by Megan Hart
“I’m still here.”
I had to swallow, hard, before I could force myself to speak without my voice crumbling. “I need you to go away.”
“Oh, Elle.” He didn’t ask me why.
I didn’t want to tell him. What could I say? That shame was easier to bear alone? That seeing his face and knowing he knew what had happened was too much, right now, with my father’s death still so raw?
“You don’t want me to leave you.” The steadiness of his voice was a comfort that could break me, if I took it.
“That won’t work this time. I do want you to go. I need you to go, Dan.”
A soft shuffle on the other side of the door made me think of him, standing as I did, pressed up against the wood. He sighed so heavily I had no trouble hearing it. I heard the clink of keys.
“I don’t want to go, Elle. Won’t you just let me in? We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to—”
“No!” My shout echoed in the bathroom, and I winced at the way it bludgeoned my ears. “No, I mean it. I want you to go away! I have to be alone right now!”
“You don’t have to be alone,” he said quietly.
“But I want to be,” I told him.
To that, he seemed to have no answer. I waited, but at last the sound of footsteps led away from the door, the jingle of keys getting fainter and at last, fading away. By the time I came out, most everyone had gone home, leaving behind them the remains of casseroles and cakes I knew I’d be expected to put in containers and freeze.
Mrs. Cooper had stayed behind. I found her in the kitchen, putting the kettle on and tying an apron around her waist. She turned when I came in, and her smile was meant to warm me but missed a big icy section in the middle of my chest.
“I put your mother to bed, poor dear, with one of her headache pills. She’s resting. I’ll just get these dishes started.”
“You don’t have to do that, Mrs. Cooper.”
“Oh, but, my dear, it’s no trouble, really. What are neighbors for if not to help each other out in a time of need?” She smiled and reached for the bottle of dish soap.
I bent to find the neat stacks of butter tubs my mother used as storage containers, but found instead a cupboard full of matching containers and lids. My muffled noise of surprise drew Mrs. Cooper’s attention.
“Oh, God love her, your mother,” she said with a chuckle. “She had one of those parties, you know? And she went a bit hog wild, I’d say. She’ll never use more than a few of those at a time, what with it just being her now, but well, I guess they’ll come in handy, won’t they?”
She indicated the table groaning with the offerings of potato salad and meat loaf, pierogies in butter sauce and carrot cake. “People were so generous. Look at all that food!”
“You should take some,” I told her. “Maybe Mr. Cooper would like some.”
“Thanks, honey.” Mrs. Cooper started scrubbing while I started packing. I smoothed a spoon over the top of a mound of tuna salad to finish filling the container.
“Where’s your young man gone?”
“I think he had to leave.” Dan had gone, like I’d asked him to. He gave me what I wanted, the way he always did.
“He seemed nice.” She gave me a birdlike glance. “Your mother seemed to like him.”
I looked up, startled. “She did?”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Cooper smiled. “Your mother is so very proud of you, you’re all she ever talks about. How well you’re doing with your job, how you’re always getting promotions. How you fixed up that house of yours all on your own, without her help. Yes, she seemed quite impressed by your young man. He has a good job, she said, and is very polite.”
That didn’t sound like my mother, but I didn’t argue with Mrs. Cooper. I kept my attention focused on filling containers with food and stacking them to be taken to the freezer in the basement.
“It was so good to see you. It’s been so long. I’m sorry it had to be such a sad occasion. We miss you around here, Fred and I.”
The stack in front of me doubled and tripled, and I blinked away tears. “That’s nice to hear, Mrs. Cooper.”
“Ella,” she said gently, but I didn’t turn, “you know we were all sorry about what happened.”
“My father dug his own grave,” I said. “Not to be rude, but you know it as well as I do.”
“Not about your dad,” said the woman who’d given me my first copy of The Little Prince. “About Andrew.”
Sometimes when things break, you can hold them together for a while with string or glue or tape. Sometimes, nothing will hold what’s broken, and the pieces fly all over, and though you think you might be able to find them all again, one or two will always be missing.
I flew apart. I broke. I shattered like a crystal vase dropped on a concrete floor, and pieces of me scattered all over. Some of them I was glad to see go. Some I never wanted to see again.
I sobbed, and Mrs. Cooper rubbed my back and let me do it.
It is such a secret place, the land of tears. That is what the narrator of The Little Prince says after the little prince argues with him the first time about matters of consequence. And he was right. My land of tears had been a secret for a very long time.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Mrs. Cooper told me, stroking my hair the way she’d done when I was a little girl and had run into her kitchen for a cookie and tripped and scraped my knee instead. “None of it was your fault. Stop blaming yourself, honey.”
“What good is it to stop blaming myself,” I sobbed, “when she still does?”
And for that Mrs. Cooper had no answer.
Dan left ten messages before I called him back. I know the number of times I lifted the phone to return his calls, but I’m too embarrassed to say it. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was fine for Mrs. Cooper to tell me not to blame myself, but I couldn’t do that any more than I could face Dan. I didn’t want him to see something different in his eyes when he looked at me.“I can’t see you anymore,” I said finally when I’d managed to finish dialing and stay on the line long enough for him to answer. “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. I can’t do this. Us. I can’t do it, Dan.”
