I took a deep breath, got my nerve up, pulled the thick card out of its envelope, and read.
Greer
July 19, 2016
Dearest Parker,
Everything changes when you know it is the end. Even three months ago, the idea of you with someone else made my insides wrench and my heart feel so hard and heavy I could scarcely breathe. But three months ago was not now. Two months ago was not now. Today, I can finally accept that I am going to be gone. It is sort of odd to imagine the world without yourself in it. I hope that doesn’t sound conceited, and if so I don’t mean it that way. It’s only that once you are gone, so is the specific part you played in the world, making it different in some ways.
I tell you this because it is only today that I can, with all my heart, ask you to move on, to move forward with your life. Don’t forget me. Don’t stop loving me. I could never do that if the roles were reversed, and so I won’t ask something impossible. But, Parker, please don’t waste your life pining for me, crying over someone who, no matter how hard we both wish, can never come back.
When I closed my eyes this morning, I saw you with someone new. I saw you with two babies and a smile on your face. And, Parker, it made me glad. Even then, as happy as you looked, I felt the way that you carried me in your heart, the way that I am always a part of you, just as you are always a part of me. But please don’t let me be the only part.
I love you so much that I want you to be happymight sound like a martyr’s plea. But it honestly isn’t. It’s selfish, in fact. I can’t leave this earth content knowing that you might never experience all the good things life has to offer. We aren’t meant to be alone, my love. I know that now. So when you find that woman, the special one, the right one, the one that is worthy of all that you are, don’t be afraid to tell her how you feel. You won’t be sullying my memory. You will only be making a new one.
Parker, you have been the kindest, most heroic man I could ever have hoped to meet. The way that you have taken care of me and loved me and never skipped a beat through the worst ordeal imaginable is the stuff of fairy tales. You are my knight in shining armor. You are the love of my life. I know that, for a time, I was yours, too.
Our story didn’t end as planned, and I regret that wholeheartedly. But please, Parker, please: don’t let the idea that our story ended badly keep you from writing a new one.
With all my love and all my heart, forever, until the end of time,
Greer
AmeliaA SHORT ROPE
WHEN GREER CAME TO MYapartment in Palm Beach that day, almost five years ago, face ashen, my first instinct was to worry about the mess in my living room. Piles of magazines on the coffee table, bills strewn about, a bed pillow on the couch, the couch pillows on the floor, two Diet Dr Pepper cans, half-drunk, on the end table.
“I’m sorry,” I said as she walked in, my mind rushing with excuses, beyond that I had been really lazy the past couple of days.
But as she sat down on top of a copy of theWall Street Journal, I realized that Greer wasn’t worried about what my apartment looked like. She was… somewhere else. I’m pretty sure I went white, too, then.
“Greer,” I said softly, sitting down beside her. “It’s too late. It has gone to press. There’s no way I can get the story back now.”
But then she looked up at me, eyes big and round and tear-filled. “It isn’t about the story,” she whispered. She looked down at her hands. “I can’t do it,” she said.
My heart started to race, but I wasn’t sure why. “Do what?”
“I have to ask you for a favor.”
Why was she whispering? We were all alone. My eyes locked on hers.
Getting that story back from the printer, making 350,000 copies of one of the country’s premier magazines disappear, felt simpler than what she said next.
Now, years later, I lay awake all night at Dogwood in my childhood twin bed with its monogrammed duvet cover and tiny canopy, thinking about Greer, about the bond we shared after that night. Was that bond holding me back from Parker? Did it feel like a betrayal to Greer? Or was her coming to me that night somehow a way of giving me permission?
For me, one worry always begets another. That night with Greer had come back to me after I realized that this could be one of the last times I ever slept in my bed, in my house, in the place that signified security and happiness and everything simple and good in life.
In my drunken state postdinner, I had come home to find my mother dozing in the chaise lounge beside my bed. In the dim, uneven lamplight, she told me the news about Dogwood, that it would be sold. She felt confident she could squeeze out a little more time. But itwasgoing to be sold.
The blanket of the alcohol made the news seem manageable, palatable even. It was sensible. It was right. I foundmyself consoling my mother, regaling her with details of our new traditions of Christmas in Paris and Easter at the Breakers. I think I made her feel better. I also think I was overestimating how far the amount of money they would get for the property would stretch, but it soothed both of us in the moment.
But as the hours passed and the news set in (and the alcohol wore off), a deep, longing sadness took over. I couldn’t count the number of nights, cold and ornery, I had cursed this house, prayed that God would bring a couple to the door to buy it, so we could move somewhere smaller, where every room could be warm and cozy.
The farm had prospered. Things had gotten better. It just wasn’t enough to maintain this beast of a house that, even in my lovelorn state, I knew was running my family dry. Even though it was terribly unfair, I hated my mother in that moment. Why hadn’t she sold Dogwood way back when it was just a family home, not a symbol of all that had been good in my life?
The sun rose on that sleepless night, lifting some of the stress the blanket of darkness had intensified. Harris was inside drinking coffee with my mother, reassuring himself that she loved him best, that he was first and foremost in her heart despite the fishing fiasco, which left me to load our luggage into the car—and contemplate whether he was first and foremost inmyheart. And, if so, did I tell him about the kiss?
As I was throwing a bag into the trunk, I smelled cigarette smoke behind me, and when I turned, Mason was walking toward me in a rumpled polo shirt and a pair of Patagoniashorts that I think used to be navy and were now a faded cobalt.
