One Last Thing

by Rebecca St. James

  “I need to walk,” I said.

  “I just don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Daddy, it’s fine. The only reason I had issues the other night was because I was running in the rain, which was stupid.”

  “And you’re lucky somebody with a conscience was the one to find you and pull you out of a puddle. I’m not going to let you do this. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re not going to let me?” somebody who couldn’t be me said to my father. “I’m twenty-five years old. If I want to go out for a walk I’ll go out for a walk.”

  Pain shot across his face, but he still said, “My house. My rules. You’ve been through enough, Tara, and I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. In fact, I think your mother and I have been pretty respectful of you in not insisting you tell us why you broke it off with Seth and why he’s left town and why his father can’t even look me in the eye.” His voice was starting to falter. “I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to respect me and my need to keep you from having anything else happen to you.”

  I expected to cry, but it was as if I had no tears left. My anger gave way to despair.

  “It’s not asking too much,” I said. “I’m sorry I was like that. I’m just—I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, sugar. I don’t want you to feel like you’re in prison . . .”

  I shook my head and kissed his smooth forehead and went back upstairs. I was in prison, but he wasn’t the one who put me there.

  The question now was what to do with the endless hours of the night when I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t turn off the thinking and the feeling and couldn’t stand to have them turned on anymore. The fact that it took me until two in the morning to figure it out was a testament to how far I’d wandered from myself. Of course. I could watch movies.

  Heaven knows I had the perfect setup.

  The largest room on the third floor was a library for Kellen and me when we were growing up. With big comfy chairs and signed-by-the-author posters of children’s books on the ceilings—because the walls were lined with bookshelves—and a long table for doing homework and working on computers, it was more conducive to learning than the classrooms in the private schools we went to. When I was in high school, after Kellen and Seth went off to college, my friends came over for group projects and forays into the collection of books that rivaled our academy library.

  It was also the site of the conversation I had with Daddy about where I was going to college. Now that I thought about it, that was the only other discussion with him that had gone down the way tonight’s almost-argument had.

  From the time Lexi’s parents took us to see Finding Neverland and we had that scintillating conversation at the Waffle House, I knew I wanted to study film. Lexi and I had researched every college that offered a film arts degree, and both of us were set on going to Vanderbilt. It had never occurred to me that Daddy wouldn’t let me go to whatever university I wanted to and be anything I wanted to be.

  The acceptance letter had come that day and I left it on the desk in his study. When I heard him coming down the hall toward the library at ten o’clock that night, when I was still up working on a paper, I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the scene I’d rehearsed in my mind. The one where he would come in all shiny-faced and I would jump into his arms and he would say, “I am so proud of you, sugar.”

  The problem was, I hadn’t given him the script. He didn’t know the lines. He only knew his motivation.

  Why hadn’t I discussed college choices with him, he wanted to know. Did I not realize what the competition was like in the film industry? Didn’t I think, with my gentle temperament, that I was better suited for a more academic career? Didn’t I love English? Didn’t I excel at that? How did I even know I would be good at film?

  The whole time he was laying those questions on me like layers of baklava, the only thing I could think was that I had it all planned in my mind. How, then, could it not come true?

  When he was through he asked me what I thought. I didn’t think at all then. I only felt. And I said the one thing that, in his mind, proved the very point he was making: “But Lexi and I are doing this together. We’re going to be roommates.”

  Daddy had nothing against Lexi. He liked her better than either Alyssa or Jacqueline, I was sure. But he shook his head at me and said, “Doing it just because Lexi is doing it isn’t a good reason when it comes to your education, Tara. You’ll find other friends.”

  I didn’t, really—not like Lexi. Not anyone who shared the passion I watched melt away as she went off to Vanderbilt and I went off to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

  I didn’t push it. I didn’t know what would have happened if I had, but Daddy knew I was disappointed. He still thought he was right, of course, but I was his sugar. When I came home for Christmas break my freshman year, the library had been converted into a state-of-the-art home theater with a Blockbuster Video store–size collection of DVDs and—to Kellen’s delight—a popcorn machine. I loved it, of course, but I didn’t have the heart to tell Daddy I wanted to make movies, not just watch them.

