“That’s a lot of authority to hand a man you’ve never met. What are we settling?”
“The holidays,” the man says.
“Every year,” the woman jumps in, “every single year, we do his family. And his mother treats me like the help and corrects how I load a dishwasher?—”
“It’s not every year —”
“It is every year, Brian.”
“Okay.” I let them run into each other once, then I cut in. “Time out. Both of you. You’re not actually fighting over the way a dishwasher is loaded. What’s really going on here? Sir, you go first. Why do you spend every holiday with your family?”
A silence with breathing in it. Then, quieter: “Because every time we skip them it feels like I’m telling my mom she came in second. To her face. On a holiday.”
“And ma’am why don’t you want to spend the holidays with his family?”
“Because his mother makes me feel like an intruder in the family I married into. And nobody ever takes my side. He just lets her.”
“Okay. Now we’re talking about something real. He feels like loving you costs him his mother. You feel like nobody in that family is on your side, least of all on a holiday. You both feel unprotected. So, here’s the deal I’d give you if you two were sitting in my bar.” I lean in. “This year, you go to his family. First, before yours. But Brian, when you walk in, you’re watching outfor her. The second your mother starts in on anything, you’re the one who steps in, out loud, in front of everybody. Not your wife. You. Can you do that?”
Quiet, then: “. . . Yeah. I can do that.”
“And you walk in with a plan, a set time when you’re going to leave and go to your wife’s family. Then next year you flip it. And if that doesn’t work for everyone, start your own traditions and have both families at your house. The holidays are supposed to be fun and entertaining. Not stressful. We host every year, but I know there’s going come a day when my daughter-in-law wants her children to open those early morning Santa presents at their house, and you know what, my wife and I will be there, if invited. And if not, we’ll greet them with open arms when and if they come to our house later in the day.
“Life is too short to fight over the holidays. You stop letting either family pull you back and forth or you start doing your own thing and if they show up, great. If not, that’s on them. Not you. You in?”
“We’re in,” the woman says, and the man says it half a second behind her. They’re almost laughing now, and the fight’s gone out of the line.
Behind the camera Paige has both hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes huge above them. She jabs a finger at the phone screen, then gives me a thumbs up. Whatever’s happening on there must be good.
“You’re on The Love Line with Liam.”
“My wife has dementia,” he says. “Advanced now. Most days she doesn’t know who I am.” He stops. Starts again. “I’m with her every day. I feed her. I read to her, the mystery novels she used to love, even though she can’t follow them. And lately I catch myself . . .” His voice thins. “I catch myself wanting somebody to talk to who talks back. A hand to hold that holds mine back. And I feel like the lowest man alive for it. She’s rightthere in the next room. How do I get to want anything when she’s right there.”
I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
I put my hand flat on the desk. The booth has gone very quiet, quiet enough that I can hear the board hum. Behind the glass Bex has gone still. Behind the camera my daughter has stepped to the side and is just looking at me. The red light’s still on. I leave it on.
“You’re not the lowest man alive,” I say, and my voice doesn’t come out level, and I quit trying to make it. “You’re the opposite. And I need you to actually hear me, not just be polite while I say it.” I take a breath. “Love doesn’t end when she stops knowing your name. It just gets harder, and you keep doing it anyway. The feeding, the reading to a woman who can’t follow the story, that’s not less than the love you started with. It might be more, because there’s nothing in it for you now and you show up regardless. That’s the worst part you promised her once. You’re in it, and you didn’t run.”
Nothing on the line but breathing.
“And the wanting,” I say. “Somebody who answers back. A hand that holds yours. That’s not a betrayal of her. That’s a man still alive in the middle of the worst thing that ever happened to him. You’re allowed to be lonely inside a love this big. It doesn’t mean you love her any less. It means you’re a person doing something brutally hard, mostly on your own. So find some people. A friend you can be honest with. There are rooms full of folks carrying this same thing. They meet in church basements all over the country, and not one of them will judge you for a word of what you just said. You are not the only one. It only feels that way when the house is quiet and she’s finally asleep.”
“Thank you,” the man says, wrecked and grateful, and the line goes soft and then gone.
I sit there a second. I drag the back of my hand across my eyes, once, and I don’t care that the camera gets it. Paige is wiping her own face with her sleeve and trying to do it where I can’t see.
I should bring the segment in. Cut the light, go back to the safe dark for the last few minutes. Instead, I keep talking.
“I’m going to tell you something I don’t put on the air,” I say. “Since we’re all looking at each other tonight.”
Paige looks at me.
“I had a grandmother, Betty. I met her when I was in college. I was playing a gig and she was there. She took a chance, a leap really, when she introduced herself to me. I never knew she existed until then. I never knew anything about my mom’s family.
“My grandmother was an actress, a long time ago, the old Hollywood kind. My grandfather was a musician. His name was Charlie Page, and he was a jazz musician.” I laugh. “Imagine that. Anyway, he wasn’t a great guy and had died long before I ever met my grandma.
“I followed my grandma back to Los Angeles, to her big white house overlooking the Hollywood Hills. She encouraged me in every way possible. Her words to me were, follow only your dreams. Not the dreams of my father or anyone else. Mine.
