After I Do (24 page)

R
achel calls me when I’m at work, and I have plenty of work to do, but I pick up the phone.

“It’s out of my price range,” she says. “I went to look at it, and it’s perfect. Completely perfect. But it’s too much money. Like, not realistic for me but not so expensive that it’s outrageous. It’s just enough to torture me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Thanks. I don’t know why I called you to tell you that. I think I just . . . I got kind of excited about the idea? And then I thought maybe this whole thing was going to become real?” She’s saying all of these things as if they are a bunch of questions, but it’s clear she knows them to be facts. “Yeah,” she adds. “I think when I saw that space, I saw it all in my head, you know? ‘Batter’ written in script above the door. Me with an apron.”

“You’re calling it Batter?” I ask her.

“Maybe,” she says defensively. “Why?”

“No, I like it.”

“Oh, well, yeah. Anyway, I think it just seemed real.”

“We will find you something,” I say. “We can go out again this weekend and look at stuff.”

“Yeah, OK. Are you around Friday night, actually? I kind of want to go when they are closed and just peer in. I feel like a spy when I do it to their face.”

I start to laugh. “I can’t Friday. I have plans.”

“With that guy David? I feel like I barely know this guy. You never talk about him,” she says.

“Yeah, I don’t know, I guess there isn’t much to talk about.”

The truth is that I asked him to dinner because I want to tell him I think we should stop sleeping together. It’s not that I don’t care for him or like him. I do. And the night at the Staples Center was frustrating, but that’s not it, either.

It’s that I need to figure out how I feel about Ryan. I have to make a decision about what I want. And I can’t do that if I’m distracting myself with David. David and I aren’t going anywhere. And while I’ve never minded that about us, it’s time to start making some life decisions. It’s time to stop playing around.

“But I can do Saturday night,” I say. “I’ll be free Saturday night.”

“Actually, forget it,” she says. “Forget it. I’m calling the bank. That’s where my bakery should be. I’m gonna see if I can increase the loan. I want to lease Waffle Time.”

“You sure?” I ask her.

“No,” she says.

“But you’re going to do it anyway?” I ask.

“Yep,” she says with remarkable confidence. And then she gets off the phone.

I
asked David to meet me at a bar in Hollywood. We’ve been having a nice time chatting, but I think it’s important that I don’t mince words.

“I think we should stop seeing each other,” I tell him.

He looks pretty surprised, but he seems to take it in stride. “Is this because I acted like such a dick at the Staples Center? I was just frustrated because we couldn’t find the car,” he says, smiling.

I laugh. “I just . . . Ryan and I are supposed to ‘get back together’ soon.” I use my fingers to suggest quotations as I say it.

“Totally get it,” he says. He puts his arms up in surrender. “I won’t look at you seductively anymore.”

I laugh. “You’re such a gentleman,” I say.

The bartender comes over and asks us what we want to drink. I remember him from years ago. Ryan and I came here once for a friend’s birthday party. Ryan ended up having a few too many that night as the group of us were huddled around the bar. Around midnight, I grabbed the keys and told Ryan it was time to go home. After we said our good-byes and were headed for the door, Ryan stopped short at the end of the bar. He belligerently got the bartender’s attention and said to him, “Excuse me, excuse me, have you ever seen a woman this beautiful?” pointing at me. I blushed. The bartender shook his head. “No, sir, I haven’t.” I remember thinking then that I was the luckiest woman in the entire world. I remember thinking, after all these years together, he thinks I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. I felt like one of the ones who had it all figured out. Now the same bartender is still serving drinks here, and I’m breaking up with another man.

“So what about you?” I ask David after we order. “What are you gonna do?”

“Me?” He shrugs. The bartender puts down David’s beer and my glass of wine. “I’m no closer to figuring any of this out than I ever have been.”

“For what it’s worth,” I offer, “I think you should call her.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I do. From everything you’ve told me, she was heartbroken to lose you. You said she dropped to her knees and begged you to forgive her, right?”

