DECEMBER
-One Month Later-
“Can I please go out and play with Lana?” Olive begs. I’ve kept her inside for the past couple of weeks, not wanting to take my eyes off of her for even a second after the scare she gave me.
“Hunter,” AJ shouts from the TV room. “Let the kid go out and play.” Sometimes, living with AJ is like living with an annoying wife—he’s constantly whining and he badgers me like the best of them. The funny part is, he doesn’t live with me, he just spends more time here than he does at his own house with Alexa, which I’m not sure I can blame him for. Although, Alexa is here with him today—she’s here with AJ every Sunday morning for “Family Breakfast”.
“Breakfast is going to be ready in just a few minutes,” I holler out to both of them.
“Grammy and Grampy just pulled in!” Olive yells from outside the front door. What is she doing out there? I poke my head around the corner as raw eggs drip from the whisk in my hand.
“Olive, get in the house! Why are you wearing snow pants and boots?”
“I want to go play in the leaves with Lana,” she whines.
“Okay, first, we don’t need snow pants and boots to play in the leaves, and second, you’re wearing a summer dress over it. Third, your grandparents just got here.”
“You’re a stick in the mud,” Alexa says to me as she finds Olive in the living room. “Olive, you look fabulous in that outfit. Come here and let me do your hair.” I return to the eggs and waffles, my Sunday morning ritual. The coffee maker is in full swing and I have everything under control.
“Come on over for breakfast, there’s plenty!” I hear mom’s voice shouting from the driveway. I don’t know who’s she’s inviting, but I’m going to assume it’s Charlotte. “No, don’t be silly! Come on over. I brought coffee cake and muffins!” Silence commences but only for a few seconds. “Okay. Sure, dear, I’ll ask him.”
The door swings open and Dad’s crowing at Olive in his Cookie Monster voice, “Where’s my little princess?”
The squeals coming from Olive make me laugh. She lives for Sunday mornings with the entire family. There’s something about a full house that makes Olive feel on top of the world, and that is the reason I continue to do this every week, regardless of how much work it is. I can’t give Olive a normal family, but I can give her a family full of love.
“Sweetie, what are you wearing?” Mom asks Olive. I knew that was coming.
“I saw it in Vogue,” she answers. I close my eyes and shake my head. Alexa is such an amazing influence on her...
“Very funny,” Mom says. “Hunter, dear.” Mom’s voice grows louder the closer she comes to the kitchen. Finding me at the stove, her hands cup around my shoulders as she presses up on her toes to place a kiss on my cheek. “Hi, sweetheart. I brought a few things this morning.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hunter, I invited Charlotte over. She was bringing in groceries from her car so I figured I would extend the invitation, but she didn’t want to impose. Would you mind if she joins us?” I smile, only for the fact that I asked Charlotte a few days ago and she declined due to awkwardness. I haven’t officially introduced her to the rest of my family yet since AJ was enough of an explanation, but thanks to AJ, Mom knows all about her.
“That would be nice,” I tell her.
“Are you two,” she clears her throat. I look over at her, feeling a rush of heat run through my cheeks. Mom and I have never talked about relationships or women at all for that matter. Ellie grew up in our life and everything fell into place at the appropriate times so “the talk” was never necessary. Looking at her now with her raised brows, I feel the need to tell her not to ask.
Instead, I say, “Are we what?”
She slaps her hand on my back. “Oh, Hunter, you know what I mean.”
“We’re friends,” I remind her for the fifteenth time in the past month. We are friends—friends who look at each other the way friends don’t look at each other. Friends who hug much longer than friends should hug when saying goodbye at the end of a late night chat session on one of our couches. Friends who haven’t dared to take things one step further in fear of losing the only friend each of us has. I have fallen for my friend…and I don’t know what to do about that.
“Hunter, I know how you feel about my prying into your personal life, and I have truly tried my hardest over the past couple of years not to push you,” This is true; instead, she has planted little tiny bugs in AJ’s ear, knowing he can’t keep a damn thing to himself. She’s even tried her hand with Olive. They’ve both ratted Mom out, but she doesn’t know this. “I just think that woman is darling and she has a little girl Olive’s age.”
