“Hunter,” Mom calls. “The food is getting cold.” I put down the dishrag and dry my hands on the sides of my pants. The sight I’m greeted with when I walk in to the dining room can only be described as happiness. However, I’m quickly faced with a reality I’ve been too closed off to realize. As everyone’s focus moves to my face, the smiles disappear, and my heart sinks a little. I’m making everyone around me feel the way I feel—my misery, my self-loathing pity. The silence accompanies the straight faces as I take my seat between Charlotte and Olive.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask, knowing I haven’t said anything at all. “You were all smiling until the second I walked in.” I need to hear the truth. Am I that bad? Does Charlotte feel this way too? Olive?
“You aren’t the happiest person,” Alexa chimes in first. “It’s hard to be happy around you sometimes because I think we all feel guilty that you can’t be happy along with us.” Mom and Dad both nod their heads in agreement, probably grateful, for once, that Alexa had the courage to say something…something they were also feeling but didn’t know how to say out loud. Olive is stifling a laugh with her hand cupped over her mouth, proving she doesn’t understand what Alexa is talking about, thankfully. And Charlotte, she’s looking at me the way I don’t want her to look at me, like she just came to a conclusion I might have been trying to hide from her.
I draw in a deep breath, hoping to clear out some of the pain in my chest, but strangely, the extra air only makes me feel more suffocated. I can bail right now and make a scene, I can ignore everything Alexa just said, or I can tell her the truth. Making a decision that surprises even me, I blurt out, “You’re right.”She is right.“I’m sorry for what I have put you all through over the past five years.” How many times can I say this to all of them before it loses its meaning?
In the support groups I used to attend, I witnessed some people healing quicker than others. Some widows began to date only months after their spouse’s death, while some swore off the thought of a new partner entirely. I was part of the latter group for a long time, but the fog has cleared enough for me to see a little further ahead and I see a long road, a long life, one in which I’m not sure I want to remain alone, in a constant state of misery. Then again, I’m not sure I ever made the decision to be miserable; I just haven’t been able to figure out how not to be. Sometimes I feel like I’m banging on a glass window, trying to get the attention of everyone I love, but they don’t hear me. I feel like we have this conversation way too often and I really wish they could have let it go today with Charlotte here.
“Do you know how many times you have said this?” Dad says. “The number of times you have apologized makes this one a little less meaningful, Son.”This.This is not something I wanted Charlotte to be a part of, and by the looks of it, I can sense she feels the same way.
“My best friend lost her husband,” Charlotte states like a peace offering. “Believe it or not, Hunter is doing far better than she was doing five years after his death.”
“Oh dear, I am so sorry,” Mom pipes in. “I can’t imagine what she must have gone through, the poor thing.”Yes you can! Hello? You’ve watched me go through it.
“Well, sure you can, Mrs. Cole.” Charlotte lets out a long sigh before placing her napkin down over her lap. “It’s pretty similar to what Hunter has experienced; however, my friend doesn’t have any children, which made it easier for her to slide down a slippery slope—one that included drugs, alcohol, and other things that are not appropriate to discuss at the table.” Charlotte wraps her hand around her coffee mug, squeezing it as if it were a stress relief. “I know I only met Hunter a couple of months ago, but I think he’s doing great, considering.” I feel odd being talked about as if I weren’t sitting here, but I feel flattered that Charlotte stuck up for me to my family. What she just did takes balls.
Mom looks a bit taken aback. Her eyes are wide and her eyebrows are pinned about an inch higher than they should be. Dad, though, his lips are sewn tightly together into a small, twisted smirk. He likes Charlotte’s confidence. He has told me many times during my life that he finds confidence in a woman beautiful and sexy.
We all wait in silence for someone to respond, but I’m not sure a response is necessary. “Look,” I finally break through the silence. “Yes, I have been an unhappy person, miserable to be around, I’m sure. I realize it has been five years and maybe I should have gotten over my pain four years ago, but she was part of my life for twenty years. Time hasn’t healed me yet, so what am I supposed to do? Do you want me to pretend I’m all better?” I force a stupid grin. “How’s this? Does it look real enough?”
