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It was the first time it occurred to me how different Em and I’s grief would become through the years. It was true that no one would ever replace her mother, but it would get harder for her to remember so vividly as she got older. Her mother’s face and voice were already starting to fade in her memories. She was only three when we lost her. Rebecca took up such a big chunk of my life our hopes and dreams, plans, our future, and so many memories that I suspected would stay strong until the day I died. She was the woman I chose to marry and spend my life with. She was the mother of my child.
One day when Em was grown and off to start her own life, we’d both wish her mother was there. But it’d be different for her because I could imagine how she would look standing there with us, what she’d sound like, the things she’d say. Em would just have to rely on what I told her to create an image of her own the best she could.
Maybe it was selfish not to try and put some effort into what everyone was saying. They loved Em and only wanted what was best for her, after all. Maybe I wasn’t ready to move on, but Em was growing up fast. She already went through her first year of school without a mother figure in her life, which couldn’t have been easy. More things would keep coming her way in life, and she deserved a good woman to look up to, to talk to.
I had a few ex-girlfriends from high school still living around town, but Rebecca would turn over in her grave if I brought them around. There were plenty of other women my age, but I had to pick someone I knew I could trust. Someone who would be kind enough to spend some time with Em, without getting the wrong idea about what their relationship to me was.
“Are you okay, Daddy?” Em asked as she licked up the last few drops of her ice cream from the cone.
“Huh?” I snapped to. “Oh. Yeah, sweetie. I’m sorry. It's been a long day. My mind was just runnin’ off on me.”
“You better catch it,” she giggled.
No one could make me laugh as pure as Em did. No one else since Rebecca anyways. Hearing her burst out laughing and seeing the happiness in her eyes filled me with warmth. There was no better sound or feeling in the world. I finally felt a little better about the stress of the day. It was worth it because it was all for her.
“What'd ya say we get home to see ol’ Hank, huh?” I asked her, starting off back towards the truck. “Maybe take a walk down to the lake and watch him chase after the frogs while the sun goes down.”
“Yeah!” she cried out, running up to slip her small hand into mine. I squeezed it tight and wished I never had to let go.
I wanted to freeze time right then and there where I knew she was small and safe with me, and while we both had a world of problems and hurt waiting for us, at that moment, it all felt so far away. Things were just simple, peaceful, and happy. I wanted to protect that and make sure it could never slip away. That was impossible, I knew. But I didn’t let that ruin our night, watching Hank run around under a blanket full of stars while the evening air was filled with the sound of singing crickets.
When it was time to go back inside, Em asked if I would sit on the front porch swing with her since it was such a lovely night. The last of the summer’s heat was still hanging around. Soon, it’d start getting cold when the sun went down.
I made a habit of avoiding that swing and all the memories it held, but I didn’t want to say no to her. She curled up in my lap as we gently swayed back and forth while I told her stories about her mom until she fell asleep.
12
MELODY
A while after I signed the contract, Keith called to let me know Derek had a family thing come up, so they would take the weekend and start fresh on Monday morning. I was relieved to have the weekend to settle in and prepare myself for what was to come.
A man like that, walking around the lake house every day sweating and working hard, sawing and hammering, grunting and lifting heavy things with those big strong rippling muscles of his. He had already been doing all of that shirtless in my mind from the moment he first mentioned that he worked in construction. I just didn’t know at the time that it would soon be happening in real life, right in front of my eyes, in my temporary home; only I had to hope for my sake that he’d leave his shirt on. I might faint if he didn’t.
I needed those few days to get a grip so I could hopefully act normal around him when he returned with the crew. I also needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do about Evan, who was begging for me to talk to him.
I spent the weekend writing in my journal and thinking through things. I continued cleaning around the house, writing down memories about my mom while I sorted through her things. It helped to feel like I was writing letters to her, and I found it comforting if I convinced myself she could read those words somehow. At the very least, it got it all out of my head, so I didn’t feel like I was going so crazy.
Slowly, things were coming together, and I was able to make the old lake house reasonably comfortable to live in while it was being renovated.
On Saturday evening, after cleaning out a stack of pizza boxes and walking into the kitchen to stare at an empty fridge and pantry, I realized I would need to figure something else out for my diet while in Silver Point. There was no gym around town that I could see. My treadmill was back in my apartment in New York. While there was more space for it here, it obviously wouldn’t be feasible to pay exorbitant shipping costs to have it moved here for such a short stay. There also weren’t many places that delivered aside from the pizza shop, but eating that every night was starting to take its toll on me.
I didn’t want to call an Uber for grocery shopping, nor was I too thrilled about the prospect of walking back from town with bags full of food draped over my arms like one of the horses and mules I had seen carrying cargo up and down the country streets. I remembered seeing an old bike buried under some things around the back of the house. I managed to dig it out and fix it up a little with tools I recognized in the garage, like oil for the gears and an air pump for the tires.
When I was finished, I stood back and admired my handiwork, smiling with a nod to the little bike. It was exerciseanda solution to my transportation problem all in one, complete with a little basket on the front. I wondered if my mom ever used it for her own grocery shopping when she stayed here.
I hadn’t been on a bike since I was a teenager, so I was a little rusty at first. But in no time, I was pedaling like a pro basking in the cool breeze rushing across my face and wind through my hair. As I rode, I thought back on my routine at home. Often I’d have to get up at the crack of dawn to hit the gym before work unless I wanted to skip lunch and go then. At night sometimes, I’d work late at home with my laptop perched on the top rails of my treadmill.
As for food, it was bagels and coffee for breakfast on the way into the office, salad in the cafe of my office building at lunch, and Chinese takeout for dinner. I couldn’t even remember the last time I actually cooked a meal in my own kitchen.
As I rode by, people waved at me as I passed. I tried to wave back the first couple of times and nearly tipped over from losing my balance, so I resorted to smiling and nodding in their direction instead. People were just as friendly inside the grocer’s, but I still felt like an outsider. There was just something about me that didn’t fit in with the rest of them, but I tried not to dwell on it. I didn’t belong there, and I knew it. They knew it too. And that was okay because I didn’t intend on staying long. As soon as the lake house was finished and sold, I would be gone.
There was something exciting about shopping through the fresh produce aisles of the market, choosing the best fruits and vegetables. There was bread from the bakery and even pasta noodles made from scratch. What the small town’s grocer lacked in its international foods, it made up for with all the locally sourced things. It was far from my usual meal items to opt for so much dairy, bacon, sausage, and eggs, but I figured,when in Rome.
That evening after dinner, the house still smelled like simmering garlic and butter as I curled up by the fireplace under a warm blanket. I pulled out my journal and pen and wrote a letter to my mother to tell her about the day. Fixing up that old bike, cooking for the first time in years. It was a strange, foreign life I had found myself in, but finding small ways to enjoy it felt better than sulking or fighting the inevitable.
I sipped on a cup of tea and wrote until I ran out of things to say, then reached for a book I found on my mother’s nightstand in a stack of other books and photo albums. It was an old western romance novel, which I thought would probably be a good thing to lull me to sleep.
But a few chapters in, there was a surprise waiting for me. A few pressed flowers fell into my hand as I turned the page, and there was a passage underlined with some words scribbled next to it.
