The ease with which he agreed made my guilt rise up in my throat. Because that’s who he is. A man who would drop everything to sit in an uncomfortable room if it meant I wouldn’t have to sit in it by myself. The irony is devastating: Julian giving me exactly what I needed, without a second thought, and there I was using his good nature as the vehicle to get him what he needs but won’t accept.
“Thank you,” I said and I meant it because the space he gave me, he gave freely.
I was going to have to steal it for him.
julian
I stoodoutside the church for a full minute, checking my phone for any urgent messages that might give me an excuse to stay outside. There wasn’t one.
I wasn’t worried about myself in there. Years in rooms full of other people’s pain. I’d sat with Simone through panic attacks, talked Zion off ledges, held Tre at two in the morning, and never once let any of it reach the part I keep sealed. I’m good in those rooms. Nevertheless, this wasn’t exactly how I’d prefer to spend my Thursday evening.
“Ready?” Alyssa said, beside me.
“Should be asking you that.”
“Yeah.”
The basement smelled like coffee and that air freshener every churchin the South uses. Metal folding chairs were arranged in a circle, with eight or nine people settling in.
A woman who looked about my age with tired eyes looked up. “Welcome.”
“Hello, I’m Alyssa. This is Julian. He’s… he’s just here for support, if that’s okay.”
“Of course. I’m Candace. Sit wherever you’re comfortable. No pressure to say anything tonight. First time, you’re allowed to just be in the room and get a feel for us. Share when you’re ready, whenever that is.”
Alyssa nodded and took a chair in the circle. I slid one out half a step behind her, just outside the circle, making it clear that I was not part of the thing.
“Let’s begin,” Candace said. “Sharing’s always optional. Margaret, you want to start us?”
An older woman with salt-and-pepper hair nodded and just jumped right in, surprising me.
“It’s been three years since my husband.” She steadied herself. “I still buy his cereal. Last week I made his coffee the way he took it and stood there looking at the second cup, trying to remember who it was for…They tell me it gets easier. Some mornings feel like he died yesterday. I’ll catch a song, or his cologne on a stranger, and lose him all over again.”
Nods and small sounds of recognition went around the circle.
Then a man working his hands went next. Robert.
“My son died in Afghanistan.” He played with a band on his finger. “Everybody tells me to be proud he died serving. But I’ll be straight with you, because that’s what this room’s for.” He looked up. “I’m pissed. Because hechoseto go. I begged him not to enlist. We fought about it for a year. He went anyway and now he’s gone. That’s what eats me alive, the part I can’t say to his mother. He didn’thaveto be gone. He chose the thing that took him. He didn’t have to be gone. And then I feel guilty for being angry when I should be proud of his service.”
A feeling came up in me, fast, and it took me a second to understand it wasn’t sympathy for Robert. It was empathy. Because I understood it. The anger blending in with the sadness.
My father. I’d begged him to come home. He stayed gone anyway. Gone because of a choice he didn’t have to make.
I pushed it down.Not the same thing. Pops isn’t dead. Not the same thing.
My body didn’t care about the distinction. The feeling was identical. I’d carried that feeling for years and never said it out loud. And a manI’d never met had just said it out loud in a church basement.I’m pissed.I looked at the floor.
“Anger and grief can live at the same time,” Candace said to him. “People think they have to pick one. You don’t. They’ll live in there together for a good while. And you keep apologizing for the anger, Robert. You decided your job was to keep the family standing, so you don’t let yourself shake. But holding everybody up doesn’t move the grief anywhere. It just sends it somewhere nobody can see it.”
I wanted to get up, walk out, wait for Alyssa in the car. Let her have her hour. I didn’t, because leaving would have told her something was wrong, and nothing was wrong. So I shifted in the folding chair and worked a slow breath out without letting my shoulders move.
Then another woman spoke. She’d come in with an older woman I’d taken for her mother and who turned out to be her sister.
“I lost my husband last year,” she said. “And then my mom in June. Same year. Three months apart.” She took a breath. “I’ve got three kids. Eight, six, and three. And I’m the oldest, so when Mom went, all her affairs fell on me. On top of my husband’s affairs that I was still dealing with. The estate. Going through her house, her clothes, deciding what we keep.” She nodded at her sister. “We’re all grieving her different. I just — I can’t stop moving. I get the kids up, I handle the tasks, I keep everybody else standing, and I keep going, because if I stop—” She shook her head. “There isn’t a version of this where I get to fall apart. There’s nobody for me to fall apartto. I’m the one everybody else falls apart to.”
Candace didn’t say anything for a moment.
“You’re doing everything right,” she finally said. “You’re keeping your kids fed and a whole family upright through the worst year of its life, and you’re sitting in this room on top of it, which is more than most people manage. So take this as the next right thing, not a correction.” She leaned in a little. “You’re allowed to stop. You’re allowed to sit down in it. To fall apart for one hour and let your sister holdyouthe way you’ve been holding everybody else. Let me ask you…when’s the last time you cried?”
