chapter six

MEREDITH

After Daniel’s funeral, I was secretly relieved to go back to college and escape the unbearable suffering in Atlanta. I called my parents as often as I could make myself, as I knew how much they worried about me, more vulnerable to parental fears than ever. Yet I also tried to push Daniel from my mind, throwing myself into my classes and auditions, anything to stay busy and distracted. Fortunately, my crush on Nolan quickly faded, replaced by a bigger crush on a guy named Lewis Fisher.

Lewis and I met in our stage diction class that semester, and were then cast as Mitch and Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. A brilliant actor from Brooklyn, he captivated me with his talent, though I also loved his quirkiness and urban sophistication. One night after rehearsal, we lingered backstage long after the rest of the cast and crew had departed, discovering that we had something much bigger in common than acting: we had both lost siblings. I told him about Daniel’s accident, and he shared that his only sister, Ruthie, had jumped onto the subway tracks in the path of an oncoming N train a week shy of her sixteenth birthday.

We stayed up half the night talking, analyzing the two tragedies with a brutal frankness. We concluded that although Ruthie’s death was more emotionally complicated and troubling, in some ways it felt more unfair to lose Daniel—someone who had been so happy and productive. Lewis had a larger burden of guilt for not saving his sister—whereas my guilt came in the form of being the one who had lived. It was not only cathartic to talk about our losses but also deeply intimate. Our bond felt intense, and our chemistry unmistakable. After crying together, we hugged, then kissed.

By opening night, we were a couple. Even the theater critic at The Daily Orange, known for being stingy with his compliments, praised our “palpable heat” as one of the best parts of the production, lamenting that Stella and Stanley didn’t share a similar fire. To celebrate the review, we made love. It was my first time, and he said he wished it had been his, too.

Lewis and I became inseparable. We eschewed parties and bar scenes, spending most of our time alone or with a small group of fellow actor friends. We took the same classes, auditioned for the same plays, and spent every night in his bed or mine. We were too young to think about marriage, neither of us particularly aspiring to a traditional life anyway, but we talked about the future, what would happen after graduation—whether we would work in television or theater or film, whether we should move to New York City or Los Angeles. Maybe one of us would make it big and become a splashy commercial success—but that wasn’t really our goal. The only thing that mattered was that we were doing what we loved and that we were together.

I was almost happy, as close as I could come given what I’d lost, and for months, everything seemed easy, the effect of true love. Until everything felt complicated—the effect of falling out of love. The unraveling began in the fall of our senior year, when we both auditioned for As You Like It. Lewis landed the part of Jaques. A gorgeous blonde named Poppy scored the lead of Rosalind. And I got the insulting role of Audrey, a country bumpkinette goatherder. Lewis and I had never had a competitive dynamic in our relationship, but I found myself feeling insecure, resentful, and jealous, especially of Poppy, whom he seemed to worship.

I developed a mild eating disorder and began to self-loathe and second-guess. I questioned my future as an actor. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t talented enough, and I clearly didn’t have a thick enough skin. When I confided my reservations to my parents, they both seemed relieved. They said acting had been a good experience but encouraged me to find a more practical profession. My mom said I could always do community theater on the side, and my dad mentioned law school. A trial attorney himself, he pointed out that lawyering was just a different kind of performing. I didn’t buy it, but I enrolled in an LSAT prep class and began to research law schools, telling myself it was good to have a backup plan.

Always a bit sanctimonious, Lewis was appalled, accusing me of selling out. I retorted that that was easy for him to say; his parents were bohemian Brooklynites. In other words, he could follow his heart without killing his parents’ dreams. Things became more and more strained between us, and our sex, once passionate, turned mechanical.

That Christmas break, just after the one-year anniversary of Daniel’s death, my parents sat Josie and me down in our kitchen and announced that they were splitting up—their euphemism for divorce. I knew things had been rocky, and that my dad was drinking again, but I still felt blindsided, devastated by this second huge blow to our family. Without my big brother and the mooring of my parents’ marriage, it was as if I no longer had a family at all.

I had even less than that, in fact, because as soon as I returned to school, Lewis officially dumped me for Poppy. He confessed that they had been together since Thanksgiving break, but that he couldn’t bear to break my heart before December 22.

“I know how hard that first anniversary is,” he said.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, doing everything I could not to cry. “That was very big of you.”

