Chapter 20
Grace
We hit some mild turbulence on the flight back to Portland. When deep breathing didn’t do the trick, Nan, clutching at the armrest, asked me to talk to her.
“About what?”
“Anything. I need a distraction. Tell me what you’re working on.”
“This?” I asked, looking at the pile of blue and green patches I’d piled on the tray table. “It’s just another quilt block.”
“It’s pretty,” Nan said, even though her eyes were screwed shut. “Tell me about it. What’s the pattern?”
“Well, I think it’s actually called Aimee’s Choice,” I said. “But I’ve decided to call it Hero Star. I’m making it with scraps of Jamie’s old EMT uniform. He was already working as an emergency medical technician back in Minnesota. He saved the lives of at least a dozen people, probably more.”
“I didn’t know that,” Nan said, opening her eyes.
I nodded. “Originally, even before he got sick, he wanted to be a doctor. He was one of those people who liked helping other people. But he lost a couple of years to cancer; then his dad needed help on the farm. . . .” Nan released her grip on the armrest and laid her hand on my forearm but didn’t interrupt my story.
“After a few years, Jamie decided he didn’t want to wait anymore, so he signed up for EMT training at the community college. He loved the job but could only get part-time work in our area, and after a while, he decided he really wanted to become a paramedic in a city setting.” I smiled. “We closed our eyes and stuck a pin in a map to decide where we were going to move for his paramedic training, but I’m pretty sure he peeked. He’d been talking about Portland all along—mild winters, lots of recreational opportunities.
“At first, I wasn’t so sure about moving. I’d never lived anywhere else and I’m not as adventurous as Jamie. He had to talk me into it, but I’m glad he did. I’m glad he got to do some of the things he wanted to do with his life.”
“Me too,” Nan said. “But what do you want to do with your life?”
I shrugged. “Live, work. Same thing I’ve always done. I mean, I’d like to find another job at some point, something with a slightly less miserable schedule, but I’ll be back at the office tomorrow morning.”
Nan frowned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Maybe you should take some time off, give yourself time to mourn and consider your future before diving back into business as usual.”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to; I’m out of vacation days. Plus, I’ve got bills to pay. Besides, I’ve been mourning for almost two years. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Really.”
The plane hit a little bump. Nan let out a little yelp and clutched at the armrest again, her knuckles turning white. Blixen, who was lying quietly on the bulkhead floor and wearing her service dog vest, put her muzzle on Nan’s shoe.
“Should I ask the flight attendant to get you some tea?” I asked.
“Vodka tonic,” Nan said. “Make it a double.”
* * *
The next day, I woke up at five as usual. But since I didn’t need to go to Landsdowne before work, I decided to take Maisie for a walk and stop by Starbucks for a latte, hoping it would perk me up a little.
When I passed the big cement planters where Sunny and Z hung out, Sunny nodded toward my extra giant coffee cup and said, “Venti size. Did you win the lottery or something?”
“If only,” I said, feeling a little guilty.
Maybe I should have bought two smaller coffees and given one to Sunny. Since I’d gotten to know Sunny and Z better, I sometimes bought extra food at the grocery store and gave it to them on my way home. They were always very appreciative—high as kites half the time, but always polite.
When I first moved to town, I’d been shocked by the number of people living on the streets, but I’d gotten used to it. I couldn’t do much to tackle the problem of homelessness, but I could help Sunny and Z. Or I could try to. But it was hard to predict if I would find them “at home” or out doing something else. Finding a fix? Riding the bus to stay warm?
“I decided to treat myself,” I said, feeling stupid, like I was making excuses.
Sunny nodded dully and slid down to sit on her haunches. As she did, the hem of her dirty gray sweatshirt caught against the wall and rode up to expose a sliver of too-pale flesh. That’s when I realized that something wasn’t right.
The red wagon was missing, so was one of the sleeping bags, and Sunny looked worse than I’d ever seen her.
“Where’s Z?”
“Gone,” she said, her eyes glazing over as she stared past my legs.
“Gone where?”
Sunny shrugged. “Woke up three days ago and he was just . . . gone. So was all his stuff. And the dog.” She reached out to pat Maisie on the head. “Hey, little girl.”
Maisie licked her dirty hand. I squatted down on the pavement.
“You okay? Is there anything I can do?”
