But not Les Mis.
“Sweetheart,” he’d said, “I saw The Pajama Game when I was eleven and had nightmares until I was fifteen. We won’t get into what Cats did to me. But Les Mis, Tab, everyone has to see that.”
It meant so much to him I went, and I had to admit I didn’t get it through the first act. Jason had decided I needed to “experience” it, so he didn’t tell me anything, and since they sang all the time, even the dialogue, I couldn’t catch it all and I had no idea what was going on. Luckily, there were some kick-butt songs, or the first act would have been wasted on me.
At intermission, Jason saw the error of his ways, filled me in, and the second act rocked my world.
Dad loved me, but he was never going to listen to musicals with me.
Tyra loved me, and she didn’t care about musicals, but she listened to it with me in my car all the time when we were off shopping or to lunch or whatever we did.
She’d heard “I Dreamed a Dream” lots.
She knew what I was saying.
“Oh, Tabby,” she whispered.
See?
I flopped to my back, stared at the ceiling then moved just my eyeballs to her to see she’d shifted closer and was resting on a hand in the bed beside me.
“It felt good,” I told her, and she smiled.
“Of course it felt good, honey. Shy’s a nice guy who took your back and listened to you sing a sad song. It was what you needed and he gave it to you.”
“No,” I whispered and held her eyes. “It felt good waking up in his arms.”
Her smile faded again.
“Oh, Tabby,” she repeated in a whisper, and I put my hands over my face.
From behind them I said, “It was messed up, crazy, wrong.” I pulled my hands away, looked into her troubled face, and let it all hang out. “It was wrong, Ty-Ty. It was… it was messed up. I forgot.”
“You forgot what, honey?” she asked gently.
“Everything,” I answered, rolling to my side and getting up on a forearm. “Everything, Ty-Ty. I was crying when I fell asleep and Shy was holding me, but somehow when we were sleeping he tucked me under him, tucked me close, and I woke up and all I felt was warm. Warm and safe and loved and right. That was all I felt. All I thought. All that went through my mind was how good all that felt.”
“Is that bad?” Her tone was still gentle but now also cautious.
“Yes,” I hissed.
“How?” she asked carefully.
“Jason didn’t hold me.” She closed her eyes and opened them when I carried on, and I did so thanking God I could talk to Tyra about everything, “He was loving and he could cuddle but not, you know, in bed. He was a hug-and-roll guy. After we, uh…” I let that hang then went on, “He hugged me, let me go, then rolled away. He was sweet about it but that just wasn’t his thing. He liked to sleep in his space and he left me to mine. I’d never had that, not ever, not from a guy, not until I got it from Shy and I liked it. It felt good. No, it felt great.”
“Tab—” she began, but I was on a roll so I blathered on, talking over her.
“It gets worse,” I shared. “Even after I woke up feeling safe and right, it didn’t all crash over me. It didn’t come to me at all. I looked up at Shy and he’s, well… you know, everyone knows Shy’s really good-looking, but asleep, Ty-Ty, asleep—” I leaned toward her “—he’s amazing. So amazing, so handsome, so close, holding me, making me feel safe and loved and after he’d been so cool with me the night before, I kept forgetting. Kept forgetting everything and I, oh Tyra, God help me”—my voice dropped to a whisper—“I nearly kissed him.”
After sharing that, I flopped back to the bed, put my hands over my face and let it wash over me as it did every time I remembered it, which was often, dozens of times daily for six weeks.
Guilt.
Shame.
Betrayal.
“Tabby, honey, look at me,” she called gently, I pulled in breath behind my hands, then I dropped them away from my face and looked at her.
She was smiling at me just as gently as she was talking to me, and it hit me, not for the first time, not by a long shot, that I loved Tyra Allen a whole lot.
“I’m glad you shared that with me. Your dad has been concerned and even more concerned lately, thinking that something else was not right with you,” she told me.
There it was.
Proof my father wasn’t stupid and I couldn’t pull anything over on him.
“It was a betrayal to Jason,” I whispered, and admitting it out loud hurt worse.
She kept talking gently even as she grabbed my hand and squeezed, “It wasn’t, Tabby. It’s natural. It’s proof you’re healing.”
I shook my head but she squeezed my hand again.
“It is, honey,” she pushed. “This sucks, it sucks huge, so huge there are no words for how huge it sucks, and I would say you’re too young to process it, losing Jason the way you did when you did. But honestly, you could be a hundred and three and you wouldn’t have lived enough life to be able to process that kind of loss. Jason was a good man and he loved you. He deserves your grief. But he loved you and he’d want you to heal, move on, find happiness.”
I shook my head again and she dipped her face closer and kept going.
“I understand why you feel the way you do, but what you need to understand is that’s part of the process. Having those feelings, remembering you’re alive, remembering there are good things to look forward to. You’re young, Tab, you have a lot of life ahead of you. What happened with Shy is reminding you that life is out there for you when you’re ready. Those feelings you had with Shy are natural. They’re good. They are right. More so for you now because they indicate you’ve begun the process of healing.”
“I totally forgot him, Tyra,” I returned. “I totally forgot Jason for whole minutes, lying in the arms of another man. Worse!” I cried, sitting up and twisting toward her to see she reared back. “It felt… it felt…” I stammered, unable to get out what I hadn’t really even admitted to myself. Then I pushed it out, “Beautiful. Waking up that way with Shy… it was… it felt…”
Oh God, was I going to say it?
I was going to say it.
“Better,” I finished. I watched as her eyes blanked, hiding her reaction, and I knew what that meant so I cried, “See! I’m messed up!”
She reached out, snatched up my hand again, and shook it. “You are not messed up, Tabby. You’re a woman and Shy’s a man, a good-looking one who was there for you when you needed him, and he handled you with care. Your feelings are natural. They are beautiful. They are right. There is nothing wrong with forgetting. I want to be gentle with you, honey, I know you don’t want to lose Jason now, even only having him in grief, but in all honesty, you’ll get to the point when you’ll forget for days then weeks—” she squeezed my hand as my heart squeezed and she finished “—and so on. It will happen and that’s healing too, and you might not believe it but I do, I totally do. I know he loved you enough not to want you to forget him completely, which you never will, he’ll always be a part of you, but enough so you could be happy. I know that, Tab. I also know, God forbid, the roles were reversed, you’d want that for Jason too. Nothing, not one thing you did or felt that night was wrong or shameful. I don’t think so, and I don’t think Jason would either.”