What’s the point in lying? Who benefits from it anyway? Propriety says not to discuss such intense matters in public, but whom does that serve? This man is bored and I am broken. Maybe I’ll be a little less broken in telling him about it. Maybe he’ll be a little less bored.
“My husband died,” I say. I say it matter-of-factly, trying to work against the intensity of the conversation.
“Oh,” he says, quite surprised. “That’s heartbreaking to hear. It is interesting, like I asked, but just terrible. I didn’t realize you were married.”
“You met him,” I say. “A few months ago.”
“No, I remember. I just didn’t realize you were married.”
“Oh, well, we had only just married when he died.”
“Terrible,” he says, and he grabs my hand. It’s too intimate to feel comfortable, and yet, it doesn’t feel inappropriate. “I’m sorry, Elsie. You must be in such pain.”
I shrug and then wish I could take it back. I shouldn’t shrug about Ben. “Yes,” I admit. “I am.”
“Is that why you were gone for a while before?” he says, and my face must change. It must convey some sort of surprise because he adds, “You’re my favorite person here and I’m here every day. You think I don’t notice when my favorite person isn’t around?”
I smile and bite into my sandwich.
“I don’t know you very well, Elsie,” he says. “But I do know this: You are a fighter. You’ve got chutzpah. Moxie. Whatever it is.”
“Thank you, Mr. Callahan.” He gives me a disapproving glance. “George,” I correct myself. “Thank you, George.”
“No thanks needed. It’s what I see. And you will be okay, you know that? I know you probably don’t think it now, but I’m telling you, one day you’ll look back on this time and think, Thank God it’s over, but I got through it. I’m telling you.”
I look doubtful. I know I do because I can feel the doubt on my face. I can feel the way it turns down the corners of my mouth.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks, picking up his sandwich for the first time.
I smile. “No, I’m not sure I do, George. I’m not even sure I want that.”
“You’re so young, Elsie! I’m eighty-six years old. I was born before the Depression. Can you even imagine that? Because I’ll tell you, during the Depression nobody could imagine me still living now. But look at me! I’m still kicking! I’m sitting here with a gorgeous young lady, having a sandwich. Things happen in your life that you can’t possibly imagine. But time goes on and time changes you and the times change and the next thing you know, you’re smack in the middle of a life you never saw coming.”
“Well, maybe.”
“No, not maybe.” His voice gets stern. He’s not angry, just firm. “I’m going to tell you something no one who is still alive knows. Well, except my wife, but she knows everything.”
“Okay,” I say. I am done with my sandwich and he has barely started his. I am usually the one done last, but I now realize that’s because I am rarely the one listening.
“I fought in World War Two. Suited up right in the beginning of 1945. Toughest time of my life. Honest to God. It just wreaked havoc with my faith in God, my faith in humanity. Everything. I’m not a man fit for war. It doesn’t sit well with me. And the only thing that got me through was Esther Morris. I loved her the minute I saw her. We were eighteen years old, I saw her sitting with her friends on the sidewalk across the street, and I just knew. I knew she would be the mother of my children. I walked across the street, I introduced myself, I asked her out, and six months later we were engaged. By the time I found myself in Europe, I thought for sure I wasn’t going to stay long. And I was right, because I was only there for about eight months before I was shot.”
“Wow,” I say.
“I was shot three times. Twice in the shoulder. One grazed my side. I remember being in that medical tent, the nurse hovering over me, the doctor rushing to my side. I was the happiest man on earth. Because I knew they’d have to send me home and I’d see Esther. I couldn’t believe my luck that I could go home to her. So I recovered as fast as I could and I came back. But when I got home, Esther was gone. No sign of her.”
He sighs, but it seems more a sigh of old age than one of heartbreak.
“I still don’t know where she went. She just up and left me. Never told me why. I heard rumors from time to time that she’d taken up with a salesman, but I don’t know if that’s true. I never saw her again.”
