To Say Goodbye (8 page)

“Thanks for coming.”

“Why don’t you eat something?”

“Not hungry.”

“Me neither. But these subs are seriously awesome. You’re not going to waste it, are you? That’s obviously a sin.”

She shrugged. “Maybe just a few bites.”

“Deal.”

He handed her the wrapped sandwich, and she methodically, carefully unwrapped it. She took a bite, chewing slowly.

“God, that’s good,” she admitted, taking another bite.

“Damn right. Best in the state.”

They chewed in silence, two lonely people sitting beside each other, alone in their worlds, in their problems. It felt weird being here, being in the home Tim once shared with her, a home symbolic of a life Jackson no longer recognized.

It felt right too. It felt, in a strange way, as if he could help Tim by helping her. He could do right by him by seeing to it Sophia didn’t fall completely apart.

“Tough day?” he asked, knowing the answer.

“One of the worst so far. I didn’t think it would hit me like this.”

“The firsts are always the worst. It gets easier.”

“Does it? Because right now, I don’t believe it.”

He set his sandwich down. “It never gets
easy
. It just gets easier. The suffocating stillness, the pain in your chest, it gets bearable. You’ll see.”

She nodded, accepting his words. “Jackson?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me a story about him. Tell me something about when you two were young.”

He paused, wiping his face with a napkin. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. I think that’s what’s killing me the most. It’s like people are afraid to mention him, you know? His parents, my parents, everyone. Everyone’s afraid to bring him up. It’s like they think I’ve forgotten. I want to hear about him. I want to talk about him. I miss him. It’s bad enough he’s dead. And now everyone is tiptoeing around even the mention of him like he didn’t even exist.”

He felt the tension ease. He was relieved to be given permission to talk about Tim because that was exactly what he needed, too.

“How about I tell you about the day he almost drowned?”

“Well that seems a bit melancholy, huh?” She grinned.

“You said you didn’t want people censoring themselves.”

“Go on.”

“We were eight. I’d known Tim for about a year at this point. He was always the sensible one. I, as you probably have figured out, was a bit of the rash one. Always getting us into trouble, always coming up with crazy schemes. Well, it was his birthday, and I hadn’t had a chance to get him a gift. His party was in the afternoon, but I decided since I didn’t get him anything, I’d just take him fishing.”

“Tim? Fishing?” Sophia smiled.

“Yeah, I know. Even at eight, it was pretty apparent he wasn’t quite the fishing, hunting, hands-on kind of guy. He was happier sitting in our treehouse reading a book. I, on the other hand, liked getting dirty, liked being in the wild.”

“A man’s man.” She put her sandwich down to wipe the dressing off her hands, her gaze still locked on him.

“You could say that. Anyway, I didn’t want to tell him my idea. I just wanted to surprise him. So I told him to meet me at our treehouse at eight in the morning. I’d already hidden my dad’s fishing pole out by the river and all of the supplies.”

“Your parents let you go by yourself at that age?”

“I didn’t say we had permission, did I?” He smiled at her, fully engulfed in the memory now. Her face had softened. “Anyway, he met me at the treehouse, apprehensive of course. The week before, I’d stolen fireworks from a neighbor’s house and almost caught Tim on fire. But he trusted me, God knows why. I blindfolded him, deciding to lead him to the river as a surprise.”

Sophia eyed him furtively, seeming to know where the story was going.

“Let’s just say I wasn’t the best guide. We walked down the pathway behind his house and arrived at the river. But I got distracted. Tim lost his footing. Before I knew what happened, he was screaming wildly in the river water, flailing about, still blindfolded.”

Sophia covered her mouth. “He couldn’t swim.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t know that. So all I saw was Tim sinking down. It took a minute until I realized what was happening. I ended up having to jump in and save him.”

“What a great surprise.”

“Yeah, obviously. To top it all off, he ended up getting bit by a snake on the way out of the woods. And I forgot my dad’s fishing pole. We spent Tim’s birthday party first at the emergency room and then grounded. He was pretty pissed at me for about a week.”

“You were trouble.”

“Yeah, I was. Still am, I suppose.”

