“We don’t want to see you wasting your life,” he says. “You’re a good man. You’ve stuck by our daughter through thick and thin. We know what you’ve sacrificed for her. But we’ve lost sight of how much it’s hurting you. We want you to go out there and live now. We want you to let Laurie go.”
I hunch over and begin to shake. The couch depresses beside me as Kelly moves to sit closer.
“You’re like a son to us, Anders,” she says. “We care about you. Laurie has already lost so much. We don’t want to see you lose everything too.”
“I don’t want to divorce her,” I manage to choke out.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Kelly replies in a husky voice. “It’s better that you have a fresh start.”
She squeezes my hand hard and I think she’s trying to compensate for the fact that she’s shaking too, but grief is racking her entire body.
“And while you’re still married to Laurie,” she adds waveringly, “you have the final say over her care.” She inhales raggedly. “And I want my baby back.”
“I willnevertake her away from you,” I swear as she begins to sob.
“Come now.” Brian reaches past me to rub his wife’s back. “We have a lot of talking to do,” he tells me meaningfully.
“I’m not putting her into a hospice!” Kelly wails at him.
“Okay, okay,” he soothes.
But I sense their discussion isn’t over.
I wish theywouldput Laurie into a hospice, get some sort of life back. Then I picture Kelly standing alone in this house, looking around at the empty space, wondering what it is she’s forgotten to do, and I don’t think she ever will.
She will not let her daughter leave this house until she is ready to leave in a coffin.
And I begin to cry so hard that I feel as though my chest is caving in. The thought of Kelly and how much pain she’s in and how she still manages to speak to Laurie in the same way that she always has... How she still holds out hope that Laurie will come back to us... It kills me to witness it.
Sometimes, I imagine Ma in Kelly’s position and I wonder if she would continue to hope too, even when everyone else has given up, and the thought of her suffering has kept me awake at night.
“You need to go after Wren,” Brian says.
“I can’t,” I sob. “She’s gone.”
“Then you need to get her back.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” Kelly says firmly, barely controlling the quiver in her voice. “I was so angry and disappointed in you both at first, but I’ve had time to think about it. Wren came here when she didn’t have to and that must have been very hard for her. She’s a good person. I can see that. Despite everything, I liked her. And Laurie would have liked her too. Laurie would want you to go after her.”
“Laurie would want you to be happy,” Brian interjects hoarsely.
He reaches for an envelope on the side table and passes it to me.
“We thought this was the least we could do. We want you to know how much we mean what we’re saying.”
I open the envelope with trembling fingers and pull out a piece of paper. I stare at it. It’s a plane ticket for Friday night.ThisFriday night.
“Go and get her back,” Brian urges.
I sniff and shake my head, stunned. “She’ll never forgive me.”
“Yes, she will,” Kelly says with absolute certainty. “But first you need to say goodbye to Laurie.”
This is why they put her to bed early, I realize in a daze as I climb the stairs. They wanted to talk to me without her sitting there.
And now they want me to have some privacy while I say goodbye.
