into a million pieces.
Chapter Four
Hailey
I sit in that chair watching the tiny crystal pieces glitter in the sunlight, afraid to move in case I slice open my bare feet. The door opens, and my brother, Blake, comes in. “Hey,” he says from the door as he walks into the kitchen. Taking in the shattered vase and the roses in a heap on the middle of the floor, he hears the crunching of glass under his boots. “What the fuck is this?” he asks as he spots the card. Bending down, he picks it up and reads it. “Cocksucker had everyone fooled.” With a shake of his head, he walks to get a broom and dustpan then cleans up the floor. As he’s pulling the vacuum out, another knock on the door has us both looking up.
“Knock, knock, knock,” Nanny says as she walks in.
“What the fuck is this? Grand central station?” I try to get up but then sit back down.
She comes in with papers in her hands. “Oh good, you’re up.” She takes in the roses tossed in the garbage can with the shattered glass on top, but the look from Blake tells her not to ask. “So yesterday after lunch, I was thinking you need to get away. I think …” She holds her hand up when I open my mouth to speak. “Hear me out. You aren’t comfortable here; you sat here yesterday hoping to fall through the floor. Don’t deny it,” she says. Blake finally finishes cleaning up and sits down in front of me. “I got home and called my oldest friend, Delores. Remember her? She came down a couple of summers ago.” She opens the papers she is holding. “Anyway, she owns some houses that she rents out down in the Carolinas right on the water. And she has one available for as long as you want it.” She pushes the paper to me, and I take in the picture of the house. The only thing my eyes go to is the swing hanging on the front porch. The house looks cute and quaint. I flip through the pictures, taking in the backyard, and see another swing, but then I see the ocean, the calmness of it.
“She just can’t leave,” Blake says as Nanny looks over at him.
“And why not?” He doesn’t answer because Nanny doesn’t give him a chance to. “She has nothing here. Nothing. Yes, she has her family, but she needs to find herself. Staying here in this museum she calls a home isn’t helping anyone. Besides, she can work from home. All she needs is her computer, and she is good to go.”
“Yes.” The sound comes out in a soft whisper. “Yes.” I look up as Nanny smiles and Blake scratches his head.
“Good, but I will tell you that no one has been in that house for over four years, so it’s dusty and you’ll have to clean it yourself.”
“Okay.” My fingers move over the swing in the picture. The weight of everything lifting off my shoulders a bit.
“I want to have a yard sale.” I look at my brother. “I want to sell everything. I want nothing.”
I look at Nanny. “Will you help me?”
She puts her hand on mine. “I’ll make the posters today.” She gets up and walks to the door. “I guess this is like that song ‘Cleaning out the Closet.’ Remember, Blake? You used to sing it each day in the mirror wearing your white t-shirt and your jeans hanging low under your ass.” She laughs. “Until I told you that inmates wear their pants like that to have …” She cups her mouth with her hands and whispers, “Butt sex.”
I snort as Blake throws his head back. “Oh, good god,” he says as Nanny slams the door on her way out. “You sure you want to go there and be all by yourself?” he asks me, looking at me for an answer.
I don’t have to answer because Crystal comes in. “Hey, you guys,” she says, tossing her purse on the couch and coming in to start the coffee. “Whatcha looking at?” she asks as she picks up a picture of the house. “This is so pretty.”
Blake fills her in. “That is where Hailey is going to, as Nanny says, ‘find herself.’” He uses his fingers to make air quotes.
She doesn’t say anything, so I ask, “Okay, who wants to help me with this garage sale?” I look around. “I think I want to sell the house.” They look at each other and then at me, both nodding. “I know I had this house way before Eric ever lived here, but I can’t live here, not after.” I don’t bother talking. Instead, I nod and get up, going to the fridge.
No one said anything, but we did end up cooking breakfast, and Blake called someone he went to school with about listing the house. By the time night came, the walls that had felt like they were closing in on me stayed the same.
I lie awake most of the night, my mind working a mile a minute as I think about the next step in my life. The next chapter of my book.
My mother and father come over the next day as soon as the real estate agent hung her sign. I stand there in jeans and a sweater, my bare feet cold on the cement porch. “Your grandmother was not kidding when she said you are making changes,” my father says as he carries in grocery bags. “We brought you some food.” I watch them both walk in with their hands full.
“I also told your aunt Ginette to come and help organize things,” my mother says of her sister and Crystal’s mother. I just nod as I look down at the card from the real estate agent. She said it should sell quickly. I look around, seeing my next-door neighbor outside. She was always very friendly, but this time, she just smiles and raises her hand to wave.
I do the same as I now sit and take in what I thought would be the house where I would raise my kids, where I would mark their first everything. Instead, I think of all the lies it holds.