“Oh God,” I say, now grabbing George’s hand. “That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “I waited around for years for her to come back. I wouldn’t leave the town we lived in, just in case she came lookin’ for me. I was devastated.”
“Well, sure,” I say.
“But you know what?”
“Hmm?”
“I took each day as it came, and it led me to Lorraine. And Lorraine is the love of my life. Esther is a story I tell young women in libraries, but Lorraine makes me feel like I could conquer the world. Like the universe was made for me to live in it. The minute I met her, she just set my world on fire. I forgot about Esther just as fast as she forgot about me, once I met Lorraine.”
“I don’t want Ben to be a story I tell young women in libraries though. He was more than that. That’s what I’m afraid of! I’m afraid that’s what he’ll end up,” I say.
George nods. “I know. I know. You don’t have to do it exactly like I did. I’m just trying to tell you that your life will be very long with zigzags you can’t imagine. You won’t realize just how young you are until you aren’t that young anymore. But I’m here to tell you, Elsie. Your life has just begun. When I lost Esther, I thought my life was over. I was twenty. I had no idea what was in store for me. Neither do you.”
George is done talking, and so he finishes his sandwich and we sit in silence. I contemplate his words, remaining convinced that living any part of the years I have before me would be a betrayal to the years behind me.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. Even if I can’t recover from loss like he did, it’s nice to know that someone did.
“I should thank you!” he says. “I am certainly not bored.”
That afternoon, I further compile research on Cleopatra. It occurs to me that Cleopatra had two great loves and look how they vilified her. At least she had a son and a dynasty to commemorate Caesar. At least she could put him on coins and cups. She could erect statues in his honor. She could deify him. She had a way to make his memory live on. All I have are Ben’s dirty socks.
When I leave work on Friday afternoon and head home for the empty weekend in front of me, it occurs to me that I could call Susan. I could see how she is. I think better of it.
I walk in my front door and put my things down. I go into the bathroom and start running the shower. As I’m disrobing, I hear the cell phone in the back pocket of my pants vibrating against the floor. I fumble to get it, and as I answer, I see that it is my mother.
“Hi,” she says.
“Oh. Hello,” I answer.
“Your father and I just wanted to see how you were doing. See how you were . . . uh . . . dealing with things?” she says. Her euphemism irritates me.
“Things?” I challenge.
“You know, just . . . we know you are having a hard time and we were sitting here thinking of you . . . I just mean . . . how are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I am hoping this conversation will be over shortly, so I don’t bother turning off the shower.
“Oh good! Good!” Her voice brightens. “We weren’t sure. Well, we are just glad to hear you are feeling better. It must have been a strange feeling to be caught up in the grief of his family, to be in the middle of all of that.”
I turn the shower off and lose my energy. “Right,” I say. What’s the point of explaining that I was his family? That this is my grief? That when I said I was fine I just said that because it’s someth
ing people say?
“Good,” she says. I can hear my father in the background. I can’t make out any of what he is saying, but my mother starts to get off the phone. “Well, if you need anything at all,” she says. She always says this. I don’t even know what she means by it.
“Thanks.” I shut off the phone, turn the faucet back on, and get under the water. I need to see Ben. I need just a minute with him. I need him to show up in this bathroom and hug me. I just need him for a minute. One minute. I step out of the shower, grab my towel and my phone.
I call Susan. I ask her if she’d like to have lunch tomorrow and she says she’s free. We agree on a place halfway between us, and then I put on a robe, get in bed, smell Ben’s side, and fall asleep. The smell is fading. I have to inhale deeper and deeper to get to it.
Susan has suggested a place in Redondo Beach for lunch. Apparently, she and Ben came here often over the years. Sometimes, before Steven died, they would all meet up here for dinner. She warns me not to expect much. “I hope you’re okay with chain Mexican restaurants,” she says.
