After my grandmother’s funeral.
After the baby.
It holds me for three days while I grieve.
“You are not a pretty crier,” Dina remarks as she watches me sob uncontrollably while the television is playingThe Bridges of Madison County.It’s my go-to sob fest movie. But I don’t need Clint Eastwood to break my heart—it’s already broken.
I’ve been bursting into tears all the time. In the middle of eating cereal. While Dina forces me to take a shower I don’t want to. When anguish wakes me up in the middle of the night, or when I’ve only just dozed off.
My grief has its own schedule and is merely using my body as a venue.
“Go away,” I mumble.
Her face creases with compassion. “I can go kick his ass, you know?”
“And how’s that supposed to help me?”
“It’ll make me feel better,” she retorts.
On the morning of the third day at Dina’s, I wake up and find that the crying has gone…quiet.
Not gone-gone—I can feel it behind everything, like a frequency just below hearing—but manageable.
I eat breakfast at the diner, cooked by Jackie, a retired grandmother who pinch-hits when I’m out of commission, which isn’t often.
Jackie keeps things simple, the way most Nashville diners do. There are things she won’t attempt, though—like poaching eggs—so Dina has to take eggs Benedict off the menu, and there are no specials either.
No cassoulet simmering all afternoon, no boeuf bourguignon, which the regulars love almost as much as the biscuits and gravy.
Dina’s place has always had a bit of French country spirit in it—her way of honoring the years she spent as a child in a refugee camp in France. So when I’m in the kitchen, I lean into that, bringing those slow, hearty dishes to a Tennessee diner that somehow made room for them.
After I eat scrambled eggs with toast, I debate whether to call or text Fox. He’s texted me a few times. He’s called, but I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t read or listen to his messages.
But I am braver now, so I can hear his voice and not crumble. That’s what I decide. However, it’s a close thing when he picks up the phone after the first ring and says in his sexy voice, “Luce.”
“I’m coming by today. Around two to get more of my stuff. If that’s okay.”
A pause.
“I don’t want you to be there.” I mean it approximately seventy percent of the way.
Another pause. Long exhale. “Lucy, you sure you don’t need help?—”
“No.”
He doesn’t get to be nice. He doesn’t get to be helpful.
He just…damn it. I close my eyes and push the tears back.
“Okay, sweetheart. I won’t be there.”
I want to yell at him not to call me sweetheart, but I like it so much that I don’t.
Now I’m patheticandstupid. Great combination!
I hang up before either of us can say anything that makes this worse.
“You want me to come with you?” Dina asks as she leans over the counter.
