“When you were really busy.”
“When I didn’t want to be seen.”
“Because people might recognize you?” I asked, thinkingcollateral damage.
But his expression held its own brand of shame. “When I felt like shit about me. When I hated work and missed you and couldn’t see the future. I ordered paper towels online and had pizza delivered and watchedHomeland.”
“Homeland. Not too real?”Game of Throneswas fantasy, which was the only reason I could bear the violence.
“Yes, too real. That’s why it helped. It got me out of myself.” He thought. “But the supermarket grew on me. Walking up and down aisles pushing a cart is mind-numbing.”
So food shopping was his CALM. I used the reminder to take anotherslow breath, before returning to the subject of Mom. “Old people break hips. My mother isn’t old.”
“Falling down a flight of stairs can do it to anyone.”
“What if my being there makes things worse?”
He reached for my hand. The Jeep was warm, so my gloves were off. When he linked our fingers and rested them on the console, I didn’t resist. His touch made me feel less frightened.
We drove on in silence. He took his hand back when he needed both to signal and steer around a massive eighteen-wheeler. And then, way too soon for my nerves, we were on I-91, with Brattleboro in the rearview, Massachusetts ahead. Had I been driving myself, I’d probably have turned around, which was another reason I was grateful Edward was there.
We passed a family packed into a large SUV.That could have been us,I thought, and shot him a glance.
“Could’ve been us,” he said. “Still can.”
“You’re crazy.”
“It’s what we always wanted.”
“Once.”
“Still.”
“After everything I did? That takes a whole lot of forgiveness.”
“You’re the only one hung up on that,” he muttered and added, “I need coffee,” when a rest stop appeared out of the mist. When I declined his offer of the bathroom, he steered into the drive-thru lane. In no time we were back on the road with two coffees and two breakfast sandwiches.
We ate as we drove. Actually he ate. I was too tense to do more than nibble. When he was done with his, he finished mine.
“I used to send her things when I first moved to Devon,” I said, “you know, postcards and cards silk-screened with scenes from Devon. She never acknowledged receiving them. I emailed. She never answered. I posted comments on Facebook. They disappeared.”
After a minute, he said, “Your mother is a tough woman.”
I sputtered a facetious agreement. The mist had cleared, leaving onlythe very palest of gray days. There was actually glare. Fishing sunglasses from my bag, I put them on, but the world felt too dark then. So I took them off again, tucked them in my lap with my phone, and said, “What she did—shutting me out—was like another death. First Lily, then my dad, then her. I couldn’t be happy, so I blocked them out of my mind.” I eyed him beseechingly. “Was that wrong, Edward? Is it wrong to want to be happy?”
“Christ, no.”
“Then why is this happening? I survived by not thinking about her. Now I have to.”
“Maybe it’s time.”
“To move on? Easier said than done. I’m so sorry—for what I did to her—for what I did toyou.That whole scene,” not the accident, but the fiasco it caused, “was a nightmare. I did that. I inflicted that on you. How can you forget?”
“You don’t. Maybe you incorporate it into who you are and move on.”
“But Lily—”
“Is dead. We have memories. They need a place in our lives.”