“Yeah,” David says. “Yeah, she did.”

“And you, you’re heartbroken, too. After all this time. I think that means something.”

David laughs. “You don’t think it just means I’m mal­adjusted?”

I laugh, too. “Maybe. But even if you’re maladjusted, you might as well be happy.”

He considers it. “You remember she cuckolded me, right? I mean, I’m a cuckold.”

I laugh at the word and then shrug. “So you’re a cuckold. I mean, that’s the reality of it. You leaving her doesn’t change it. Maybe it’s not what you wanted. But it’s what you have. And you can be a cuckold on your own. Or a cuckold with the woman you love.” I smile at him. “You’re the one who told me that it’s nice when you can let go of what you thought life should be and just be happy with what it is.”

David looks at me. He really looks at me. He’s quiet. And then he says, “OK. Maybe I’ll call her.”

The bartender comes by and drops off the check at the table. “Whenever you’re ready,” he says.

Our glasses are half full, but I think we’re ready.

“So should I take from all of this newfound wisdom that you know what you want to do about Ryan?”

I smile at him, taking my last sip of wine. “Nope,” I say. “Still not a damn clue.”

W
hen I get home, I wait for Thumper to come to me, and then I sit with him on the floor. I’m not sure for how long. At some point, I get up and open my e-mail. I start to try to write to Ryan. But nothing comes out. I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know that I have much to say. I sit there, staring at the blank screen, until the phone rings, jolting me out of my catatonic daze. It’s Rachel. I pick up the phone and put it through to voice mail. I’m not up for talking at the moment.

A few seconds later, she calls again. It’s not like her, so I pick up.

“Hey,” I say.

“Have you talked to Mom?” Her voice is no-nonsense and rushed.

“No, why?” I immediately sit forward; my pulse starts to race.

“Grandma’s been admitted to the hospital. Mom just got a call from Uncle Fletcher.”

“Is she OK?”

“No.” Rachel’s voice starts to break down. “I don’t think so.”

“What happened?”

Rachel is quiet. When she finally does speak, her voice is meek and embarrassed. She sounds as if she’s in pain and yet ashamed. “Complications from acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”

“Leukemia?”

Rachel is hesitant to admit that I have heard her correctly. “Yes.”

“Cancer? Grandma has cancer?”

“Yeah.”

“Please tell me you are joking,” I say. My voice is brisk and almost angry. I’m not angry at Rachel. I’m not angry at Grandma or Mom or Uncle Fletcher. I’m not even angry at acute whatever-it’s-called leukemia. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry at all those times I laughed at her. All those times I rolled my eyes.

“I’m not joking,” Rachel says. “Mom booked us flights leaving tomorrow morning. Can you go?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I’ll make sure I can go. Is Charlie going?”

“We aren’t sure. Natalie can’t fly. He may drive up.”

“OK,” I say. I don’t know what else to add. I have so many questions that I feel lost about which one to ask first. So I just go with the one I’m the most terrified of. “How long does she have?”

“Uncle Fletcher thinks only a few days.”

“A few
days
?” I thought we were talking months. I was hoping for years.

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What time is the flight?” I ask her.

“Seven
A.M.
”

“Is Mom meeting us there?”

“Mom’s at the airport trying to get a flight out now.”

“OK,” I say. “I need to find someone to watch Thumper. Let me make a few phone calls, and I’ll just come over once I have everything squared away.”

“OK,” she says. “I’m going to check in with Charlie. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“OK,” I say. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Part of me thinks I should call Ryan. He should watch Thumper. But I also know that I have so much going on in my life right this very second that adding that complication on top of it seems messy. I won’t be able to give Ryan the attention he needs in the midst of this. It won’t do anyone any good. So I call Mila.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” I say when she answers.

“Everything OK?” she asks, her voice muffled and tired. I tell her about my grandmother. I tell her about Thumper.

“Sure, absolutely. We’ll watch him. Do you want to bring him over now?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll see you soon.”