I shake my head as a tear comes out, and I realize it’s been eighteen hours since I last cried. It might not be much to anyone else, but to me, it’s a step in the right direction. The front door opens behind me, and my mother comes outside to sit next to me. She puts her arm around my shoulder, and I lay my head on her shoulder. “I really hate him, Mom,” I say as she squeezes my arm. “I hate what he did, but most of all, I hate that I will never know why. Why the fuck did he marry me if he was already married? Why create this life with me when he already had it all? Why? That is all I want from him.”
“Oh sweetie, I don’t think you would have ever gotten those answers. They say everything happens for a reason, and I have no idea what this reason is, but it has to be for something bigger, something better. I honestly believe that, and you have to also.” I don’t say anything else. I don’t want to tell her that it’s all a lie. There is no reason this happened and no good that could come from this. Nothing.
We stay out till the sun sets, only getting up and going in when Dad’s cooked his famous lasagna and my aunt comes over. “Hey there.” She puts her purse down on the couch. “It smells so good in here, Henry,” she tells my father as she opens the oven door to smell the lasagna he made. She comes to hug me, and I shed tears. She must know because she doesn’t let me go. “It’s going to be fine, little girl.” She has always called me little girl, since I was the baby.
“I think I’m going to take a shower before we eat,” I say and quietly excuse myself to go upstairs. I take a shower and get out right as Crystal knocks.
“It’s me,” she says, and I tell her to come in.
“We never will get closure,” I tell her as she closes the door and blinks at me, not sure what to say. “I mean, we didn’t have a funeral. We didn’t have”—I throw up my hands—“well, anything. It was just here today, gone tomorrow. Oh and your whole life was a lie.” I shrug.
“It wasn’t all a lie,” she says softly. “He had to love you to try to do the whole Sister Wives with you. Even without you knowing you were the second wife.” She tries to smile. “You didn’t even pressure him to marry you. That was all his idea.”
“I know,” I say as I put my bra on. “I never once said you need to pay for the milk because this cow isn’t free.” I mimic my Nanny’s words. “He was the one who wanted to get married right away.”
“You don’t know if he was happy; I mean, maybe the other woman …” she starts, and I put my hand up.
“Samantha, her name is Samantha,” I say as I lotion my legs.
“Okay, fine, Samantha. You don’t know whether he was happy.”
“I don’t even want to discuss him, and nothing you could say would ever lead me to understand why he did what he did,” I tell her as I put on a sundress and tie my hair on top of my head. “Nothing.”
She holds up her hands. “Fine, fine, fine. Do you want to maybe have a celebration of his life?” I glare at her, and she puts up her hands again. “Fine. Okay, okay.” She drops the subject as we make our way downstairs, and I see that almost my whole family is here with the arrival of my other cousins Lydia, Victoria, and Peter. They just smile at me as they take a plate and go to the dining table. Extra chairs have been added so everyone can squeeze in.
I just take in the love and support of my family as Nanny arrives with cake. “Oh good, I’m not late,” she says as she air kisses me and brings the cake to the kitchen.
“What the hell is going on?” I lean in and whisper to Crystal who watches everyone moving around my house with me as she shrugs.
“It’s a celebration of YOU,” Nanny says when she walks into the room. “To show you how much we love you.” She smiles as she grabs the plate Ginette hands her. “Thank you, dear.” I shake my head as tears start to form. “Hey, none of that. Besides, we need all the help we can get to move this stuff outside for tomorrow.”
I smile as I sit down, and it feels like old times. I’m in this bubble of love, and I know that no matter what happens from here on out, it’s going to be okay. I mean, how much worse can it get?
Chapter Five
Hailey
“I can’t believe we sold everything,” I say to Blake as I bring my bag to my car and put it in the front seat. He follows, carrying out my two suitcases. I look back at the house with the lights on inside, the sun peeking out from the horizon. The bright red sold sign sticking up. It took three days for a cash offer to come in, and here we are, seven days later as I load my car and make my way down to my escape house. That is what we are calling it.
I donated Eric’s clothes to the homeless shelter and then sold off everything else he had in the house. His tools were the only thing I kept, and I gave them to Blake—under protest, since he didn’t want them. I may have lost a husband, but he lost the closest thing he ever had to a brother.
He shuts the trunk once he places the luggage inside, and I lean in to hug him around his waist. “What am I going to do without you?” I ask him as tears start to form in my eyes.
He smiles down at me. “You know I can be there in eight, maybe seven hours. Just call and I’ll be there.” I nod my head as I hear a car stop behind us.
I turn to see Crystal get out of a strange car. “You came to say goodbye,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Pfft,” she blows out. “As if I would let you leave without me,” she says as she opens her trunk and pulls out two large suitcases.
“What is this?” I ask her as Blake grabs them and puts them in the back seat.
“This is me and you taking on the world,” she says, smiling as she wipes tears from her own eyes.
“You can’t come with me; you have a job here,” I tell her as Blake laughs, and I turn and glare at him.
