by Holly Jacobs
After she left, I stared at the pile of things I’d brought from the house. Lee’s ugly red sweater was on the top of the heap. Rather than put the things away, Angus and I trudged through the snow to the barn. I brought the sweater with me.
I tossed it on the back of the couch, then I lit the fire in the cast-iron stove. It didn’t take long for the room to warm up enough for me to take off my coat.
I stared at the loom.
I needed to finish the piece, but in order to do it, I’d have to face my last big thing and I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I knew I had to. Maybe Sam was right; being brave wasn’t so much feeling brave as it was doing what needed to be done.
I walked back over to the couch and picked up the sweater, fingering the wool.
I remembered Lee laughing as I complained about how ratty it looked. He’d put it on and grin as he waited for my anticipated complaints. It became a joke between us.
But I also remembered other times he wore the sweater. Times that brought no jokes or smiles.
I smelled the sweater, burying my face deep in its rough warmth. I could have sworn it still smelled of Lee’s cologne.
I went to my workbench and took out scissors and before I could second-guess myself, I clipped a seam and started to unravel the yarn. Slowly, I pulled a long piece of the red wool out. Then I sat at the loom. I knew what I needed to weave next, just as I knew what my next one-thing had to be. I called Sam. “I know Saturdays are busy and that we meet Monday nights, but I need to tell you this one-thing alone.” An urgency to finish pressed on me, and I was on the verge of asking him to get someone to cover at the bar, but in the end, I didn’t ask.
I didn’t have to.
“I’ll get Chris to cover.” There was no hesitation, no complaint, just Sam saying, “Should we meet at your place?”
No. I didn’t want to bring this particular one-thing here and I couldn’t take it to the bar. This one needed privacy. “Could we meet somewhere else—somewhere that we won’t be overheard?”
“Do you care what time?”
“No.”
“I’ll pick you up around three.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
I kept glancing at the loom, but I didn’t work on the tapestry. I didn’t work on glazing my bowl. I simply sat next to Angus on the couch and unraveled Lee’s sweater. I purposefully tried not to think, not to remember. I’d do that later with Sam.
About one, Angus and I trudged through the snow, back to the cottage. I made sure he had food and water, then forced myself to eat some soup, not because I was hungry, but because I knew I should be hungry.
I showered, dressed, and was waiting for Sam when he pulled up.
“Thank you, again,” I said by way of greeting.
He nodded. We didn’t say much on the drive. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I didn’t ask.
Sam drove down I-79, then into Erie and to the peninsula. He parked at one of the lookout points on the bay side. The water hadn’t frozen over yet, but it looked thicker to me. Like a greyish snow cone. As if with just one or two more freezing nights the bay’s water might turn to ice.
I could see the city across from us. The tall tower at the end of the pier.
“I thought this would be private,” he said. “Neutral ground.”
Sitting in Sam’s truck there was no chance we’d be overheard. To be honest, in the winter, the peninsula was quiet enough that we didn’t even see another car.
“Thanks, Sam.” I was quiet a few minutes, trying to formulate this one-thing. Most of the time, the stories just spilled out. This one was premeditated. “Before we do this, I need you to understand that Lee was a good dad.”
Sam nodded, not saying anything.
I kept going, needing to be sure he believed it, not just believed me. “There are so many examples. The kids were maybe fourteen and thirteen when we had that huge snowstorm. It knocked out power to our house for two days. Rather than fret about things melting in the freezer, or missed appointments, Lee lit candles and announced we were going to have an eat-the-food-before-it-spoils picnic while we played the world’s longest game of Scrabble. We had two games, an old one with missing tiles, and a new one we’d just bought. He duct-taped the boards together, combined the tiles, and we played all night. It sounds like such a little thing, but the kids still talk about the Scrabble storm. That was the thing about Lee—he could make anything an adventure.”
Sam sat on his side of the truck, nodding, not saying anything because he knew I needed to do this–this one-thing, one big thing, was the elephant in the room. I’d danced around it, circumventing it. It was the one-thing that was the straw . . . my straw.
“Even when they were little, the kids loved him. My story with them was Belinda Mae, because I could sing and Lee, like my grandmother before him, couldn’t hit a note if it were the broadside of a barn. But he was better at the rest of the books. He could make the stories come alive in a way I never could. When they were little, he’d do Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are and have the kids gnashing along with him. When it was good, he was very good.”
Sam finally broke his silence. “And when it wasn’t good?”
I didn’t answer right away. The weight of this one-thing was hard to get out from under.
“This is it,” Sam stated. “This is what all your one-things were leading to. My shrink would say those other things were tests.”
“Tests?”
“To see if you could trust me. Sharing things that mattered, but not the big thing that had you leave your home in Erie and sent you out to the woods.”
“You have a shrink?”
Sam nodded. “Had. PTSD. There was Grid, but I needed more, especially when he left. It wasn’t the injury that immobilized me in the hospital. And it wasn’t the injuries that haunted my dreams. It was the weight of the memories. I’d wake up from a dream—they were always so real that I’d have to check to be sure I wasn’t really covered in blood. Even in my dream I’d know that my best attempts wouldn’t be good enough.” He looked down at his hand, as if expecting to see it covered in blood. “I was trained to save people. I was that kid in school who always had As. I excelled. I wasn’t prepared to fail. I especially wasn’t trained to fail on such an epic level. I was trained to be sure and decisive—I was trained to save.”