“Do you have any money?”
The way she asked quickly, so quickly, and with her eyes suddenly glittering and hungry, made me uncomfortable. I knew that Sunny and Z panhandled to survive, but they’d never directly asked me for a handout. Whether that was because it felt awkward to ask for money from someone who lived right in the neighborhood or because I didn’t look like somebody who had any was hard to say.
“I don’t have any cash,” I said truthfully. “But, here.”
I held out my latte. Sunny stared at the cup.
“Go ahead,” I urged. “It’ll warm you up.”
“Are you sick or anything?”
“Totally healthy,” I assured her.
She sniffled and swiped at her nose with her sleeve.
“Okay. Thanks.”
I watched her drink, feeling better but worse, wishing I could do more but having no idea what more might be. Finally, I stood up.
“You going to be okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Sunny shrugged. “I miss the dog. But Z’s just a guy. I can always find another one, right?”
“You think so?”
Sunny held the cup close to her chest, as if trying to warm her entire body from that one small source of heat.
“No, but it makes me feel better to say so.”
* * *
All of my bosses, including Gavin, were attending an off-site meeting, so the office was quiet and I was grateful, thinking I’d need a day to catch up. But when I actually started sorting through my e-mail and inbox, there wasn’t all that much that needed doing.
Gavin had a habit of piling stuff on my desk and attaching yellow sticky notes with terse instructions on each item, telling what he wanted done and when, but the pile he’d left for me was uncharacteristically short, consisting of nothing more than some filing and copying, plus a reminder to schedule a tune-up for his Lexus and an executive physical for himself. Apparently, Gavin had more of a heart than I’d given him credit for. I’d have to thank him when I saw him, then assure him that I was ready to get back to work.
Honestly, I’d have preferred it if he’d heaped my desk with things that needed doing. It would have made the day easier to endure, kept my mind from thinking about Jamie, from trying to imagine how I was going to fill the remainder of my days, and years, and life without him. I made a lot of trips to the bathroom that day, closing myself in a stall to shed a few quiet tears before wiping my eyes with the tissue and going back to my desk.
I did spend a little time updating my résumé. I wasn’t planning to look for another job right away, but I wasn’t planning on spending the rest of my life being indispensable to Gavin Nutting either. He definitely wasn’t my dream boss, but after he’d endured my unexpected leave of absence during Jamie’s illness, it didn’t seem fair to leave him high and dry. I’d ease out over the next few months, making sure I found a great replacement. There was no rush.
At three o’clock, I went down to Starbucks for my usual small drip coffee. While I was waiting in line, someone tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned around, Luke Pascal was standing there, holding a bouquet of grocery store carnations and daisies.
“Don’t worry, I’m not staying,” he said. “But I saw Monica yesterday and she told me about Jamie. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for your loss.”
He handed me the flowers. I briefly buried my face in the blossoms, breathing in the spicy, sweet scent of carnations.
“Thanks, Luke. That was nice of you. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, but . . . are you sure? I don’t want to be accused of stalking.”
“It’s okay. Besides, I just this minute remembered that I forgot to give Monica the sixteen dollars I owe you.”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t want to say anything but . . .” He coughed deliberately, then grinned.
Smiling, I walked up to the checkout register. “Two medium drip of the day.” I turned to Luke. “How do you take it?”
“Black with three sugars.”
“Three?”
“Don’t judge.”
I ordered two oatmeal cookies in addition to the coffee. When we sat down at a table near the window, I handed one cookie to Luke, then took the other for myself and broke it in half, wrapping the leftover piece in a napkin. It wasn’t until I slipped it into my purse that I felt Luke’s eyes on me.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what? Oh, this?” I asked, glancing at the cookie half. “It’s kind of a habit. I was overweight growing up, really fat and completely miserable. I tried dieting, but it just didn’t work for me. I love to eat too much. Cutting out my favorite foods wasn’t a realistic option for me, but portion control was. When I ate out, I started dividing everything I ate in half, saving the rest for another meal. That, along with the addition of regular walking and a few more green vegetables, did the trick.”
“You didn’t cut the portions in half at The Fish House. You ate everything. In fact, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kind of impressed. I’d never seen anyone eat that many oysters.”
