Page 109 of All In
“Hey, Ma,” Theo said.
“Theo, dear.” She opened the door wider, and we stepped inside. “Would you care for something to drink?” she asked, moving through the living room toward the kitchen. “Tea, Kacey? I have chamomile.”
“No, thank you.”
We took a seat on the couch, Beverly sat in her overstuffed recliner, her hands in her lap.
“Where’s Dad?” Theo asked.
Beverly sighed. “He’s at the office.”
Theo’s jaw stiffened. “I told him to meet us here. That we wanted to talk to both of you.”
“I know, dear. He heard from someone at the planning commission downtown what you had done. About buying the two shops?”
Theo stood up. “He heard from… He can’t even hear it from me?”
“Teddy, sit down,” I said softly, even though my heart broke for him. I knew that pain that twisted his features. The futility of it.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Beverly said. “He’s so stuck in his ways. He thinks you’re a tremendous artist, I know he does but—”
“But he hates tattoos and so that’s it. My entire life, my career, my fuckingdreamis just something he can walk away from.”
Theo sat and covered his eyes with one hand, sucked in a steadying breath. “Sorry, Ma. I shouldn’t take it out on you.” He looked to me. “You tell her. I have to get outside. Take a walk.”
I rose to my feet and held him, kissed him. “Come back soon. Love you.”
“Love you too.” He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him. The house rattled from the force. Then Beverly and I sat in the silence that followed.
“You’re in love,” she said finally. “Is that what you came to tell me?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I see.” She wore a sad, perplexed smiled. “I see, but I don’t understand.”
“I hate that you feel this way.”
“What way is that? I wish you’d tell me because I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what’s real.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m confused. Instead of feeling happy for you, or him, I just wonder,How can this be?”Her eyes filled and her lips pressed together for a moment, trying to remain in control. “My best, happiest memories, the ones that keep me from drowning, are the ones when you made Jonah happy. How you loved him. How he was your everything. Was that true? Or am I a silly old lady clinging to nothing?”
“God, Beverly, I loved Jonah with all I had. It was real. Every moment was real.”
“But now you feel the same for Theo?” She shook her head. “I don’t see how that’s possible. I feel dirty for asking this, but I need to know, Kacey. If Jonah were to walk through that door right now, what would you do?”
“I can’t answer that, Beverly,” I said softly. “Because Jonah can’t walk through that door.”
Beverly wilted in her chair, staring at me with wide, frightened eyes. “I know. Iknowthat but…”
“But you don’t feel it yet,” I said softly. “I know. I was the same. For months after Jonah died, I cried for him to come back. I pleaded, and screamed, and prayed, and hoped, and nearly drank myself to death,beggingfor him to come back. I wanted so badly to believe, on some level, it was possible because the alternative was too horrible to contemplate. I jumped at knocks on my door, I flinched when my phone rang. I searched faces in the crowd when I walked, and tricked myself into thinking, sometimes, Jonah was standing right beside me. All I had to do was turn my head and look.”
Beverly nodded “I do that too. Every day. But he’s never there.”
“No,” I said. “He’s not. The doors never opened; the phone never rang with him on the other end. Eventually, I stopped expecting it. It wasn’t a switch that flipped. It was a slow, agonizing journey to the moment I realized he was never coming back. Accepted it. And once I accepted he was gone, I was free. Not free of the love we had. I’ll carry that with me forever. I’ll love him forever. But free to start again. A new chapter.”
“With Theo,” she said. “How…?”
