He took another step toward me, this time with more intention, and ran his hands down my arms. My breath was shorter now, and I suddenly felt very, very sober. I leaned toward him, my lips almost grazing his, the kiss that I had craved all day so close to happening.
As the bathroom door flew open, he jumped away as though I had bitten him. “So, what’s the verdict?” Madison trilled.
I laughed nervously, trying to pretend that nothing had happened, nothing was happening. “Oh, um…”
“It smells like asparagus,” Parker jumped in confidently.
Trina appeared at the door. “Pee sniffer! There’s a new one for Robby Jr. to try.”
We all laughed, the tension breaking. As Parker caught my eye, making my heart race, I briefly considered that maybe everything that had happened between us was colliding in this moment, conspiring to bring us back where we belonged.
Parker
CONNECTED
I WAS MORE THAN A little bit surprised when I got home after midnight after a very eventful dinner to see that my mom was sitting on the back porch. I didn’t want to talk; I wanted to sit alone with my thoughts about Amelia and me and analyze every inch of it. But I slid open the back door, and she said, “Sit down, honey.”
I took a seat beside her on the sofa, noticing how loudly the bullfrogs were croaking. The winds of the morning had calmed to a gentle breeze and the marsh grass blew, the moon highlighting the water that ran through it.
I noticed an envelope in Mom’s hand as I sat down beside her, trying to appear sober. She took my hand in hers, and my heart started racing. Not in the way it had when I was alone in that bathroom with Amelia earlier. But in the way it did when I was afraid. Something was wrong with my mother. In the seconds before her next sentence, I decided that she had terminal breast cancer, that she had been fighting it for months, maybe even years, without letting me know. Because that’s the kind of mother she was. I had to call Dad and grill him about once a week because my mother was so damn secretive.
The splash of a fish that I couldn’t see jumping out of the water broke me out of my thoughts, and I finally got my nerve up to say, “What’s the matter, Mom?”
She smiled at me, and I had the most vivid memory of being four years old, of falling in the driveway and skinning my knee. Mom had run out from the kitchen and knelt down to pull me into her lap and kiss me, and she had given me this same smile, one meant to bolster but that also held undeniable pity.
She put her hand up to her white blouse, her plain gold wedding band catching the light. “Darling, I have tossed and turned over whether I should say this to you. You know I believe in letting my boys run their own business.” She paused and looked at me thoughtfully. “But, well, I believe that you love Amelia. And Elizabeth believes that she loves Harris. And while I’m not saying that she doesn’t, I have to wonder if she knew how you felt about her, she might change her mind about him.”
I thought about the night before on the dock. I thought about that horrible day in the car on the way home from the doctor’s office when all I wanted to do was make it better for Amelia.
“I think about it, Mom. I really do. But then there’s Greer, and I loved her so much that I worry I might not ever be able to move on. If I try and fail, I’ve lost Amelia forever. We will always be in each other’s lives because of you and Elizabeth.”
Mom nodded. “It’s a big step to put yourself out there like that, to say something that huge that you can never take back. I’m not saying that you should. I can’t make that decision for you, darling. But I can tell you that I hope with all my heart that you don’t let what you lost keep you from what you could have. I don’t mean just with Amelia. Life is short. Love is precious, and it makes living so worthwhile.”
“What if Greer is looking down on me, and knowing that I’ve moved on breaks her heart?”
She looked out over the water and said, “You know, sweetheart, Greer made me promise that, when she was gone, I would take care of everything. So I did. I took care of her funeral plans and accepting the casseroles and writing the thank-you notes and getting the death certificate and dealing with the estate. I made good on my promise—except for one thing.” She paused and looked at me. “I haven’t taken care of you, though God himself knows how hard I’ve tried.”
“Mom—” I interrupted. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t her responsibility, I had to take care of myself. But if she heard me interject, she didn’t let on.
“Greer gave me something for you. It has sat for three years between the sock that holds my mother’s pearls and the sock that holds my grandmother’s earrings. All of my most important things are, as it turns out, stored in that humblest of drawers.” She turned to me, and my mouth went dry. “Greer had said I would know when it was time. And I do. I finally have to take care of the one remnant of Greer’s life that matters most.”
She handed me the envelope she’d been holding and, when she turned it over, I saw it. My name. In the scrawling cursive that only belonged to one beautiful woman.
Mom kissed my cheek, and then she was gone. I put my finger to the sharp corner of the thick paper envelope. I flipped it over to reveal Greer’s engraved return address. Our return address. The letter was written on our wedding thank-you cards, the ones that I had spent two hours at the stationer’s over, while Greer and her aunt hemmed and hawed. They had landed on simple ecru stationery engraved in gold. I knew when I opened it I would find Greer and Parker Thaysden at the top of the card. It was the simplest thing, yet a million decisions, conscious and unconscious, had gone into it—kind of like love.
Greer and I had fit together so seamlessly, it felt like, but there had been a million decisions that had gone into our love.
Then I slid my finger underneath the seal of the envelope, imagining her licking it shut. Part of me wanted to rip into that letter, to read and reread it all night. But I didn’t. I sat with it, staring at her handwriting as if it could bring her back from the dead, for far longer than I would like to admit.
I took a deep breath, got my nerve up, pulled the thick card out of its envelope, and read.
Greer
July 19, 2016
Dearest Parker,
Everything changes when you know it is the end. Even three months ago, the idea of you with someone else made my insides wrench and my heart feel so hard and heavy I could scarcely breathe. But three months ago was not now. Two months ago was not now. Today, I can finally accept that I am going to be gone. It is sort of odd to imagine the world without yourself in it. I hope that doesn’t sound conceited, and if so I don’t mean it that way. It’s only that once you are gone, so is the specific part you played in the world, making it different in some ways.
I tell you this because it is only today that I can, with all my heart, ask you to move on, to move forward with your life. Don’t forget me. Don’t stop loving me. I could never do that if the roles were reversed, and so I won’t ask something impossible. But, Parker, please don’t waste your life pining for me, crying over someone who, no matter how hard we both wish, can never come back.
When I closed my eyes this morning, I saw you with someone new. I saw you with two babies and a smile on your face. And, Parker, it made me glad. Even then, as happy as you looked, I felt the way that you carried me in your heart, the way that I am always a part of you, just as you are always a part of me. But please don’t let me be the only part.