Shirley cleared her throat and nervously smoothed her hair into her tight bun.
“There was one family; I loved these people like they were my own. They often invited me to stay and eat with them, giving me care packages to take home. If I’d had a different family growing up, I wanted this one. They had the cutest kids I ever laid my eyes on. They used to snuggle up to me and say, ‘Read us a story, Miss Shirley,’ until I let them down.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, and as one slid down her cheek, I felt the telltale pricking in my own eyes.
“One day,” she said, “I wasn’t quite myself. It was the anniversary of the day I should’ve graduated nursing school a few years before, and I really tied one on that night.” Her voice wobbled and she swallowed, trying to clear her throat.
“The next day, I let those kids down. I had to lay down, take a rest, do something to get rid of the ache in my head and my heart. My head was throbbing and I sat down on the couch with them and said we would watch some TV. But I must’ve fallen asleep and after a while, they got bored. One little guy got into something real bad. After that it was over. Destroyed ... everything was ruined ... because of me ... and they ... they moved and I lost them all.”
Shirley put her head in her hands, crying in earnest at this point. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed, but she finished her story with her mascara running and strands of hair coming loose, falling around her face.
“It was after that, such a tremendous loss, that I dried up and moved here and made a quiet, boring life for myself. Now I’ve got a life with a man who loves me, a steady job, and lots of good friends. It’s not perfect, but it’s good.”
She stared out at us with a tearful half smile. “There are days I wish that I’d faced all my demons. That I didn’t move, but faced life where I’d been living it ... or not living it. But I did the best I could, and I’m here. And I wouldn’t have met you all if I didn’t come here.”
Her story finished, Shirley gave us a bittersweet smile. As the group applauded and called out their support, she came back to her seat next to me. I squeezed her hands in mine and kissed her on the cheek before handing her a tissue, then helped her wipe her freckles free of makeup and dry her pretty green eyes.
With all the emotion bled out of me, work felt like a breeze.
I ended up a little late to work because of the meeting, but served breakfast in between chatting with Ernesto, and stayed on through lunch. The hotel was full and the restaurant was busy. My sections might have been packed all morning and afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from taking a quick peek over at the bar and picturing Lane sitting there on Christmas Day, or frequently conjuring up his smiling face.
I tried telling myself that it was okay, giving myself permission to ache for the man and the loss of what might have been if I didn’t have so many ghosts in my closet.