I heard the sound of his breathing, this time separated by a far greater distance than a wooden bathroom door.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want you to say okay.”
His voice hardened a bit. “I won’t say it’s okay, because it’s not. If you want to break up with me, Elle, then do it. But I’m not going to make it easy for you.”
“I’m not asking you to make it easy for me!” I bit out the words, pacing as I talked.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“So then do it!” I cried.
“No,” he said after what seemed like forever. “I can’t, Elle. I wish I could. But I can’t.”
I sat down on the floor because the chair was too far to walk. “I’m sorry, Dan.”
“Yeah,” he said, like he didn’t believe me. “Me, too.”
I wanted to hang up, but couldn’t make myself do it. “Goodbye, Dan.”
“You don’t have to be alone” was his answer. “I know you think you do, but you don’t. When you change your mind, call me.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“You want to change your mind, Elle,” Dan said.
I couldn’t deny the truth of it, so I hung up instead. I let him go. I let him slide away. I convinced myself it was better that way…to say goodbye to something before it had a chance to start. I didn’t have time, in my grief, for more.
The days passed, as they do. I went back to work, because I could and because it helped me not to think so much about my father, Dan, my mother, my brothers, both of them. One dead and one so far away. I still hadn’t heard from Chad, and I stopped calling.It didn’t seem as if it ought to have been a good time in my life, but the introspection and time alone, undistracted, proved to be the best thing I could have done
. I stopped trying to forget what had happened in our house, and instead started trying to let it go. I wasn’t very good at it. I’d cloaked myself in my secrets for a long time. They’d become habit, too, one I was at last ready to shed.
Summer ended and fall began. Apples came into season, and I went to hunt some at the Broad Street Market. As I bent over a display of local-grown fruit, a voice once familiar made me turn.
“Elle?”
My smile tried to fade, but I forced it to remain in place. “Matthew.”
He was still tall. Still handsome. Gray streaked his hair at the temples now, and when he smiled I clearly saw lines around his eyes and on his forehead.
“Hi,” he said, like we’d seen each other only yesterday. Incredibly, he moved forward, like he meant to…what? Hug me?
I drew away. His eyes flashed; his ready smile grew a bit strained. He put his hands in his pockets.
“Hello,” I said carefully.
“Elle,” he sighed. “It’s good to see you.”
I lifted my chin a bit. “Thanks.”
“You look…fantastic.”
I hadn’t seen him in more than eight years. “You know what they say. Best revenge is looking good, right?”
He frowned. He’d never really understood my sense of humor. I’d forgotten how he pouted. “Elle.”
I shook my head and put the apples back on the stand. I had no appetite for them now. “I’m sorry, Matthew. It’s been a long time. You look good yourself.”
We stared at each other for a long time while the tide of patrons surged and ebbed around us.
“Have coffee with me,” he suggested, and how could I really say no?
So I let him buy me coffee, which warmed my fingers, and I sat across from him at one of the tiny tables at the Green Bean, a small coffee shop just down the street. We chatted about work and mutual friends, all of whom he still saw and none of whom I did. He told me about his wife, their kids, his job, his life, which I couldn’t help envying, even if the car-pool and soccer-mom lifestyle seemed more than a bit stifling.
“And you? How are you?” He reached for my hand. I turned it so I could hold his, and I looked into the eyes I’d once loved so much I thought I’d die if they didn’t look at me every day. “Are you happy?”
“Are you asking because it will make you feel better to know I am?”
“Yes. But also because I’d like to know you are.”
I smiled. He stared. I shrugged, a little.
“You won’t even tell me you’re happy,” he said, resigned, and pulled his hand away. “Listen, I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry for the things I said and did. I was young. Anyone would have done the same thing. You lied. You weren’t honest with me. What was I supposed to think?”
I smiled again.
“Elle, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”
“You don’t have to be,” I replied. “It was a long time ago, and hardly matters now.”
“You’re so beautiful,” he said in a low voice. “I wish—”
“You wish what?” The words came out harsh, not curious.
“Do you want to go somewhere?”
I gaped but couldn’t find the words at first. “Like a motel, somewhere?”
He looked miserable, guilty, but also flushed with the excitement I recognized from old. The thumb of his left hand turned his wedding band at its place on his finger. “Yes.”
Not so many months ago, I might have said yes, but now I stood. “No.”
He stood, too. “Sorry.”
I clenched my fists. “You accused me of cheating on you. You said being unfaithful was the worst—an unfaithful person was worse than anything. What would you tell your wife about this?”
He looked uncomfortable, and I understood it hadn’t only been the letters he’d found, but the knowledge of who’d sent them that had made their end. Furious, I left. On the street he caught me by the elbow, turned me, left a mark that would likely bruise.
“I’m trying to tell you I was wrong!”
“You said you loved me, but guess what, Matthew, I’ve heard better lines from worse men, and if you had loved me you wouldn’t have left me like you did.”