MY FINAL SEMESTER of college was brutal. I quit acting altogether and fell into a paralyzing depression, the loss of Lewis and my brother hitting me at once. It was as if our obsessive relationship the year prior had simply delayed my true grieving process, and I was back to square one, my mother just waking me up from a sound sleep to tell me Daniel was dead. A professor who noticed my alarming loss of weight and slipping grades insisted that I see a university shrink. Therapy and drugs barely kept me afloat.

The only bright spot came that spring when my acceptance letters rolled in from law schools, including one from Columbia. It wasn’t Harvard or Yale, and law school was a far cry from neurosurgery, but it was still the Ivy League, and I knew my news made my parents proud. This, in turn, filled me with pride, which was better than being completely empty.

A few months later, I got the hell out of Syracuse, moved to New York City, and threw myself into my first year of law school, doing my best to avoid the theater, plays, or any other cultural offerings. Maybe Lewis was right, I thought, when I learned that he and Poppy were living in the Village and had joined the same theater company. Maybe I was a spineless sellout. Then again, maybe I was doing something noble and selfless, putting my parents first. I convinced myself that this was the case, and became determined to be their stable, successful child, the salve on their still-open wounds.

Of course, I think they hoped I would one day have a family, too, preferably in Atlanta. But if that didn’t pan out for me, Josie would have that covered. At the time she was dating a generically handsome boy named Will, who hailed from a “good family” (my mother’s phrase) in Macon, had impeccable manners, and wore seersucker and white bucks on special occasions. The two quickly became serious, giddy in love, the kind of couple who laid claim to baby names before they’re even engaged. She was doing her part to make my parents happy, and we forged a tacit agreement, an unspoken pact: I would accomplish and achieve from afar, and she would marry, become a mother, and provide the beautiful, local grandchildren. Maybe it would make Dad stop drinking. Maybe it would bring our parents back together. At the very least, we would both help them move on in our so-called new normal, a term I despised.

At my law school graduation, my parents presented me with my brother’s briefcase, the same one they had given him on his twenty-fifth birthday. It was a moment that was more bitter than sweet, and I remember feeling intensely jealous of my sister’s end of the bargain. I had a law degree and a briefcase. She had real happiness. Her life as a teacher seemed easy, punctuated by one happy hour and road trip after another. Most important, she had someone to love.

Lest I become bitter, I reassured myself that her choices might actually free me in the long run. Maybe someday, I kept telling myself as I passed the bar and went to practice litigation at a top Manhattan firm and billed seventy or eighty hours every week. Maybe someday after Josie married Will and popped out a baby, I would follow my heart, too. Maybe someday I would be happy.

BUT THEN, BEFORE I could cast off my legal bowlines, Josie fucked everything up in grand Josie style. She called me in the middle of the night (though I was still at work, finishing a brief), bawling, telling me she had screwed up and that Will had dumped her. I asked her what happened, trying to sort out the facts so that I could offer her appropriate counsel.

“It’s a long story,” she said, her line whenever something was her fault or she didn’t want to get into it. “Just trust me. It’s over.”

“Well, then. You’ll get over him—and find someone else,” I said. “You’re not even thirty. You have plenty of time.”

“Do you promise?” she asked so quickly that I couldn’t help questioning whether she truly loved Will or she just wanted to get married. Maybe any cute boy in seersucker would do.

I obviously couldn’t assure her fate, any more than I had Daniel’s, but I still told her yes, it’s all going to be okay. After all, I thought, the universe owed us both a little mercy.

A week later, I flew back to Atlanta at Josie’s pleading, filled with the usual angst of going home. Being back always unearthed grief that I was able to mostly bury in the bustle of my everyday life in New York, where there was no association to my brother. I took a deep breath and braced myself as I rode the escalator up to Delta baggage. To my surprise, there stood Nolan. He still emailed me every six months or so, just to check in and say hello, but incredibly, this was the first time I had laid eyes on him since that night we stood in Daniel’s bedroom together.

“Hey,” he mouthed, waving at me. I had heard from Josie, who occasionally saw him out at the bars, that he was better-looking than ever, but I still wasn’t prepared for how gorgeous he was, standing there in jeans, a T-shirt, and an Ole Miss baseball cap.

“What are you doing here?” I could feel myself beaming. “My dad was supposed to pick me up.”

“Yeah, I know. I played golf with him today. I told him I’d get you.” He mussed my hair as if I were twelve—although he hadn’t actually mussed my hair at any age. “You look great, Mere. Wow.”

