Sweet Forty-Two

by Andrea Randall

  “And the prince?” My voice came out as a whisper.

  “It’s like Alice with the unicorn. Book, not movie. I see one, I think, but it’s in the convincing, you know? Of myself. Can I believe it?”

  We were both speaking in whispers now.

  I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell her she could, but things with her were better presented as questions. “Can you?”

  “I’m afraid, you know.”

  I nodded. “I know. Listen ... I have something I need you to help me with.” I cleared my throat again, willing myself not to kiss her until this last part was done.

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  I sped into the kitchen, grabbed two cupcakes and handed them to her. “Meet me on the pier in, like, five minutes.”

  “With these?”

  I nodded. “We’ll need them, I think. Kind of a re-do of a few weeks ago. Only I promise you that this time I won’t curl into the fetal position and sob.”

  She stared at me with a comically quizzical look on her face. She wasn’t used to being part of a plan, just the master of them.

  “Just go.” I nudged her arm. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  A few minutes later, I made it to the pier with my violin in one hand, and a paper bag in the other. I stopped at the edge of the pier for a moment, taking in the view. Not just the welcoming sun, peaceful in its fury, but the peaceful and fury bit of human being dangling her legs over the edge of the splintered wood. She’d rolled her black jeans up to her knees and her shoes were resting next to her. Just as she rolled her head back and took a few deep breaths of warm sunlight, she caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Oh, hi!” She seemed startled, even though my invitation was why she was there in the first place. Georgia stood and un-cuffed her pants, staying barefoot, as she walked toward me with the two cupcakes in her hands. “Did you, uh, want these now, or...”

  “Not yet. Set them over there. I have to play something first.”

  As she set the bright cupcakes on the tattered grey railing, I played a couple of notes.

  “What are you playing?” The wind picked up slightly, and Georgia wrapped a bandana quickly around her hair, keeping it out of her face.

  “The song you asked me to play a couple of weeks ago was called Nocturne by Chopin. I’ve been playing it whenever I think of Rae. And not because it sounds sad, I actually don’t think it’s sad at all ... anyway,” I took a breath, refocusing myself, “I composed a piece based on that one and mixed in some notes that I felt really expressed Rae, to me. And how we were with each other.”

  “Oh ... wow...” Georgia looked uncomfortable as she studied her fingers.

  “But,” I sighed, “if there’s anything I learned about love and loss at all, it’s that I can’t do anything alone. That’s why I want you here. To help me say goodbye to her.”

  She opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but then her shoulders sank as she exhaled. “I’m here for you. Go ahead.”

  Georgia rubbed her hand up and down my back a couple of times and stepped back, giving me space to play.

  I’d kept the beginning the same, tears spilling from the strings in the form of high-pitched vibrato, wailing for everything I’d lost. I shook up the middle of the song, though, and gave it some reprieve. Breath. Healing. Working on the notes over the past several weeks, I’d focused on all of the good times Rae and I had, and everything we felt for each other, said and unsaid.

  As I transitioned to that section, I looked out into the ocean and heard Rae’s laughter yet again. My eyes shifted to Georgia, who had tears in her eyes and down her cheeks as I swayed to the notes. She did a horrible job of keeping her tears hidden, and eventually they fell from my eyes too.

  I smiled through them, though. Life is an endless ocean of tears, happy and sad, and it’s our job to smile in their wake. Ending the song was easy, peaceful, resonating with a tranquility I’d spent almost nine months forcing into my bones. Letting go was all I needed. Not a forcing in of peace, but a letting go of hurt. Peace is always there at the center of our souls, and I had allowed anger, hurt, and hate to shove it in a long forgotten closet.

  As I pulled the bow away from the strings, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Goodbye.”

  At that, Georgia’s arms were around me. I rested my chin on the top of her head and took several breaths, feeling lighter than I had in months.

  “Regan, that was beautiful.” She stepped back and gestured to the bag. “What’s that?”

  My throat constricted. “It’s the last part.”