A grimace twisted the mouth that had once kissed me all over. “You should have told me the truth.”
I laughed, low and full of bitterness. “I did tell you the truth, and you turned me away.”
I could still recall the look on his face. Disgust. The way he’d backed off, the way he’d never kissed me again.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I didn’t make it happen. I didn’t let him do those things, Matthew, he just did them. I didn’t ask him to write those letters to me. He just did.”
He said nothing.
I yanked my arm from his grip. “I did not let my brother do what he did,” I said, glad to see him wince. “He just did it. And I counted on you to love me anyway. And you didn’t. So tell me something, Matthew, who really fucked me, in the end?”
Then I turned and walked away, sick to my stomach, and when he called after me, I didn’t turn.
“Great job on the location, Bob.” I looked around the mall courtyard, which teemed with families attending the festival.Bob smiled at me. “Yeah. We’ll get a lot of traffic here.”
Triple Smith and Brown didn’t need to do something like this. The company had enough business without having to actively solicit it. I liked that the senior Smiths allowed us to take part, though. It was good to be part of a company that didn’t only care about its employees, but also the community in which we lived and worked.
I haven’t been around children much. I don’t have nieces or nephews, and while my cousins have all begun having children, my experience with them has been admiration from afar. I’m never quite sure how to speak to kids. I hate the smarmy face adults put on, like children are stupid, and yet the way young humans act usually baffles me.
“Hi,” I said to a little girl holding on to her younger brother’s hand. “Would you like a treat bag?”
Nothing. Not a smile, not a nod, not word. The little boy grunted, but the girl was silent as a tomb.
“Kara,” said the woman with them, I assumed was their mother. “The lady asked you a question.”
She nudged her forward. I held out the bag encouragingly. I felt like Dian Fossey, tempting a shy primate to accept her. The little girl still stared. The brother stuck his finger up his nose. I recoiled and handed two treat bags to the mother.
“You can give them to the kids,” I told her. “There’s a pack of tissues in there.”
She didn’t get it. Maybe nose-mining was such a commonplace occurrence it no longer shocked. She took the bags, though, and thanked me, and then moved off into the crowd.
“Hi,” I said, turning from my box of treat bags to confront the next festival-goer. “Would you like a treat bag?”
The boy who stood in front of our table was a bit too old for minitablets and crayons, though I supposed the tissues might come in handy. Gavin shifted from foot to foot, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his oversize sweatshirt. His hair had grown longer and obscured his eyes, but I didn’t think he was looking at me.
“Hi, Miss Kavanagh.”
He’d hit us at a lull in the crowd. I glanced over my shoulder at Bob, who was opening another box of treat bags. Marcy had defected from her post at the popcorn machine to grab us all some snacks. I straightened my spine and kept my voice neutral.
“Hello, Gavin.”
“I saw you over here, and I just wanted to say…I wanted to say…”
I didn’t help him out. I kept my eyes fixed on a spot just over his shoulder. The accusations from his mother had cut too deep for me to smile at him.
“My mom, she kinda got out of control.”
I nodded and fussed with the literature set out on our table. He shifted some more. The front of his sweatshirt featured a grinning skeleton with a dagger through its skull.
“My mom, she…she just
got a little upset about me not doing my chores when I was spending so much time with you, and she wanted to know what we were doing over there.”
“I see.” I looked up and right into his eyes beneath the fringe of his hair. “And you told her, I guess.”
He chewed his lip. “Yeah.”
I nodded and went back to tidying the piles of notepads and stacks of pencils in front of me. “Interesting, then, that she thinks it’s something else.”
He didn’t say much else, then the defensiveness kicked in. “Hey, you’re a pretty lady and I’m a kid—”
I looked up again and my glare must have struck him because he cut himself off. “I don’t think you understand, Gavin, exactly how much trouble you could get me into.”
I kept my voice pitched low. I handed out another couple treat bags to a set of identical twins wearing matching outfits. Chocolate ice cream stained their matching smiles. Their parents urged them away, and I turned back to him.
“Do you understand?”
He shrugged. “Mom said she knew I was a horny teenage boy and if I had the chance to do something dirty, I would.”
Dirty. That word again. The feeling of it was worse. I crossed my arms over my chest as Bob told me he was off to the bathroom. He left us alone, and I was glad.
“I never did anything dirty to you.” My words clunked like ice between us.
He stared at his shuffling feet. “It got her off my back. So she didn’t ask about the other stuff.”
“I thought we were friends,” I told him, at last, without sympathy. “Friends don’t betray other friends to save their own butts.”
He shrugged again. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m working,” I said. “You need to go away now.”
And he did, looking over his shoulder with a mournful glance I refused to acknowledge.
“Pardon me for saying so, honey, but you look like six kinds of shit on a splintered stick.”“Gee, Marcy. Thanks so much.” I added sugar and creamer to my mug of coffee and sipped. Awful. I drank it anyway.
“Seriously, punkin.” She shook her head. “Tell me what’s wrong or I’ll force you to listen to stories of my vacation in Aruba.”