“So do you….I’ve missed you,” I said.

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, grinning and carrying my bag to his car.

As he drove me home, we quickly caught up. He told me he was still working in his family business, his father grooming him to eventually take over. I told him about my law firm, and some of its juicier politics. We talked about our parents, how sad it was that mine had divorced, but that his really needed to do the same. We gossiped about people we knew in common. Many had left Atlanta for college, but most had returned to settle down and start families.

“Why aren’t you married yet?” I asked playfully. “Commitment-phobe?”

“Nah. Just haven’t found the right girl,” he said. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “I work too much.”

Our only moment of silence came as we passed Grady Hospital. Neither of us said Daniel’s name out loud, though it hung in the air anyway.

When we got to the intersection at West Paces Ferry, he pointed to the OK Cafe. “Remember the night we went there?” he asked, as if we had shared countless dinners alone together.

“Of course,” I said.

“Can you believe it’s been almost seven years?” he asked, lowering his voice, staring intently at the road.

“No. I really can’t,” I said, feeling a stab of pain in my chest. “He’s missed so many things.”

“I know. A lot has changed. You’ve changed….I can’t believe I haven’t seen you on any of your trips home,” he said, as he slowed for a yellow light he could have easily made. I had the feeling he was stalling, prolonging our time together.

“I don’t come home that often,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d found an excuse to stay at school or work.

He looked at me sideways, his expression suddenly changing from mournful to playful. “Little drama student turned big city hotshot lawyer.”

“Nothing hotshot about my job,” I said, which was the truth.

“Those heels you’re wearing would say otherwise,” Nolan said, glancing down at my shoes. “They’re nice….Nice legs, too.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling out my window.

“You know…I’d heard that you’d…blossomed.”

“Who told you that?” I said, basking in the compliment.

“Just the word around town,” he said, shaking his head. “Smart, successful, and beautiful.”

I nearly pointed out that he was confusing vigilant grooming, compulsive exercising, and general Manhattan polish with true beauty, but decided not to correct him.

A few minutes later, he was pulling up to my childhood home, where my mother still lived. Josie’s car was in the driveway, and I anticipated a long night of counseling her through the Will crisis.

“Hey, Meredith?” he said as I was getting out of the car.

I looked back at him, feeling an ancient twinge of attraction and residual adolescent hero worship. “Yeah, Nolan?”

“I know you’re here to visit your family…but do you think I could I take you out while you’re home?”

“You mean, like to the OK Cafe?” I asked with a trace of coyness.

“No. Like on a real date.” He cracked his knuckles and shifted in his seat to get a better look at me. “Assuming you think Daniel would be all right with it? He had a pretty strict don’t-date-my-sister rule back in the day.”

I stared into his eyes, my stomach fluttering a little. “Yeah. I know he did…but that was really more about Josie,” I said with a smile, thinking that she was the one Daniel’s friends wanted to ask out. “And besides…I think he’d make an exception for us.” I was sealing our fate, although I didn’t yet know it.

WHEN WE TELL “our story,” we always start there, on that night, with the surprise of seeing him at the airport and that innocent lift home. Nolan always brings up my heels—and I laugh and say it was a good thing I’d forgotten to put a pair of flats in my carry-on. We talk about how nice it was to see each other, how we picked up exactly where we’d left off years before.

At this point, we fast-forward past our first date. How we went to dinner at the Lobster Bar, caught a buzz, then returned to his condo, where we drank more wine, then got into his unmade bed, and had sex. If we were to share that part of the story, I’m sure we’d say that it had been a long time coming, that it felt preordained. But in reality, it just sort of shockingly and quickly happened. It wasn’t like me to have a one-night stand, and in the intimate aftermath, my head on Nolan’s chest, I told him as much.

“Well,” he said, stroking my hair, “you can’t really have a one-night stand with someone you’ve known your whole life….And besides, who said it was only going to be one time?”

I laughed, then confessed my ancient crush, the way I’d felt that night in my brother’s room. He pretended to be surprised, then told me he’d felt something, too.

I rolled over, pushed up on my elbows, and looked into his eyes. “Did you really?” I wasn’t sure why it mattered to me at this point, but for some reason, it did.

He nodded. “Yeah. I felt really close to you that whole night.”

“Because of Daniel? Or something else?”

He looked thoughtful and then said, “Yes. Because of Daniel. But not only that. After all, I’m not in bed with Josie, now, am I?”

“No,” I said, smiling at him. “You’re most certainly not.”