  And then there was the summer I came home from school, at age almost twenty-two, when Seth Grissom finally looked at me and realized that I wasn’t just Kellen’s kid sister. That was the summer he fell in love with the girl who had been in love with him since she was fifteen. After that, it didn’t seem to matter what I studied in school. I knew I was going to be Seth’s wife, and that was all I wanted to be.

  Since I’d come home from Duke in May and we’d all been so focused on the wedding, I hadn’t been in the Faulkner Cinema, as Lexi named it, more than two or three times. It had sort of a musty smell when I entered that night, so I was pretty sure nobody else had used it either. I went to one of the cabinets in the back and pulled out a DVD and stuck it in the machine. A few remote clicks later and I had sunk into a film. I didn’t even know what it was. It just let me not think and let me not feel.

  I woke up there at ten o’clock the next morning.

  FIFTEEN

  I wasn’t crying anymore.

  Mama called me late Tuesday afternoon to tell me GrandMary’s surgery had gone well and the tumor was contained. The pathologist’s report would take a few days, but GrandMary was optimistic and, of course, adamant that she was leaving the hospital before then. I had no tears of gratitude to share with Mama’s shaky relief.

  Tuesday and Wednesday Wendy and Ms. Helen continued to feed me, and the kindness should have reduced me to sobs. But I sipped butternut squash soup and nibbled at the edges of a Brie and pear without so much as a whimper.

  Ms. Helen and Gray and Betsy and I discussed a potpourri of topics—from the failure of the Hobbit movies to elicit the emotion of the Lord of the Rings series, to the amount of time Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Candy Crush sucked from people’s lives. But even when Ms. Helen admitted that she followed Pat Sajack on Twitter, no tears accompanied my forced laughter.

  Lexi walking into Faulkner Cinema Wednesday night and sitting in the recliner next to mine and just saying, “Hey. Want some company?” had the potential to make me weep. But I merely said, “Yes,” and made us popcorn. It was, however, the first night in three when I became aware of what movie I was watching. It was The Great Gatsby with Leonardo Dicaprio. Always before I’d identified with Nick, who observed the meaningless lives of the rich and learned about himself. This time I could only empathize with Gatsby, who had pinned all his dreams on one person and when she was gone he had no life. But still, I didn’t cry.

  When you don’t feel, you can’t cry. Or truly laugh. Or rouse yourself to anger. Or become vulnerable to love. But to me, then, a dull, numb state beat the constant throbbing pain and the relentless stinging of anxiety.

  But it wasn’t to last.

  Thursday—it was the fifteenth of January—I was sitting with the Watch, drifting at the edge of a conversation about Betsy’s departure from Calla’s Bridal—Gray shamelessly pump
ing her for every delicious detail of Calla’s thinly veiled rage—when a group of guys parked themselves at the table that had been moved close to ours after Ike took down the Christmas tree. It was obvious right off they weren’t SCAD students. Too freshly shaven. Too studiedly casual in their attire. Too clipped and cocky and condescending to be artists.

  Young businessmen, maybe. Perhaps from out of town, in Savannah for a meeting. But not classy the way my father and his contemporaries were. That wasn’t even what they appeared to be going for as they plunked a bottle of wine on the table and critiqued the cheeseboard for its lack of manchego and sat with their spines halfway down to the seats of their chairs and their elbows leaning on whatever they hit.

  I made a vague mental comment about the odd juxtaposition of them next to us and was about to return to our conversation when theirs started.

  “So—man,” the health-club blond said. “Did you score or what?”

  The dark-haired one with the sinewy runner look leaned back and basically leered. “What do you think?”

