by Kaya McLaren
Nearby, a family of five was collecting their things and putting them back in their backpacks after a picnic lunch, preparing to go. It seemed as if in a few minutes, she would have the whole lake to herself.
Walking farther down the trail, she scouted for a good swimming spot. When she finally found one, she looked around for people, saw none, listened, and then, hearing none, shrugged off her backpack, took the towel out of it, and stripped. She didn’t look at her chest, but she didn’t look away from it either.
Carefully, she took a step onto two not particularly user-friendly rocks submerged just a few inches below the surface of the aqua glacier water. Squatting, she put her arms out in front of her, hands together, tucked her chin, and launched herself into the freezing water with the intention of washing away all the horrible experiences from the past year.
Surfacing, she wicked the water off her face and out of her short hair. She reached and stretched with each informal stroke, feeling the cold water on all of her skin, all of her skin that was the same. She hadn’t anticipated that—the extreme awareness of all the parts of her body that were not numb and had not changed.
She rolled over on her back and, keeping her head out of the freezing water, kicked for shore. Normally, this would have made her boobs jiggle back and forth on the surface of the water. She noticed the difference, but before she could dwell on it, she noticed that the water was so cold she was losing feeling in her arms. In just a few strokes, she reached shore and crawled out up onto the rocks.
For just a moment, she stood there rather victoriously, having taken another step into acceptance. The sun warmed her skin and the gentle breeze dried it. Reaching her arms up to the sky, she smiled. She felt alive—not just alive as in not dead, but truly alive.
* * *
Seven years ago, on Amy’s fortieth birthday, she had wanted just one thing. To her, it had seemed such a small thing to ask of Paul. That year, her birthday happened to fall on a Sunday, a sign that it was written in the stars, because that’s when it happened—summer concerts in the Myriad Botanical Gardens. To her, this idea seemed like the pinnacle of romance—her husband sitting with her on a blanket, with a picnic in a basket in such a beautiful setting, and the Leftover Cuties onstage. She hadn’t known who they were and discovered on YouTube that they were unlike anything she had heard in her daily life. They had a vintage jazz style, and Amy couldn’t have been more excited that they were the band that was going to play on her birthday.
She planned out every detail. Carly was staying at a friend’s house overnight, so if the mood overtook her and Paul, their romantic evening didn’t have to stop at the botanical gardens. For a full week ahead of time, she collected the perfect picnic—Brie cheese, bruschetta, a baguette, grapes, white wine discreetly hidden in a green 7Up bottle with a screw top, sweets from her favorite bakery. She even bought a new dress for the occasion, one with big flowers on it that reminded her of things she had seen Frenchwomen wear in movies. Her birthday date reminded her of footage she had seen of French people picnicking in parks while watching a movie. This picnic seemed a little French to her, as did the jazz. It was going to be the trip to Europe she had never taken.
The concert started at seven thirty, so Amy wanted to leave at six thirty to get a great spot to set out their blanket and just visit a little bit with her husband before the music began. On the morning of her birthday, she left Paul a note on the counter saying that she’d meet him back here by or before six thirty for her birthday date.
Some days, it was easy to forget that terrible things happen. It was easy to believe that no one committed unspeakable horrors on her birthday. It seemed perfectly acceptable to expect that just one day out of the whole year—well, two with Christmas—she might just be a normal woman married to a normal man, instead of a woman married to a man who dealt with all of those horrible things. And so, when Paul called around five o’clock to say something came up and there was no way he was going to make it home in time, Amy was sure her initial tone of voice reflected her disappointment and not her understanding when she said that she understood.
She put on her new dress, packed up her perfect picnic and blanket, and set off, determined to have a good time.
What she remembered most was sitting on her blanket, looking at a sea of couples and families in front of her and all around her. She concluded that she was the only person there alone. She thought it would not have bothered her quite so much if it hadn’t been so divergent from the fantasy she’d had about that night. She felt the disappointment and deflation in her stomach, in her chest, behind her nose where latent tears threatened to surface. From time to time, an acquaintance would walk by with his or her spouse—someone Amy had chatted with at her daughter’s school, a neighbor, perhaps. She had acted like Paul was coming but running late—she didn’t know why. In retrospect, maybe she wanted to assure people that she was loved, because she needed to assure herself that she was. When it came to Paul, Amy wasn’t feeling it. She was feeling his sense of duty but not his love.
She kept thinking that once the music started, it would be better, but it wasn’t. Couples moved closer to one another. Some danced. And the music was so intoxicating that it seemed such a deep shame not to be sharing the moment.
Amy never did know what happened that day. Paul didn’t talk about it. Someone may have beaten their own kid to death, or someone may have been robbing and beating people in wheelchairs. She sometimes read the newspaper just to find out what Paul might have been working on and knew these things happened. It was safe to assume that someone dangerous was at large and Paul needed to figure out who it was so the perpetrator could be caught before more people were hurt. And so, it wasn’t Paul that Amy was mad at so much as simply her experience with him in life where it felt like she never came first. Someone else’s need was always more urgent and someone else’s pain was always more severe. That was just a fact.