  I had her hold my violin as I knelt down and removed three items from the bag. First was a glass bottle I’d picked up from an antique store around the block the day before. It came with a large cork, which was the selling point for me, really.

  “What are you putting in there?” Georgia took off her coat and laid it on the ground, setting my violin on top of it as she knelt next to me.

  I pulled out a crisp sheet of composition notebook with the words For You written on top. “This is the song I just played. See?” I handed it to Georgia, who took it in her hands as if it were a baby bird, never closing her fingers around the edges, just letting it float in her palms.

  She nodded and I took it back from her, rolling it into a telescoping tube and sliding it into the bottle. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out Rae’s card.

  “What are you doing with that?” Georgia arched her eyebrow skeptically.

  My voice shook, even though I was certain. “She wrote her love letter to me, and I wrote mine back. They belong together in here.” I rolled the card up as tightly as I could so it would snuggle inside the rolled up song. Finally, I put the cork on it, pressing as hard as I could, until my thumbnail turned white.

  “Regan,” Georgia’s voice rose in panic as I stood, “what are you doing?”

  I held out my hand, helping her up with a sweaty palm. “Walk with me. Please.”

  Her short legs moved quickly to keep pace with me. “Don’t you think you should ... think about this?” She seemed to figure out my plan pretty quickly, though what else was one to do with a corked bottle and a whole ocean?

  “I have. For eight months, three of which I spent trying to forget about her in Ireland. I don’t want to forget about Rae, Georgia, but I need to say goodbye.”

  “You can’t throw that fucking letter in the ocean. That’s insane!” Her hand trembled as she tugged, begging me to slow down.

  We reached the end of the pier and I stood with my eyes closed, filling my lungs with salty fresh air.

  “Seriously, Regan, you can’t throw her letter away.” Georgia’s voice was pleading.

  I faced her to find her pale and nauseated looking.

  “I’m not throwing it away. I’m just ... sending our love into the universe. Maybe someone will find this. Maybe not. If they do, I want them to know what our love was. If no one ever sees it, then we’ll know. Rae and me.”

  I brought the bottle to my lips, kissing the cold glass once. Georgia held my hand tighter, resting her head on my shoulder; her breathing was even as she seemed to wait.

  “I love you, too,” I whispered, my lips still against the bottle.

  I reached my arm back, and, as hard as I could, I threw it into the ocean where it bobbed, rather undramatically for a few moments, before a series of large waves took it under and out of my view.

  I stared for a minute at the spot I last saw the bottle, filled with the part of my soul that belonged to Rae, and the part of hers that had belonged to me.

  “Are you okay?” Georgia’s voice came from nowhere and reconnected me to our clasped hands.

  I peeled my eyes away from the ocean. From my past. Georgia looked unsure, nervous, maybe, as she locked eyes with me and waited for my answer.

  With a smile I pulled her into a hug. “I think I’m ready for those cupcakes now.”

  She didn’t try to berate me with the ins and outs of
my psyche that created my bottle-tossing idea. She simply nodded and led us back to the land-end of the pier, where our cupcakes waited.

  We sat silently on the edge of the pier, fumbling with the paper wrappers and finally biting into the gorgeous therapy.

  The salty air around us made them all the more sweet.

  Georgia

  As I waited for my mother in the waiting room on Wednesday, I thought back to my morning on the pier with Regan a few days before.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” I teased.

  “Eating a cupcake? How do you do that wrong?”

  I rolled my eyes. “God! Stop! Eat the cake part first, like this. Save the frosting for last. That’s the point of a cupcake, you know ... it’s a vehicle for the frosting.”

  I’d laughed until my sides hurt as he took the entire top of the cupcake in his mouth at once.

  “Mmmm. No. You’re wrong. It’s always better to have the sweetest part first.” He licked his lips, and my eyes followed every move.

  “Why are you such an optimist?”

  At my question, he just shrugged and said, “There’s no good reason to be anything but.”

  He chose happiness the way people choose to put on clothes in the morning.