“No, I had a job here. Now, I have a job there.” I look at them in question, so Crystal continues, “I left my job, but good news, I got one in town. It’s a family practice. No gunshot victims and no stabbings, so it will be a walk in the park.”
“You’re coming with me?” I ask her, shocked and happy at the same time.
“Of course, I’m coming with you,” she says as if it’s the craziest thing in the world.
“But,” I say stuttering, “but we had a goodbye dinner last night.”
“Well, it was a free meal. How could we not?” she says as she grabs another bag from her car. “So what do you say? Should we start our new adventure?”
I smile, looking down at my feet. “I have to lock up the house,” I say as I walk up the steps. “Um, if it’s okay, I’d like to do this on my own.” I don’t wait for them to answer as I walk inside the empty house. I’m taken back to when the house was filled with laughter, when it was filled with love, when it was filled with promises. I walk to the kitchen, thinking of the first time I cooked for him, and then he made me breakfast the next morning. I flip the lights off, heading upstairs.
The bedroom door is open with the blow-up mattress that I slept on gone. The room where we spent most of our time, the room where we told each other our dreams and our hopes … gone. I close my eyes, trying to hear his voice one last time, but nothing is there. Nothing but emptiness and silence. I shut the light off before I grab the door and close it for the final time. “Coward,” I whisper, hoping Eric hears me. I turn around and wipe a tear from my face. Walking down the stairs one last time, I turn off the final light and look at the darkness.
I lock the door, making my way to the car with Blake leaning on the back trunk next to Crystal. “Here is the key.” I hand him the key to the house. “The real estate agent will stop by the firehouse at three p.m. to pick it up.” Blake is a firefighter, and he’s on shift this week. He grabs me around the neck and pulls me to his chest where I sob out the pain I’d pushed aside the past two weeks; the pain I thought was gone but was only lingering.
His arms around me comfort me till I’m spent, and my eyes are sore and heavy. “Good thing I’m coming. Who else would drive?” Crystal says as she gets on her tippy toes and kisses Blake’s cheek. “I’ll call you when we get there,” she says as she walks to the driver’s side door and gets in, leaving me standing with Blake.
“How did you do it?” I ask him, thinking of his first true love, Frankie. Francesca came into his life when he was fifteen. In high school, both of them joined the debate team. It was a friendship that blossomed into love until her cancer claimed her five years later, leaving Blake broken. He has not dated since that day. It’s as if he’s stuck in that place.
“Don’t do what I did. Don’t shut yourself off from the world. Live,” he says. “Promise me you’ll live.” I smile as I place my hands over his two hands on my cheeks. “You have to listen to me. I’m older,” he says, causing me to laugh out loud.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say to him as his hands leave my face, and I nod. “Promise me the same.” He nods at me, putting his hands in his back pockets as his green eyes still stay shaded and protected.
“Get out of here,” he says as he walks back to his truck. “See you next month for sure.” I nod at him, climbing in the passenger side.
Crystal starts the car and slides on her sunglasses. “Isn’t this just like Thelma and Louise?” she asks, and I laugh to myself.
“Can we do it without the whole driving off the cliff or shooting Brad Pitt?” I ask her as she pulls away from the curb.
“I say we still shoot Brad Pitt but don’t die either. I mean, imagine if one of us survived without the other.” She shakes her head as I lean my head on the cold window. Basking in the sun, I see a bird soaring in a circle in the sky. “I’d come back and haunt you. Just saying.” I laugh, taking my eyes off the bird to look at her. When I turn back to see where the bird went, it’s gone.
I watch the trees as we make it on the highway on our way out of town, the sign telling us they hope to see us again. “I start work next Monday,” I tell her as I take my phone out and see tha
t my emails have gotten over ten thousand. Before all this happened, I was a highly sought-after web designer. You had a business that needed a website, you contacted me.
“So in four days,” she says. “That’s perfect. I start Monday also,” she informs me. “I spoke with them on the phone, and their practice is family run. A father and son. I spoke with the father, but I haven’t met the son yet. From what I gathered on line, they are the best in the region. It should be fun.”
After four hours of driving, we stop to get gas and use the bathroom. I grab some food for us, and we get back on the road for the rest of the journey. Having both of the windows down allows the country air to settle in with us. My hand reaches outside, and I let the wind blow it back before pushing my hand through it. The mountains in the distance get closer as we make our way there and finally turn off the interstate at our exit. With trees lining the street on both sides, we follow the directions, turning once to go down Main Street. I laugh; it seems every city or town has a Main Street.
Passing over a little bridge, we watch the creek on both sides, the water flowing down. Once we get off the bridge, I see every single shop has the American flag hanging outside. As we slowly roll down the street, I look at my side of the street and the sidewalk consisting of tiny red blocks. The D’Amore pizza place has a red and white sign with green around it. I look inside and see someone tossing a pizza in the air behind the counter in the middle.
Perfect Love Story Page 4
