Sweetest in the Gale

by Olivia Dade

  Candy hadn’t touched the wine at the faculty holiday party. He remembered that now.

  Her laugh was sharp. Bitter. “Then she said I was imagining things. Eventually, she blew up at me for mentioning yet again how odd she sounded. She told me to stop h-harping on her and treat her like an adult.”

  The pain of that conversation lingered in the waver of her voice, but there was no soothing her now. Uglier revelations were appearing on the horizon, looming in the distance as they rocketed closer, word by word.

  “You know what I did, Griff?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I threatened her. Told her I’d fly to Oregon and kick her ass if she didn’t sound more like herself soon. I said I’d put a hit out on her if she didn’t stop worrying me. Because that was clearly going to fix the fucking problem. That was going to get her to talk to me.”

  Her hands were fisted now, her knuckles digging into his chest. “I hired a cleaning service to help her around the house while she recovered. I had food delivered. I researched the best post-operative physical therapists in her area.”

  Service. Love’s austere and lonely offices.

  But she couldn’t see that. Not yet.

  “You know what I didn’t do?” She was sneering at herself now, face twisted in grief and self-loathing. “I didn’t realize she’d become addicted to her pain meds, and I didn’t tell her I loved her. M-my—”

  Her words were garbled now by her sobbing, but he was paying attention as hard as he could. Holding her. Offering whatever mute comfort she’d accept.

  She spat out each syllable like dirt in her mouth. “My baby sister died of an accidental opioid overdose alone in her apartment on July fucking fourteenth, and in our last conversation, I didn’t once say I love you. I didn’t tell her, Griff. I didn’t tell her.”

  When she bowed her head for a moment, he kissed her crown. Rested his lips there. “Candy. Sweetheart—”

  Her ragged, tear-soaked words were audible. Even now, she was keeping her promise, raising her head slightly from his chest and angling it toward his left ear so he could hear.

  “She said not to come. She always said not to come, but that doesn’t matter.” Candy was trembling against him, and he ran his hands up and down her arms. Again. Again. “I should have showed up when I knew for sure something was wrong. And even if I couldn’t get off my ass long enough to be a decent sister in person, I should have asked. I should have said, in plain, unmistakable words, I love you. I’m worried about you. What’s wrong? Please tell me.”

  He hitched her closer as she shook, silently supporting her in the only way he currently could.

  Her lip curled in disgust at herself. “But I didn’t. Dee died without getting what she needed from me, the one person she counted on in the entire world. Her big sister. And the least I can do now is take a hard fucking look at myself and try to be b-better.”

  When she stopped talking and began crying in earnest, he held her. As long as she needed him, he wasn’t budging. Not one inch.

  It all made a horrible sort of sense now.

  Knowing how she thought, how she tended to make sense of her world, he could see how she’d interpreted the loss of her sister that way. He could even see a few glimmerings of real insight in the story.

  Sometimes people need to hear the actual words, love, Marianne’s voice whispered sweetly to him. ‘I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m sad. I love you.’

  The rest of Candy’s conclusions, though? Complete bullshit.

  Once she’d calmed, he tenderly laid his left cheek against hers. “You’re trying to be better…how? In the ways you communicate?”

  Her small nod rubbed her smooth skin against his beard. “I’ve always known the way I express myself is different. But I thought that was okay. I thought the people who mattered understood me, but…” She sniffled, hard. “That’s not true, Griff. I need to change. Completely.”

  For all her many, many strengths, nuance often escaped her.

  He gathered his words carefully, examining each one for secondary meanings and unintended connotations and anything that could be misinterpreted.

  “Candy, I’m so sorry. For your sister. For you. I think I understand what you’re telling me, and I wish to heaven you weren’t hurting like you are.” He nuzzled his cheek against hers again, this time deliberately. “But sweetheart, I’m not certain I agree with you.”

  With a jerk, she pulled her face away from his and scowled at him blearily, her pale face blotchy and damp. “My life and my grief are not a matter for disagreement, Griff. I’m allowed to have my own feelings, regardless of your opinion.”

  “Of course you are.”

  The lure in sight, she waited a few seconds. Then she bit, as he’d anticipated. “But?”

  How to say it without making it sound like judgment?

  “You’re drawn to dichotomies,” he finally told her. “All or nothing. Right or wrong. Oxford comma enthusiasts or monsters.”

  She choked on a breath, coughing a little. “Don’t make me laugh, Conover.”

  “Now you’ve sorted yourself, your communication style, into what you consider the just category. All wrong, nothing right.” With his thumbs, he stroked the giving flesh of her upper arms, warm even through her blouse and cardigan. “But Candy, we both know nothing’s that clean or obvious. Even you know it. It’s why you acknowledge the stupidity of the split infinitive rule but teach it anyway. It’s why you have your students read ‘Ozymandias,’ even though Shelley was a total dick. It’s why you agree that Frankenstein may be one of two monsters in that story. Possibly more, if some of the other characters don’t use the Oxford comma.”

  At that, her lips actually twitched upward at the corners. “Dammit, Griff. I told you not to do that.”

  He allowed himself to brush his lips against her temple, his victor’s spoils.

