“I’m so sorry,” I repeat as tears fill my eyes. “It’s not your fault that I couldn’t help falling for you.”
The breath he draws in this time is sharp and raw.
“I’m going to leave now, though, let you be. I don’t want to be another problem for you to have to worry about.”
As I go to step away, he gasps and clutches on to me, and it’s a desperate, anguished act. And then his body starts to heave, and it’s the most distressing thing I have ever heard, the sound of him sobbing.
I’m lost after that. I hold him as tightly as I can, but I don’t have the strength to stop myself from joining him.
To see this strong man who has held it together time and again for so long, for his family, for Laurie’s family, for me, to see him finally let himself go... It wrecks me.
Eventually, he stops crying, but his chest continues to jerk with great shuddering breaths. His arms loosen around my waist, so I take the hint and slide my hands down to his slim hips before taking a final step backward. He stares past me at the sofa, his eyes bloodshot, his nose swollen, his cheeks damp, and his dark blond hair in disarray.
“I’ll take that fucking tissue now, please,” I tell him, and he lets out a short laugh and meets my eyes momentarily,remembering Jonas getting cross with him because he couldn’t bring himself to comfort me that time.
That feels like a lifetime ago. Life seemed so much smaller than it does now.
He turns and walks up the steps to his bedroom, then opens the door to his bathroom. I hear him blow his nose before he reappears with a handful of tissues. I sort myself out and return to the sofa.
He comes and sits beside me.
And maybe I shouldn’t, but I edge closer, drawing my knees up so they’re lying sideways against his lap. He doesn’t tense up, so I think it’s okay.
“Will you show me a video of her?” I ask.
He shoots me a look, taken aback.
“I’d like to see what she was like, when she was alive.”
It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. She may not be dead, but she’s not really living, either.
“Are you sure?” he asks warily.
“Yes.”
He unhurriedly gets his phone out of his pocket and brings up his photo collection. From my position beside him I see an album entitled “Laurie,” but I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until he’s pressing play and passing me his phone.
The screen comes to life, showing Laurie and Peggy in the living room at the farmhouse. There are multicolored balloons attached to the ginger-pine walls and both Laurie and Peggy are clutching champagne glasses. The background noise is of people talking.
“Happy birthday, Ma,” I hear Anders say fondly from off-screen.
“Thank you, darling,” Peggy replies happily, raising her glass to him.
Laurie smiles up past the camera, at her husband, her blue eyes merry. Then suddenly she nods past him as a chorus of “Happy Birthday” begins.
Anders jerks the camera away to Jonas, who’s carrying a cake blazing with dozens of candles in from the kitchen. The room is full of people and I have a feeling this is a significant birthday—Peggy’s seventieth, perhaps, six years ago. Everyone falls silent as Peggy readies herself to blow out the candles, and then Laurie appears again at the edge of the frame and Anders adjusts his angle so she’s sharing the screen space with his mother. Peggy only manages to blow out a third of the candles on her first go, and I watch Laurie’s face as she, in turn, watches her mother-in-law, giggling as Peggy blows and blows and blows.
“Oh, you do it, Laurie,” she snaps good-naturedly, giving up on her fourth attempt.
“Are you sure?” Laurie asks her laughingly.
“Only if you don’t steal my wish,” Peggy teases.
“It’s all yours,” Laurie replies warmly, stepping forward and blowing out the last few remaining candles.
Everyone in the room cheers, but Jonas’s cheer is the loudest. He’s still holding the cake at the side of the shot, but Anders’s attention is focused on his wife.
She looks at him and the film ends, freeze-framed on her laughing face.