The restaurant is decorated with bulls, hacienda-style tiles, and bright colors. It’s aggressively cheesy, wearing tacky like a badge of honor. Before I even reach Susan’s table, pictures of margaritas have accosted me about nine times.
She’s sitting in front of a glass of water when I find the table. She gets up immediately and hugs me. She smells the same and looks the same as always: composed and together. She doesn’t make grief look glamorous, but she does make it look bearable.
“This place is awful, right?” She laughs.
“No!” I say. “I like any place that offers a three-course meal for nine ninety-nine.”
The waiter comes to drop off a bucket of tortilla chips and salsa, and I nervously reach for them. Susan ignores them for the moment. We order fajitas.
“And, you know what?” Susan says to the waiter. “Two margaritas too. Is that okay?” I’m already face-deep in tortilla chips, so I just nod.
“What flavor?” he asks us. “Original? Mango? Watermelon? Cranberry? Pomegranate? Cantalo—”
“Original is fine,” she says, and I wish that she’d asked me about this one too because watermelon sounded kind of good.
He gathers our sticky red menus and leaves the table.
“Shit. I meant to ask him for guacamole,” she says after he leaves, and she starts to dig into the chips with me. “Sir!” she calls out. He comes running back. I can never get waiters’ attention once they’ve left the table. “Can we get guacamole too?” He nods and leaves, and she looks back at me. “My diet is a joke.” Who can count calories at a time like this? I feel good that Susan can’t either.
“So,” she says. “You mentioned it on the phone but I don’t understand. Your mom said she thought you’d be over it by now?”
“Well,” I say, wiping my hand on my napkin. “Not necessarily. She just . . . she called and asked how I was handling ‘things.’ Or ‘the thing’—you know how people use that terminology like they can’t just say ‘Ben died’?”
Susan nods. “The euphemisms,” she says. “As if you won’t remember that Ben is dead if they don’t say it.”
“Right! Like I’m not thinking about it every moment of the day. Anyway, she just asked and I said I was fine, like . . . I’m not really fine, but it’s just a thing you say. Anyone that asked me that would know that when I said ‘Fine’ I meant ‘Fine, considering the circumstances.’ ”
“Right.” The basket is now empty, and when the waiter comes to drop off the margaritas, Susan asks him to fill it up.
“But my mom honestly thought I was fine, I think,” I say. “I think she was hoping I’d say I was fine and that if I did say that, it would mean that she didn’t need to do anything and I was back to my old self. Like nothing ever happened.”
“Well, to her, nothing did happen.” Susan takes a sip of her margarita and winces. “I’m not much of a drinker, I’m afraid. I just thought it would be festive of us. But this . . . is a bit strong, no?”
I take a sip of mine. “It’s strong,” I say.
“Okay! I thought I was being a baby. Anyway—you were saying?”
“Actually, I think you were saying.”
“Oh. Right. Nothing happened to her. You two rarely talk, right?”
“Right.”
“It seems like she’s just one of those people that can’t empathize or even sympathize. So, she doesn’t know how to talk to you because she doesn’t understand you.”
I don’t talk about my family often, and when I do, I speak in short sentences and dismissive comments. But Susan is the first person to see what’s going on and give it a name. Or . . . at least a description. “You’re right,” I tell her.
“Don’t worry about your parents. They are going to do what they would want someone to do for them, and it’s going to be entirely different than what you need. And I say, give up trying to make the two fit. Not that I’m some expert. I just noticed that when Steven died there was a large difference between what I wanted from people and what they wanted to give me. I think people are so terrified of being in our position that they lose all ability to even speak to us. I say let it go.”
By the time she’s done talking, my margarita is gone. I’m not sure how that happened. Our fajitas come, sizzling and ostentatious, if fajitas can be ostentatious. They are just so big and require so many plates and people to bring them. There is the plate for the side dishes, the pans of chicken and vegetables, the case for tortillas, both corn and flour, and the condiments of guacamole, cheese, salsa, and lettuce. Our table looks like a feast fit for a king, and the chicken is frying so loudly on the skillets that I feel like the whole restaurant is looking.