“You have never met her,” I remind Mom.
“But I would love to.”
“Then go invite her in,” I laugh. “It’ll certainly make Olive’s morning.”
“Did you say my name?” Olive says, turning in to the kitchen with four ponytails lining the center of her head from front to back, shaping a perfect mohawk.
“Really, Alexa?” I yell.
“You’re welcome,” she says. Mom rolls her eyes, feeling the same way about Alexa as I do.
“I’ll be right back. I’m going to go extend your invitation to Charlotte.” Normally, I would be too concerned to send Mom across the street to talk to anyone I’m associated with, but I have warned Charlotte about Mom. Nothing could come as a surprise, I would hope.
I finish up the waffles and bring out the paper plates and napkins just as I hear Mom and Charlotte laughing as they walk in to the house. “Lana, I hear that you and Olive are best friends. Is that right?” Mom asks.
“Bestest friends in the whole wide world,” Lana says.
“Well, she saved you a spot at the table in the dining room. Why don’t you go on in and see her so your Mom and I can keep talking?” Without so much as an agreement, I hear Lana flying through the living room, followed by a shriek from Olive. The amount of noise two little girls can make is incredible.
One by one, I shuffle the filled plates into the dining room, and Charlotte is quick to meet me in the kitchen to help with the distribution. “I’m glad you came,” I tell her.
“How could I say no to your mom?” she says quietly with a crooked grin.
“I don’t know. I figured the same way you said no to me.” I nudge her playfully in the shoulder as she sweeps past me with a jug of OJ and two coffee mugs.
I’m in the process of rinsing off the frying pan when Charlotte returns for more. She wraps her arm around my back and presses her cheek into the side of my shoulder. It feels nice. “Your family is really great. With my parents always traveling, I haven’t felt this welcome anywhere in a long time,” she says. Learning about Charlotte over the past couple of months has been a process of slowly breaking down a barrier she has tried very hard to keep in place. While she is usually one without a filter, her past is a different story—one that seems like it’s buried in a place only she knows. I guess we sort of have that in common.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Mom says, walking in with a now empty jug of OJ. The look on Mom’s face is almost menacing like she’s plotting out my future with Charlotte right this very second. I know she means well but I don’t know how to break it to her that a future is an unlikely definition of what comes after today—it’s something I refuse to consider or think about. If I don’t think about a tomorrow, I won’t end up heartbroken when I find myself in another empty world full of only yesterdays.
“Nope, we were just coming out to join everyone,” I tell her, pulling away from Charlotte and taking the jug from her hands. “Go on out, I’ll refill this and be right there.” Mom kindly places her arm around Charlotte and guides her back toward the dining room.
When I hear the growing chatter, a moment of contentment fills me from within, bringing along a feeling of something right, something unfamiliar, and something I think I kind of like. Warmth soothes the inside of my chest and I’m nervous to feel the way I do. From the second Charlotte walked into the house today, I haven’t thought about Ellie or the fact that Sunday morning brunch was a thing our families did together for years until she passed.
The only meals I share with Ellie’s parents now are the forced ones that they plan so they can see Olive once a month. They look at me like I killed their daughter, like I planted a destructive seed in her uterus and took away everything they loved. Sometimes they look at Olive the same way and I want to hurt them and make them feel an ounce of what they make me feel. Though, as much as I hate living with the loss of my wife, I don’t know what it’s like to lose a daughter and I will not judge them for their behavior toward me, but I don’t understand how they can do the same to Olive, their granddaughter, and the only piece of Ellie they have left.
“Hunter,” Mom calls. “The food is getting cold.” I put down the dishrag and dry my hands on the sides of my pants. The sight I’m greeted with when I walk in to the dining room can only be described as happiness. However, I’m quickly faced with a reality I’ve been too closed off to realize. As everyone’s focus moves to my face, the smiles disappear, and my heart sinks a little. I’m making everyone around me feel the way I feel—my misery, my self-loathing pity. The silence accompanies the straight faces as I take my seat between Charlotte and Olive.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask, knowing I haven’t said anything at all. “You were all smiling until the second I walked in.” I need to hear the truth. Am I that bad? Does Charlotte feel this way too? Olive?
