“I don’t want you working for him. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
“Mom, someday you’re going to wake up and realize it wasn’t Dad who ruined your life, it was all your own doing.”
“You sound like my mother,” I said tightly. “Blaming me for his death.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“What I mean is that you’ve allowed his death to make you suspicious and cold and really, really quick to choose anger instead of understanding.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
She was quiet for a moment. “May I be excused?”
“But you hardly ate.”
“I’m not very hungry.” She picked up her plate and bowl as if to take them to the sink, but changed her mind, setting them back down onto the table with a bang. “I give up, Mom. Go ahead and choose to be miserable. I’m done.”
She left the kitchen, bounding up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door.
Great, just great. Not only was I in love with a man who wasn’t sure about his feelings, I’d now alienated my daughter.
All proof that I should have just stayed in my lane. It might be a bitter spinster lane, but it was mine. I understood the traffic flows and stop signs. The way a light turns yellow, then red almost immediately thereafter.
I cleaned the kitchen silently,with a light step, opening and closing of cabinets carefully instead of banging and slamming and tossing glasses against the marble counter like I wanted. I threw away what remained from our two plates into the trash, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher.
But what to do with the third, untouched dinner?
I held the third sandwich and bowl of soup over the sink. For whatever reason, I couldn’t seem to just toss them. It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. But I wrapped the darn sandwich in foil and poured the soup into a glass container, snapping the lid into place before placing it all in the refrigerator.
By then, it was approaching nine. Weariness came, the kind that hurts inside your bones, as I trudged up the stairs.
There was a line of light under Annie’s door. I raised my hand to knock, holding it there for a moment, before pulling back as if it were hot. I simply had nothing left to say. Nothing that would make either of us feel better. So I let it be.
I went to my room and closed the door, then went into the bathroom. I ran hot water to wash my face.I was fine, I told myself.Just get a good night’s sleep. Everything would look better in the morning.Nothing but a few nights of gritted teeth and I would forget all about Dorian Flynn. No need for a fetal position on the floor. No need for tears. They were nothing but a waste of time.
But in the end, I slid down the wall and onto the floor. Oh, how I knew this floor. Cold tile. The grout line that’s not quite even, near the shower. Thick towels that provided more than dryness. They were what I cried into so Annie couldn’t hear me. I’d perfected silent weeping like an art form. Or maybe an Olympic sport. This is the me no one saw. The wreckage of what was left of a woman who had lost her husband weeping on the floor. Not even my friends knew this raw, tortured part of me.
I don’t know how long I’d been down there when the door, which I hadn’t latched, swung in three inches, and Poe put his head through the gap like a building inspector. He looked at me for a long moment. Then he walked over, sat down against my hip, and leaned his weight against me.
“Oh, Poe, how is it you’ve chosen me?” I pulled him onto my lap, and he immediately started purring. “I ruin everything. Everyone I love leaves me, and it’s all my fault.” I placed my face against his furry neck and cried some more.
Until I heard something in the doorway. I looked up to see it was Annie.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I sniffed, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.
Annie grabbed a box of tissues and handed it to me before she sat next to me, our backs against the tub, her shoulder against mine. Poe remained on my lap, but he’d stopped purring. Instead he licked my hand with his scratchy tongue.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You weren’t wrong.” My voice came out scraped. “In fact, you’re right about everything.”
Another lick from Poe.
“I’m in love with Dorian. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s true. Now he’s gone. And I feel like my heart’s in a thousand pieces. When he said he wasn’t sure—it hurt. So much. I didn’t see it coming. I thought this thing between us was something good. That he might be my future. I was listening to music again. Singing in the car. Waking up all excited to see him. But I was wrong. How could I be so sure when he wasn’t? It’s the thing I tried so hard to avoid.” I started to cry again.