  Thinking back to the way he played his violin for Rae on that pier, I knew I had to be fully honest with him about my mom, my life, just ... everything. I didn’t have to, I suppose, but I wanted to. My phone buzzed with an incoming text. I smiled at his name across the top.

  Health inspector here. Everything’s good so far. Hope you’re doing okay.

  Thank you so much! I texted back.

  Everything *is* okay ... right?

  I instantly felt bad about being so vague about the “appointment” I had that was keeping me from an important step in the opening of my bakery, which was only two short weeks away.

  Everything’s great. We’ll talk when I get back, K?

  Just as I sent the text, the nurse came out to let me know my mother was ready to be released. It was going to be her last appointment for a couple of weeks. She was feeling stronger and more in control of herself than she had since I was a little girl. The hours immediately following the appointments were still tough. Effects of the anesthesia and varying degrees of memory loss were difficult to navigate.

  Once my mom and I were in the car and on the road, I turned the radio down.

  “Mom?”

  She slowly rolled her head in my direction, seeming to be more tired today than usual. “Yeah?” she asked with a yawn.

  “Is it okay if I bring you back to my place for a little while? I need to meet with the health inspector, if he’s still there. You can rest in my bedroom, if you’d like.”

  “Sounds good, Alice...” My mom trailed off with droopy eyelids, her head rocking back to the support of the window.

  That wasn’t the first time she’d called me Alice during her treatment, and it usually came when she was fighting sleep. I welcomed the slip of the tongue, reassured that even though her short-term memory was spotty in the days surrounding her treatment, her brain still clung to the most precious moments of my childhood.

  I’d planned to tell Regan everything. To tell him that the mortar holding my walls together was pure fear, certainty that I’d follow the same path my grandfather and mother had. Only, now they weren’t fears. I couldn’t do anything about the genetics, and I had to let that go. But watching how my mother handled her life, her diagnosis, and her treatment taught me that fear was more debilitating than almost anything else could be. I needed to tell him about what my mom and I had just been through over the last few weeks. He deserved that. Frankly, I deserved that, to be honest with another human being about something without them dragging it out of me.

  When we arrived at the apartment, I helped my mother up the stairs and she insisted on sitting on the couch in front of the television, claiming she needed some brainless entertainment for a while.

  Her joke, not mine.

  “Be right back, Mom.” I kissed her on the forehead and she dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

  “You worry too much. Pretty sure The Young and the Restless and I will do just fine while you’re downstairs.”

  I shut the door behind me and raced down the stairs and into the bakery, where I found the health inspector talking with Regan, handing him papers from his clipboard.

  “Here she is now.” Regan gestured to me and the inspector turned with a smile.

  “You caught me just in time, ma’am. This place is in such great condition, I was finished sooner than expected.” The averaged-height, overweight man with more hair on his arms than on his head looked pleased as he swiftly took the papers from Regan and handed them to me. “Two weeks is your intended opening date?”

  “It is. Two weeks from Saturday.”

  “Best of luck to you. Make sure you phone my office when you decide on a name for the place so we can fill out the certificates accordingly.”

  Behind his shoulder, I watched Regan lift his fists to the air in supportive victory.

  “It’s all set? I passed?” My eyes widened and I looked between the papers in my hand and the inspector’s face.

  “All set. Good luck again, Miss.” He gave me a firm nod and left through the main door.

  I turned around, my mouth hanging open in my excitement. “Holy shit!” I screamed, raising my arms in the air as Regan had seconds before.

  “You did it!” Regan lifted me into a tight hug. Fully lifted me off the floor and spun me around. “Come upstairs with me. I have champagne.”

  He set me down and grabbed my hand, racing up the stairs.

  “Slow down, legs,” I teased, “some of us aren’t twenty feet tall.”

  “Some of us aren’t two feet tall, either,” he shot back, reaching his apartment and opening the door.

  “Gee,” I mused, “love what you’ve done with the place.” Bare walls and a single couch seemed to be accents to a music stand and his violin.