“You aren’t the happiest person,” Alexa chimes in first. “It’s hard to be happy around you sometimes because I think we all feel guilty that you can’t be happy along with us.” Mom and Dad both nod their heads in agreement, probably grateful, for once, that Alexa had the courage to say something…something they were also feeling but didn’t know how to say out loud. Olive is stifling a laugh with her hand cupped over her mouth, proving she doesn’t understand what Alexa is talking about, thankfully. And Charlotte, she’s looking at me the way I don’t want her to look at me, like she just came to a conclusion I might have been trying to hide from her.
I draw in a deep breath, hoping to clear out some of the pain in my chest, but strangely, the extra air only makes me feel more suffocated. I can bail right now and make a scene, I can ignore everything Alexa just said, or I can tell her the truth. Making a decision that surprises even me, I blurt out, “You’re right.” She is right. “I’m sorry for what I have put you all through over the past five years.” How many times can I say this to all of them before it loses its meaning?
In the support groups I used to attend, I witnessed some people healing quicker than others. Some widows began to date only months after their spouse’s death, while some swore off the thought of a new partner entirely. I was part of the latter group for a long time, but the fog has cleared enough for me to see a little further ahead and I see a long road, a long life, one in which I’m not sure I want to remain alone, in a constant state of misery. Then again, I’m not sure I ever made the decision to be miserable; I just haven’t been able to figure out how not to be. Sometimes I feel like I’m banging on a glass window, trying to get the attention of everyone I love, but they don’t hear me. I feel like we have this conversation way too often and I really wish they could have let it go today with Charlotte here.
“Do you know how many times you have said this?” Dad says. “The number of times you have apologized makes this one a little less meaningful, Son.” This. This is not something I wanted Charlotte to be a part of, and by the looks of it, I can sense she feels the same way.
“My best friend lost her husband,” Charlotte states like a peace offering. “Believe it or not, Hunter is doing far better than she was doing five years after his death.”
“Oh dear, I am so sorry,” Mom pipes in. “I can’t imagine what she must have gone through, the poor thing.” Yes you can! Hello? You’ve watched me go through it.
“Well, sure you can, Mrs. Cole.” Charlotte lets out a long sigh before placing her napkin down over her lap. “It’s pretty similar to what Hunter has experienced; however, my friend doesn’t have any children, which made it easier for her to slide down a slippery slope—one that included drugs, alcohol, and other things that are not appropriate to discuss at the table.” Charlotte wraps her hand around her coffee mug, squeezing it as if it were a stress relief. “I know I only met Hunter a couple of months ago, but I think he’s doing great, considering.” I feel odd being talked about as if I weren’t sitting here, but I feel flattered that Charlotte stuck up for me to my family. What she just did takes balls.
Mom looks a bit taken aback. Her eyes are wide and her eyebrows are pinned about an inch higher than they should be. Dad, though, his lips are sewn tightly together into a small, twisted smirk. He likes Charlotte’s confidence. He has told me many times during my life that he finds confidence in a woman beautiful and sexy.
We all wait in silence for someone to respond, but I’m not sure a response is necessary. “Look,” I finally break through the silence. “Yes, I have been an unhappy person, miserable to be around, I’m sure. I realize it has been five years and maybe I should have gotten over my pain four years ago, but she was part of my life for twenty years. Time hasn’t healed me yet, so what am I supposed to do? Do you want me to pretend I’m all better?” I force a stupid grin. “How’s this? Does it look real enough?”
“Hunter,” Mom says, disappointedly.
“Better yet,” I continue. “Maybe I should have just called it quits. Maybe I should have done what I thought about doing so many goddamn times after she died.”
Charlotte’s hand sweeps across my lap until her fingers touch mine. She squeezes tightly, silently telling me to stop going in the direction I’m heading in.
“You’re right,” Mom says. “Charlotte, you are right, as well. We have all tried so hard to help you become happy again that we have failed to realize how far you have come and what you have overcome. I think I speak for all of us when I say we can have a little more understanding for the time it is taking—will take—for you to find something that will make you smile the way you once did.”