  The third, a ruddy redhead with an early paunch, said, “You played her like a freakin’ Stradivarius.”

  “I did,” Sinewy Runner said. “I know it’s bad, but I did.”

  Blondie smiled without parting his lips. “It was bad, but was it good?”

  I turned my body away and plastered my hands over my ears. My three women stopped, their own discussion still on their lips, and went on immediate alert.

  “Tara, what the heck?” Gray said.

  “It’s like women are a sport!” I said, though how they heard me I still don’t know because my teeth were soldered together. “We’re a video game and they have to score! I can’t stand it! I can’t!”

  Gray looked past me, over my shoulder, and let her scowl fall on the next table. There was a scraping of chairs as her eyes followed the three guys across the dining room to a spot . . . somewhere else.

  “All right, honey,” Ms. Helen said to me. “The coast is clear.”

  Betsy nodded. “Start talkin’, girl.”

  I did. Three males I had never seen before and probably never would again had knocked open the gate I’d kept closed for forty-seven days, shutting out every person I cared about including myself. What I’d held there flooded out and drowned the promise I’d made to Seth and to Randi and to Paul. To Gray and Betsy and Ms. Helen I told my story, and even without names or graphic details it was a tawdry tale, one not fit for a Thursday afternoon at a sweet window table at Piebald Espresso.

  But no one balked. No one drew back from me in horror. No one, not even Ms. Helen, looked at me as if I were the fool I was convinced I was. And when Ms. Helen said, “I am appalled,” I knew the words weren’t directed at me. Not with those hazel eyes bathing me in compassion.

  “And you haven’t told anyone else this entire time?” Gray said.

  “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “So—no support?” Ms. Helen said.

  “I’ve had some—”

  “But nobody can hold you up if they don’t know what’s pushin’ you down.” Betsy put her ever-warm brown hand on mine, which quivered like a claw on the table. “You know why you feel ashamed?”

  “Because this is awful!”

  She shook her head. “What this man did was awful. You only feel ashamed because you’re keeping his awful secret.”

  “Amen to that,” Ms. Helen said. “You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of—not that shame ever did anybody any good, but that’s an entirely different subject.” She prayed her hands under her tissuey chin. “You’ve had something stolen from you. You feel violated.”

  “And well you should.” Gray tightened her ponytail. “I’m not going to go into what I think about Mr. Fiancé because that’s not my call.”

  “Good on ya, Grainne,” Betsy said.

  “But I’m telling you, this is his fault, not yours.”

  “Then why . . .” I looked over their heads and swallowed. “Why do I feel so horrible? It’s like guilt is prickling inside me all the time and unless I keep myself perfectly numb, I can’t stand it. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can hardly focus on anything when I’m not working here.”

  They were all nodding like I was currently getting everything right on an oral exam.

  “Without a doubt,” Betsy said, wonderful full lips working as if she, too, had to get this right, “you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress. It’s like you’ve been in a serious car accident or someone you love has died.”

  “Right,” Gray said. “It’s a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.”

  “You’re depressed, honey,” Ms. Helen said. “And there is no fault in that. But I don’t want you to stay there. That’s a hopeless place.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get out of it,” I said. “I can’t see how it’s going to get any better than it is right now.”

  “Wrong.” Gray scooted her chair closer to mine so she could quite literally get in my face. “You start accepting what you feel and—how was it that one woman put it to me when I was going through my divorce? Okay, it’s like you’re drowning in a bowl of linguine.”

  I nodded vaguely.

  “Okay, and every strand of that linguine is something you’re feeling—anger, sorrow, resentment—”

  “Bitterness,” I said. “Guilt. Shame. Stupidity.”

  “Stupidity?” Betsy said. Her hands went up. “Girl, you are the exact opposite of stupid.”

  “What smart girl doesn’t see what’s going on with her guy? Why didn’t I know something was wrong?”