I pack up his food and his leash. I put on shoes under my pajama bottoms. The two of us get into the car. I’m at her front door before I know it. I don’t even remember how we got here.

Mila invites us in. She and Christina are in sweats. We whisper, because the kids are asleep. I rarely see Christina, but I am reminded now that she has such a kind face. Bright eyes, big cheeks. She gives me a hug.

“No matter what, we are here for you,” she says. “Not just Mila but me, too.” Mila looks at her and smiles.

“I should be back in a few days,” I say. “He is pretty well behaved. If you have any trouble, just call me.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Mila says. “You just worry about you. I’ll take care of everything at work. I’ll make sure everyone knows you need some time.”

I nod and bend down to rub noses with Thumper. “I’ll be home soon, baby boy.”

When I walk out of the house, knowing I’ve left my dog, it hurts like a pinch. I get into my car and start crying. The tears stream down my face, clouding my vision. I can barely see. I pull over to the side of the street, and I let it out.

I’m crying for my grandmother. I’m crying for my mom. I’m crying for Thumper. For Rachel and Charlie and me. And throughout all of it, I am crying over Ryan.

I know I will get through this, even though it will be hard. It will feel impossible, and yet I will do it. I know that. But the voice shouting in my ear, the feeling pulling at my heart and constricting my chest, says that it would be easier if Ryan were here. It would just be that little bit easier to have him by my side. Maybe it doesn’t matter if you need someone during the everyday moments of your life. Maybe what matters is that when you need
someone
, they are the one you need. Maybe needing someone isn’t about not being able to do it without them. Maybe needing someone is about it being easier if they are by your side.

I pull out my phone and open an e-mail draft.

May 30

Dear Ryan,

Grandma has been admitted to the hospital with leukemia. She doesn’t have much time. I keep thinking of all the times I made fun of her behind her back for saying she had cancer. The way we all treated it like some big family joke.

And I keep thinking that it would feel so good if you were here with me. It would feel so nice to hear your voice. You would tell me everything was going to be OK. You would hold me. You would wipe away my tears. You would tell me you understood. Just like you did when we lost Grandpa.

I’m leaving for San Jose in a few hours. We’re going to spend her last days with her there. This kind of stuff is why I married you. I married you because you take care of me. Because you make things seem OK when they aren’t OK. Because you believe in me. You know I can handle things even when I feel like I won’t make it through.

I know that I can do this without you. I’ve learned that this past year. But I just miss you right now. I just want you near me. You bring out the best in me. And I could use the best of me right now.

I love you.

Love,

Lauren

I almost hit send. It seems important enough to actually send to him. But I don’t. I choose to hit save. I put the car into drive, and I move forward.

part five

NOTHING COMPARES 2 U

T
he flight was fine. It was fine in that there was no turbulence or delays. It’s a forty-five-minute flight, so it’s not all that torturous. But it was awful in that all Rachel and I did was say, “I really didn’t think she had cancer,” over and over.

When we get to the hospital, my mom is waiting next to my grandmother’s bed. Uncle Fletcher is talking to the doctor. Mom sees us before we get into the room, and she steps outside to prep us.

“She’s not doing great in terms of energy,” my mom says, her face and voice both stoic. “But the doctors are confident that she’s not in much pain.”

“OK,” I say. “How are you?”

“Terrible,” she says. “But I’m not going to deal with it until I have to. I think the best thing for all of us is to buck up. Put on a brave face. Use this time to tell her how much she means to us.”

Because we don’t have much time left.

“Can we talk to her?” Rachel asks.

“Of course.” Mom opens her arm and directs us into the room. Rachel and I sit down on either side of Grandma. She looks tired. Not the sort of tired after you’ve run a race or the sort of tired after you haven’t slept. She looks the sort of tired that you might be after living so long on this earth.

“How are you, Grandma?” Rachel asks.

Grandma smiles at Rachel and pats her hand. There’s no answer to that question.

