The One Who Got Away: A Novel
Read The One Who Got Away: A Novel Online
Authors: Bethany Bloom
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Literary Fiction, #Inspirational, #Romantic Comedy
The
One Who Got Away:
A Novel
By Bethany Bloom
Text
Copyright © 2013 Bethany Bloom
[email protected]
All
Rights Reserved.
No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief
quotations in a review.
This novel is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, incidents, places, and events portrayed are either the products of
the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or localities is purely
coincidental.
Who was it who said that no
matter how great a life you have lived, and no matter how delayed or premature
your death, there will be macaroni salad, heavy on the mayonnaise, at your
funeral, and someone will talk about football.
Someone will laugh and forget she
is not at a cocktail party. Mothers will try to keep their kids from knocking
over the punch or spilling Grandpa's coffee. No one will quite know what to
say.
The church’s altar guild, made up
of men and women whom you didn’t know, will turn their long, etched faces to
the sink to prepare coffee in twenty-four-cup urns where it will burn and smell
just like the funeral you went to as a child. Women with support hose and
polyester skirts with elastic waistbands and SAS shoes will cut fruit near the
sink. They will remove the plastic lids from the tubs of macaroni salad and
scoop it into serving dishes. They will mix Hi-C drink powder into plexiglass
pitchers and place them on yellow plastic tablecloths.
And the guests, like Olivine
herself, will notice that things don’t change. That people pass through the
world like waves on the shore, lapping at the sand one moment, a memory the
next. That nothing is nearly as fantastic or as rich or as significant as they
want it to be. That people are born and that people die and, meanwhile, they do
what they do. They get food on the table, and they clean it up again. They tend
to the children. They carry on.
These thoughts were making Olivine
lightheaded and somewhat thirsty. She could feel Paul’s hand, faint and gently
guiding, on the small of her back, and she would have turned and shared these
thoughts with him, but he would have asked, again, without changing the
expression on his face, if she would like him to prescribe some medication. “Really,
Olivine,” he would say, “Everyone is taking some kind of something. There's no
shame in it.”
What kind of a life would you
have to lead, Olivine wondered, to have a passing that was somehow different
from this one?
This was her grandmother’s
memorial. The celebration of life for a woman as kind, as sweet, as true as any
woman she had ever known. And this was how she ended. A roomful of people, each
of whom looked itchy. And, in the corner, Grandpa. A veteran; a true hero of
his time. Now, surrounded yet alone, staring blankly into a Styrofoam cup of
coffee that someone had set before him.
Olivine knew, of course, that her
grandmother’s real legacy survived in these children, grandchildren and great
grandchildren, several of whom were, just then, huddled together on the piano
bench, trying to knock their two smaller cousins off the ends
.
There were other guests besides
the generations of family. A whole series of grey-skinned, tiny people, ordinarily
shuttered out of sight; today shuffling about the lemon yellow room in
polyester pant suits.
Just then, something made
Olivine’s head spin. A single turn and then the room felt right again. What
caused it? A scent? She wasn’t sure. This happened to her in churches. She got
lightheaded and woozy, but only sometimes.
It always made her think of Henry
Cooper. A man she hadn’t seen in ten years. Ten years since she had last
touched him, placed her head on his belly while he lay on the grass, looked
into his eyes clear through to that soft center that only she had access to. Ten
years and yet, still, every day, her thoughts would turn to him, his rolling
laughter, the luster in his eyes when he looked at her, listened to her,
watched her speak.
And as Olivine stood at the back
of the church narthex, she thought of the time that she and Henry had walked the
streets of an unknown mountain town, one they had chosen by flinging a dart at
the Colorado state map. And as they walked that unfamiliar sidewalk, tripping
and giggling and bowing their heads together, Henry had clutched her by the
waist and yanked her inside a dainty white church, set like a gingerbread house
right off the sidewalk.
It had been so dark inside that
it took a moment for her eyes to adjust and she felt suddenly lightheaded. And Henry
swung one arm around her shoulder and squeezed her in close, and she could feel
his bicep against the back of her neck and she peered up at him, laughing,
feeling safe and yet free, and he whispered right into her face, “Someday in a
place just like this, you are going to make me the happiest man in the world.”
And then he yanked her out of the church again, his arm around her waist, and they
were snapped back out into the bright sunshine, and she had to focus on a crack
in the sidewalk to fend off her dizziness. Henry had been like that. Surprising
bursts of affection that made her breath catch, even in memory.
That was just before Henry had vanished.
And now this other man standing before her. Paul. Staid and respectable. Tall
and broad-shouldered. Those smooth, freckled surgeon hands. Hands that never
shook or wavered and a voice he never raised. Paul was looking at her just now;
studying her in that expressionless way of his.
Paul had been called in to
surgery at two o’clock that morning. “A crash on the interstate” was all she
heard as he shuffled out of the bedroom. But he had made it back in time to
pick her up for her grandmother’s service, just as he said he would. He had come
to their front door and handed her a tall paper cup of French Roast, made just
the way she liked it. No cream, one packet of sugar. And then he took her other
hand, and he led her to the car, and he opened her door and she slid onto the
leather passenger seat, cold against the back of her legs. Smooth jazz played
on the stereo, the volume turned low enough to be an undercurrent: a soft beat,
the soundtrack of their life together. He smelled of cologne, which he wore only
when he hadn’t yet slept. When he had come straight from the hospital.
And now, in the reception hall, after
the service, Paul had moved to stand just behind her. His was a quiet strength
and she leaned into him as she looked over to where her sister was standing,
near the piano. Yarrow held the baby on her hip, her other three children within
arm’s reach. They fanned out around her like a skirt. The toddler reached up, arms
outstretched, to grab for her hand. The twins sprawled frog-legged on the
floor, poking with their fingernails at something in the carpet and giggling.