  “When it comes to your sister, I suspect you’re being much too hard on yourself. But even if you could have done better, Candy, you tried. You did. As best you could, knowing what you knew then.” His brows drew together, and he met her gaze directly. “Is there any conceivable way your sister didn’t know you loved her? That she didn’t carry that knowledge in the marrow of her bones?”

  If Candy cared about anyone, anything, she informed the world at top volume. In her own way. Which didn’t mean she couldn’t or shouldn’t use the direct words, but there was no mistaking her fierce brand of affection and protection.

  Her loved ones would carry that devotion in each beat of their hearts, every breath they took. A benediction from a woman who somehow thought she offered too little, too faintly.

  Candy’s eyes flicked away from his, and he knew that gesture of avoidance, that mulish set of her chin, by now.

  She knew he was right. She didn’t want to admit it.

  “I suppose…” With a sigh, she gave in. “I don’t see any way she could have missed it.”

  He hated to remind her, but Candy sometimes needed important points spelled out to her. “That last conversation, did your sister say she loved you?”

  Her eyes filled again. “No.”

  That obviously hurt too, and he ached for it. “But she did love you.”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t a question, but she answered without hesitation. “Always.”

  And there it was. “Just like you knew, she knew. She had to know. That a threat to kick her ass meant I love you. That arranging a cleaning service meant I love you. That your phone call every week meant I love you. That your so-called harping meant I love you.”

  That particular subtext wouldn’t be hard to decipher, especially not for a beloved sister.

  “I want to believe that.” Her lips quivered, puffy from crying. “I do.”

  “Get up off your knees, Candy.” Just as she and her sister had shared a common language, she and Griff did too. Poetry. “Wild Geese,” one of her favorites. “You don’t have to be good. Besides, you already are good. You may not be perfect, but you’re battling on
the side of the angels more often than not.”

  She sputtered out a laugh. “No rational person would ever call me an angel.”

  Oh, he liked being able to contradict her.

  “Yelena does. She smiles every time she says it.” When Rose had told him that, he’d smiled too. “When her world was falling apart, you kept a few pieces of it safe for her, even though you two aren’t close.”

  Leaning back, she pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare. “How do you even know all this? I’ve never seen you say more than hello to Yelena.”

  “Don’t change the subject.” He stroked a strand of hair back from her damp, sticky cheek, and let his fingertips linger there. “If you want to evolve, evolve. But please don’t do so from misplaced guilt and shame, because you don’t deserve it. More than that, it’s not—”

  “—what Dee would have wanted,” she finished, quietly.

  “Not at all. Not if she’s anything like you.”

  As he’d said before: both a cliché and the hard, hard truth.

  “She is. Was.” Biting that swollen lower lip, she looked up at him. Hesitated before speaking. “I still don’t understand how you can do this.”

  Now she’d lost him. “Do what?”

  Her voice was hoarse from her tears, but gloriously loud again. Strong in the way he loved. “Talk about emotions so directly. Handle mine with such ease.”

  Irony, that.

  “Want to hear my secret?”

  When she nodded, he traded vulnerability for vulnerability. A confidence to counterbalance all of hers, and yet another way in which they shared commonality.

  “I’m comfortable discussing other people’s emotions, but not my own. Not directly. Not with clarity. Instead, I reach for metaphors or”—shit, this made him sound insufferable—“poetry. It frustrated Marianne sometimes. And I didn’t tell her I loved her as often as I should have. Not in those words. Instead, I’d turn to favorite poems or pertinent lines from novels.”

  The tips of his ears turned hot, and he fought the urge to squirm, to reassure Candy that he wasn’t actually twee as fuck.

  Her expression remained soft. Affectionate. Sure of him in a way he was equally sure he hadn’t earned.

  “But she knew she was loved,” she said.

  “Whatever my faults, she knew she was loved.” For all his shame, he was suddenly certain of that. “In part because I kept quoting Hamlet to her.”

  Candy’s head tilted, and she blinked at him for a minute. “Hamlet? Of all Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, why would you—”

  Then she paused. Nodded.

  “Doubt thou the stars are fire,

  Doubt that the sun doth move,

  Doubt truth to be a liar,

  But never doubt I love.”

  Her clear, smooth recitation of those familiar lines washed over him. He could still hear himself saying them to Marianne on their honeymoon in Provence, lying together on a picnic blanket amidst sunlit fields of lavender, her head tucked beneath his chin, her breath sweet and precious on his neck. One of so many intimate, loving moments in their marriage.

  It hurt.

  But it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had months ago. Hours ago, even.

  This hard, painful conversation with Candy had soothed something within him too. Through reassuring her, he’d inadvertently reassured himself.

  Marianne had died by his side, in their warm, soft marriage bed, knowing he loved her in the marrow of her bones.

  There was no way she couldn’t have known.

  “It’s a lovely passage.” A smile flirted with the corners of Candy’s mouth. “However, I don’t primarily associate Hamlet with romance. Get thee to a nunnery somewhat undercuts the swooniness of it all. And that’s setting aside the whole drowning issue.”