“Oh, well. Oysters are kind of a weakness of mine.” I broke a corner off my cookie. “That along with everything else. No kidding, I really do love to eat. Most of the time I work hard not to overdo it. But The Fish House was an exception, a special occasion.”
Luke lifted his brows. “Yeah? What was so special?”
“Monica was paying.”
Luke’s laugh was more like a deep bark, a cross between an enthusiastic seal and a big dog.
“I’m sorry,” he said when I didn’t join in.
“Don’t be,” I said, forcing a smile. “I meant it to be funny.”
Luke sipped his coffee. “So . . . how are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. Really,” I said, responding to his doubtful look. “Nan came to the funeral. That helped a lot.”
“She’s your other support group buddy, right? Monica has talked about her. She sounds pretty cool.”
“She is,” I confirmed. “And she’s more than a buddy, she’s my friend. I’m not sure that I understood what being a friend really meant, and how important it is to have them, until now. Nan’s husband was killed in a plane crash, so she’s terrified of flying. She flew all the way out to Minnesota anyway, because she thought I might need her. Turns out I did, even more than I knew.
“But, that’s Nan. She’s so tuned in, so wise. She’d hate hearing me say that, but it’s true. And it’s not just because she’s older. Nan and my mom are about the same age, but my mom—” I shook my head. “Well, let’s just say that age and wisdom don’t necessarily go hand in hand. But Nan seems to know what I need almost before I do. She never talks at me or lectures. Sometimes she asks questions, but mostly she just listens. And yet, without saying a word, she’s able to make me understand where I’m going wrong.”
“She sounds like more than your friend. She almost sounds like your guru.”
“Oh, she’d really hate hearing that,” I said, smiling. “But you might be right. Anyway, it was so good to look up and see her there. It helped a lot. And the funeral did, too, in a way, hearing everybody tell their Jamie stories. It was good to know that other people have good memories of him too.
“But,” I sighed, “it’s good to be home. This has been such a long road.”
“I was surprised when Monica said you were going back to work already,” Luke said. “You sure you don’t need some time?”
“Time for what? To sit home and be miserable? It’s better to keep busy, you know? Get back into a routine.”
I bit into my cookie. It tasted like sawdust, sawdust and raisins.
“Hey, do you have the time? Gavin’s at an off-site meeting, but I shouldn’t stay away from the office too long.”
Luke frowned. “You still didn’t get a new battery for your watch?”
I opened my mouth and started to make up a story, a lie, but I just didn’t have the energy for it, or the inclination. I didn’t want to lie to Luke.
And, for some reason, I wanted him to know the story. I wanted him to understand.
“It’s not the batteries. It’s broken. Jamie gave me this watch, an anniversary present, when we went on our last camping trip together, hiking in the North Cascades. It was drizzling when we started out in the morning, but the rain wasn’t that bad. We’d seen worse. But, after we stopped for lunch, it really began to pour. And the wind was blowing so hard, it sounded like a freight train. I’d never seen rain like that. We decided it was too dangerous to keep going, so we turned around, started back down the mountain. But about halfway down, I slipped and fell over a steep embankment and twisted my ankle. Jamie climbed down to get me. I told him not to, that I thought I could crawl back up, but he didn’t listen.
“He wasn’t being stupid. Jamie was a good outdoorsman and always carried rescue gear in his pack. He tied a rope around the trunk of a good-sized tree and came down to get me. On another day, if it hadn’t been raining so hard, it would have been no problem. But it was pouring, just pouring, and the ground was sodden. When he was a few feet away from me, the trail above us collapsed, just peeled away from the mountain. The tree that Jamie had tied the rope to came down too. Jamie fell. He slid right past me, over a cliff onto the trail below, and hit his head on a rock.
“That was how it happened, at 2:18 on the day after our tenth anniversary. It was two days before I noticed that the hands of my watch were frozen. I must have hit it on something when I fell. I’ve taken it to three different jewelers and none of them were able to fix it.
“When Jamie gave it to me, I told him I’d never take it off and I never have. I never will. I don’t ever want to forget him.”
Luke was quiet, looking at me. Probably wondering why I wasn’t crying. I was wondering myself. But instead of asking about that, Luke said, “Is that what you’re afraid of? That you’ll forget him?”
