Page 78 of Shattered

“Everyone expects something. Even when they say they don’t, they do. They expect me to eat. To shower. To answer my phone. To accept help gracefully. To grieve in a way that’s manageable for them.” She looked at me directly. “You expect me to let you in. To let you help and grab onto you while I’m drowning. But I don’t want to grab onto anything. I just want to sink.”

The words hit me like a sharp stab. Like she’d reached out with a knife and pierced me in the chest.

“So that’s it?” My voice came out rough. Raw. “You’re just going to give up?”

“I’m not giving up. I’m just not fighting anymore. There’s a difference.”

“What can I do?” My voice was desperate. Like I was the one drowning now. “Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”

“Leave me alone.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. Weeks. Months. Maybe forever.”

Forever. The word sat between us like a wall I couldn’t climb.

I looked at her standing there in the doorway. At the woman I loved looking like a stranger.

And I was so afraid. Right now, she almost looked like her—my mother. The same grief in her eyes that I’d seen before the world took everything from me.

“I love you,” I said quietly. “That hasn’t changed. That won’t change. I’m not going anywhere even if you push me away.”

“Love isn’t enough when you’re drowning.”

“Maybe not. But it’s something to grab onto.”

She looked at me resigned. Then, the door closed, the lock clicking in place.

I stood there for a long time. Just stood there staring at that closed door knowing Delia was on the other side. Eventually I went back to my car.

I sat in the driver’s seat with my hands on the steering wheel and felt something in my chest break.

I’d been trying so hard to be strong. To be patient. To give her space while also checking on her. To balance what she said she needed with what I knew she needed.

But I couldn’t do it anymore.

Because Delia was drowning—and she wouldn’t let me save her. Wouldn’t even let me touch her. Had flinched from my hand like my touch was poison.

She’d decided to sink and all I could do was watch. And let it happen. Again.

I drove to Daniel’s apartment. He opened the door looking like he hadn’t slept in days either.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Worse than we thought.”

We sat in his living room drinking scotch at three in the afternoon.

Two men who loved Delia, trying to figure out how to save someone who didn’t want saving.

Daniel poured more scotch. “After Dad died, Mom did this. Shut down completely. It was like she’d built a wall around herself and wouldn’t let anyone through.”

“How long did it last?”

“Months. And then one day she just got up and went back to teaching, like nothing had happened.” He drank. “But it wasn’t nothing. She was never really the same after that.”

“What do we do?”