The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Page 74
“You’re welcome.” I got into the car.
Dad knocked on my window and leaned down to say, “Maybe . . . maybe you could come to dinner here next week. We could talk about MIT.”
“Maybe,” I said, because MIT was still feeling pretty far away, and I didn’t know—I still don’t know—if I was ready to make Megan’s house a regular thing. “I have to go.” I put the Lemon in gear. “Take care, Dad.”
“Take care, Lexie,” he said.
I could see him in the rearview mirror, standing on the sidewalk in his suit and tie, his hand lifted in a wave as I drove away.
“Alexis, are you still with me?” Dave prompts, because I’m just sitting there, not answering. “Are you all right? Would you like some water?”
I cough. “Sure.”
He opens the minifridge under his desk and gets me a Dasani. I drink.
“He said he was sorry,” I say when I’m ready to talk again. “For the divorce. For the way it hurt Ty and me.”
Dave nods.
“Aren’t you going to write that down?” I ask him. “It seems important. A breakthrough, like you said.”
He doesn’t write it down. “Do you accept his apology?” he asks.
“Sort of. Maybe. Probably not.”
“Do you feel like you’ve started to forgive him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think he should get off that easy. But it was nice to hear him say he’s sorry. I didn’t think I’d ever hear him say that.”
Dave strokes his beard, which is what he does when he’s about to say something terribly profound. “Forgiveness is tricky, Alexis, because in the end it’s more about you than it is about the person who’s being forgiven.”
“Like that old saying about how holding a grudge is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.”
“Exactly.” Dave sits back, puts his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m proud of you. To go to that house, to face him, to give him that small kindness with the picture, that took courage. It was a step in the right direction.”
“The direction to what, though?” I ask. “Where am I headed?”
“Acceptance. Which is the path to healing. Growth. Contentment.”
I mull this over. “I will never be happy again,” Mom said. She said it like it’s her duty now, her motherly obligation, to consider her life ruined because she lost Ty. I don’t view things the way Mom does, but it’s difficult to imagine being truly happy again.
I don’t know what my duty is.
“How did you feel when you were done talking to your father?” Dave asks.
“I felt . . . slightly better,” I tell Dave.
This he feels compelled to write down in his yellow legal pad. He underlines the words.
“Slightly better is good,” he says.
I agree. Slightly better is good. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.
“Lex?” Dave says. “Are you okay?”
“Sometimes I think I see Ty.” I don’t know where this comes from, this sudden confession, but suddenly it’s out there. I glance at Dave quickly. “Sometimes I feel like he’s there. In the house. And I feel like he wants something from me.”
I brace myself to be sent off to the funny farm.
Dave nods. “That’s very common, actually.”
I stare at him. “Common?”
“It’s common for people to continue to see loved ones who have passed. When he was alive, your brother took up a certain space in your life, a physical space and an emotional one. Now that he’s gone, the brain naturally tries to fill in that empty space.”
“So it doesn’t mean I’m going crazy,” I venture.
Dave lets out a bark of laughter. “No, Lex. You’re certainly not crazy.”
And it doesn’t mean that Ty is a ghost, either. For some reason this revelation brings on the ache in my chest.
It turns out there’s a logical explanation, after all.
So why don’t I want to believe it?
31.
SADIE’S RUNNING OUTFIT IS HOT PINK. It’s impossible to miss her at the end of my driveway, hopping from foot to foot, warming up. She says the pink makes her feel like an atom bomb: like a nuclear explosion is her exact phrasing, pronouncing it “nuke-cue-ler,” the way George W. Bush used to say it even though he knew it was wrong, just to piss people off.
How Sadie and I are friends, I still don’t know.
“Come on,” she hollers at me. “Let’s get moving already.”
We run. Spring seems to have finally arrived, so we’ve been running. Today is our second attempt this week in the couch-to-5K plan. I’m wearing yoga pants and a MATHLETE T-shirt, and I do not feel anything like a nuclear explosion. I hate running as much as ever. It’s a horrible thing to do to yourself. Waterboarding, really, would be kinder.
There’s an upside, though. I do like the quiet of the early morning jogs around our neighborhood, the only sound our footfalls on the asphalt and our labored breathing in the spring air. I like the stillness in the air just before the sun rises. I like the colors that gather in the sky. The way everything, for just those few moments, seems fresh and unsullied.
Sadie’s watch beeps. “Okay, walk,” she says.
We slow to a brisk walk. This is the early part of the jog—before I feel like I am going to die—so I am able to answer Sadie when she asks me if I’ve seen the ghost.
