by Lisa Loomis
“Morgan, it's Sara,” my mom called out to me.
Sara, Sara who? I was thinking school, not San Jose.
“Hello,” I said, taking the phone from my mom.
“Morgan, it's Sara.”
I instantly recognized her voice. My mind raced back in time, and I pictured her smiling at me, the time I’d stood alone in the middle of his room.
“How are you?” I asked, surprised.
“I’m okay. And you?”
I hadn’t seen or spoken to Sara in years and suddenly the hairs went up on my arm.
“Good, busy,” I answered. “I started back to school. Trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. My last relationship blew up, and I figured I needed a new direction. What’s going on?”
There was a pause and all I could think was please let him be okay.
“It’s Mathew. He needs you, Morgan,” Sara said softly.
I listened as she told me the story. He’d been in a car accident, hitting a woman head-on and injuring her very badly. High on alcohol and cocaine, he’d entered the freeway on an off-ramp. He had pulled into traffic in the wrong direction. He was okay minus some cuts and bruises. The woman he hit was rushed to the hospital and treated for numerous broken bones and lacerations. He was sent to jail.
The judge had since ordered him to a halfway house rehab facility for six months and to pay restitution to the woman he hit. He had already been there three months. He was allowed to go to his classes and his job via the bus. Other than that, he was to be at the facility. I sighed with relief. It was bad, but could have been worse.
“I’m so sorry, Sara. It’s been a long time since Mathew and I have talked. Melanie’s wedding was the last time we spent a lot of time together.”
There was no need to mention the two times after that, she hadn’t been around.
“He called a couple times after that, but he’s not real good about keeping in touch,” I said.
I closed my eyes and pictured him propped up against the pillows at the Hyatt. The sheet rumpled just below his waist, his hair untidy from sleep. We’d talked of Cinderella, and the glass slipper. No there were no fairy tails, just life.
“He feels so bad about hurting someone. He can be very sensitive, as you know. She almost died.”
“Good, god. What can I do to help?” I asked, feeling helpless.
I thought about his sensitive side, the one rarely revealed. The side of him that could find me a frog in the pond in Santa Cruz, the one who could say he’d missed me, when all I wanted was to smell the jasmine, the Mathew who played his guitar for a single audience, the one who’d confessed that he was glad I was still in his life after Melanie’s wedding.
“Come see him,” she pleaded. “He won’t call you because he’s ashamed, that’s why I’m calling. He’s talked about you and could use some support. I know you two have been close over the years. He considers you one of his best friends.”
“He said that to you?”
I wondered what else he’d told Sara about me.
“Yes. I know he values your friendship, more than values his past relationship with you,” she said, her words alluding to the fact she knew more.
“Morgan, can you come for a visit?”
I was silent a minute, thinking, wondering if I dared open that door again. Knowing that if I opened it, I’d be exposing myself to his fragile state, exposing myself to what I might still feel.
“It would be so good for him emotionally,” Sara said.
I didn’t think of Mathew as being very emotional, although I’d seen rare glimpses. I flashed back to the wedding, him so handsome in his suit. “Come with me” he had asked. Sara waited.
“I’m sure I can work something out.”
“That would be so great,” she said.
“I’ll look into it and get back to you tomorrow,” I said.
After we hung up, I reflected back on our last few times together, the weekend of Melanie’s wedding, the hotel in L.A., Jack’s in San Jose. He knew when he asked me that I would come, that I was weak when it came to him. He knew if he was patient, he could pull me back. It had appeared to me those times that he had cleaned up, but I was with him so briefly, and all three times alone with him. No outside world. He could live hard and hide it well when he wanted to. The rock-and-roll, drug-and-alcohol thing sort of went hand-in-hand, and Mathew liked it all. I’d experienced the partying he could do. I booked a flight and called Gayle.
“I can pick you up,” she offered.
“No, I rented a car. I want to be able to get back and forth easily. I have no idea what this is going to be like. How long I can see him and stuff. I hope he’s okay about me coming.”
“You nervous?” she asked.
“I am, Gayle. We’ve drifted apart. We haven’t talked in a long time. He doesn’t know about me spending a winter in Park City, that I’m back in school; that Max and I broke up, nothing. I’ve been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”
I tried to envision what he would do when he saw me and couldn’t.
“It will be fine, I’m sure. You two always seem to be able to pick it up, or get it on,” she teased.
Maybe Sara had overstepped her boundaries. She had asked me to come, not him. Maybe she had been the one to suggest to him that I visit, not the other way around. Sara had put my name on a list of approved visitors. She said she had told him I was coming. Sara didn’t mention how he felt about it, which made me edgy. I was going to see him, assuming he would be happy about it. I went to the Hertz desk in San Jose to pick up the car.
“Need directions?” the gal asked.
“Yes, to here,” I said, showing her the address.
As I drove, I realized I was looking forward to seeing him, despite the circumstances. I was anxious about his reaction to me. I parked the car and checked my face in the rear view mirror. Flying always made me feel grimy. I took a deep breath, trying to settle the butterflies in my stomach as I walked through the front door.
