Not What I Expected

by Jewel E. Ann

  “I disagree.” He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. “It fits the guy who lives in the now. For now, I’m here. And now is all I have. So paint the walls, hang photos, get a few house plants, and a welcome mat—anything less is just waiting for something better.”

  I liked his eyes on me even if I never understood why …

  So I asked, “Why me?” Adjusting one of the ornaments on his tree, I kept my focus away from his expression. It was a hard question to ask. And maybe it sounded insecure, but that wasn’t it. I didn’t love him because he was thirty and looked like Captain America. That would have been attraction. That would have made it easy to have a one-night stand.

  “Why Epperly? Why blue paint? Why grilled cheese for dinner? It’s just a feeling. A lingering feeling. Some feelings are fleeting. Some stay with you, demanding you pay attention. They are unforgettable. It was sex …”

  “Until it wasn’t …” I whispered, turning toward him.

  “Until it wasn’t …” He nodded. “It’s the way you blush and divert your gaze when I say something nice about you. Then, in the next moment, you’re threatening to ‘take me down.’ It’s jumping into a freezing lake then hopping into a hot tub. It’s this invigorating feeling. It’s awakening. And honestly, it feels good to let myself love you, knowing you expect nothing because you’ve already had everything. And you don’t really need me.”

  Kael saw the version of myself that I wanted to be long before I got there.

  “What makes you think I don’t need you?”

  “You’re here.”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t.

  He stood and made his way to me, my heart beating faster and harder with each step. I shivered when he gently brushed the palm of his hand over my cheek. “You’re here to say goodbye.”

  Tears burned my eyes. “Yes.”

  The pad of his thumb caught the first tear. “It was a moment … at Spoons when I turned around and exposed us to all of Epperly … it was a moment. A feeling. I had to jump. I needed to know what it felt like to love you in front of the world. I needed to let us shine, if only for a few seconds before everything collapsed around us.”

  I rested my hand over his, leaning into his touch. “How did it feel?”

  He smiled. “You tell me.”

  “It felt … freeing. It felt … real.”

  Kael kissed me, confirming that it was real, reminding me that life was nothing but a moment, and no one was guaranteed more than one. We were real, even if we weren’t forever.

  It took a long time to let go. Some moments deserved extra seconds … a few more breaths.

  When I took a step back, he kept his hand on my face. I slowly took another step away from him, his touch fading away. “Thank you.”

  “For?” His eyes narrowed.

  “Not letting me sit around and die an old goose.”

  His grin reached for his ears. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged, turning to get my coat, boots, and dog. When I reached for the doorknob, my aching chest drew in a deep breath.

  Wait for me … I so desperately wanted to say it, but I didn’t.

  “Merry Christmas, Kael.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sometimes amazing things come to an end. It doesn’t mean you wish they’d never happened. If I had it to do all over again … I would have married the same man. I would have chosen the same path. We were real; we just weren’t forever.

  * * *

  A collective look of shock hit me when I arrived for my last grief meeting at the church. Stopping at the entrance to let everyone get a good look at Epperly’s number one sinner, I pulled my lips into a tight smile.

  “Elsie,” Rhonda said, lifting her chin, looking down her nose at me.

  “Hi.” My gaze went to Tillie, but she quickly averted hers.

  “Here’s a seat by me.” Kelly pointed to the empty chair between her and Bethanne.

  “Thanks.” I walked across the room—the walk of shame—and took a seat.

  No one said anything, in spite of me being fifteen minutes late. Surely they’d been talking before I arrived. Probably about me.

