Lars
WHEN I WAS a kid, I made my bed every morning. It wasn’t something that was on a chore list and I certainly never got an allowance for doing such things. It was simply expected of me.
Bootcamp made me see it as more of a chore since I had to tuck and crease the sheets and blankets the way they wanted me to or the drill sergeant would make a crease in my eardrums.
“It’s like licorice,” I said out loud not meaning to.
“You hate licorice,” Molly said, standing way too close to me. She was always too close to me. She didn’t understand my personal space. I had a personal square of space and for some reason, her toes or fingers or smell or voice was always in it.
I didn’t use to. I used to love licorice until I got a huge tin can of it for Christmas and ate the entire thing in one sitting.
I learned to hate it.
Just like I learned to hate making my bed.
I growled in response since it looked like she was actually intent on making me do this.
We had gotten on a schedule–the woman thought she could save the entire world with a simple schedule.
I changed my sheets every morning since the night sweats nearly flooded my bedroom.
“Where’d all these sheets come from? Even drunk I wouldn’t buy sheets with roses and vines on them.”
Molly laughed a little, taking the dampened sheets and throwing them into the washer.
“Not sure. They were just in the closet. Well? Are you just gonna stare at it all day?”
Maybe. I took a look around the rest of the apartment–procrastinating. It was spotless. Molly was working day and night to try to save me. I thought, in the back of my head, that there was a good chance she was putting a dress on a bullfrog.
And this bullfrog didn’t like dresses.
“I guess.” It took me under three minutes to make the bed, and I stood back for a second just to look at it. I wouldn’t tell Molly but there was some semblance of satisfaction in seeing the place clean again.
Maybe there was something to her “everyday chores” things that were cathartic.
This crap went on for three days while I somehow managed to drag myself through the days–twenty-four hours at a time–sometimes second by second.
“I’m getting kind of sick of this place,” she said one day with a huff after folding yet another load of laundry.
“No one asked you to stay. I didn’t exactly advertise it as a five-star resort.”
She sighed. There was really no reason for me to continue to be nasty to her. She was here–helping me through all of my crap.
I hoped she didn’t think I started drinking because of her.
“What about Lake Gray? Does your uncle still have a cabin up there?”
I didn’t even know.
“I’d have to call. Why? Bringing your boyfriend up there?”
That didn’t even make sense. My head was foggy.
“Maybe we could go up there? Do some fishing? What do you think?”
I thought it was high time she bought me a six pack.
And a fifth of vodka.
“Let me call Mom before we start making plans.” The words felt foreign on my tongue. Making plans with Molly was a little too nostalgic for my liking. “I don’t think I have a phone.”
That was a lie. I knew I didn’t have a phone.
“I do. Here.”
I dialed the numbers on the keypad but the number came up. It was already in her contacts.
“Why is my mom’s number in your contacts?”
“Oh,” she said, sitting up and blushing. She was about to lie to me. Molly was so obvious. “When Jameson asked me to come down here, he gave it to me.”
If I really wanted to know, I would look at the history on her phone, but right then, I didn’t.
I called my mom and after ten minutes of making sure everything was okay with me, I finally got a word in edgewise and asked her about the cabin. Of course, she thought it was a wonderful idea and said it was empty.
“It’s there. And it’s empty today and tomorrow. The drive is about an hour or so. I don’t have a driver’s license or a car. They took that sucker from me a while ago.”
“I’ve got a car and a license. Let’s pack up and go. I’m getting cabin fever and some fresh air might be good for you.”
“Yeah, fresh air is going to cure this. Right.”
“I said do you good–not cure you. Cut me some slack here, Lars.”
She got up and started doing something loud in the back room where her stuff was. I assumed she was packing, despite my less than compliant attitude.
I went to my room and packed up a few things–just enough to last me but not enough to be able to stay more than a few days.
I didn’t want to encourage her to spend the entire week at that place.
At one time, that was our place.
Didn’t she care at all?
INSTEAD OF GETTING over myself, I chose not to speak to her the whole way. She knew how to get there, after all.
“Here we are.”
I heard her voice, but it sounded far away. As I looked at the cabin, a flurry of unresolved emotions and stress came down on me. It probably wasn’t the cabin at all. It was Molly. She was in my space again.
“It’s okay, Lars. Can you hear me? Here. Hold my hand. What can I do?” The anxiety in her tone practically screamed out “I have no clue how to help you”. It was fine. I didn’t even know how to help myself.
The car seemed like a steel cage, growing smaller and smaller by the second. I saw her get out of the car. Good. She was running. She should’ve run away as fast as she could a long time ago–I mean, other than the first time.
All of a sudden a whoosh of cool air hit the side of my face, and her voice called to me from the cave I was being buried in deeper, second by second.
It was the instant I needed to come out of it. I took the rope she handed me.
“Hey. There you are. I’m gonna start getting the stuff out of the trunk. Come on in when you get straight.”
If “getting straight” as she put it was the standard then I was royally screwed.
I was as crooked as they came.
Watching Molly come and go with the bags made me feel a little less than a man, but there was something mesmerizing about her pattern and pace. My breaths slowed as a chuckle rose in my throat, a chuckle I didn’t recognize.
“Stop laughing at me and come help, you big oaf. It’s good to see you laugh.” She stopped in her tracks, shocked by the admission as it was to hear it.
“It’s good to hear myself laugh. I’ll get the rest.”
It was such a simple act, getting bags and groceries from the trunk and putting them in the cabin. Just the act of something as normal as that rubbed a thin layer of balm across my chest.
“Are you okay? Did you want to jump right in and go fishing or do you need a rest?” she asked.
Like I was a toddler needing a nap so I didn’t throw a fit after two o’clock.
“No, I’m good. I’ll bring the poles and the bait. You did get bait at the store back there, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make the kid at the counter put it in the bag for you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to touch any of the fish you catch?”
“No.”
“Chicken.”
“Proud of it.”
Even when she was a kid, Molly never touched fish or worms. Her dad claimed it was something about their eyes.
I never asked.
As her boyfriend and then husband, it was like free entertainment to bait her hooks and then wait for the squeal when she caught one. It was so loud, you were guaranteed not to catch another fish until they calmed down from the noise.
I always thought it was adorable.
“Let’s go then.”
For the rest of the afternoon, we fished. I did more baiting and netting and throwing fish back than actually fishing, but it was worth it. There was something in that simplicity she was reintroducing me to.
Making beds. Washing dishes. Cleaning windows. Fishing.
Somehow she knew it was just what I needed.