The Repeat Year

by Andrea Lochen

  “Phil?”

  “What do you expect me to say, Olive?” His tone was subdued. He stared straight ahead.

  “I don’t know.” She paused, anxious for him to jump in and give her the opportunity to explain herself, but he remained silent. “Something. Anything. Please, Phil.”

  He took a deep breath and released it slowly as though the act of exhaling pained him. “Do you love him?”

  “No. Not at all. The only person I love is you.” She hated how ardent and rehearsed she sounded.

  Another minute passed. Cashew hopped down from the futon and returned with his raggedy stuffed squirrel. When no one attempted to take it away from him, he sprawled dejectedly on the floor.

  “Is it someone I know?” Phil asked, relaxing and then tightening his grip on the green towel.

  “No.”

  “Someone you work with?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Phil, I’m so sorry.”

  He slumped forward. When he finally lifted his head, he looked at her for the first time since she’d confessed, and his tortured expression scissored through her heart. She had never seen him in so much pain before. Not when he talked about how his father had screamed insults at his mother while he hid in the kitchen pantry, counting the stacks of canned goods, arranging and rearranging them by name, then type, then expiration date. Not even when his favorite student, Kelsey, the brightest kid he’d seen come through Wright High School and a natural in physics, had dropped out of school so she could get a job to support her younger siblings and addiction-riddled mother. This pain was so much worse, and she was the reason for it.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was at work, and my patient died. Her daughter and husband were there, and it was so sad. I kept thinking about my dad, and I was so heartbroken about us—I thought you were breaking up with me. It was one of the worst nights of my life, and you weren’t there.” She left the rest of her accusation unspoken. You weren’t there . . . for me.

  He shook his head as if he could erase this information. “This is what I was trying to explain to you last weekend. I don’t have you anymore. And this proves it.”

  “No! You still have me. This was a mistake. A terrible mistake, and it will never happen again.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Olive. We have a problem, and it’s not going away. We used to tell each other everything. But since you’ve started working at the hospital, if something upsets you there, you confide in one of your coworkers because you think I won’t understand. That I won’t even try to understand. That’s a problem. Something happens between us—we have one fight—and you’re ready to hop in bed with someone else. That’s a big problem. If you don’t know by now how much I love you—if you don’t believe in us enough . . . it’s . . . you’ll never . . .”

  She clung to fragments of his speech as if they were a tattered parachute. How much I love you. Believe in us. “I do know, Phil. You make me feel so loved. But you scare me sometimes. You shut yourself off from me for a week. You can’t expect me to be a mind reader and just know that you still feel the same way.”

  Cashew stood up on his hind legs, propped his front paws on the futon frame, and started licking Phil’s knee. Phil pushed the little dog away. “No! Bad dog. Get down.”

  Phil jerked his knees toward his chest. At that moment, it wasn’t hard for her to imagine what he had looked like as a ten-year-old. “Did you ever think that I wall myself off from you because you do the same to me?” he asked.

  “To punish me, you mean? But that’s not fair, because I don’t intentionally try to push you away. I chose my job and everything that comes with it. You didn’t. Is it so wrong for me to keep some of it to myself, especially when you’ve been so clear about not wanting to hear it?”

  “That’s rich, talking about fairness and punishment, Olive. You slept with someone else.”

  “Not to hurt you. Not to punish you.”

  “Why, then?” His tone was painfully earnest. He wanted the truth.

  She bit her lip. It tasted salty from tears she hadn’t realized she’d been crying. “I don’t know. To stop myself from hurting.”

  “I’m supposed to be the one to stop you from hurting.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t always want that to be your role. Maybe I don’t always want to have to be comforted and fixed by you, Phil.” She barely felt the bars of the futon’s metal frame digging into her flesh.

  “Okay. Now I can see we’re getting somewhere. Let me repeat: Are you in love with him?”

  “No!” she cried. “I already told you no.”

  “That’s right. And you love me, and you never meant to hurt me. This was all just a mistake.” Sarcasm hardened his words.

  She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she reopened them, the apartment looked different somehow. Darker. Less familiar. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud. Cashew was nowhere to be seen since Phil’s scolding. “Phil.”

  “What?” He didn’t look at her. His eyes were trained on the window.

  “Do you think you can ever forgive me?”

  “I don’t think you want my forgiveness. You want something else. Something that I apparently don’t know how to give you.”

  “That’s not true. Please just tell me you still love me and that you will try to forgive me for this someday.”

  Every part of her body waited apprehensively—her heart, her teeth, her nails, her spine, all bracing themselves for his answer. She tried to recall the warm and open look on his face when she’d walked into his apartment but found she couldn’t. His face was expressionless now, his eyes distant. He was building a barricade so that she could no longer reach him.

  “Phil? Please. You’re doing it again. You’re shutting me out.”

  He leaped up from the futon and crossed his arms. The veins in his arms protruded as if they were thorny vines tangled around his skin. “Dammit, Olive. You don’t get to come over here, tell me you cheated on me, and then accuse me of shutting you out. How do you want me to treat you? It’s a survival mechanism, you know.”