“I’m here to visit Mathew O’Conner,” I stated to the woman at the front desk.
She peered over her reading glasses at me. She was older, maybe fifty, her blonde graying hair shoulder length. Laugh lines etched out at the corners of her green eyes.
“Your name?”
“Morgan, Morgan Mallory,” I answered.
“A good Irish girl, eh?” she smiled while she checked her list.
“You could say that,” I answered, looking around.
The lobby was drab, metal chairs with plastic seats lined one wall. The carpet industrial and grey, reminding me of Mathew and me at the airport gate that one time.
“I’ll call him to the cafeteria. That’s where visits take place,” she added as she picked up the phone.
“Can you please send Mathew O’Conner? He has a visitor.”
She hung up the phone and removed her reading glasses. Her smile was kind. She must laugh at home I figured because there wasn’t much to laugh about here.
“Follow me,” she said as she started down a hall.
The walls were stark white with worn linoleum floors.
“Here we are,” she said, pushing on the swinging door.
It smelled like a school cafeteria. The room was filled with Formica-topped tables with drop-down bench seats. I noticed a couple sitting at one of the tables, talking quietly, holding hands. Mathew came through double doors from the other side. His hair was short. He had on jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He smiled as he came towards me.
“Have a nice visit,” the lady said as she turned to leave.
“Thanks,” I said, not able to take my eyes off him.
“Hey, kid,” he said as he reached me.
He hugged me tightly to him and some of my nervousness disappeared.
“Come on, come on,” he said, taking my hand, leading me to a table.
“Sit down,” he said excitedly, straddling the bench.
He sat on the same side of the table so he could be
close, so he could continue to hold my hand. I looked into his blue eyes and could see some of the despair Sara had alluded to and yet they were sparkling at me too.
“Tell me what happened,” I said.
He started from the beginning and told me everything he knew. He didn’t remember getting on the freeway at all. He said he hardly remembered leaving the party. It wasn’t until he hit the other car that he came out of his blackout. Things got chaotic and confusing. He remembered going to jail. The police basically told him about the accident. His eyes welled up with tears when he talked about the woman he hit. I had never seen Mathew cry, and my heart broke for him.
“I fucked up big time,” he said softly, squeezing my hand. “Now tell me about you, from when I last saw you.”
He listened as I brought him current on what had gone on in my life. He continued to hold my hand and tenderly traced his fingers with his other hand down my arm. He didn’t look away from my eyes, even when other visitors came in the room. It was as if I might disappear if he did. This Mathew was foreign to me, a side I hadn’t ever seen, he’d never seemed to need me and yet right here, I could tell he did.
“What are the rules? Do we only have so long to visit?” I asked.
“No, there isn’t really a time limit. I can have visitors up to five thirty p.m. They can be here all day if they want. Most only stay an hour or two. I still have work and school during the week, so I do get to see people.”
I looked at my watch: it was four ten. We had a little over an hour.
“What?” I asked as he gave me a questioning look.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked almost shyly.
“Can you do that here?”
I glanced around the almost too quiet room. There were only two other groups in the room, and they were absorbed in their own conversations. No one was paying attention to us.
“Yes, couples do it all the time. Would it be okay with you?”
I chuckled slightly as his expression was so serious.
“Well, Mathew, it’s not like you to ask,” I said. “I’m used to you just taking it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry I’m an asshole. I wasn’t very nice sometimes, was I?”
“No you weren’t; other times, you were very nice.”
I gave him a smile recalling how we could be together, the tender times, the passionate ones. He smiled, knowing what I meant. He leaned in and kissed me softly.
“I’ve missed you, more than once,” he said.
He kissed me again. I felt uncomfortable in such a public place, but he kissed me again and again. His kisses became more and more passionate. My tongue sought his and as our make out session continued I forgot about there being anyone else in the room. I could sense Mathew’s need for me, as if he were drowning and I had come to save him. He ran his hands down the top of my thighs. I could feel the strength in his hands.
I stayed with him making out and talking until five thirty. I could tell he was fighting to contain his emotions whenever he looked at me, his eyes almost pleading.
“I’ll come back tomorrow after lunch and then again on Monday before you go to work. I fly home Monday night,” I explained.
“How was he?” Gayle asked when I walked in her door.
She was alone in her kitchen reading the newspaper in blue sweatpants and a white T-shirt. After two years together, she and Bridgett had split up. There had been a number of other girlfriends since then, but nobody currently.
“Gayle, he looks good, but I can tell he’s struggling.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me get a glass of wine first. It’s been an emotional day,” I said, opening her refrigerator.
I pulled out the bottle of chardonnay I’d asked her to pick up for me and set it on her green tile counter.
“Wine glass?” I asked, looking at her white cabinets.
“That one,” she said, pointing.
I reached for the cabinet to the right of the sink that she’d pointed to. There were numerous glasses inside, only two wine glasses though, on the top shelf. I stood on my tiptoes to reach one.
“Opener?”
“There,” she pointed to a drawer.
I opened the wine and poured a glass.
“Can I interest you?” I asked.