“Trained?”
“I was a doctor.”
The four words sank in. Sam hadn’t gone to fight; he’d gone to heal. His job had been to save people. He’d been trained to fix people.
“When I was younger, I thought I’d play in the NBA. My best friend, Neil, and I had it all planned out. We’d both play college ball, then move to the big leagues. But when I was a sophomore in high school, everything changed.”
“Neil,” Sam screamed as he raised his arms, calling for the ball.
Neil passed it to him and Sam shot his best friend a look. He knew that Neil was ready. They’d practiced this play for weeks. Sam set up the shot, and Neil sprinted toward the hoop. Sam threw the ball upward in front of Neil, who jumped, caught it and was ready to sink it into the basket, when number eight from the other team jumped as well, slamming into Neil midair.
Sam watched as Neil fell. It felt as if it happened in slow motion. His best friend, still clutching the ball, fell toward the floor. Number eight plucked the ball out of Neil’s arms.
The sound of Neil’s head hitting the hardwood reverberated through the auditorium. But no one but Sam seemed to notice. Everyone else was focused on number eight as he sprinted toward the other team’s hoop with the rest of Sam’s team hot on his heels.
Normally, Sam would be running after him, too, trusting that Neil would climb to his feet and follow.
But there was something that kept him stationary under the net. He looked at Neil, who hadn’t moved or opened his eyes.
Then his best friend started to convulse.
And still Sam stood there, watching Neil jerk so hard that his head hit the floor again.
> Sam didn’t know what to do.
He barely registered that the ref blew his whistle. The coaches ran onto the floor and the players stood under the other team’s net, watching as Neil moved spastically.
Sam didn’t know what to do to help.
He stood frozen as the paramedics arrived and took the still unconscious Neil away on a stretcher.
“I can still see it all so clearly in my mind. From that moment on, I knew that I’d never play in the NBA. That dream gave way to another. I would be a doctor. I’d never again not know what to do. That’s what I thought, at least. I told myself that if I’d been a doctor, I could have saved Neil. In my mind, I’d save everyone. But that’s not what happened. I couldn’t save everyone. I couldn’t even save myself.”
I reached out and took his hand.
All the things he’d told me, they’d been tests as well, I realized. “I’m sorry about Neil. After Gracie died, my mom said that sometimes you can’t save everyone. Sometimes it’s okay to simply save yourself. No matter what you say, you did save me. Before you, I survived. But surviving isn’t living. I’d gone through the motions until I walked into your bar. You saved me, Sam. I’m alive again because of you. I want to save you, too.”
“So tonight we do our one big thing?” he asked.
I nodded. “One-thing with you has become my absolution. No, that’s after confession, when the priest absolves you. Our one-things are my permission to let go and move on. Somewhere along the line, I recognized that.”
“And there’s one more thing you need to move on from,” he said. Slowly, recognizing the significance, Sam said the words. “One thing?”
“I think there are tipping points in recovery. Points when things get better or sometimes worse. Sometimes there are a lot of tipping points as you heal—new levels as you try to rediscover yourself. But some moments are more than tipping points. They’re more like lines. You don’t always recognize it as you approach, but you can see it in hindsight. You cross that line; then everything’s different. You’re different. My father’s death was a line like that.”
“How did you change?”
“I discovered he wasn’t perfect. I found my mother’s laughter and realized how much she loved me. That kind of knowledge can’t help but change you. I was different after that.”
“And Gracie?”
“That’s a pain I’ll never fully get over, but I learned to live again. I learned to appreciate Connie and Conner. I guess I grew up.”
“And . . .”
“And I thought I’d faced the worst of it. But there was Lee. You haven’t asked what happened to him.”
“I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“He died.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sitting in the truck, staring out at the ever-darkening bay, I realized I was too. I was sorry about Lee.
“But there’s more. You see, as I’ve told you these things, I never told you about Lee. That’s why I needed to tell you that he was a good father. He had very big highs, but he paid for it with very deep lows. When I met him, that day on campus, he was on a high. When he went low, I was there to pull him out. After Gracie, he went low. I did, too. I could barely save myself, much less pull him out of his depression. There was a whole other depth to Lee’s lows. Medication helped even things out, but he didn’t always stay on it.”
“After the kids graduated . . .” Sam prompted.
“We got back together and took the trip to Ireland. Things were good for a while. For a few years. Then he went off his meds. I realized it one night when . . .”
Lexie pulled in the garage and was happy to see Lee’s car there. She couldn’t wait to share her news. Maybe that’s the secret to a good marriage—having someone you want to share your good news with. She’d been asked to enter some of her pottery in a local exhibit. “Lee,” she called as she came in, hung her coat on the hook, and kicked off her shoes. “We’re going out to dinner. You’ll never guess . . .”
The house was dark. There was no sound.