“We love you, Grams,” I say. “We love you so much.”

She pats my hand this time and closes her eyes.

We all stand around for hours, waiting for her to wake up, seizing the moments when she’s lucid and smiling. No one cries. I don’t know how we all do it.

Around three, Charlie and Natalie arrive. Natalie looks as if she could burst at any minute. Charlie looks haggard and stressed. He looks at Grandma sleeping. “It’s bad?” is all he asks, and Mom nods.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s bad.”

She takes Charlie and Natalie into the hall to talk to them. Rachel goes with her. It’s just me, sleeping Grandma, and Uncle Fletcher. I never have much to say to Fletcher, and now, when it seems there is so much to say, I’m still speechless. He is, too. After a while, he excuses himself, saying he’s going to find a nurse. As much as I have nothing to say to him, I also don’t want him to go. I don’t want to be alone in this room. I don’t want to face this alone.

I walk up to the chair next to Grandma that Uncle Fletcher just vacated, and I sit down. I grab her hand. I know she’s asleep, but I talk to her anyway. I’m not alone in this room yet, I realize. She’s still here.

“You know, I wrote to Ask Allie,” I tell her. “I wrote to her about Ryan and me. You were right about a lot of the things you said. About how I could have avoided this year altogether if maybe I’d valued some things differently. And yet I think I needed this year. I think it was in me, and it had to come out, if that makes sense. I think I needed extra time with Rachel. I needed to be able to focus on Charlie. I needed to explore some other things. Or, you know, maybe I didn’t need to do it. Maybe there are a number of ways I could have handled my marriage, and this was just . . . this was the way I handled it. Anyway, I wrote to Ask Allie about it. I asked her what she thought I should do. You were right about her,” I say, laughing under my breath. “She’s good.” It’s eerily quiet in the room, so I keep talking. “Ryan was here when Grandpa died. And I remember the way he just held me and somehow made it better. Can just anyone do that for you? Can you be held by just anyone? Or does it have to be someone in particular?”

“Someone in particular,” she says. Her voice is rough and scratchy. Her eyes are still closed. Her face barely moves when she talks.

“Grandma? Are you OK? Can I get you anything? Should I get Mom?”

She ignores me. “You have that someone. That’s all I’ve been trying to say. Don’t give up on him just because he bores you. Or doesn’t pick up his socks.”

“Yeah,” I say. She seems too weak to keep talking, so I don’t want to ask her questions. And yet there is so much I want to learn from her. Her eccentricities, the things that felt so silly and laughable before, now seem profound and insightful. Why do we do this? Why do we undervalue things when we have them? Why is it only on the verge of losing something that we see how much we need it?

“I wasn’t actually positive that I had cancer,” she says. “I hadn’t been to the doctor in ages. I kept telling your mother and your uncle that I was going.” She laughs. “But I never went. I figured if I did have it, I didn’t want anyone trying to cure it. A few times, I walked out the door, telling Fletcher I was going to see my oncologist. I didn’t even have an oncologist. I was playing bridge with Betty Lewis and the Friedmans.” She laughs again, and then she fades out for a moment and perks back up. “The doctors say this type is fast-moving. Most likely, I just developed it. You guys weren’t wrong to make fun of me all those years I kept saying I had it,” she says, smiling at me, letting me know she knew what we were saying the whole time. “I was ready to die, and I think that was the only way I could admit it.”

“How can you be ready to die?”

“Because my husband is gone, Lauren,” she says. “I love you all so much. But you don’t need me anymore. Look at all of you. Your mom is doing so well. Fletcher is fine. You three kids are doing great.”

“Well . . .”

“No, you are,” she says, patting my hand. “But I miss my mom,” she says. “I miss my dad. I miss my big sister. I miss my best friend. And I miss my husband. I’ve lived too long without him now.”

“But you were doing OK,” I say. “You were getting out of bed. You were making a life without him.”

My grandmother gently shakes her head. “Just because you can live without someone doesn’t mean you want to,” she says.