Dad knocked on my window and leaned down to say, “Maybe . . . maybe you could come to dinner here next week. We could talk about MIT.”
“Maybe,” I said, because MIT was still feeling pretty far away, and I didn’t know—I still don’t know—if I was ready to make Megan’s house a regular thing. “I have to go.” I put the Lemon in gear. “Take care, Dad.”
“Take care, Lexie,” he said.
I could see him in the rearview mirror, standing on the sidewalk in his suit and tie, his hand lifted in a wave as I drove away.
“Alexis, are you still with me?” Dave prompts, because I’m just sitting there, not answering. “Are you all right? Would you like some water?”
I cough. “Sure.”
He opens the minifridge under his desk and gets me a Dasani. I drink.
“He said he was sorry,” I say when I’m ready to talk again. “For the divorce. For the way it hurt Ty and me.”
Dave nods.
“Aren’t you going to write that down?” I ask him. “It seems important. A breakthrough, like you said.”
He doesn’t write it down. “Do you accept his apology?” he asks.
“Sort of. Maybe. Probably not.”
“Do you feel like you’ve started to forgive him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think he should get off that easy. But it was nice to hear him say he’s sorry. I didn’t think I’d ever hear him say that.”
Dave strokes his beard, which is what he does when he’s about to say something terribly profound. “Forgiveness is tricky, Alexis, because in the end it’s more about you than it is about the person who’s being forgiven.”
“Like that old saying about how holding a grudge is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.”
“Exactly.” Dave sits back, puts his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m proud of you. To go to that house, to face him, to give him that small kindness with the picture, that took courage. It was a step in the right direction.”
“The direction to what, though?” I ask. “Where am I headed?”
“Acceptance. Which is the path to healing. Growth. Contentment.”
I mull this over. “I will never be happy again,” Mom said. She said it like it’s her duty now, her motherly obligation, to consider her life ruined because she lost Ty. I don’t view things the way Mom does, but it’s difficult to imagine being truly happy again.
I don’t know what my duty is.
“How did you feel when you were done talking to your father?” Dave asks.
“I felt . . . slightly better,” I tell Dave.
This he feels compelled to write down in his yellow legal pad. He underlines the words.
“Slightly better is good,” he says.
I agree. Slightly better is good. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.
“Lex?” Dave says. “Are you okay?”
“Sometimes I think I see Ty.” I don’t know where this comes from, this sudden confession, but suddenly it’s out there. I glance at Dave quickly. “Sometimes I feel like he’s there. In the house. And I feel like he wants something from me.”
I brace myself to be sent off to the funny farm.
Dave nods. “That’s very common, actually.”
I stare at him. “Common?”
“It’s common for people to continue to see loved ones who have passed. When he was alive, your brother took up a certain space in your life, a physical space and an emotional one. Now that he’s gone, the brain naturally tries to fill in that empty space.”
“So it doesn’t mean I’m going crazy,” I venture.
Dave lets out a bark of laughter. “No, Lex. You’re certainly not crazy.”
And it doesn’t mean that Ty is a ghost, either. For some reason this revelation brings on the ache in my chest.
It turns out there’s a logical explanation, after all.
So why don’t I want to believe it?
31.
SADIE’S RUNNING OUTFIT IS HOT PINK. It’s impossible to miss her at the end of my driveway, hopping from foot to foot, warming up. She says the pink makes her feel like an atom bomb: like a nuclear explosion is her exact phrasing, pronouncing it “nuke-cue-ler,” the way George W. Bush used to say it even though he knew it was wrong, just to piss people off.
How Sadie and I are friends, I still don’t know.
“Come on,” she hollers at me. “Let’s get moving already.”
We run. Spring seems to have finally arrived, so we’ve been running. Today is our second attempt this week in the couch-to-5K plan. I’m wearing yoga pants and a MATHLETE T-shirt, and I do not feel anything like a nuclear explosion. I hate running as much as ever. It’s a horrible thing to do to yourself. Waterboarding, really, would be kinder.
There’s an upside, though. I do like the quiet of the early morning jogs around our neighborhood, the only sound our footfalls on the asphalt and our labored breathing in the spring air. I like the stillness in the air just before the sun rises. I like the colors that gather in the sky. The way everything, for just those few moments, seems fresh and unsullied.
Sadie’s watch beeps. “Okay, walk,” she says.
We slow to a brisk walk. This is the early part of the jog—before I feel like I am going to die—so I am able to answer Sadie when she asks me if I’ve seen the ghost.