Just then, Yarrow turned and nuzzled
her head into the neck of her husband. It was a gesture so intimate and so warm
that Olivine could nearly feel the sensation herself, from across the room. She
could nearly smell Jon’s soap. Could nearly feel his whiskers, his warmth. Her chest
swelled as she watched Yarrow lean into him, this man who had been with Yarrow
for more than a third of her life now. Yarrow was and always would be
surrounded, encircled, cradled from head to toe with warmth and closeness amid
days that, Olivine suspected, were filled entirely with sweet things like story
times, pajamas, and sticky juice.
And Olivine remembered how she
had once told Yarrow that, even if she were to never have kids of her own, she
would be the very best Auntie, with trinkets and treasures and time to listen
to Yarrow’s children. Each time Olivine recalled this promise—this “Auntie”—she
had an image of herself gathering a long, soft skirt in her hand and kneeling
down on the floor to tell a story. This despite the fact that she hadn’t worn a
long, soft skirt in decades and was never any good at telling children stories.
Plus she didn’t have a whole lot of time for these nieces and nephews just at
the moment. But someday.
Olivine’s throat tightened as she
looked around her. The kids, the laughter. Grandpa still in the corner, staring
into an inky black cup of coffee.
Just then, a child she didn’t
recognize appeared from the glass side door, which led to the play area
outside. The little girl bounced on her toes as she walked across the room,
scanning the crowd. She was four, maybe five, with loose blonde curls that
bobbed around her face, which was smeared faintly with dirt. Her white eyelet dress
was clean but for a series of handprints down the front, like she’d used it for
a napkin, and she wore a pair of tiny Timberland boots, pale yellow and filthy,
with heavy waffle tread. Her eyes were big as quarters and brown and when they
met Olivine’s, she stuck a finger in her mouth, twirled one of her curls and
started walking faster, looking straight ahead, suddenly shy. Olivine felt the
child’s emotions herself, even as she stood against the wall with Paul.
All at once, Olivine felt a sense
of fullness
,
and with it, a certainty. For the first time in her
thirty-two years, Olivine
knew
that she would have a child. Of her own.
A child with messy blonde curls and a dirty face and enormous brown eyes.
What would it be like, she wondered,
to look at another human and to witness, glimpse, stare, into eyes that you
recognize as your own? What would it be like to experience the world from a
perspective that wasn’t yours directly, but that you could help to mold? To be
charged with helping another human understand and experience the depth of
emotion and beauty in the world?
She turned to catch Paul’s eye.
She long suspected that he could sleep both standing up and with his eyes open.
He blinked twice and gave her a consoling smile and, with it, communicated the
words he would have whispered in her ear if he were the type of man who
whispered in ears. His smile said he was ready to leave whenever she was but
never in a million years would he rush her.
Paul was the perfect man. And he
was right there, standing behind her. She respected him. He appreciated and
valued her. Paul made sense in just the way that she liked for things to make
sense. He was just the type of man she had always planned to find. He had plans
for her and for their life together. Big, important plans. And more than
anything, she wanted to live a big, important life. What was she waiting for?
Was it her memories of Henry?
Memories that grew less distinct with each passing year to the point where
Olivine wondered if he had been a fantasy. If he had been some distant dream
conjured by a younger, less responsible Olivine.
No. These memories of Henry,
whatever they were, had stopped her life for long enough. It was time to grow
up—because she could already feel herself growing old.
Olivine flushed hot as a sense of
panic rose in her chest. Would there be enough time? Could she change the
trajectory—the very meaning—of her life so suddenly, so instantly? Would Paul even
want a child?
She scanned the room for her
sister once more. Yarrow had moved to the buffet table, but still her babies
fanned around her. She laughed: a musical sound, high-pitched and darting, and
she moved like a bird, her movements swift and nimble, but graceful, too. Pecking
at veggies to place on her child’s plate.
Yarrow’s newest baby, balanced high
on her mother’s hip, opened her mouth wide and released a string of saliva straight
onto the blond head of her brother, standing below. Yarrow chuckled, switched
the plastic plate to her other hand and rubbed her son’s head, then moved her
hand down to his neck and then his shoulder, squeezing gently with her
fingertips. He looked up at her and grinned.
It reminded Olivine of something
she had read not long ago: That the way you imagine the face of God had a lot
to do with your childhood view of your mother and father. Were they mean and
vengeful and scary? Or were they kind and forgiving and wanting, always, what
was best for you? Olivine was sure that she saw her sister, just then, the way
her children did: strong, vigilant, loving, kind, always ready to laugh.
What responsibility. What
importance. What a way to make a difference in the world.
This
was the
way to make her world sharper, brighter, more significant.
This
was the
way to create a legacy. Like Grandma’s.
And she remembered what Grandma
had told her, not long ago: “All anyone needs in this world is a simple
witness. One person whom you trust to give you a soft place to curl up and cry
or laugh or talk. Just one. One person sitting across from you at the breakfast
table who knew you yesterday and who would grow to know you even better today. That’s
all you need in this life, Olivine,” she had said, staring into Olivine’s eyes
and squeezing at Grandpa’s knobby hand.
Paul was perfect. And he was
right here. Right now. The talk regarding children could come later, but now
was the time. She had waited long enough.
Olivine placed a hand on the root
of her stomach and reassured herself that Grandma would have liked this. On
this day, when they were celebrating the love and the joy and the laughter that
her grandmother had made possible in the world, Olivine would start a family of
her own. Her own legacy of love. Just like this one.
Knowing Paul, she was going to
have to get it started. Today. Before she lost her nerve.