Page 54 of All In
“Glad you’re back too, baby,” she said. “Come over tomorrow for beignets and tea and tell me all about it.”
“Deal.”
In my living room, I sat on the couch, turning the small package over in my hands. A small note was scrawled onto the front.
It’s better than you can even imagine!!!
I wasn’t so sure. To Grant and Phoebe, this was an indie album we all hoped might sell a few copies. To me, it was a love affair—mine and Jonah’s—put to words and music, start to finish.
I took the CD case to my bedroom and set it on the bed next to the universe orb.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” I said as I changed out of my jeans and black silk blouse. “You should’ve seen Dena. She was radiant. And Oscar looked scared shitless but also madly in love. And Teddy…”
I pulled on sleep shorts and my fadedWham!T-shirt. “You would have been so proud of him. He felt bad about being best man. He said he could feel how everyone was thinking about you. But he gave the most perfect speech.” I sank onto the bed beside the orb, running my fingers over the smooth glass. “But you know this, right? You were right there. You saw how he talked about you. We all did, all night. We miss you so much. You must know that.”
I sniffed as the tears dropped onto my white duvet. I pulled my laptop off the floor and slipped the CD into it.
The first song, “Riot Girl” began to play, and I curled around the universe orb and listened.
I listened to a girl sing about the wreck she’d been and the sweet, noble man who’d given her the strength to stand on her own two feet.
I listened to a girl sing about a love that altered her forever, down to her soul.
I listened to her sing about moments slipping through her fingers like sand, and a grief so deep, it nearly drowned her in an ocean of tears.
I listened to a girl sing about her love’s impossible courage. How, even at the end, her man’s failing heart had strength to show her a future, even without him.
I held the universe orb, clutched it to my heart, and listened to a girl fall apart in a song called “The Lighthouse.”
When I sang the song at the clubs, it was always the emotional anchor that dragged me down and brought out the tears. I cried that night—great heaving sobs that made my stomach ache. But as I listened to this version of “The Lighthouse”—clean and pure with no background noise—I heard something new. A violin behind the sad strum of a lone guitar and the girl’s breaking voice. Its strings rose an octave higher than the guitar, rising in perfect harmony. It lifted up the refrain, when, in the live performances, the refrain fell down.
This time, I heard hope.
As the last notes hung in the air and then dissipated, I felt a shift in my heart. A soothing hand closed around the deep ache. I picked up the universe orb. Cradling it in my arms, I carried it across the room and set it on its stand on the dresser.
“Jonah,” I whispered. “I’m going to try this. I have to try to let you go now. Because, I think…it’s what you want. Isn’t it? It’s what you’ve been trying to tell me. I don’t know if I can let go entirely. But tonight, I’m going to try.”
I kissed the tips of my fingers, placed them over the orb and its lonely planet and swirling constellations.
“Live in the stars, baby. Okay?” My voice cracked but didn’t break, and I smiled through my tears. “You’re free. You made me free.”
I know it was the trick of the bedroom light blurring my vision through my tears, but I swear I saw the luminescent swirls of a million stars in that glass orb flare brighter, all at once.
I closed my eyes.
I inhaled.You are a universe…
I exhaled.No regret, only love…
And on the currents of that soft breath, I whispered to Jonah, “Goodnight, love. I love you. I will always love you…”
The Lighthouse
The bottom of the bottle
Is where I don’t have to feel
At the end of every night