“It’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Susan asks demurely. “I think it’s great though, the way they bring it to you like it’s a presentation. There’s absolutely no need for them to have the chicken still grilling on the table. None at all.”
The waiter comes back to check on us. Susan orders us each another margarita. “Watermelon for me,” I interject. Susan agrees. “That sounds good; watermelon for me too.”
We talk over our steaming lunches about politics and families; we talk about traffic and movies, news and funny stories. I want to be able to talk to Susan about things other than life and death, other than Ben and Steven. It seems possible. It seems like I could know her regardless of the tragedy between us. But Ben is what we have in common, and so the conversation will always come back to Ben. I wonder if it’s unhealthy to fixate out loud. If being obsessed with Ben’s death is something I’m only supposed to do in my own head. I also wonder how much I can truly rely on her.
“Do you have a plan for when you’re going to stop his mail?” she asks me casually, while she is picking at what’s left off the hot plate in front of her with her fork.
I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I don’t even know really how to do that.” That’s not all of the truth. The other fact is that I’m scared that would cause the post office to hold the marriage certificate too since it will have his name on it. I don’t want to have his mail stopped until I have it.
“Oh, it’s easy. We can do it today if you want,” she says.
“Oh,” I say, trying to think of a way to stop her and realizing I have no real excuse but the truth. “Well, I’m still waiting for the marriage certificate,” I say. “I don’t want to stop the mail in case they try to hold that too.”
“What do you mean?” she says, peeling an onion off the plate and putting it in her mouth with her hands.
“It hasn’t come yet and since both of our names will be on it, I’m worried they might keep it with his old bills and stuff instead of sending it through to me.”
“It hasn’t come yet?” Her voice indicates that there must be some misunderstanding. For so long, I’ve been worried to tell anyone that it hadn’t come yet. I’ve thought they’d think I was lying about our marriage. I was afraid they would use it to c
onvince themselves of the one thing I’m scared to be: not relevant. But Susan’s voice doesn’t convey a moment of doubt. She sounds only concerned about a clerical error or logistical mistake. It doesn’t even occur to her to question whether I’ve been completely full of shit. I have to admit that she’s come so far since I met her. She must move so quickly through emotional turmoil.
“No, I don’t have it yet. I’ve been checking the mail every day, opening up even the most innocuous of envelopes. It’s nowhere.”
“Well, we need to start calling people, figuring out where it is. Have you called the county to check and see if it’s at least in their records?”
“No,” I say and shake my head. Honestly, I hadn’t thought it was that big of a deal until I said it out loud. I hadn’t wanted to face the logistical nightmare of figuring this out.
“Well, that’s got to be the first step. You need to find out if the original license made it to the county.”
“Okay,” I say. Her concern is making me concerned.
“It’s okay,” she says and grabs my hand. “We’ll figure it out.” The way she says “we,” that she doesn’t say “You will figure it out,” makes me feel like I’m not alone. It makes me feel like if I can’t get myself out of this, she will get me out of this. It makes me feel like I’m high on a tightrope, losing my balance, but seeing the net underneath me. “We” will figure this out. Ana has made similar sentiments to me, but all those times I knew that she couldn’t help me. She could hold my hand, but she couldn’t hold me up. For the first time, I feel like it’s not up to only me. Nothing is up to only me.
“So you’ll call on Monday?” she says. “Call the county and find out?”
I nod. It’s clear she’s assuming we got married in Los Angeles County and I don’t have it in me to correct her. Part of me wants to. Part of me wants to revel in the truth with her. Tell her everything. But I know it’s not that simple. I know that our newfound connection is still too tenuous for the whole truth.
“Should I ask for the check?” she asks me.
Forever, Interrupted Page 16