His question took me by surprise. “I’m not afraid,” I said, my voice sounding a little defensive even to my own ears. “I could never—”
Before I could finish the sentence, the door of the coffee shop opened and Ava stepped inside, her eyes searching.
“There you are,” she said, crossing the room to our table. “Denise said I could probably find you down here.”
“Coffee break,” I said, feeling like I’d been caught doing something wrong. “I thought the off-site meeting was going to last all day. Is everybody back?” I asked, though I was really only concerned about Gavin.
“Just me. When you’re done, could you come up to my office? I need to—” For the first time, she glanced at my coffee companion and pulled up short. “Luke,” she said, sounding as surprised as she looked. “I didn’t realize that you two—”
“Ava, nice to see you.”
Luke started to get to his feet, but Ava waved him off.
“No, no. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She looked at me. “As soon as you’re done.”
“I’ll be right up,” I said, and reached for my purse.
“No, it’s fine,” she said, sounding more flustered than I’d ever heard her. “Take your time. I’ll be in my office. Nice to see you, Luke.”
She left quickly.
“I should go.” I reached into my wallet, took out a twenty-dollar bill, and handed it to Luke.
“Grace, I was just teasing before. You don’t need to pay me back.”
“I insist.”
“I don’t have any change,” he said, folding the bill and putting it into his shirt pocket. “Guess that means that next time I’ll buy the coffee.”
I told him to keep the change, but what I really meant was, I didn’t plan on seeing him again. Luke was a nice man, there was no doubt about it, but nothing had changed. Jamie was gone, but he had my heart. Luke got the message. When I got up from my chair, he did the same, and reached out to shake my hand.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Grace. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks for the flowers,” I said, picking them up from the table. “Say, I forgot to ask, how do you know Ava? Are you friends?”
“Not friends,” Luke said, shaking his head. “But we were married for five years.”
* * *
To say that was one of the more awkward exits in my life would be an understatement. Luke had been married to Ava? I didn’t know either of them all that well, but they just didn’t seem like they went together. But obviously, since the marriage had only lasted five years, they didn’t.
I said goodbye, thanked him again for everything, and left. When I got to the office, Ava was waiting for me. She got right to the point.
“Grace, I hope you know how sorry I am about your loss, but we’re going to have to make a change.”
“A change?” I asked, not entirely sure I understood. “Do you mean that you’re . . .”
“Letting you go, yes.”
My jaw went slack. “You can’t be serious. Ava, I . . . If this is about Luke, there’s nothing going on between us. I barely know him.”
Ava rolled her eyes. “Grace, the amount of time that’s passed since I’ve seen or thought about Luke is longer than our marriage. I was surprised to see the two of you together, but that’s not why I’m firing you. I’m just the messenger; Gavin’s the one who wants you gone.” She heaved a sigh. “I tried to tell you, Grace. The only way you could keep this job was to make yourself indispensable.”
“But I did! I worked sixty- and seventy-hour weeks. I came in on weekends. I took his car to the shop. I picked up his dry cleaning, for heaven’s sake. I made the slides for his stupid presentation at the sales conference. I stayed up all night teaching myself PowerPoint—”
“And then you disappeared for two weeks.”
“My husband was dying! What did you expect me to do?”
“Nothing,” she said, her expression softer than I’d ever seen it. “You did exactly what you should have done, went exactly where you were needed. Because you were indispensable, Grace, to Jamie. That’s how it should have been.”
“But, Ava, I need this job. Let me talk to Gavin—”
She cut me off with a shake of her head. “I already tried. It’s no use. I did get you two months of severance, but that’s the best I could do. Gavin wants you to clean out your desk today. Your replacement starts tomorrow.”
Today? They wanted me gone that day? The confusion and anxiety I was feeling must have shown because Ava got up from her chair and walked to the front of her desk, then sat down on the desktop and touched me on the shoulder.
“Listen to me, Grace. You don’t need this job, not anymore. You never liked working here. Now you don’t have to. The timing seems pretty awful, I know, but maybe it’s for the best. You need to give yourself some time. Think of this as a chance to assess your strengths and weaknesses, and figure out what you really want to do with your life.
“You were there when your husband needed you most. Nobody could have been more loyal. And I admire you for that, Grace, I really do.”
Ava pushed herself off the desktop and into a standing position and put out her hand. The meeting was over.
“Good luck to you, Grace.”