  “Listen …” I swallowed my fear and embarrassment. “This is my last time with the group for reasons I’m sure all of you are well aware of. I’m taking a break from church too. I do a fantastic job of judging myself. I am and always will be my hardest critic. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Craig’s death. And it brings a special kind of pain that no one in this room knows about. Until now …”

  I risked a quick glance up from my folded hands in my lap. “The tiny rock in the shoe. The little things that I didn’t love about Craig. The little annoying things that crawled under my skin and ate at my soul … they ended my marriage. But they didn’t ruin it. I have four beautiful children, a heart filled with love, and a mind packed with memories of a long and successful marriage. Sometimes amazing things come to an end. It doesn’t mean you wish they’d never happened. If I had it to do all over again … I would have married the same man. I would have chosen the same path. We were real; we just weren’t forever.”

  Two men … I loved two men that way. Time didn’t matter. Love didn’t keep track of time. It lived in the moment.

  Confusion spread across every single face in the room.

  “There are probably many labels for what happened to me. A midlife crisis. Maybe I lost my way spiritually and emotionally. Maybe I just hit this emotional wall that I couldn’t get past without letting something—someone go. A fall from grace. A breaking point. Maybe it was as simplistic as being human … truly human. But I snapped. The day Craig died, I let all those tiny rocks push me over the edge. I just … felt like I was crawling out of my skin—completely losing myself to a toxic relationship.

  “We fought. Words were exchanged that were driven by anger and pain. Resentment. Exhaustion. Discontentment. It all boiled over. And I asked him for a divorce. He left. And he never came home.”

  Kelly handed me a tissue. It was only then that I realized I was crying.

  “Thank you.” I blotted my eyes. “I wanted out, but not like that. It was supposed to be my loss … not my children’s loss. I’ve spent the last year figuring out who I am without Craig. And it’s not a shop owner. And when Bella leaves for college next fall, I’m going to feel a little less like a mom. I didn’t set out to have a relationship with Kael. If I’m honest, it was sex. Yes … out of wedlock, sinful sex. And it made me feel so many things. Each one in and of itself doesn’t matter. It was the simple fact that he made me feel. He made me question things I’ve never allowed myself to question because I was raised to not question. I was raised to read the Bible, go to church, and follow the rules obediently. And I did … for many years.”

  Kelly rested her hand on one leg as Bethanne rested a hand on my other leg. It pulled more tears from my eyes, and their kindness made my heart bleed a little more.

  “So I need to step back and find my way, allow myself to really see things and not blindly follow. Because … it didn’t feel wrong. Being with a man who wasn’t my husband … it didn’t feel wrong. And I don’t know if I’ll ever want to have a husband again, but I want companionship. I want intimacy. As immature and elementary as it sounds … I do wonder why something that feels good on so many levels has so many rules. If it’s consensual … why is it wrong?”

  “Well, the Bible says—”

  I held my hand up to stop Rhonda’s interruption. “It was a rhetorical question. I know what the Bible says. I’ve read every single word in it. And I can interpret it to support whatever makes me feel good about my life. I mean … that’s why there are so many different takes and beliefs about God. Right? No one can prove there is a God. It’s faith. So I’m going to have a little faith that God gave me a brain to think, a heart to feel, and a conscience to do the right thing in a world where we don’t always know what that is. We are told to love one another. We are told to not judge.
So I hope you can WWJD that when I walk out that door.”

  I stood. “I miss him … Craig. The world was a better place with him in it. And I could have shared a million things I loved dearly about him. I could have convinced myself and everyone else that he was perfect and he was everything. But that would have been a lie. He wasn’t perfect, and he was a lot of things, but not everything. And to heal, I needed to let go of the things I didn’t like about him. And you—willingly or maybe not so willingly—let me do that. So … thank you for letting me be a part of your lives—your successes, your failures, your grief, and your realest moments. You are loved by me—unconditionally. I will always show you grace. I will always be a friend if you need one.”

  A few of the other women shed tears with me as well. Not Rhonda. And not Tillie. That was okay. As mixed up as my emotions and feelings about life were in the moment, I knew one thing for sure—no two people shared the same journey. I wasn’t necessarily in a better place, just a different one.

  When I arrived home with groceries for Christmas with my kids, everyone’s car was parked in the driveway or on the street—just my kids and my parents, who Bella picked up from the airport two hours south of Epperly.

