If Forever Comes (10 page)

“Hey,” she said quietly as she chanced a step
into my room.

“Hey,” I returned, my voice scratchy against
my dry throat. I tried to pretend as if I was happy to see her. And
it wasn’t like I didn’t want to see her, that I didn’t care about
her or want her to be here. It was just the way she looked at me,
as if she could possibly understand. Sympathy I didn’t want oozed
from her pores. Her movements were slow as she came to stand at the
edge of my bed, like maybe if she touched me, I would
break.

She seemed unwilling to accept that I was
already broken.

“It’s time to get up, sweetheart,” she almost
cooed as she reached out and brushed the hair from my forehead.
“I’m here to pick you up. We’re going to go to lunch with your mom
and your sisters.”

Internally I cringed. I knew it wasn’t their
intention, but these interventions always felt more like an
ambush.

“You should have called first. I don’t think
I’m feeling up to it today.”

Though she tried to hide it, frustration
leaked from her sigh. “Come on, Elizabeth. You’re never up for it.
And you and I both know if I’d have called, you just wouldn’t have
answered. You need to get out of this house. It’s just an hour or
two.” She strode across my room and raked the drapes back from the
window.

Bright light burned into the room. I blanched
at the unwelcomed intrusion.

She headed back to the entryway. “Now go jump
in the shower. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

“Nat…” I mumbled, just wishing she would leave
me alone.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re
going to lunch, Elizabeth. You need to eat and your family needs to
see you. Two birds with one stone and all.” She kind of laughed,
though there was little humor to it. It sounded more like
disappointment.

I rolled onto my back and draped my arm over
my eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just after eleven…which means it’s time to
get up. Now scoot.”

Resigned, I sat up on the side of the bed with
my back to Natalie. I willed myself to leave the place that was my
only reprieve. The only remedy for the bleakness of this life was
found in the obscured blackness of sleep. Not in the pills they
promised would make me feel better but instead just intensified the
aching numbness. Not in the counseling sessions that did nothing
but stir up the pain, those anguished hours that only amplified the
loss.

All I wanted was to sleep.

I didn’t dream. I didn’t see. I didn’t
hurt.

I didn’t exist.

Get up,
I screamed at myself from
within my mind
.

Sucking in a breath, my feet hit the floor and
I pushed myself to stand. Pain rocketed through my body. Something
physical. Something real.

Clenching my hands into fists at my sides, I
swallowed down the tears that worked their way to my eyes, hoping
Natalie wasn’t there reading my posture from behind.

“Go on,” she prodded at my back.

I forced myself to nod and plodded into my
bathroom. I turned the shower as hot as it would go and let it warm
up as I shed the clothes I’d worn for days. Grimacing, I stepped
into the steaming shower.

Blistering heat scorched me as the water
pelted my skin. I made myself stay under it, wishing it could
somehow burn this sorrow away, begged for it to cleanse my spirit
the same way it did my body.

But it was no use. Unrelenting anguish built
up in my chest and burst from my mouth and eyes. Beneath the
shower, I placed my hands on the wall and dropped my head, bending
at the middle as I gasped for breath. For countless minutes, I gave
into it and let myself cry, let my grief go unseen in the water
that pounded on my head and back. It streaked in rivulets down my
body then dripped onto the tiles of the shower floor before it
disappeared down the drain.

Gone
.

I clutched my stomach as I wept.

Gone
.

And I knew this hurt would never
fade.

Swallowing around the emotion lumped in my
throat, I forced it all back inside, searching for the numbness.
The last thing I needed was for Natalie to think she needed to come
up here to check on me. Quickly I washed, then turned off the
shower.

I dried and dressed. Mindlessly I ran a brush
through the long length of my hair.

I didn’t dare look in the mirror.

Inhaling, I searched inside myself for some
semblance of normalcy, and I trained my expression as I left my
room and started down the stairs. I gripped at the railing as I
took them one by one.

Natalie looked up from where she stood in
front of the couch, facing the stairs as she folded
laundry.

“You don’t need to do that,” I fumbled through
the embarrassment that surged through me.

“Pssh.” She smiled a smile that was much too
fake. “I don’t mind laundry at all.” She inclined her head to the
towering pile. “Besides, it looks like you could use some
help.”

I knew she meant it to be nice, but it punched
me in the chest. I’d become helpless. Worthless. I couldn’t even
fold my daughter’s laundry. It was pathetic.

What was hardest for me was the fact that
Christian was still financially taking care of me. Every two weeks,
he deposited money into the account we shared, one we’d opened
together as we’d started out on what was supposed to be our life
together. A life I now had to accept was never meant to be. He
never touched any of it, either, and I knew he left that money for
me.

It was humiliating. Demeaning.

Yet I took it because I didn’t know what else
to do. The thought of having to get up every day and go to work
churned my gut into a frenzy of anxiety. So I took from the man I
had broken, or maybe he had broken me.

My chest squeezed.

The truth was, it was life that had broken us
both, ripping from us what we didn’t know how to live
without.

Natalie folded one of Lizzie’s shirts and
stacked it on top of the growing pile. “So how are you feeling
today?” she said in the most casual way, but with the heaviest of
undertones.

God.

Every time I saw my family, it was the
same—them looking at me, waiting for me to snap out of it, all of
them constantly telling me one day it would be okay. Resentment had
steadily built, because none of them understood. I’d gotten to the
point where I didn’t even want to see them, didn’t want to be in
their presence, because all they did was encourage and judge and
prod and promise me things that could never be. None of them knew
what they were talking about.