  Regan pinched my cheek and stuck out his tongue. “I’m not here much, jerk.”

  He dashed into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of champagne from the fridge.

  “Hey,” I started, putting my hands in my back pockets, “there’s something I want to talk to you about.” My heart beat in triplet rhythm as I prepared for total emotional exposure.

  “Hang on.” He reached into a cabinet and pulled out two plastic cups. “This is all I have ... sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I cleared my throat, afraid I’d lose my nerve.

  Regan popped the champagne and it made me jump, feeling like I was shoved through a keyhole, riding on an umbrella with a dodo bird, circling in a pool of insecurity. Before I opened my mouth again, he looked over my shoulder.

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Hall,” he said nonchalantly. “I didn’t know you were here, sorry. Want some champagne? The bakery passed the health inspection!”

  Dread nearly crippled me as I turned and found my mother standing in the doorway. In our excitement, Regan and I had left the door open. She must have heard us. She was pale and looked like a foreigner, the way her eyes darted around the apartment, settling on Regan’s face for a few seconds at a time before moving on.

  “Is everything okay?” Regan asked when my mother didn’t respond to his first salutation.

  “I’m sorry,” she shook her head, “have we met?”

  Regan slowly set down the bottle of champagne, taking noticeably quicker breaths as he stared at me.

  “Mom,” I prompted without looking at Regan, “this is Regan, remember? You met him a month, or so, ago in my apartment. CJ’s cousin.”

  I said as many prayers as one can say while waiting for their facade to shatter.

  “CJ, the drummer boy your dad used to let play at Dunes?”

  I swallowed hard, nodding at the repeat conversation we were having about how I knew Regan. About five minutes too late, recognition snapped my mother’s eyes into focus.

  “Oh, shit
. Regan, yes, of course. I’m sorry, honey, it’s the goddamned shock therapy messing with that pesky short term memory.” My mom giggled. A light and airy sound that was instantly soaked in the darkness of Regan’s face.

  “The what?” Regan came around the counter and stood next to me in the living room. I knew he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t say shock therapy. That’s kind of tacky, isn’t it? The ECT.”

  The Please be quiet and go away for five minutes vibes I was sending my mother with my bugged-out eyes were not being received by her, but they were loud and clear to Regan.

  “I didn’t realize, Mrs. Ha—”

  “Please, call me Amanda.” She smiled, though it was starting to fade as it became clear Regan’s lack of understanding was more like a lack of knowledge at all. “Oh ... I’m going to ... excuse me.”

  My mom left as gracefully as possible, closing the door behind her.

  I looked at Regan who was, as I’d expected, watching me. “Let me explain.”

  His eyebrows lifted as he held out his hands. “Shock therapy, did she say? Like to her brain?”

  I nodded. “Yes, for the past four weeks she’s been—”

  “Four weeks?” His nostrils flared and he dropped his hands to his hips.

  “I can explain, Regan.”

  He snorted. “Sure. Just like you could explain her existence at all, right? How you were going to tell me she was alive.”

  “I was going to tell you. I just needed—”

  “Needed what?” he snapped. “Time? Did you need more time to watch me come apart and expose every inch of my soul to you before you deemed me worthy of knowing what makes up yours?” He brushed past me, grabbing the bottle of champagne and pouring it down the drain.

  I caught up to him and put my hand on his wrist. “Regan, you don’t understand. Don’t cut me off—just listen. I’m not made like you. I don’t trust like you do. I’ve never had a reason to.”

  He pulled his hand away. “I thought I was reason enough for you, Georgia. For weeks you were the only one who knew about the most heartbreaking letter I’d ever received. Jesus, I cried with you. Hard tears, Georgia, not the sniffles of some dumbstruck asshole trying to play on your emotions to get in your pants.” His face turned red as he continued. “Then ... then I asked you to hold my hand as I said goodbye to her. As I threw that fucking letter into the fucking ocean! Explain to me, please, how that gave you reasons to keep something like this from me? Damn it, I could have helped you. Been there for you somehow.”