Page 132 of The Fix-Up

From the text conversation of Ellie Sterns and her mother:

MOM: Good morning.

ELLIE: Morning.

MOM: Honey, your brother mentioned Gilbert moved back to Austin.

ELLIE: I’ll have to thank him for that.

MOM: Be nice to Chris. He’s delicate.

ELLIE: And I’m not?

MOM: You, Eleanor Sterns, are made of strong stuff.

ELLIE: Really?

MOM: Of course. Don’t you ever forget it.

ELLIE: Thanks. That means a lot.

MOM: Now tell me what happened.

I waffled back and forth about reaching out to Gil. The first couple of days after he left, I had almost convinced myself he’d return. Of course he wouldn’t just leave. Would he? But there were no phone calls or texts from him, no surprise knocks at the front door. With each day that passed that first week, my heart grew heavier and heavier until I felt like I was dragging it around on a chain everywhere I went.

People asked where he was even though they knew the answer. Nothing happened here without someone finding out, after all.

The first week after he left, the café was busier than ever—mostly full of Nosy Nellies and I was a recipient of many long looks of pity.

“How are you holding up?” they’d ask.

“Doing fine,” I’d say with a reassuring smile, and got about my business.

What I’d wanted to say, as my heart clanged around on that chain, was, “Careful there, don’t step on it. I only have the one and it’s fragile.”

The next couple of weeks, I kept as busy as I could. There were muffins, of course, as well as an assortment of baked goods. So many baked goods, I dropped off some to the fire station, the sheriff’s office, and the one nursing home in town.

I not only finished the slipper for Mom, but I crocheted an entire sweater. Well, almost. I needed to finish one of the sleeves.

I spent a lot of time at Chris and Mae’s house in a shameless campaign to hold my niece as much as humanly possible. I took Oliver shopping for school supplies and in mid-August hestarted the second grade. He made me promise not to cry when I dropped him off on the first day. One I kept until I got back in the car, so I think that’s a win.

By week three, my sadness had begun to take a decidedly angry edge after I began to find sticky notes Gil had left behind that said things like,Check the washing machine. You have clothes in there. And dammit all, I did. I found another one in the office at work:Don’t forget to add in the receipts every day. So, I found myself sitting at the computer doing just that.

It wasn’t fair he knew me so well. What right did he have? I decided I was done dragging my heart around. It was too messy, and I just needed to forget about him and move on.

The next day, Iris came into work with red-rimmed eyes and a promise ring missing from her finger.

“Love sucks,” she said.

“Yeah, it does,” I said. “You wanna talk about it?”

So, we did. Over muffins and pie, we talked.

“Men suck,” Iris said.

“Yeah, they do.”

I didn’t say it was a deep conversation, but we understood each other on an elemental level, the element being rage.

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