The words bang around in my brain, knocking into one another, bouncing off the edges of my mind, but they keep rearranging themselves in the same order.

I don’t say anything back. I look at her and squeeze her hand. I often think of my grandmother as the old lady at the dinner table. But she’s seen generations. She was a child once. She was a teenager. A newlywed. A mother. A widow.

“I’m sorry this has been so hard,” I say. “I never thought of how difficult it must have been for you without Grandpa. It’s a hard life.”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not a hard life. I’m just done living.”

When she says it, she’s also done talking. She falls back asleep, holding my hand. I rest my chin on her arm and watch her. Eventually, Natalie comes back in, needing to sit down.

“It’s hard to stay on my feet so long,” she says. “It’s also hard to sit still for a long time. Or lie down for too long. Or eat. Or not eat. Or breathe.”

I laugh. “Is this such a good idea?” I ask her. “I mean, you’re due in, like, days, right?”

“I’m due Thursday,” she says. Five days away. “But it was never a question. We had to come. This is where we need to be. I’d be uncomfortable sitting at home, you know? This way . . . this is better.”

“Can I get you anything?” I ask her. “Ice chips?”

“You know I’m not actually in labor, right?” Natalie laughs at me, and I laugh back.

“Fair enough!” I say. It wasn’t when she said she needed to be here for Grandma that she became a sister to me. It was when she made fun of me for offering ice chips. Big gestures are easy. Making fun of someone who’s just trying to help you, that’s family.

Charlie joins us. Uncle Fletcher comes in with a bag of Doritos. I don’t even know if he went to get a nurse. Mom and Rachel come in. Rachel has clearly been crying. I look at her and see the red in her eyes. I give her a hug.

We stand around. We sit. We wait. I’m not exactly sure what we can do to make any of this better. Sometimes we are talking. Sometimes we are quiet. There are too many of us in this small room, and so we take turns walking out into the hall, walking down to the vending machines, getting a glass of water. Nurses come in and out. They change fluids. The doctor comes in and answers our questions. But really, there aren’t many questions to ask. Questions are for when you think there is a way to save someone.

I feel a knot start to form in my throat. It gathers strength as it moves up to the surface. I excuse myself. I go out into the hall.

I put my back against the wall. I slide down to the floor. I imagine Ryan sitting next to me. I imagine him rubbing my back, the way he did when my grandfather died. I imagine him saying,
She’s going to better place. She’s OK.
I imagine the way my grandfather might have done this for my grandmother when she lost her own mom or her own grandmother. I imagine my grandmother sitting where I am now, my grandfather kneeling beside her, telling her all the things I want to be told. Holding her the way that only someone in particular can hold you. When I’m her age, when I’m lying in a hospital bed, ready to die, whom will I be thinking of ?

It’s Ryan. It’s always been Ryan. Just because I can live without him doesn’t mean I want to.

And I don’t. I don’t want to.

I want to hear his voice. The way it is rough but sometimes smooth and almost soulful. I want to see his face, with his stubble from never shaving down to the skin. I want to smell him again. I want to hold the roughness of his hands. I want to feel the way they envelop mine, dwarfing them, making me feel small.

I need my husband.

I’m going to call him. I don’t care about the pact we made. I don’t care about the messiness of it. I just need to hear his voice. I need to know that he’s OK. I stand up and pull my phone out of my pocket. I don’t have any service. So I walk around the floor, trying to get a bar or two. Nothing.

“Excuse me?” I ask at the nurses’ station. “Where can I get cell service?”

“You’ll have to go outside,” she says. “Once you get out the front doors, you should be OK.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I walk to the elevators. I hit the button. It lights up, but the elevator doesn’t come. I hit it again and again. I’ve waited this long to call Ryan, and now, suddenly, I must talk to him this second. The urge has overtaken me. I need to ask him to move back home. I need to tell him I love him. He has to know right now.