They didn’t.

They couldn’t.

I stood at the bottom of the last step,
clinging to the railing as if it were a lifeline. “I’m actually
feeling pretty well today. You know what, why don’t you go on
without me? While I have the energy, I think I’d better clean up
some stuff around here. The house could really use a good
cleaning.”

Frowning, she lifted a brow as she called my
bluff. “You can clean later. And we have reservations. Come on,
let’s go.” She tossed the last shirt on the folded pile and grabbed
her purse from the floor.

She headed out the door, leaving it wide open
behind her.

Sighing, I followed, knowing there was no
chance I was going to get out of this. I stepped outside into the
day. Natalie already sat waiting for me in her little, white
four-door sedan.

In surrender, I settled into the front
passenger seat.

The ten-minute drive to the restaurant was
taken in near silence. Natalie continually stole glances at me,
kneading the steering wheel as if she were building up the nerve to
say something. I kept my attention trained on my fingers that I
twisted on my lap, just wishing for the next hour to be over
with.

Natalie pulled into the restaurant parking
lot, found a spot, and cut the engine. I stepped from the car. My
attention darted around to see the parked cars of the women of my
family who’d gathered. The ones who were always there to support
and love.

A wave of guilt crashed over me.

God, what was wrong with me?

These women only cared about me.

I dropped my head, squeezing my eyes shut as I
put a hand out to steady myself on the car, knowing I’d do anything
to make it back, to dig myself out of this hole that I had fallen
into.

I just didn’t know the way.

“Are you ready, sweetie?” Natalie asked as she
climbed from her car. Brown eyes full of worry met mine over the
roof of the car.

“Yeah,” I lied.

She smiled and inclined her head toward the
restaurant door. “Come on, I’m starving. Let’s get something to
eat.”

I followed her inside. Small, square tables
filled the entirety of the authentic Mexican restaurant. A din of
voices rose up in the intimate space as waitresses rushed around
during the busy lunch hour, casting quick smiles as they wove
through the tables to serve their guests.

Toward the back of the restaurant, where two
tables had been pushed together to accommodate all of us, Sarah
waved wildly above her head.

“There they are!” Natalie lifted her own hand
and waved. She grabbed one of mine and wove us through the crush of
tables. “Hey, guys,” she said as we approached.

Both of my sisters tossed their napkins to the
table as they stood, greetings on their smiling faces.

“You made it,” Sarah, my older sister, said as
she rounded the table and pulled me into her arms. Her hold was
warm in its unending support.

I stiffened.

I knew she noticed my reaction, and still, she
only hugged me tighter.

“It’s so good to see you, Elizabeth,” she
murmured quietly, pulling back to look me in the face.

“It’s good to see you, too,” I said. I knew
somewhere inside me it was the truth.

Squeezing me by the upper arms, she stepped
back.

Carrie, my younger sister, was hugging Natalie
before she pranced over to me. A cheery smile split her face.
“Elizabeth! God, where have you been? I miss you.” She hugged me a
little too hard.

I struggled to breathe.

It was always a chore, forcing the air in and
out of my lungs, taking in this requirement for life. It was a
hundredfold in the presence of her overzealous welcome.

And it wasn’t her fault, I knew. That was just
it. Of everyone here, Carrie was the one who understood the least.
She’d spoken words that had cut through me with the force of a
knife.

It just wasn’t meant to
be.

I knew she truly only meant it as
encouragement.

Still, it’d made me want to rip her face off,
to scream at her and tell her to shut her mouth.

Instead I’d ended up on my knees, puking,
trying to purge her comment from my consciousness.

“Miss you, too,” I forced myself to say, like
with my older sister, knowing somewhere inside me I felt it, even
if it was obscured.

She bounced back and plopped back down into
her seat.

Slowly Mom rose from her chair. Her approach
was calculated as she watched me. I’d been avoiding her. I didn’t
know why. I just couldn’t handle the way she looked at me. I
understood how hard it was for her to see me this way, that I too
only wanted joy for my own child. It would kill me if Lizzie had to
go through something like this in her life. It made me want to wrap
her up and shut her away, keep her protected from any tragedy that
could befall her.

Maybe I was broken. But there were enough
pieces left of me that I still adored my daughter.

That’s the one thing in this messed up life I
was giving thanks for. Lizzie my light, Lizzie my life.

She was the hope that coaxed me out of bed in
the morning, what gave me the ability to put one foot in front of
the other, the last bit of drive that sustained my weary
soul.

Through all of this, I was able to recognize
that my mom felt the same for me.

Strong arms wrapped me up, my arms pinned
between us, Mom’s rough voice low. “Thank you for coming.” She
tilted her head to the side as she studied me, every movement
meaningful, full of support.

I nodded and lied. “I wouldn’t have missed
it.”

She pursed her lips and dipped her head once,
accepting the deception for what it was.

I took my seat and opened the menu in front of
me.

Conversation struck up at the table, the four
of them chatting about their days. The inconsequentials of their
lives rose to the surface of their chatter, but it was obviously
there to cover up the undercurrent of strain stretching us all
tight. Uneasy eyes darted and searched, peeking at me from over
their menus and casting furtive glances they probably didn’t think
I noticed.

I shifted in discomfort.

Why had I let Natalie talk me into
this?