I see them once a week, and Charlotte isn’t normally here, so what they don’t see is that I do smile like I once did. And it isn’t because I’m head over heels in love with this woman sitting next to me, it’s because someone has had enough patience to listen and truly understand what I’ve gone through, what I’m still going through, the grief and sadness I’m living with. Her patience has been something no one else has offered me, and yet, despite my emotional baggage, she enjoys my company as much as I enjoy hers. “I do smile,” I correct Mom. I look at Charlotte, then take her hand and pull it up above the table for everyone to see, eliciting a surprised look from her. “This woman makes me smile, and no, we aren’t a ‘thing’ since I know you love labels, but she is my best friend...and more, I guess.” More, I guess. What would more entail? More as in what I think about doing, more as in, what I’ve carefully avoided doing? More as in, when I finally cross that line, will Ellie’s memories slowly disappear? Charlotte’s look of surprise has changed into a glimmer of delight, and I see an accompanying sparkle in her eyes.
“I knew it,” AJ shouts across the table. “Lucky dog, you. That’s a big win right there...trust me.”
Well, that was an easy way to divert the attention away from me. Mom is gawking at AJ, and Alexa is winding up to slap him. “AJ,” mom scolds.
“Whoa, I meant, a big win for him.” AJ’s words of explanation don’t work as well as he probably thought they would, and I’m starting to wonder why the blood just drained from his face and why he looks like he might puke.
“Maybe I should say, I knew it,” Alexa says, excusing herself from the table. “Charlotte. I should have known.”
“Am I missing something?” I ask.
Alexa has one foot out the door when she says, “Oh, you don’t know, do you?”
Charlotte’s hand slips from mine and I am instantly drawing conclusions that won’t do me any good.
“Girls, are you all done?” Mom asks Lana and Olive.
“Yup,” Olive answers, confusion filling her eyes, probably matching the look in my eyes.
“Why don’t you two go on upstairs to play, then? I’ll come check on you in a few minutes.” Both girls flee from their seats and head up the stairs, leaving this room feeling somehow even more constricting.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on or—?” I don’t know how to finish that question, and the words coming from my mouth sound breathless, like someone just punched me in the gut.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Charlotte asks, standing up from her seat. I hear her talking, and I can feel her staring, but I’m eyeing AJ and the look on his face, which tells me there’s something I’m going to lose my shit over.
“I haven’t gotten to have one bite of the food I spent an hour cooking. I think our talk can wait.” I keep my focus on AJ’s face, watching as the hue of pink on his cheeks continues dropping shade by shade, ever so slowly, morphing into a paleness resembling a ghost.
I shovel bites of food into my mouth, one by one, as I try to think. Maybe it’s not as bad as I’m assuming it is, but what I’m assuming is that AJ’s lips have touched the lips I have restrained myself from touching for a reason I shouldn’t have. I’m assuming AJ has seen what lies beneath the clothes of this beautiful woman standing beside me. I’m assuming he knows whether or not her breasts are real or fake...a question I ponder every time I see her coming toward me. Whatever it is he’s done, I don’t know whether it has been recently or before I met Charlotte, and that is the only question I have right now, because depending on the answer, it might cause a conflict with one of the ten commandments of respecting thy neighbor.
Charlotte doesn’t leave the room or sit back down, but I can feel her eyes boring into the top of my head. Mom has her face buried in her hands...words have finally managed to escape her, and Dad is sitting at the edge of his seat, waiting for the show to continue. What does Alexa know? How did she figure out so much from such a simple remark? AJ didn’t tell her to stop and come back, or ask her what she was talking about, which confirms the right Alexa had to accuse AJ.
Several minutes pass and all of us are still in the same position we were in when Alexa took off. Mom finally makes the first move and stands up from her chair, clearing as many dishes as she can grab within reach. “Harold, come help me in the kitchen,” she says to Dad.
Dad follows, picking up some more of the dishes along the way. Now, it’s just AJ, Charlotte, and me.
“I’m sorry,” AJ says.