I resisted asking him if he had ever been attracted to her because I guessed that the answer was probably yes.

“Are you going to tell her about this?” he asked, sounding tentative.

I told him no, that I wanted it to be our secret.

“Okay,” he said earnestly. “Whatever you want.”

ON SUNDAY NIGHT, I returned to New York, wondering when I’d see Nolan again, guessing it would be another half dozen years. But he had other plans for us, showing up at my Upper East Side doorstep only five days later, holding a dozen red roses. Any points that I would have docked for the cliché he more than made up with his usual style and panache.

“Told ya it wouldn’t be a one-night stand,” he announced.

I laughed and said, “How’d you know I’d be free?”

“I took a chance,” he said. “Are you?”

I shook my head and told him I had a blind date.

“He’s blind?” Nolan said.

I laughed again, and he told me to “blow the guy off.” And so I did, then played tour guide to Nolan that whole weekend. I couldn’t believe it was happening. But I kept telling myself that it wasn’t, not really. We weren’t embarking on a relationship. We were just having a fling, living in the moment, motivated by sentimentality.

Yet we kept living in the moment, visiting each other every couple of weeks while keeping our secret from my family. I didn’t want to get my mother’s hopes up the way Josie had with Will. Deep down, I think I didn’t want to get my hopes up, either, and somehow delude myself into thinking that we could ever be a real couple. I wasn’t even sure that was what I wanted.

Even after Nolan told me he loved me that Christmas, and I said it back, and we went public with our long-distance relationship, I kept my expectations in check, silently reminding myself that we loved each other but weren’t in love—nor were we long-term compatible. On paper, I was probably too cerebral for him—and he was too good-looking for me. I was an introvert; he was an extrovert. I loved the arts; he loved sports. I wanted to stay in New York; he couldn’t leave his family’s business in Atlanta. Our breakup was inevitable, a question of when, not if.

Then, one muggy Saturday in July, about nine months after our first date, Nolan and I went for a long walk through Chastain Park, ending up on Wilkins Field, where he and my brother had played baseball for so many years. We strolled along the bases and then sat in the empty dugout, looking through the chain-link fence, out over the beautifully groomed diamond. It was just before dusk, the sun casting a golden light over the mound where Nolan had pitched and Daniel had occasionally relieved.

“This was Danny’s favorite place in the world,” Nolan said, seeming to be talking to himself more than to me.

“Yeah. I know,” I said, wishing I had spent less time playing with Josie in the bleachers or making trips to the concession stand, and more time watching my brother play.

In our reflective silence, Nolan took my hand and gave me a soulful glance. I suddenly had the feeling he was going to end our relationship, something that I’d been contemplating lately—or at least anticipating. It had been a good run, and a lot of fun, but something just felt missing. I was still sad, though, hating endings of any kind.

Bracing myself, I mumbled, “Go on. Just get it over with.” At least that is Nolan’s recollection and where we pick up with our official tale.

He looked at me, confused.

“Aren’t you about to break up with me?” I said.

Nolan laughed and shook his head and said, “No, Meredith. I’m not going to break up with you.” Then he got down on one knee in that dusty dugout and asked the question I had never imagined hearing from him, or anyone for that matter. Will you marry me?

For a second I thought he was kidding. Until he produced a beautiful, sparkling princess-cut diamond ring. I stared at it, then at him, feeling stunned and a little scared. In my heart, the answer was no. Or at the very most maybe. But I said nothing, just shook my head, bit my lip, and blinked back tears.

“Say something,” Nolan said with a nervous laugh.

“I…can’t.”

I think I meant to say that I couldn’t marry him, but it sounded like I was telling him that I couldn’t speak. So he just kept talking, giving me a rambling, heartfelt speech. First he told me how much he loved me, that he’d never known a girl like me. Then he went on to tell me how he’d asked my parents for permission and both of them had wept, my mother calling him her surrogate son. He talked about all the memories we had shared over so many years. He said that he and I—we—were the only possible silver lining to Daniel’s otherwise useless death. He said he could picture my brother up there, rooting for him, just as he had so many times from this field, this very bench.

And with that final comment about my brother, my no or maybe turned to yes, and for better or worse, my uncertain future became something I’d always imagined for my sister.