  “Hey, Mom.” Linc hugged me as soon as I climbed out of my Tahoe.

  “My baby.” I hugged him back and all six feet five inches of him lifted me off the ground. “Have you been here long? I went to my meeting at church before the grocery store. I didn’t expect to see anyone arrive until later tonight.”

  “We wanted to surprise you.” He set me back on my feet. “Bella just got home with Grandma and Grandpa, and Finn went to get Grandma and Papa Smith.”

  “I didn’t plan on dinner for everyone.”

  “And …” Linc opened the back of the Tahoe to help unload groceries. “Chase ordered pizza, and it will be here in thirty minutes.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek before carrying grocery bags into the house.

  My family left me speechless. They had no way of knowing the full extent of my emotionally rattled state. Yet they were there for me.

  “There’s our girl.” Dad hugged me the second I removed my boots as Bella took the sacks of groceries from my hands.

  “Hey, Dad. Good to see you. How was your flight?”

  “Smooth as could be.”

  “Hi, Mom.” I went straight from my dad’s arms to my mom’s arms.

  “Baby girl.” She kissed the side of my head. “How ya doing, honey?”

  “Good. I’m good.” I pulled back and smiled. I was doing good. In spite of the shit show called my life the previous months, I felt oddly at peace with my uncertain future.

  No plans. And that was okay.

  No Kael. And while that didn’t feel as okay, it was life in the now.

  He taught me that.

  “Are you sure?” She pressed her hand to my cheek.

  “Of course.” My face contorted in a little confusion at her sudden concern. It wasn’t like she’d recently called me to check in.

  “Well, we’re here now and everything’s going to be okay.”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t have time to ask because Finn came through the front door with Craig’s parents.

  A good ole Griswold family Christmas.

  We ate pizza, and the boys shared with their grandparents how college and jobs were going. Bella remained uncharacteristically quiet. More than that, she wouldn’t hold eye contact with me for more than a few seconds.

  “Can I say something before we leave the table. I didn’t expect everyone to be here tonight, but it actually feels like the right time to make this announcement.”

  Everyone eyed me suspiciously.

  Too suspiciously.

  What was going on?

  “After much thought and careful consideration, I have decided to close the store at the end of the year.” Just like that … a hundred pounds lifted from my shoulders.

  Linc reached over and covered my hand with his. “We know. Well, we didn’t know for sure that you were planning on it and had set an actual date. But we were going to suggest it.”

  “Uh … we?” I gave him a narrow-eyed inspection before sweeping my gaze around the table. So many sad and pained faces.

  “It’s kinda why we’re all here tonight.” Chase eyed Bella briefly before returning his focus to me.

  I laughed nervously. “What do you mean? You arranged everyone to be here to suggest I close the store?”

  “Not just the store.” Finn took his turn speaking. “This is more like an intervention.”

  Bella … she kept her gaze on her plate with a half-eaten piece of pizza on it.

  “An intervention?” My eyes widened. “For … what?”

  “Sweetie,” Mom gave me that motherly, overly sympathetic look, “we know.”

  “Know what?”

  Bella squirmed, but she still wouldn’t look at me.

  “We know about your young boyfriend. And the breakdown you had at the young man’s store. We know you’ve been showing signs of mental distress at your grief group. Unwarranted anger. And…” she shot Craig’s parents a quick glance “…we know you asked Craig for a divorce right before he was in the car accident.”

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  A fucking intervention? It had to be a joke. I did nothing wrong. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t losing it. I was honest. I was human.

  I immediately gauged Linc’s and Chase’s reaction. Were they mad I never told them the truth? And Craig’s parents … that news and the news of me closing their store.

  But nobody looked mad or disappointed, just painfully sympathetic. Except Bella … she bled shame with her complete avoidance of me.

  She was the rat.

  And I wasn’t mad at her. I was really confused because I was good. I did all the things I needed to do.

  Closing the store.

  Breaking up with Kael.

