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“From city to city, we show no pity.
From state to state, we dominate.
When we swim, we lead the pack.
When we swim, we don’t look back.”
When I finish, Celeste’s cheering through the phone is almost as loud as Michelle’s hollering and clapping from five feet away. My aunts and uncles are grinning, and even the interventionist has a wide smile on her face.
I feel like an absolute fool. And I also feel better.
Retrieving my phone, I take it off speaker and tell Celeste, “Thank you. It’s time to go.”
“You’re welcome. Now go kick ass, little fish.”
I groan at the familiar moniker that annoyed me to no end in high school.
“Call me after if you can?” she asks.
“I will.”
“Good luck. And, Lucas?”
“Yes, Peapod?”
“Don’t poop in the pool.”
39
Lucas didn’t call last night, so I have no idea how the intervention went. I’m trying not to think about it. About what he must be feeling if it didn’t go well—or how he’s handling things if his mom did, in fact, agree to inpatient treatment.
I don’t call him, either. I’m self-aware enough to admit it’s because I’m chickenshit. After what happened Wednesday and the limited contact since, the warring halves of me are stalemated.
The part of my heart not atrophied by the past wants to throw caution to the wind and take him up on his offer. An official relationship. Together, as that same part of me has always believed we should be. But the rest of me can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea. I can’t let go of my safety net—for I know now that’s what it is. My perpetual singleness. My aloneness. The way I’ve filled my life with my son, my family, hobbies, my various careers.
That net was woven by capital F fear. Nylon rope and watertight.
After I lost Jeremy, at the encouragement of friends, I joined some Facebook groups for young, widowed mothers. And thank God I did because otherwise I would have felt like I’d fallen asleep and woken up on a different planet. Those groups and the raw, heartbreaking posts in them, are the only way I know right now that I’m not crazy. That the abstract, crippling fear I feel at the prospect of opening my heart again is normal.
Normal or not, the acknowledgment doesn’t alleviate the problem. The question. The crux of it all?—
What if Lucas dies, too?
I told a therapist my fears once about being in another relationship and she asked me, “What if they don’t die suddenly and tragically, Celeste? What if your partner lives to a ripe old age? What if you pass before them? We can’t know the future. Do you want to live in a prison of fear your entire life?”
Although I barely remember that woman’s face, I remember what she said.
But no matter how much time has passed, I’m still not sure the risk is worth the reward.
Damien and I spend Saturday morning at my parents’ house. I broke the news of their imminent departure a few days ago; he took it far better than I did.
Ah, the resilience of youth.
I do find out—with some not-so-subtle questioning—that my parents haven’t seen Mrs. Adler since yesterday. They weren’t home when the intervention took place, but they report that they didn’t see any lights on inside the house last night. I’m really hoping that detail means she went to treatment.
After cleaning up breakfast, the four of us load up my dad’s ancient station wagon and drive to Wild Lake to prep for the Art Barn painting party. Close to twenty families signed their kids up to help revamp the mural, which I spent six hours yesterday re-taping with the new design. Still an eagle—but not our eagle.
As we drive slowly into the camp, I scan our surroundings for Lucas’s car. But we’re the first ones here.
