I know she told me not to, but for a long time I was waiting for her. A very real part of me wanted to hope that she could change. Hold out for some miracle. But with distance I came to realize that wasn’t reality. That the same thing that took her from me would be the thing that would keep her away—or make her leave again if she ever came home. And I couldn’t put the kids through that. Not again.
I couldn’t imagine what Emma could ever say to me to make me feel safe in that relationship after this. And this was the hardest part of all to deal with. The finality of it.
It was really over.
I let myself wallow for a few hard, miserable weeks. And then I looked around at my life and I realized that I was a guardian now and that me unraveling was no better than when Mom did it. I had kids to raise, an example to set. I didn’t have the luxury of the meltdown I currently deserved. So I got my shit together. I did what I was good at. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and I put systems in place.
I mapped out my day and took a good long look and I made changes.
I stopped making breakfast during the week. I liked doing it because Mom always did, but it was too much.
I took everyone to the store and let them pick out their favorite cereal and oatmeal. Alex’s new job in the morning was to pour Cheerios in a bowl for Chelsea, who was already up by the time he was, and turn on her movie before he left for the bus. This took him two minutes and bought me another hour of sleep.
Once I started sleeping more, my energy and mood got better. I got a treadmill for under my desk so I could get my steps in while I worked. Got some weights and set up a little home gym to use after dropping Chelsea off at preschool.
Sarah liked to cook. I started asking her if she wanted to help me make dinners. She did. We bought that Sloan Monroe Crockpot cookbook and Sarah and I would meal prep and Alex cleaned up and suddenly dinner was fun again. A team-building activity I started to look forward to.
For Halloween Alex wanted to make the front lawn into a graveyard so we went to the Halloween store and bought a bunch of animatronic zombies. I spent way too much money, but it was the first project we all did together. We carved pumpkins and got Brad a dog costume. On Halloween night Sarah and I made a lasagna and hot chocolate and took Chelsea trick-or-treating. And I realized, when the kids were back at the house, sitting on the living room floor going through their candy, that I’d had a good day. It would have been better if she was here. But it was still good.
After that, the days kept getting better, a little at a time. Thanksgiving was hard without Mom, but we went to Leigh’s and came home with lots of leftovers. A few days later we went to cut down a Christmas tree. We took pictures and the smiles were real. We spent a Saturday baking Mom’s cookies and they came out perfect.
When the clock struck midnight on the TV on New Year’s Eve, I missed Emma so much I had to leave the room. But by then I’d accepted this pain as part of my everyday life, and while it never got easier that she wasn’t here, it did start to feel normal.
In January Alex turned sixteen and got his driver’s license. I gave him the van. Now I had another driver in the house, which helped.
Little by little, we were figuring it out.
And there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel her absence like a void in my soul. I missed her like I missed the sun in the winter.
I’d realized something after being with her. A valuable lesson that I think all the best and most enduring romances have figured out.
The love stories sold us the wrong thing.
The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick. It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.
I was grateful that the life I’d been forced into taught me this lesson. I just wish I hadn’t learned it with Emma. Because nothing and nobody else would ever compare. With anyone else, it’s just folding socks on a sofa.
Chelsea was home today, she had a fever this morning.
I was just finishing up my last project of the day when I heard someone on the stairs, but the steps were too heavy to be hers. I leaned back in my chair to look down the hallway. “Chels?”
Sarah popped her head in the door.
“Hey,” I said, blinking at her. “What are you doing home?”
“I got my period. You need to come downstairs.”
“Who picked you up?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just come downstairs.” Then she left.
I let out an exasperated breath. Alex probably brought her and he probably dinged the van or something on the way here. Great.
I got up and took off my headset.
Why’d the school let them leave without calling me? I made a mental note to suss that out. I mean, I know they let high schoolers walk off campus without a parent standing there, but I should have gotten a call about the missed classes at the very least.
I jogged down the steps. Sarah was standing in the mouth of the living room and I came up behind her. “Just please tell me Alex didn’t damage any—” I froze.
Emma was on the sofa.
She had Chelsea cradled in her arms, bundled in her Frozen blanket, and she was talking softly to her. My dog had his head on her thigh, looking up at her.
It was like a still-life painting. Something a master had created out of the deepest recesses of my brain. I had to clutch a hand over my chest because it felt like it was going to split open.
Not a second had passed. It hadn’t been six months since I’d seen her, it was a heartbeat. A flicker.
This is the thing nobody tells you about The One. How they’re timeless. How the moment they pop up again you’re right back in it, right where you left off. I was darted through the heart, hit by the truck, my brain taking the screenshot.
Her hair was in a loose bun. She had on this light blue sweater and these little gold dangling dragonfly earrings. And I couldn’t even breathe looking at her.
She glanced up.
“She has a fever. Did you know?” she said.
I just stared. Mute.