  Confessing to my grief recovery group.

  And I was going to come clean to Linc and Chase right after Christmas.

  I. Was. Good.

  What in the hell happened?

  I thought Bella and I were good.

  “I see …”

  I didn’t actually. It was all a blur, mass confusion running rampant in my head.

  “So …” I drew in a long breath. “What exactly are you intervening? Because I’m not in my group anymore. Tonight was my last night. I’m not with the younger man anymore. I already said I was closing the store. What’s left for me to do?”

  “We want you to come to Arizona with us so that we can take care of you. Just until you recover.” Mom glanced at my dad as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  “Take care of me? Recover?” I couldn’t hide my reaction. Just totally aghast. “You can’t be serious.” I was planning on moving to Arizona after Bella graduated, just temporarily—and not for anyone to take care of me because I needed to recover from anything.

  “It’s just that your actions have been a little reckless. And not everyone experiences grief at the same rate. And given the fact that you were unhappy in your marriage before Craig died, well … all the more reason for your timeline of grieving to be off or delayed. When we’re grieving, we’re not always ourselves.” Mom eyed the kids as if to let them know she had things under control … she would make me see why I needed an intervention. And my kids seemed comforted by her doing that. Finally, a solid mother figure taking charge.

  I waited for it all to sink in because it was really hard to swallow. Had I been that bad? “I was honest with the women at church, and in return … they felt safe to be honest too. And I never wanted to take over the store. So … I don’t see what I’ve done wrong.”

  Craig’s poor parents. I wasn’t sure how much they were following everything or how much my family had disclosed to them before dragging them into such a mess. They didn’t need to know about me and Craig, not like that. And if they didn’t know about the store before Finn b
rought them to the house, then it was a really shitty way to break the news to them in the context of me asking their son for a divorce. It was all too much.

  “And the young man you’ve been seeing?” Mom continued, as moms did—poking, prodding, interrogating.

  “He’s thirty, not thirteen. And we …” The “we were only having sex” defense didn’t feel appropriate, but it was the best defense that didn’t make it look like I was trying to replace Craig with a much younger man—or infatuated with him in a way that would seem desperate and truly edging the midlife crisis explanation. I sighed. “I’m not moving to Arizona. Not now, anyway. And if or when I do, it won’t be for anyone to keep an eye on me or help me through any sort of grieving.”

  “Mom …” Bella broke her silence. “I’ll be fine. I can stay at the house until it sells and then stay with a friend until graduation.”

  The little shit. I mean … I wasn’t trying to be mean or let angry thoughts take over my mind, but she was the instigator. I thought we were good. Why didn’t she talk to me more about everything—about Kael—if she was really that bothered by it? I told her I would end things with him, and I did.

  I laughed, making brief eye contact with every single person at the table so they would know there was nothing wrong with me. “I’m not leaving my senior in high school home alone and then off to live with someone else.”

  “Mom…” Linc gave me the most pathetically sad smile “…do this for us. If you love all of us, you’ll take care of you.”

  “I am taking care of me!” My anger built because I didn’t like the looks they were giving me. “I’ve been going to a grief group for months, and I’ve finally started sharing my feelings. I’m so fucking sorry if they’re not the feelings you want me to have. But they are mine!”

  Shock.

  They all looked shocked.

  “And yes … I’ve started using the word ‘fuck.’ And I like it. I like to say it, and I like to do it with Kael Hendricks. I like to do it in the back of my Tahoe, at his store, at my store, in the shower, and on the sofa.” I pointed to the living room. “So yeah … next time you go to sit on the sofa, just know that I fucked Kael on the sofa and the floor too. That’s me taking care of me. So I don’t need to go to Arizona for therapy. I need to do what I want when I want for one goddamn time in my life. I’ve raised four kids, helped run a family business, gone to church every Sunday, and been the only person standing between Ron and Mary and a retirement home. So if you really care about me the way you claim to, then you’ll back the fuck off!”