Lovey always says that expectations ruin relationships. I had tried to apply that advice in my marriage with Ben, take things day by day, for what they are, and not place any unrealistic ideals on him. But, sitting there behind the steering wheel, blinking and blinking, I realized that, yes, I had a few expectations of my husband. And they weren’t all that unrealistic.
I bet you could count the number of women who have ever wished to see a dead body in the back of their husband’s car on one hand. I mean, it’s a pretty twisted lady who wants her husband to be a murderer. But, with a body, there can be an explanation. Maybe he was framed. Maybe someone planted the body in his car. I could picture myself, hair fluffed, running down the streets of some courtroom drama, the fearless, undaunted jail widow determined to prove her husband’s innocence.
Or maybe he was a murderer and landed in that cell rightfully. At least in that scenario there’s some sort of closure. Second-guessingyour judgment, sure. Mourning the person you thought you knew, absolutely. But the truth is out there, and there’s no decision to make. He’s gone for fifty to life whether you decide to forgive him or not.
When your husband unzips his travel golf bag, though, and there’s a body in it, but, instead of a cold, blue-lipped remainder of someone who has wronged him, out steps a tiny, wedge-heeled, mid-thigh-length-dress-wearing vestige of your brand-new BFF, the situation is a little less black-and-white. I could feel my face scrunching in confusion only seconds before my eyes widened. I gasped, my hands glued to the steering wheel.
I wanted to think that maybe they were planning me a surprise party and didn’t want to give it away. I wanted to think that she had run by to borrow something or ask him a question or make plans for the weekend. But there’s only one scenario so dire that it necessitates your husband carrying your five-foot friend down the stairs in a golf bag. And it can only end in the confessional—or the graveyard. Either way, I can guarantee you Jesus ain’t pleased when you tell him what you’ve done.
My first instinct was to peel away from the curb and slam into them both. But I got my composure. No one wants her baby to be born in prison. As Laura Anne sat up, her legs still trapped in the zipped black bag, she laughed like she had just been crowned prom queen all over again. I snapped six or seven photos with my iPhone like I was going to have to prove this to the insurance company. Maybe it was that I was going to have to prove it to myself later on when I saw Ben again and couldn’t possibly imagine that a love so deep could actually have been so fleeting.
As I was about to turn the corner and confront them, watch them stutter and stumble like the last drunk leaving the bar, my phone rang. I tried to press “Decline,” inadvertently hit “Accept” and said, “Mom, this isn’t the best time. Could I call you later?”
“Lovey fell,” she said. I could feel the anxiety rising in my stomach.
“What do you mean she fell?”
“She was up on a ladder, and she fell. They don’t know if her hip broke and caused her to fall or if the fall made her hip break.”
I gasped. A hip break wasn’t good. My other grandfather had died of pneumonia after a hip break. My life with Lovey flashed through my mind. Sitting on the counter while she made me those fantastic, lumpy, chocolate milkshakes that were the only real antidote to a sweltering summer day. Lovey pacing the length of the fence during my most heated tennis matches like an anxious father outside the delivery room. Lovey bringing me a piping hot cup of coffee, a cold towel, two aspirin and an amused smirk the morning of my very first hangover. When I closed my eyes, I could see her laughing, that great, uninhibited laugh that took over her entire body. And I sped away from the stop sign toward Raleigh, toward Lovey.
“She’s going into surgery,” Mom said, and I could hear Lovey hollering in the background.
“Darling, now listen,” she said, “I am going to be fine. Don’t you dare get yourself all in a tizzy. The last thing I need is you flying down the highway trying to get to me.”
“Too late,” I said. “I’m already on the interstate.” That nausea rose to the surface, and I realized, finally, that it wasn’t just my anxiety. It was my child. Even though it should have made me feel more afraid of what I would do without Ben, incongruously, realizing that this child I had prayed for was right there made me feel like it was going to be all right.
But that didn’t change the fact that my eighty-seven-year-old Lovey was going under the knife. What if I didn’t make it in time?What if I didn’t get to say good-bye to one of the most important and influential women in my life?
“Annabelle, I’m serious. I don’tneedyou.”
“Well, Lovey,” I said, cringing at the thoughts that I had just kissed the same lips thatLaura Annehad kissed, that I was pregnant with that man’s baby, “I just might need you.” I could feel the tears coming to my eyes as I said, “So you damn well better not die.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “Don’t worry one bit about that. I talked with God this morning while I was lying there waiting for the ambulance, and He says it isn’t my time.”
I laughed through my tears. Lovey spent every Sunday in the front row of the Episcopal church, the same prayer book she’d gotten at her wedding on her lap. I wasn’t a bit worried about where she’d go when she went. I just wasn’t ready. Especially not now.
“Lovey, what on earth were you doing up on a ladder?”
“Why shouldn’t I be on a ladder?”
“Well, because you’re eighty-seven years old?”
“That’s offensive,” she snapped.
“It’s not offensive, Lovey; it’s true. You could so easily have met the same fate as Dr. Juvenal Urbino.”
The mere mention of the name was like a steamroller flattening me into the pavement. I was back in Waffle House, talking aboutLove in the Time of Cholera, back in Ben’s apartment, in his bed, basking in the glow of pure satisfaction and sticky, potent love.
She snickered. “Please. Of all the characters in that book, I think we all know I’m not him.” Then under her breath she said, “Damn fool up on that ladder trying to get aparrot.”
I turned my head to change lanes and realized that my pulse had slowed a bit. Talking to Lovey made me feel like she was going to be okay—and like, somehow, a ruined marriage and single motherhoodwasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me. My breath caught in my throat and I faked a bad signal, knowing I couldn’t hold on a minute longer. The pipe burst and the devastation and humiliation all came flooding out in one big sob. Ben was the love of my life. My forever.
I had never expected forever to end so soon.
•••
When it comes to family, if someone on the outside tries to criticize, they’d better watch out. But sisters? Well, they’re allowed to talk about each other just a little. So I smiled when I walked into the hospital waiting room and heard Martha saying, “Of course Lauren couldn’t possibly make it.”