  “I know,” she murmured.

  “I think—I think we’d better say good-bye.” He uncrossed his arms, and they tumbled to his sides. His sign of resignation.

  She fought the urge to disagree and persevere. She had never understood his desire to extricate himself from a fight, regroup, and return cold and levelheaded to negotiate peace. In the heat of battle, she could see the green hills ahead, the shaft of sunlight breaking through the storm clouds. If she could just push her way a few feet further, if they just could endure another hour or two—but she knew this was what he needed. And if this was what he needed, by all means, this was what she was going to give him.

  “All right, I understand. But please, let’s continue this soon. Can I call you later tonight?”

  “You don’t understand. I think we need to say good-bye, Olive.” He turned away.

  His meaning blindsided her. It was as if the earth had been knocked out of its orbit and was now speeding toward an unknown galaxy. Never had she thought they would just . . . end. Stop. Cease to exist as an us. “I screwed up tremendously, I know, but I can make this right somehow—”

  He kept his back to her, his straight, broad shoulders as unyielding as body armor. “How? What will you do? Change the past? Change who we are?” Still refusing to look at her, he walked to the door.

  She hastened to follow him. She rose up on her tiptoes so that her face was level with his, so that he couldn’t look away. His eyelashes were wet and matted, but his eyes were as hard and opaque as jade.

  “But I love you so much, Phil.”

  “I believe you.” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed like something lodged in his throat. “But I can’t love someone who treats me this way. I thought we wanted the same thing, but I guess I was just lying to myself.
We’re not so different from anybody else after all.” And then he had opened the door, and it had taken Olive a full minute to realize it was for her.

  Remembering their breakup made her feel the heartache anew, as raw and tender as if it were a fresh physical wound. To have him stare at her, disillusioned, as though he weren’t quite seeing her anymore. It was more unbearable than if he’d shouted obscenities at her. She shuddered. She would do everything in her power to prevent it from happening again.

  Sherry was observing her with pursed lips. The purplish circles under her eyes looked even darker in the harsh cafeteria lighting. She exhaled deeply. “That’s a sad story, kiddo.”

  An understatement, to say the least. Olive didn’t know what she’d been expecting from Sherry, but she had certainly expected more than that. She felt like she’d just bared her soul to an apathetic cashier at the supermarket. That’s a sad story, kiddo. Now did you want paper or plastic?

  Two white-coated female interns sat down at the end of their table. They both looked like they hadn’t slept for several days. Sherry and Olive momentarily watched them try to stomach the rubbery scrambled eggs.

  “I know it probably seems like this at your age,” Sherry started, “but it’s not always about men. Romantic relationships. My first repeat year I devoted to trying to make things work with Clyde. Then, years later, I tried again with another man. But I think I missed the point both times.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Olive asked warily. Her feelings toward Sherry were swiftly escalating from mild irritation to full-blown anger.

  “I’m not necessarily saying you should break up with your boyfriend. I’m just suggesting you try to spend more time improving other aspects of your life, too. Men come and go. But your friends, your family—they’re stuck with you for the long haul.”

  This sounded extremely hypocritical coming from someone who seemed to have no family or friends to speak of. Sherry didn’t get it. Olive knew what she wanted, for the first time in a long time. She was hopeful that Phil was the key to this year—if not the whole picture, then a large part of the picture. Sherry knew nothing about Olive’s relationship with Phil. Her advice was wildly frustrating. She came around only once a month, yet pretended to know everything about Olive and what was best for her.

  “I appreciate your time, but I really need to get some sleep now,” Olive said, biting back all the other things she wanted to say. She rose from the table. She must have spoken a little too loudly, because the female residents turned to look at her.

  “Everyone wants their own happily-ever-after,” Sherry said. “And why not? Maybe you’ll have yours with Will—”

  “Phil.”

  “—and maybe not. The point is: This year is bigger than all that. You have to think holistically.”

  “No offense, Sherry, but doesn’t that contradict what you told me last month? You told me to find the ‘sticking points’ in my year and straighten them out.”

  Sherry threw up her hands. “Are you recording everything I say in your diary or something? Fine. Let’s revise that, then. Your approach should be to see both the big picture and the individual moments at the same time.”

  Olive couldn’t help it—she rolled her eyes. Something about Sherry brought out the irreverent teenager in her. “Thanks, that’s helpful.”

  “You’re welcome.” Sherry fished out a cracked tube of lipstick from her purse. “Remember, I warned you that I’m not very good at this.”

  Right on both counts, Olive thought. Sherry had warned her, and she was terrible at this. “I really need to get home. I have a big weekend ahead of me.”

  Without the aid of a mirror, Sherry began to coat her lips in a greasy, uneven layer of salmon pink. She held up her garnet-ringed finger to stall Olive. “You want something quotable for your diary? Perhaps the only piece of wisdom I’ve gained in all my repeats?”

  The lipstick did nothing to improve her appearance. Between the bags under her eyes, the slapdash makeup, and the three inches of gray roots taking over her otherwise orange hair, Sherry looked a little deranged. Better suited to be spouting Bible verses and premonitions of the end of the world from a cement podium in Library Square than Olive’s trusted advisor and guide in this strange time warp.