“Nah, I don’t think you’re half bad.” She nudged him playfully with her elbow. “After all, you managed to make me smile today. And eat. My mom would be grateful.”

“It’s just hard, you know, to think about it all. To think how it all ended. It’s not fair. He was a good man. He was always good. He didn’t deserve to die.”

“No one ever does,” Sophia added rationally. “But you’re right. He didn’t deserve it. He had so much ahead of him. So many people to help. I always think if someone had to go, why him? He was the important one. He was the one doing big things. I cut hair. My life wouldn’t be missed.”

“Hey. Stop it. That’s ridiculous. Of course you matter.” He found himself getting angry by her words. They scared him, probably because he recognized them.

She shrugged. “It’s the truth. Where’s my life really going?”

He covered her hand with his. “It’s going somewhere. That’s all that matters. Sophia, I know this is awful, and I know you don’t want to hear this. But this isn’t it for you. There are big things in store for you. I just know it. I know we don’t know each other very well, but I can see it in your eyes. You’re going to have a full life. I know it’s not what you had in mind, not what you planned. You’re going to be okay, though.”

There was a pause, a silence. He felt himself feeling more comfortable, more open than he had in months, years if he were being honest. He felt himself saying the things to her he needed to be saying to himself. In her, he saw a broken woman, a destroyed woman, who was going to resurrect herself from destruction. In her, he saw hope in an odd way.

He saw a will to survive, to keep moving. Despite her understandable succumbing to sadness, to pity, to depression, there was a fight in her, a determination to not give up. A determination to live the life she had planned, just in a different way.

“Thank you. I’m glad you came today.”

He took this as his cue to leave, standing and clearing the garbage away. “Call me anytime you need me.”

She walked him to the door, hanging on the oak doorframe as she said to him, “Same to you.”

She smiled at him, waving him goodbye, and he turned to head toward his truck.

He had gone to visit her to help her through a rough day.

What he hadn’t expected was that seeing Sophia would help him as well, help him see the hope he had thought was gone.

Sophia

S
he lay on her side, his Penn State hoodie in her arms. She’d told herself after the first month was up, she’d stop doing this. But she couldn’t. She pressed the hoodie against her face, breathed in, and smelled the faint smell of Tim. She was probably imagining it, but it comforted her just the same. She fell asleep with the hoodie in her arms every night since he was gone. It was crazy, she knew, but it felt like a piece of him was still here. It felt like she wasn’t in the bed alone.

Tears streaming down her face as the moonlight scattered the darkness just enough, she caught a glimpse of the empty pillow. She could tell herself the hoodie helped, tell herself she could feel Tim’s presence.

It was a lie, though.

Here, in the darkness, his absence was most noticeable. The gaping hole on his side of the bed, the lack of a good-night kiss, the absence of his I love you underscoring the loss. Here, in the bed they shared, she was left with the reality of his departure. She was left to toss and turn, to ponder the life gone by, the life she lost, and the coming years of loneliness.

How many more years would she go to sleep alone? How many more nights would she lie here, drowning in tears of pity and sorrow? How many more nights would she agonize over the constricting feeling in her chest, the knowledge he would never smile at her, would never tell her about his day, would never whisper to her again?

It was torturous.

Rolling on to her other side to turn away from the physical sign of his absence, she thought about tonight. She thought about Jackson showing up.

It was a simple gesture, maybe even an awkward one. His blatant nervousness told her he’d second-guessed himself for showing up. She’d seen on his face the fear, the worry of what to say.

But once he’d settled in, they’d relaxed into a comfortable encounter. His presence, his voice, it soothed her. She knew a part of it was she felt a link to Tim when he was close. She felt like someone who also understood Tim on a fundamental level was there, someone she could talk to about his quirks and nuances.

Thinking about it, though, there was something else. It was in the way he looked at her, the way he seemed to know what she needed to hear before she knew herself. It was in his kind gestures, his calm demeanor. It was in his steel-gray eyes.