Finally, the elevator
ding
s. I get in. I press the ground floor. The elevator drops quickly. It’s so quick that my stomach doesn’t fall at the same pace as my feet. I’m relieved when I touch ground. The doors open. I walk through the lobby. I walk through the front glass doors and step outside. It’s a hot, balmy day. It seems so cloudy in the hospital that I’ve forgotten that it’s actually very sunny and bright. I look at my phone. Full service.

It’s loud out here in the front of the hospital. Cars are zooming by. Ambulances are pulling in and out. It occurs to me that I am not the only one losing someone right now. Natalie isn’t the only one about to have a baby, either. Charlie’s not the only man about to become a father. My mother isn’t the only one about to lose her last parent. We are a family of people going through all the things people go through every day. We are not special. This hospital doesn’t exist for us. I’m not the only woman about to call her husband and ask him to come home. I don’t know why it feels good to know that. But it does. I’m not alone. There are millions of me.

A cab pulls up to the sidewalk, and a man gets out. He has a backpack. He shuts the cab door and turns to face me.

It’s Ryan.

Ryan.

My Ryan.

He looks exactly the same as when I left him at our house ten months ago. His hair is the same length. His body looks the same. It’s so familiar. Everything about him is familiar. The way he walks. The way he shuffles the backpack onto his shoulders.

I stand still, staring right at him. I can barely move. I’m not sure when it happened, but I have dropped my phone.

He walks toward the sliding doors and then stops once he sees me. His eyes go wide. I know him so well that I know what he’s thinking. I know what he’s going to do next.

He runs toward me and picks me up, grabbing me, clutching me.

“I love you,” he says. He has started to cry. “I love you, Lauren, I love you so much. I’ve missed you. God, I’ve missed you.”

My face hasn’t changed. I’m still stunned. My arms are wrapped around him. My legs are wrapped around him. He puts me down and kisses me. When his lips touch mine, my heart burns. It’s like someone lit a match in my chest.

How did he know I needed him? How did he know to find me?

He wipes my tears away. Tears I didn’t even know were on my face. He’s so gentle about it, so loving, that I wonder how I was able to wipe away my own tears all these past months. In an instant, I have forgotten how to live without him, now that he is here.

“How did you know?” I say. “How did you know?”

He looks me in the eye, preparing me. “Don’t be mad,” he says. His tone is playful, but the underlying message is serious.

“OK,” I say. “I won’t.” I mean it. Whatever brought him here is a blessing. Whatever brought him here was right to do it.

“I’ve been reading your e-mail drafts.”

I drop to the ground.

I laugh so hard that I lose control of myself. I laugh past the point where my abdomen aches and my back hurts. And because I’m laughing, Ryan starts laughing. And now we’re both on the sidewalk laughing. His laugh makes mine seem funnier. And now I’m laughing simply because I’m laughing. I can’t stop. And I don’t want to stop. And then I see my phone, busted up and broken, from when I dropped it. And that seems hilarious. It’s all so perfectly, wonderfully, amazingly, beautifully hilarious, isn’t it? When did life get so fucking funny?

“Why are we laughing?” Ryan says, in between breaths.

So it turns out this is how I confess. This is how I tell him what I’ve done. “Because I’ve been reading yours, too,” I say.

He cackles wildly. He’s laughing at me and with me and for me. People are walking by and looking at us, and for the first time in my life, I really don’t care what they think. This moment is too intoxicating. It has such a strong hold on me that nothing can bring me back to earth until I’m ready.

When we finally do get control of ourselves, our eyes are wet, our heads are light. I start to sigh loudly, the way people do when they are recovering from fits of laughter. I try to get control of myself, like a pilot landing a plane, slow and steady, readying to hit solid ground. Except instead of feeling the world under my feet, I take off again at the last minute. My sighs turn into tears. Laughing and crying are so intrinsically tied together, spun of the same material, that it’s hard to tell one from the other sometimes. And it’s easier than you think to go from being so happy you could cry to so devastated you could laugh.