“Lee,” she called again. Still nothing.
She wandered through the house, looking in each room. She went upstairs and checked the bedrooms, one by one. She paused outside Gracie’s door, then forced herself to twist the handle and go in.
Lee lay curled up in a fetal position on her bed, facing the wall.
“Lee?”
“It’s not helping, Lex.” He didn’t turn around as he spoke. Didn’t move. “I thought if we got back together, I’d feel better. I’d feel like myself again. But I don’t. I thought you might be enough, but you’re not.”
His words cut at her, but she forced herself to put the pain on hold. “Did you take your meds today?”
“They don’t help. They just make everything fuzzy. I feel numb.”
“Maybe numb is better than this.”
“You’re not my mother, Lex. Hell, I don’t even think you’re going to be my wife much longer. We should have just stayed divorced.”
“Lee, this is your illness talking.”
“No, this is me. Me off the medications. Me allowing myself to feel. And right now, I feel as if I was wrong to get back together with you. I was wrong to think we could get back what we had. It’s over. We’re over.”
“Fine. We can be over after you get better. Why don’t I take you to the hospital? Remember how much better you felt last time?”
Lee finally turned and faced her. She hardly recognized him. His face was etched with despair as keen as it had been right after Gracie.
“Don’t you think I’d go with you if I thought it would help? It won’t. Nothing will help.”
“You stay here, and I’ll go call Conner.”
“No. I don’t want him to see me like this.”
Lee lived under the delusion that the kids didn’t know he was sick. “He’s seen you like this before,” she reminded him gently. “He’d want to help.”
As if he’d used up all his energy, Lee turned back to the wall.
Lexie wanted to cry. She knew it was Lee’s illness talking, but knowing and feeling were two different things, and right now, she was feeling hurt.
For so many years she’d overlooked moments like these. She told herself Lee couldn’t help his illness. He couldn’t help the words he threw at her like weapons. They were designed to hurt her. To make her feel the pain that he felt.
Well, he’d done that. His words hurt.
But rather than being crushed by the pain of it, she was angry.
She’d felt many things about Lee. Love. Amusement. Gratitude. Sadness. But for the first time, she was well and truly angry.
“I thought you might be enough, but you’re not.” I sighed. “I knew it was his illness, and I knew he loved me. But those words hurt. And for the first time, I didn’t want to make allowances for his illness. He’d hurt me because he could and I was angry.”
“What happened then?”
“Conner came and helped me get Lee to the hospital. We checked him into the psych ward. They started his meds again and he went to his therapist, but those words stood between us. He apologized and I said it was okay, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t enough. I hadn’t been enough to save Gracie. I wasn’t enough to save Lee. He was slipping and I couldn’t hold on to him. I tried. I’d healed enough from losing Gracie that I thought I could help him, like I always had. But after we took him to the hospital, things got worse. A year and a half ago . . .
Lexie woke up with what the kids used to call brain-fuzz. It took her a moment to orient herself to where and when she was. The where was pretty easy—in bed. The when was a bit harder—she glanced at the clock and it read three. Three in the morning, she quickly determined. The next thing that filtered through her fuzz was that she was in the bed alone. Lee wasn’t there.
After that, the realization that someone was ringing the doorbell made it through.
It was probably Lee.
She couldn’t decide why he’d be o
ut until three in the morning and was still too fuzzy to figure it out. She’d let him in and just ask.
She didn’t bother with slippers or a robe. Lee had seen her in her scruffy cutoff sweats and tank-top pajamas before.
She opened the door and started to say, “Where were—” She didn’t get to the you part because it wasn’t Lee at the door. It was a police officer.
A police officer wearing a very pained expression. He probably knew Conner. She wondered if something had happened to her son. “Mrs. McCain?”
“Yes. Is it Conner?”
The cop looked confused.
“My son’s a cop,” she explained.
She saw the recognition in his eyes. He shook his head. “No, I’m not here about a Conner. Maybe I should call him and—”
Suddenly, Lexie knew. “It’s about my husband?”
He nodded. “Your husband is Julian McCain?”
“Lee. He hated being called Julian.” She said the words, even though she knew Lee’s preferences didn’t matter anymore. The police officer didn’t need to say another word, because she knew. It was easier to comment on his name than on the fact that Lee was gone.
She wasn’t sure how, but she knew her husband was gone.
“The cop called Conner. He showed up fifteen minutes later. They said it was an accident. I’d like to believe it was, but I can’t. Lee wouldn’t take his meds and had been so depressed. I’d never seen him that bad before.”
After that last time in the hospital, I brought him home and his mood had evened out for a few weeks, but then got worse. “He lost his job. He’d be in bed when I went to work, and he’d still be there when I got home. I couldn’t pull him from this hole and neither could the kids. In fact, after they would visit, he’d be worse, so they stopped visiting. I think it was all just too much. I think he . . .” I hesitated. I’d never given voice to the thought before. “I think he killed himself. I think he drove his car into the side of the hill.”
“Lex . . .”
“I was used to his highs and lows, but this wasn’t just low. He’d fallen down the rabbit hole and no amount of therapy or medication seemed to help.”