  He had to laugh. “Marianne said exactly the same thing. For God’s sake, at least choose a damn sonnet, Griffin. I’d tell her I already gave at the office.”

  Again, the familiar agony didn’t appear. Not at the mention of his wife’s name. Not at the invocation of another precious memory.

  He’d have to come to terms with that shift soon, one way or another. He’d have to make a decision about what he intended, and whether he could live with those intentions.

  Especially since the feel of Candy in his arms, her softness and solidity and heat, the way her generous breasts molded to his chest and his legs tangled in her skirt, prickled at his nape and zapped down his spine to his—

  Well.

  The body electric, indeed.

  Slowly, gently, Candy stepped out of his embrace. An arm’s length away, she studied him with her hands on her hips. He had no idea what she was searching for.

  Worse, he had no idea what she saw.

  “Thank you,” she finally said. “I feel…better. Not great, but better.”

  He nodded, his fingers curling in on emptiness, rather than warm flesh. “Like I told you, I talked to a grief counselor after Marianne was gone. If you start feeling worse again, you might want to consider—”

  She held up a hand. “I know, I know. If I’m not more myself soon, I’ll see a grief counselor or find a support group. I promise.”

  That was a vast leap for someone like her. Vaster than he even understood, probably.

  “Good.” He inclined his head, suddenly awkward. “You deserve to feel better.”

  Still watching him, she opened her mouth. Shut it.

  “What?” he finally asked.

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”

  Her words were unwontedly gentle. Tender in a way that stung more than a shout. Too frustratingly opaque for him to formulate a decent response.

  “Let’s talk about the initiative tomorrow, if that’s doable for you.” Gathering her notebook from his desk, she tapped it against her thigh. “I think we both need some time.”

  “All right,” he said.

  As she walked away, he didn’t stop her, didn’t ask her to explain herself, didn’t—

  “Griff?”

  She paused in the doorframe, eyes swollen and reddened, blouse tearstained, chin resolute, her smile as small and warm and soft as a catkin on a pussy willow.

  Beautiful.

  Terrifying.

  “Yes?” He raised his brows in inquiry.

  That bloodshot gaze didn’t waver. “It might be time to get up off your knees too.”

  Then she turned and left.

  He stared after her.

  Outside his windows, clouds scuttered across the sun, and his classroom abruptly dimmed. He hadn’t noticed a chill even moments before, but now, between the shadows and the relentless air conditioning, his tear-soaked shirt prompted a shiver. Still, he didn’t reach for his jacket. Didn’t move.

  Eventually, the echoing thuds of her steps faded to nothing, leaving him only the analog tick of his classroom clock as company.

  As a metaphor enthusiast, he had to admit: That seemed fair.

  Five

  When Candy walked into Griff’s classroom and saw him sitting behind his desk the next day, her smile was a bit crooked. Wry in a way he couldn’t interpret.

  He tipped his head to the side. “What? Do I have something in my beard?”

  After eating, he always checked carefully for residue. Especially now, with his facial hair bushier and less tamed. Still, he could have missed something.

  In all honesty, he didn’t even like the way it looked anymore. He didn’t like how it felt, either.

  Last night, he’d reached for his clippers. Then shied away, as the task began to seem much too metaphorical. Much too fraught.

  Marianne had always liked him clean-shaven.

  As he’d eyed the clippers, though, he’d been considering another woman entirely.

  “Your beard remains pristine.” After closing the door, she lowered herself into the student chair nearest his desk with a thump. “I was just…thinking about something. Nothing important.”

&nbs
p; Despite her emotional upheaval yesterday, she didn’t appear especially tired or sad today. Her fawn-brown eyes were alert, no shadows beneath them. Even better, that horrible grayness had vanished entirely in the last several weeks, the unceasing demands of a new school year perhaps distracting her from her grief. Or maybe the simple passage of time was eroding her pain, like a tide over stone.

  If their late-afternoon conversation in his room had helped too, he was glad.

  Under his scrutiny, she shifted in her seat a bit, and he frowned.

  Marysburg High didn’t use chairs with built-in writing surfaces, and thank heaven for that. Those damn desks had tormented bigger students at his previous school. Some kids couldn’t fit in them at all, while others had squeezed themselves into the openings with such difficulty, they must have left his class bruised and aching each time.

  Over the years, he’d quietly gathered alternative seating. Beanbags. A few freestanding chairs. But even that, he knew, was humiliating in its own way, the need for special accommodation. And teenagers could be so damn cruel sometimes. Not in front of him, of course, because under no circumstances did he allow cruelty in his classroom. But in the halls, by the lockers, he knew at least some of those kids must suffer.

  Even apart from the emotional toll exacted by the desks, how exactly did the school expect larger students to pay attention and learn under those circumstances? How could they become their best selves in the midst of perpetual discomfort and pain?

  He’d left his old school to escape the sight of someone else’s name on Marianne’s office door. To flee from the way she glided down every hallway and perched at every table and lingered in every doorway, populating every corner of the workplace they’d shared for over a decade. He’d left his old home, even his old time zone, for much the same reason.

  The move had drained his scant remaining resources, emotional and physical.