"No."
"Did you go ten years without talking to her?"
"No, we talked nearly every day."
"Did you go ten years without loving her?"
I slide my gaze up to meet Livvie's. "Obviously not."
She raises her eyebrows in a look that tells me she has led me to water, now it's up to me to drink.
My shoulder bumps hers. "I get it."
I’m realizing that I do the guilt and self-punishment thing really well.
"Good." She wraps me in a one-armed hug.
Owen finds us sitting this way and approaches cautiously. I think Livvie's tough exterior, her tell-it-like-it-is attitude, sets him off-kilter. It makes sense to me. I’ve lived and worked with people who acted like her. Owen hasn't.
Livvie releases me and then stands, pulling me up with her. "You have to get back in there, Autumn. Don't be a chump like me." She winks at me and walks away.
Owen watches her go, his hands tucked into his dark grey dress pants. "Chump?" he asks, bewildered.
"Chump. Technical term." Despite the day I’m having, I smile a little. Livvie is a breath of fresh air for me.
Owen reaches out to me, folding me into his body and kissing the top of my head. "You disappeared."
"I couldn't stand all the finger foods and different types of salad." I'm joking, but it's not totally untrue. The smells of all the foods were meshing together, and I pictured them as different colors, mixing into something grayish-brown and hanging over the room like smog.
"The food is mostly gone now. Do you want to go back?"
I nod against him and he lets me go, only to capture my hand. We walk back into the church, and an idea strikes me. I pull my hand from his. "Owen? I need a few minutes alone. With her…"
"Of course." He brushes a kiss onto my cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too," I answer before opening the light-colored wood doors into the sanctuary. It looks different in here. The lights have been dimmed, and without the backs of people’s heads to look at, it seems so lonely. I've never been alone in a place of worship before, and it's off-putting. I creep forward quietly, matching the volume of the place, which is silent.
At the very front, to the left of the pulpit, is my mom's casket. A spray of purple and white flowers lies on top of its closed hood. When I reach the gleaming dark wood, I press a hand to it.
I don't know what I was thinking would happen. Maybe a sensation. A whisper from the great beyond. A feeling in my heart telling me she's nearby. Instead I feel nothing, and it wrecks me.
Marzipan.
It doesn't work. Fat tears roll down my cheeks and I don't wipe them away. They slip off my chin, landing somewhere, soaking into the fabric of my dress, the carpet, maybe even my shoes.
Once my tears subside, my blurry vision clears, and I see the corner of a folded piece of paper sticking out from under the flowers. Using two fingers, I pinch the paper, tugging gently, and the paper clears its hiding spot.
The first thing I notice is the handwriting. It's familiar, but I can't figure out why. I begin to read.
My Beautiful Faith,
I've learned something new today. Nothing can prepare a man to lose a person they love.
Looking back now, I wish we'd done things differently.
I wish—
I lookup from the note. I can't keep reading, it feels like an invasion of privacy. And now I realize why this handwriting is familiar. It's the same as the note I found when I first moved back, the one in her pantry. It seems that the old love isn’t so old.