  Gray’s face went blank. “Oh, I don’t know—because you aren’t clairvoyant?”

  “Because you aren’t God?”

  Ms. Helen’s voice was soft, but it slammed into my mind so I couldn’t move.

  “Back to the pasta,” Betsy said. “I want to know where you’re taking that, Grainne.”

  Gray gave me another long look before she went on, as if she were waiting for me to make a break for it. But where was I going to go? Back to the vault?

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “So all those feelings are strands of linguine,” Gray said. “You have to follow each one and see where it comes from. Once you do, you realize it can’t take you under.”

  I clutched my head with both hands. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “You absolutely can’t if you try to do it by yourself.” That was Ms. Helen again, soft, firm, like a hand that doesn’t let go of yours no matter how hard you pull away.

  “If you want my help, I’m all in,” Gray said. “If anybody knows how to start over, it’s me, and one way or the other, my friend, you’re starting over.”

  “You can count on me too,” Betsy said. “I’ve had depression before. I know what it’s like, but I also know how to see the light at the other end of the tunnel, and girl, it is not a train coming at you.” She squeezed my hand. “I’ll come in the tunnel and show you the way out.”

  Ms. Helen was quiet, and my heart, which had begun to lift, sank again. If she wasn’t in, I didn’t know if I could even start. What if she didn’t believe I could get out of this? She was the wisest of us—

  “I’ll be here every evenin’ you work, at six p.m.,” she said finally. “But I’m bringing someone with me.”

  I looked up, panic clear in my eyes I was sure. Sharing with this . . . Watch . . . was one thing. Anyone else might push me back into that place that felt safe but wasn’t.

  But Ms. Helen leaned on that gorgeous tissue-paper chin and said, “I’m bringing God. When two or more are gathered together, if we let him in on the conversation, he’ll take it where it needs to go.”

  She looked around the table as if to ask for objections. There were none. Gray shrugged like, Of course. Why are we even talking about this? Betsy closed her eyes and smiled, and no doubt she was already praying.

  Me? If I wasn’t a complete lunatic to think so, in the last few weeks I’d had God stop m
e from slapping Paul Grissom, keep me from screaming at Seth—and, I realized in that instant—he’d brought Ned Kregg to my rescue after I screamed for help in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in the middle of the night. Why wouldn’t I expect God to show up here, among these godly women? It made more sense than a single thought that had come to me since my life turned in on itself and made me doubt everything.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Please.”

  “Well, then, ladies,” Ms. Helen said, sitting tall. “I think we can predict that Tara will be healed.”

  “Amen,” Gray said.

  I sat back in my chair and felt its slight un-shimmed rock. Healed. I would be healed.

  That had never occurred to me. I wanted Seth to be healed. I wanted GrandMary to be healed. But me? Was that what I was supposed to focus on? Not whether to marry Seth, but on me being somehow restored? So I wouldn’t stay the same?

  I didn’t have Gray or Betsy or Ms. Helen’s faith that it would without a doubt happen. But I had them, and maybe enough of my own faith curling through me like a wisp of incense.

  “All right,” I said to them. “All right.”

  Lexi came over that night and we watched the entire first season of Downton Abbey and I cried myself to sleep. Friday I awoke at noon with a silky thread of hope dangling over me. I wrapped my fingers around it and, like Ms. Helen, I didn’t let go.

  Wendy didn’t make that easy. When I arrived just in time for my shift, she was cool to me, barely acknowledging my presence and not making eye contact even when she called out orders for coffee and sandwiches. We were far from being BFFs, but she was usually at least civil if not friendly in that sarcastic you’re-a-complete-klutz-but-I-respect-you-anyhow sort of way. That day she showed me all the warmth of an ice cube. There was no soup in a mug for me.

  I, of course, went down several mental roads with that. Were the jeans I had on too pricey? Had Ike told her he was considering me for a management position? Had she heard my conversation with the Watch and was now completely disgusted with me?