  Sherry clutched her lumpy handbag to her chest. “In a repeat year, it is easy enough to change your actions, but it’s a lot harder to change your heart. And it’s impossible—” She paused, suddenly distracted by something or someone over Olive’s shoulder.

  Olive turned around but saw only a group of orderlies and a doctor entering the cafeteria.

  Sherry’s eyes flicked back to Olive. “It is impossible,” she repeated, “to change someone else’s.”

  Chapter 7

  By the time Olive got home, her head felt waterlogged. She closed the curtains against the bright sunlight and fell into bed still wearing her dirty scrubs and tennis shoes. What seemed like only minutes later, a loud knock woke her up.

  “Wakey wakey,” Kerrigan chirped. “Phil just called to say he’s on his way. I heard your phone ringing and ringing, and guess where I finally found it? The fridge! There’s a missed call from your mom, too. Wait a second. Have you even packed? Where’s your suitcase?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Four o’clock. You almost slept the whole day.” Kerrigan parted the curtains, revealing a darkening sky.

  And she still hadn’t gotten more than six hours of sleep. There was a dull pain in her hip, where she’d been lying on a forgotten hemostat in her pocket. She hung over the edge of the bed and peered under the dust ruffle for her red suitcase, which was regrettably, as Kerrigan had suspected, still empty.

  Remembering the chilliness of the cabin last year, she began haphazardly filling the suitcase with sweatshirts, flannel pajama pants, and wool socks.

  Kerrigan supervised her progress. She pulled out a pair of flannel pajama pants with a horror-struck look on her face. “What the hell is this?”

  “Pajamas.”

  “These are the kind of pajamas you wear when you’ve been married thirty years, not what you pack for a romantic getaway. Where is your lingerie drawer? The second drawer? I’ll handle the packing from here. You go shower. You look and smell like something National Geographic dug from the ice.”

  Olive had packed mostly babydolls and negligees the first time she and Phil had taken the trip, but she couldn’t explain this to Kerrigan. What with all the fighting that had gone on that weekend, she hadn’t had the opportunity to wear any of the lingerie. And to top it off, the thermostat had been set at a fixed sixty degrees, with only a meager supply of firewood to stoke the fireplace. She planned on sneaking a pair of pajama pants back into the suitcase when Kerrigan wasn’t looking.

  When she came out of the bathroom wearing khakis and a striped sweater, Kerrigan gave her a critical look.

  “I hope you’re wearing a thong under there.”

  Olive crossed her arms. “Kerrigan.”

  “I’m just saying. You’re going about this in a totally different way than I would.”

  “I can see that.” She held up a large bottle of lubricant that had been laid conspicuously on top of her socks.

  “It’s a two-in-one: massage oil and a personal lubricant. Quite possibly the best product ever invented.”

  Olive laughed, and suddenly her anxiety was swept away. Without realizing it, she’d been building this weekend up to almost mythic proportions—The Weekend That Ended It All—when really, it was just two and a half days with the man she loved. Two and a half days for them to relax, have fun, and get closer to each other. She’d been experiencing the jitters an actress feels as she’s about to walk onstage for opening night; now she understood that if her relationship with Phil was really going to stand a chance, this weekend couldn’t be a performance. It had to be real. It had to come from the heart. A
nd that would be easy.

  It wasn’t difficult to persuade Phil to drive her SUV. He seemed skeptical when she improvised a weather report about an impending snowstorm but agreed anyway that her four-wheel drive would be safer for the trip.

  “I’m surprised,” he said, as he merged onto the highway. “I thought you’d be begging me nonstop to find out where we’re going, but you don’t seem the least bit curious.”

  “Oh, I am. But it doesn’t matter as much to me because I’ll be happy wherever we’re going as long as I’m with you.” She reached across the center console and squeezed his knee.

  He turned to her with a look of pretend exasperation. “Do you mean to tell me that we could’ve gone to the Super 8 on East Wash, and you would’ve been just as happy?”

  “Just think of it this way. I’d be happy with you anywhere, but you get bonus points for creativity.”

  “Points, huh? And how do I redeem these points? I hope they add up faster than my credit card rewards.”

  “Oh, they will,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  The drive to Lake Geneva was blissfully uneventful. No bad fuel pump, no two-hour wait in the cold for a tow truck. They checked in first with the owner of the cottage, who lived in a separate house on the wooded property and assured them (in response to Olive’s inquiry) that there was plenty of dry firewood in an unlocked tool shed. When they drove up the gravel road, Olive was surprised to see that the cabin was actually quite lovely with its knotty wood siding, asymmetric sloped roof, and high, circular windows. Her memory of it had been heavily influenced by her bad feelings associated with the night. But here it was, and it wasn’t some shabby, hokey cabin in the middle of nowhere. It was handsome and rustic and yes, okay, so maybe it was in the middle of nowhere, but that added to the romance. The trees standing sentinel around the bungalow seemed seductive in their offer of privacy.