When Amy got home, Paul was sitting in his easy chair, a glass of something hard in his hand, a ritual she had come to understand he indulged in only on the very worst days. Sometimes he talked in his sleep on those nights.
“How was the concert?” he asked. It seemed to Amy that he often hoped that if he acted as though something weren’t a big deal, she would forget that it was. Maybe that’s just how it came off.
“I missed you there,” she said. “I’m sorry you couldn’t make it.” She gave him a little smile.
He nodded, his face showing no emotion at all. “I had planned to pick up a gift for you on my way home from work, but by the time I left, everything was closed. I’m sorry, Amy. I’ll make it up to you.”
But any man who thought that a meaningful birthday present could be picked out in ten minutes on his way home from work would not know how to make it up to her even if it was possible.
“Okay,” she said, resigned. She put her leftovers in the fridge before she walked down the hall to take a bath and go to bed. There would be no love. There would be no romance. He would avoid coming to bed as long as he could, avoid facing her and her disappointment, avoid her and her desires, avoid the simple act of shutting his eyes and seeing his day replay.
There was nothing to forgive, really. No one should have to apologize for serving his community in one of the most difficult ways or for simply being who he was. Amy didn’t want to poison what was left of their love with unnecessary resentment. She could have chosen the narrative that he had disappointed her, but she chose to simply say that she was disappointed. He couldn’t help it. She couldn’t help it. It was over. She survived. She survived feeling unbearably unimportant to him. She survived feeling unbearably alone. Tomorrow was a new day, and each new day brought hope—a little less hope than the day before, but still, hope.
* * *
After she had dressed and eaten a snack, she sketched the lake and its surroundings. It was so peaceful, so quiet, except for the happy chirping sounds of birds, and she was grateful to no longer be tethered to tha
t hope. Instead of always longing for more, she felt deeply content.
When she was done, she packed up and started back down the trail. This birthday was extra-special. It was absolutely an accomplishment. She had earned it—not for battling cancer and winning but for enduring treatment while her doctors battled it and won. After all, before her doctors showed up, she wasn’t winning at all. She had earned it by simply enduring.
Paul and Carly had endured a lot this year too. They played an important role in her survival. It would have been nice to celebrate this day together as a collective accomplishment. But that wasn’t what was happening, and she didn’t waste the time and mental energy that she used to wishing things were different. It was up to her to make sure the rest of her day was celebratory.
This day felt sacred. The first day of a new year. She’d had cancer when she was forty-six and that was over. She was forty-seven now. A new beginning.
Paul
When Amy finally arrived back in the campground, Paul was so relieved. He had been waiting for a couple of hours, imagining all the worst-case scenarios, talking himself out of believing each one but not completely able to dismiss any of those possibilities either.
It had been a long trip with several legs to get here, and although minutes ago he had been feeling tired from his travels and from the effort of tracking her down, now the gravity of what was at stake hit him with full force. In a little while, he would return to the small cabin he had reserved at Whistlin’ Jack’s forty miles away, but whether he would return with Amy or alone was yet to be determined.
He’d left his rental car in the day-use area and walked to the spot the ranger told him was hers, and there he had waited at her picnic table for what seemed like an eternity. Now, as she pulled in, he stood and smiled hopefully. On her face he saw surprise, but he wasn’t sure it was necessarily a good surprise.
Still, she’d stepped out of her car and greeted him with a courteous hug and peck, saying, “Paul! I didn’t expect to see you here!” It was a neutral statement—not Paul! I’m so happy to see you! or Paul! What a wonderful surprise! That was not lost on him. He wanted to hug her for so much longer, but when she stepped back, he let her go.
“Happy birthday,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“I hope I’m not intruding. It’s just…” He had rehearsed what he was going to say in his head countless times in the last twenty-four hours, and now it was all scrambled. “I was telling Rae how much I missed you, and about all my hopes for the Chama house—you know, living a peaceful life there with you—and I guess she felt sorry for me or maybe she just wanted what was best for both of us, so, please forgive her, but she told me that you found the papers back in November, and … my heart just sank. My heart just sank, Amy. I am so sorry. I wish I could go back in time and undo all of that.”
