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And Marc needed a proper goodbye, just between the two of us.
IV
I stayed on the beach until the sky started to darken and the sun, behind me, set behind the mix of brick and mortar that was the city.
People had come and gone as I sat there, fingers in the cool sand—a gay couple obviously early on in their relationship, an older woman with frizzy salt and pepper hair and a copy of Douglas Stuart’sYoung Mungoopen on her lap, a few other people with dogs, taking the opportunity to break the law and let them run free along the shoreline, and an old man with a metal detector and headphones, searching, I guess for change and lost jewelry.
But just as the sky was getting murky, a kind of grayish lavender in color, I at last had the beach to myself.
The moment had come.
I rose, shaky as a newborn foal taking its first step. I removed the plastic bag with the ashes from the Nordstrom shopping bag. It felt both heavy and light at the same time. I’d guess it weighed maybe a little more than a couple of pounds. So, the actual heft of the thing was what felt light. What felt heavy was that this was all that was left of my man.
Scenes of our life together ran through my mind—the passion at the start, the nesting as we searched for our forever home in our favorite Chicago neighborhood, Rogers Park, the trips to places near and far, like Saugatuck, Michigan across the lake, where there was a gay campground called Camp It to far away, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Rome, Milan, and Florence for Marc’s 40th. My happiest memories were simple, though—picking up Vito from the animal shelter when he was a puppy, nights on the couch with a Giordano’s pizza and a couple of beers on the coffee table before us as we binged something likeThe Marvelous Mrs. Maiselon Amazon Prime orTed Lassoon Apple TV, grocery shopping, trips up to Lake Geneva or Door County to take in autumn foliage. Even something as simple as an L train ride downtown to see a play were cemented into my head, memories I’d now treasure even more than I’d ever dreamed.
I moved with the plastic bag toward the water. I glanced behind me to make sure I was still alone. I wasn’t sure what I was about to do was even legal, so I wanted to take care. I also simply wanted to be alone with Marc.
I set the bag down on the sand and squatted to open it. I dug into the ashes, grasping as big of a handful as my fingers would allow.
I neared the water’s edge, just close enough to avoid getting my feet wet. The water had gone still as the wind suddenly disappeared. I heard traffic behind me on Sheridan Road, a snatch of conversation and laughter coming from an open apartment window, and a bit of music, maybe from a car, Adele singing “Hello.”
“I will never stop missing you. I will never stop loving you. You are a jagged little piece of my heart, just as painful, but also just as life-giving. You run through my veins and my dreams.”
I thought a bit longer, but the words were enough. If Marc could somehow listen, I hoped he’d understand that he’d been, for many, many years, the most important person in my life. He was my dawn, my dusk, and my midday.
I flung the handful of ashes outward, over the mirror-like surface of the water, watching it rise just a bit and then tumble into the water, sinking.
I reached in for another handful and repeated the process. Again. And again, until all that was left was maybe a quarter of a cup. I’d keep half of that for myself. I’d give the other half to Marc’s mom and dad.
I gathered up my things.
Darkness had claimed the beach and I needed to get home.
Chapter 16
Now—Sam
I
It had been a long and exhausting trip.
Since I sold my Prius last winter when it was more of a hassle in the city than it was worth, I took public transportation everywhere. Most of the time, it was quick and convenient, and I barely missed the car Marc and I once shared. I certainly didn’t miss traffic jams and searching for an hour for street parking.
This trip—from Rogers Park to the Cook County Jail on the southside—was testing my nerves and my patience. It involved a Red Line and a Green Line L train and a couple of different buses.
Even though it was April, it was cold. Dirty snow defined the landscape and, above it, a dingy grayish sky filtered the sun begrudgingly, lending a washed-out feeble light to the day. The temperature hovered just above freezing. The wind off of the lake contributed to the wind chill.
My current bus had no heat, at least not the kind provided by its own works. I suppose I should have been grateful that the bus was crowded with people, which made for a kind of body heat blanket. Never mind the smell!
I had delayed making this visit for too long. Sure, I had seen Jeb during the trial last year and our eyes had even met a couple of times when he was being led into the courtroom, but I had not had any contact with him since that terrible late summer day when I’d been interrogated for hours and hours and was only freed because Jeb had, in some last-minute drama only he could understand and orchestrate, had come in to the very same police station where I was being questioned and confessed to killing my husband and, really, the love of my life. He may as well have confessed to snuffing out all the happiness and hope I had.
I hadn’t wanted to talk to him.
I hadn’t needed to talk to him.
I wanted, truly, to banish him from my life, my memories, and my nightmares.
It took me several months to realize that what I wanted was impossible. Short of undergoing some kind of lobotomy, my experiences with Jeb, both as a youth and as a middle-aged man, were now a permanent part of my history, whether I wanted them as part of that record or not.