When she looked into his eyes, she saw a familiarity, an understanding. He wasn’t afraid of her despair, of her hopelessness. He embraced it. He understood it. When she looked at him, she recognized another lost soul. And somehow, it made her feel more hopeful. It made her feel like she wasn’t alone.

She barely knew Jackson. She only knew of his connections to Tim. A piece of her, though, wanted to know more. She wanted to know just Jackson, the man behind the friendship. She wanted to know what caused the ache in his eyes. She wanted to help him sort through the demons he was facing, the demons clearly written into the lines on his rigid face. She wanted to know how he got to who he was today, what he’d faced along the way. She wanted to help him the way he was helping her.

Her stomach fell, and she turned back over to face Tim’s spot.

An unfamiliar feeling settled into her, and she set her jaw rigid.

Guilt.

She shouldn’t be lying here, thinking about another man. Sure, the feelings were platonic. She would never feel something for Jackson. He was Tim’s best friend. That would be ridiculous. Still, it somehow felt wrong that as her husband’s side of the bed lay empty only months after his death, she lay here thinking about another man on his birthday.

She wouldn’t do this, she couldn’t. She could be friends with Jackson if she guarded herself. She wouldn’t let anything grow between them that could be misconstrued. She would protect her heart from all men. She wouldn’t let them in.

She couldn’t, after all. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Tim, the man who had been the love of her life, who always would be. Her heart was gone, given away to the waiter at Mama’s Diner all those years ago. He’d never given it back, not even when he left this world, not even when she tossed the final white rose on his grave.

Her heart was six feet under, rotting away.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought back to a memory of Tim, replacing her guilty musings of Jackson with one of her favorite dates with her husband.

_______________

Sophia could feel the biting cold seeping into her skin, even through her hat, gloves, scarf, and ski coat. It was the kind of cold, snowy night where all was silent, where everything seemed preserved in a glassy cast. Her boots crunched in the snow as she followed Tim up the hill, her breaths coming in heavy pants from the exertion.

What had they been thinking?

He turned to look at her, his cheeks reddened from the cold. “Whose idea was this, anyway?” he teased.

She gave him a playful scowl.

“We’ll be there soon.”

The battle of boredom had usurped them for the past two days. The town was in a state of emergency, so everything was closed down. Tim had stayed home to work from their home office. Pink Lemonade was shut down, buried under two feet of snow.

The first day had been a glorious gift, Tim easily distracted from his work by her. They’d spent most of Wednesday tucked under their fluffy down comforter, basking in the warmth of their body heat.

The second day of the snow emergency, which brought another seven inches, had been relaxing. She had sat in her cozy socks and yoga pants binge watching
Orange is the New Black
for a second time while Tim caught up on some trial preparations. She’d made a crockpot meal for dinner, and they’d enjoyed a few glasses of wine.

By the third day, however, the prospect of another at-home day was maddening when an ice storm coated the already treacherous snow. Sophia wasn’t the sit-still kind of girl. She was antsy, always fidgeting, and doing. It drove Tim crazy—she never sat still, whether they were watching a movie or eating dinner. A third day of laziness might, in fact, drive her over the edge.

“I’m going crazy! Can we please go somewhere?” she demanded earlier in the evening, stomping into Tim’s office and plopping herself on the desk in front of him.

He smiled, shoving some papers aside as he put his hands on her knees. “Sorry, I left my team of sled dogs up North.”

“I can’t stand doing nothing.”

“There’s plenty to do. I mean, the filing cabinet needs to be cleaned out, the curtains could be ironed...”

She playfully hit him. “Then why don’t you do it, you sexist ass.”

“I’m not the bored one.”

“Yeah, because you’re too busy being boring and doing work.”

“I could take a break and spice things up with you if you want.” He stood now, leaning to kiss her neck.

“While that sounds wonderful, I still want to get out of this house.”

“Oh, we’re getting really spicy now, huh?” He grinned the boyish grin she knew all too well.

“Stop it, you maniac. I just want to go shopping, go do something.”

He kissed her cheek. “If you’re not out spending money, you’re not happy, huh?”

She was, admittedly, a bit of a shopaholic. Luckily, his salary combined with her money from the salon let her quench her consumeristic cravings frequently.