Amy
So many emotions ran through her mind and coursed through her blood, and she paused to see which one would step forward and present itself first. Feeling the stinging behind the bridge of her nose, she knew she was about to cry, so she was surprised when it was anger that beat the other emotions to the finish line. “Yeah, but you can’t,” she began, too loudly, she realized too late. She didn’t want to make a big scene in the campground, so she lowered her voice, spitting the words out as if they were teeth that he had knocked out with a punch. “You can’t take away that moment for me and all the moments that followed. The moment when I realized there was a giant hole in my safety net. The moment I realized that while my love was unwavering and deep and true, yours was fake. Critical moments when you acted loving toward me, like when the nurse first pierced my arm for the infusion and it was so real. It was so real that all this was happening, and I would have given anything to believe your love was real, but I knew it was all an act. I knew your true feelings and your intentions, and I felt so alone—alone and terrified. You want to show up on my birthday, say you’re sorry, and take that all back? You can’t. You can’t undo it with some magic words. You love me? No, you don’t. You feel sorry for me—too sorry for me to leave. I know you and I know your sense of duty. It’s what kept our family together as long as it was.”
“I know that all of that is how it must have looked.” His eyes began to water and then spilled over in tears as he searched for words. She didn’t know if they were tears of guilt or the tears of a man who just realized he had made an irreversible mistake that would take his life in a direction he no longer wanted to go, so she simply waited. Maybe he would redeem himself, but more likely he would simply say all he had to say before she ended it. He had cared for her faithfully when she needed him most. He had provided for her and Carly all these years. Even though sense of duty was not the same thing as love, she owed him some respect for all that his sense of duty had done for her. He lifted his head as he readied himself to speak and she saw the anguish on his face. “I know that all of that is how it must have looked,” he began again, “but what I remember feeling all those months ago was that I was unworthy of you because you loved me so deeply and I didn’t have the same capacity. Like all the bad stuff I’ve seen and dealt with—I had to become numb in order to cope, and when you do that, you don’t just block out the bad; you block out the good, too. And I just felt that you deserved more than that.”
She broke from his gaze and dropped her eyes, then looked back up at him and said, “I did.”
“Amy, I feel like a part of me has been in a coma for all of the years since the bombing, but I am finally waking up. Please don’t give up on me. You and Carly are by far the two best things to ever happen to me. And I would give anything to go back in time and not have brought those papers into our home, not to have filled them out, not to have even considered them. In all our years together, it was the only time I ever lost faith. And even then, I didn’t lose faith in you. I only lost faith in me. Please forgive me, Amy. I made such a big mistake and I regret it so much. Please forgive me. I love you with all my heart, Amy. I do, and I need you in my life.”
Studying the ground, the fir needles and small pieces of moss that had fallen, she considered his words. They actually made sense to her. “You know, the interesting thing about this moment is that I understand things I didn’t understand eight months ago … like what you were just saying about feeling like I deserved more because you didn’t have the capacity to love me like I loved you.” Taking a big breath, she dragged her foot through the needles and the moss that would never return to the branches above. “The good news is that I understand that now. I actually do understand how you surely felt shell-shocked and numb and like you had nothing to offer me or at least not enough.” For a moment relief washed over Paul’s face, and then he realized she wasn’t done. “The bad news is that I understand it because that’s how I feel now.” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, how about we go for a little walk to the river, and then you let me take you out for a nice birthday dinner? Because this isn’t a good moment to make any major life decisions, Amy. It’s not. Give it time. Give it a lot of time. And know that I love you and I’m going to see you through it.”
Why she started to cry she wasn’t clear, but she covered her face with her hands. Paul stepped forward and embraced her and she rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe it was relief. Relief that Paul really did love her and her whole life had not been a lie. Relief that they just might somehow make it and she would not have to figure out how to live the second half of her life in a new way. But none of that seemed to feel like the reason for her tears. Her attachment to the past or the future was no longer great enough to elicit that kind of response in her. No, she realized it was simply the beauty of Paul willing to love her through her moment of faithlessness, resolute to love her even if she couldn’t love him back. Such a generous love, agape love, the kind of love that came straight from heaven.
* * *
Over dinner, Amy told Paul about her time in nature, and Paul told Amy abo
ut problems—problems at work, problems with the Chama house, problems with his mind, and more problems at work. She felt herself weaken with every word. Thank goodness she had driven her own car, she thought, ready to escape. She realized she had been sucked back into what felt like home. Paul felt like home. And that was the thing. People and situations that felt like home could be really comforting, but they weren’t always what was best for a person.
“Paul, I have to stop you. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I can’t handle negativity right now. I feel like my head is barely above water and you’re pushing it back under again. These days I’m so keenly aware of what is strengthening and what is weakening, and this is definitely the latter.” The waitress came to clear their dinner plates, interrupting her, and then left. Feeling as if her birthday had been hijacked and had taken an ugly turn, she said, “Look, I really appreciate you coming all the way out here, but I think I’ll just skip dessert and go back to the campground. It’s been a long day.”
But then Paul said something that stopped her in her tracks. “Amy, I retired. Well, not really retired because I can’t start collecting for a few more years. I’ll have to figure out something else to do in the meantime. That’s where I was going with all of this. I know retiring is something married people should talk about, but I just couldn’t take anymore. That’s what I was trying to explain. I wasn’t trying to bring you down or make it all about me. I just wanted you to understand why I did what I did … why I couldn’t take it anymore.”