OUR ENGAGEMENT WAS short, both because I didn’t want a big wedding and because I worried that if it were long, one of us might call the other’s bluff, point out that for as long as we had known each other, we didn’t know each other well enough to get married. After all, we’d been together less than a year, all of it long distance, our time together feeling more like a vacation than normal, everyday life. Despite the horrible thing we had been through so long ago, our relationship itself had never been tested. We’d never even had a major argument. Yet not once did I express any of these reservations to Nolan, which I think said a lot, in and of itself.

The only time I discussed my fears at all was with Josie, the weekend she and my mom flew to New York to help me find a wedding dress.

“I really don’t know if I should have said yes,” I blurted out, standing in my underwear, staring at my ring in a posh dressing room at Mika Inatome as the salesgirl left to retrieve another dress. It was the one appointment my mom missed, as she was back at my apartment with another migraine.

“To Nolan?” my sister said, looking appalled.

I nodded.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No,” I said softly. “I think I’m having second thoughts.”

She furrowed her brow, then reassured me that it was just a little case of cold feet.

“I think it might be more than that,” I told her.

“C’mon, Mere,” she said, launching into a pep talk that I could tell she believed completely. “You’re marrying Nolan Brady. He’s gorgeous. He’s loaded. He’s funny. And he’s a really nice guy.”

“I know,” I said, feeling guilty and ungrateful.

“I mean…look at that rock.” She took my left hand in her right and shook it.

“I know,” I said, gazing back down at my ring. “But it’s not really me. Neither are these gowns.”

“So what? Those things don’t matter….You’re marrying a great guy. Are you seriously finding something to be unhappy about here?” she said in the tone of voice I often took with her.

I sighed and tried to explain. “It’s just…sometimes I feel like we rushed into this…that the ring was a bit of an impulse purchase. That I might be an impulse purchase.”

“C’mon, Mere. You act like you just met at a bar….You’ve known each other forever,” Josie said. “For your whole life.”

“I know, but we haven’t been together for very long at all. And I don’t want him to regret it,” I said.

“That’s ridiculous,” Josie said. “He adores you. He worships you.”

“Maybe,” I said, because I did get the feeling that Nolan admired a lot of things about me. He was proud of my career and how smart I was. Special was the word he always used. He made me feel special.

I took a deep breath and said, “But is he in love with me? Or the idea of me?”

“The idea of you?” Josie said. “You’re not Julia Roberts. What do you mean, the idea of you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t describe the way I was feeling to my own sister, though I knew it had something to do with Daniel, and the reasons I had said yes.

“Do you love him?” she asked.

I told her yes, because I did, wishing I could put my finger on the thing that felt missing. I thought of Lewis, not for the first time in recent months. I was way over him, but longed for the intense way I’d once felt. But then I asked myself whether that kind of passion was necessarily a good thing—or a feeling that would always, inevitably fade. I was so confused.

“Look, Meredith,” Josie said gently. “You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist. And if you break up with Nolan, you’ll regret it forever. Like I’m regretting Will…” Her voice shook a little, then trailed off. She still hadn’t told me all the details of their breakup, and clearly was never going to, but I knew that Will had already moved on with another serious relationship.

I nodded, having always been motivated by fear of regret, and agreed that she was probably right. “Thanks, Josie,” I whispered.

“Of course.” She smiled, putting her arm around me, then pulling me into a full-on hug. “Now, come on. Let’s do this.”

I hugged her back, feeling a tiny bit better, just as our salesgirl bustled in with a new gown—this one more embellished than the others, lacy with extensive beadwork along the bodice.

“Oh, I love it,” Josie said, turning to me. “What do you think, Mere?”

“Too fancy,” I said, shaking my head.

“Just try it,” she insisted.

I sighed, letting the two of them help me into it, then zip me up and arrange the train at my feet.

“Wow,” Josie said as she spun me toward the mirror.

I looked at my reflection and couldn’t resist a small smile.

“See?” she said. “I told you.”

“It is pretty good, isn’t it?” I asked my sister.

“It’s perfect. And so is the ring. And so is Nolan. And so is your life, you bitch.”

“You’re the bitch,” I said, smiling back and deciding, once and for all, that I was going to go through with it.

And that was that. In the next few months, everything happened quickly. I resigned from my job, landed a new law firm job in Atlanta, and bought my childhood home on Dellwood from my mother. It was the perfect solution, as she felt that the house was too big for her to live in alone but desperately wanted to keep it in our family.

Then, one beautiful, bright autumn afternoon, I stood in the front of the church where Daniel’s coffin had rested and exchanged vows with his best friend.