“No thanks,” she said.
Gayle hadn’t ever been a big drinker. Even less now. She didn’t like the taste. I took the bottle and my glass back to the living room and sat down on her dark gold couch. I placed the bottle on her glass coffee table.
“What a day,” I sighed, taking off my shoes.
I curled my feet up underneath me settling in with my glass of wine. She walked over and turned the lamp on which sat on a side table. It was still light out, but it was fading.
“So tell me,” she said, sitting down beside me.
I told her his side of the story, and how badly he felt about the woman. How badly he had disappointed his parents. How humiliating it was to have his co-workers know everything. His being locked up. He admitted the partying had gotten out of control.
“Did he ask about you?”
“What do you think, Gayle?”
“Okay, just checking,” she said. “He can be very self-centered.”
“I got there around two fifteen, and we talked a long time. He held my hand as if I would vanish if he let go. I could tell he was happy to have me there.”
I took a sip of wine. The Kendall Jackson Chardonnay tasted smooth and buttery on my tongue; just oaky enough though. I usually didn’t buy it unless I was splurging a little.
“You’re a great friend to him, you know? It amazes me that, with all you two have been through, you still are his friend at all.”
I thought about her warnings over the years, all her frustration with my actions. That desperate young girl seemed a distant memory. If I tried really hard I could still recall some of those tortured emotions for Mathew.
“Gayle, you’ve never understood it. You never wanted to,” I said.
“Like you did,” she laughed. “Clear as mud you guys are.”
I leaned forward and picked up the bottle and refilled my glass. Will she go ballistic if I tell her?
“He kissed me.” I said shyly.
“He kissed you?”
I nodded my head yes, smiling.
“Like a hello kiss?”
I could still feel the ache he had caused between my legs.
“No, like a making-out kiss, for almost-an-hour type of kiss.”
Her eyes got large and she stared at me.
“What?” she asked, her voice rising in an attempt at disgust. “Tongue? Whole deal?”
I couldn’t help my smile and knew that I was beaming.
“Whole deal, so nice,” I said.
Gayle slapped her hands on her thighs.
“Oh, my god, Morgan, the power that guy has over you is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” she said, half serious, half joking.
She got up and went to the kitchen and came back with the other wine glass and poured herself a glass. I laughed.
“The minute he kissed me, it erased our time apart. I wanted it as much as he did,” I said more seriously.
“You would think you would have outgrown him by now. Frickin' twelve years of crazy behavior,” she ribbed, shaking her head.
We had dinner, Gayle finished her glass of wine and I finished the rest of the bottle.
“I’m really tired,” I said. “I hope I’m not being rude if I hit the hay early.”
I felt wrecked. The emotional exchange had drained me. Alone in her guest room I stared at the shadows on the ceiling from the street light outside and retraced in my mind much of our past. When I finally did fall asleep it was deep and I slept till nine the next morning.
Chapter 45
“Morning,” I said walking into the kitchen; surprised I hadn’t heard her up.
Gayle was sitting at the small kitchen table wearing running shorts and a T-shirt, with
coffee and a magazine in front of her. I pictured the day Mathew had sat down there with Bridgett, while I’d gone to get my suitcase. I remembered trying to explain to Gayle my feelings for Mathew.
“Can I get some of that?” I asked pointing at her cup.
“Let me make a new pot. This has been cooking since seven.”
She got up and went about making a new pot of coffee.
“Why so early on a Sunday?”
“Can’t help it I just wake up,” she said. “I’ve already got a run in too.”
“Nice, I should have gone with you for that.”
She turned the coffee maker on and came back to the table.
“What time you off to see Mathew?”
“I told him noonish. I have some time.”
“Morgan, I thought about you after you went to bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about you and Mathew, all the years, all the shit. Do you think you still love him?” she asked seriously.
“Hit me between the eyes with hard questions before I even have coffee,” I crabbed, getting up to grab a cup mid-brew.
“Cream or sugar?” she asked.
“Black is good after a bottle of wine last night,” I said.
I watched the coffee stream into my cup from the maker and then sat back down.
“You know, Gayle, Mathew and I have never talked about love, even the word love. I can’t define it. Not love where he’s concerned. I was obsessed with him. I’ve loved him. I’ve hated him, and then there have been a million levels in between those. There is a long history. So it’s hard to answer black or white.”
I drank some coffee and thought about Mathew. I’d had a lot of feelings yesterday; some of those feelings I thought should have been gone after this much time.
“I guess I still love him, and even as I say that I’m not sure what it means. Whatever love we have is mixed-up and messy,” I said.
“The not-making-sense part, so it does make sense,” she chuckled.
The pot had stopped dripping and I went for another cup of coffee. I held up the pot to Gayle who shook her head.
“I have to go with the moment. He’s always been unpredictable and I let him be, maybe it was selfish on his part, maybe I was weak, but its what it was. He told me after Melanie’s wedding that night that if he’d ever said let’s be a couple I wouldn’t still be around. In a way I think it’s dead-on. If I had stayed in San Jose and we’d been together I would have gotten sick of his shit,” I said.