“Hunter,” Mom says, disappointedly.
“Better yet,” I continue. “Maybe I should have just called it quits. Maybe I should have done what I thought about doing so many goddamn times after she died.”
Charlotte’s hand sweeps across my lap until her fingers touch mine. She squeezes tightly, silently telling me to stop going in the direction I’m heading in.
“You’re right,” Mom says. “Charlotte, you are right, as well. We have all tried so hard to help you become happy again that we have failed to realize how far you have come and what you have overcome. I think I speak for all of us when I say we can have a little more understanding for the time it is taking—will take—for you to find something that will make you smile the way you once did.”
I see them once a week, and Charlotte isn’t normally here, so what they don’t see is that I do smile like I once did. And it isn’t because I’m head over heels in love with this woman sitting next to me, it’s because someone has had enough patience to listen and truly understand what I’ve gone through, what I’m still going through, the grief and sadness I’m living with. Her patience has been something no one else has offered me, and yet, despite my emotional baggage, she enjoys my company as much as I enjoy hers. “I do smile,” I correct Mom. I look at Charlotte, then take her hand and pull it up above the table for everyone to see, eliciting a surprised look from her. “This woman makes me smile, and no, we aren’t a ‘thing’ since I know you love labels, but she is my best friend...and more, I guess.”More, I guess. What would more entail? More as in what I think about doing, more as in, what I’ve carefully avoided doing? More as in, when I finally cross that line, will Ellie’s memories slowly disappear? Charlotte’s look of surprise has changed into a glimmer of delight, and I see an accompanying sparkle in her eyes.
“I knew it,” AJ shouts across the table. “Lucky dog, you. That’s a big win right there...trust me.”
Well, that was an easy way to divert the attention away from me. Mom is gawking at AJ, and Alexa is winding up to slap him. “AJ,” mom scolds.
“Whoa, I meant, a big win forhim.” AJ’s words of explanation don’t work as well as he probably thought they would, and I’m starting to wonder why the blood just drained from his face and why he looks like he might puke.
“Maybe I should say,Iknew it,” Alexa says, excusing herself from the table. “Charlotte. I should have known.”
“Am I missing something?” I ask.
Alexa has one foot out the door when she says, “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”
Charlotte’s hand slips from mine and I am instantly drawing conclusions that won’t do me any good.
“Girls, are you all done?” Mom asks Lana and Olive.
“Yup,” Olive answers, confusion filling her eyes, probably matching the look in my eyes.
“Why don’t you two go on upstairs to play, then? I’ll come check on you in a few minutes.” Both girls flee from their seats and head up the stairs, leaving this room feeling somehow even more constricting.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on or—?” I don’t know how to finish that question, and the words coming from my mouth sound breathless, like someone just punched me in the gut.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Charlotte asks, standing up from her seat. I hear her talking, and I can feel her staring, but I’m eyeing AJ and the look on his face, which tells me there’s something I’m going to lose my shit over.
“I haven’t gotten to have one bite of the food I spent an hour cooking. I think our talk can wait.” I keep my focus on AJ’s face, watching as the hue of pink on his cheeks continues dropping shade by shade, ever so slowly, morphing into a paleness resembling a ghost.
I shovel bites of food into my mouth, one by one, as I try to think. Maybe it’s not as bad as I’m assuming it is, but what I’m assuming is that AJ’s lips have touched the lips I have restrained myself from touching for a reason I shouldn’t have. I’m assuming AJ has seen what lies beneath the clothes of this beautiful woman standing beside me. I’m assuming he knows whether or not her breasts are real or fake...a question I ponder every time I see her coming toward me. Whatever it is he’s done, I don’t know whether it has been recently or before I met Charlotte, and that is the only question I have right now, because depending on the answer, it might cause a conflict with one of the ten commandments of respecting thy neighbor.
