Page 36 of The Bright Side of Brooding
I’d promised myself I’d tell Ariel about everything with him on Tuesday when we had dinner, but that afternoon, she’d regretfully canceled. Livie still wasn’t feeling better, and actually considered going to the hospital. Ariel wanted to stay with her mom, who’d just arrived from the US, and the kids to help out. I honestly didn’t understand how they could all stand living together in one house, but I did love how important family was to her.
I couldn’t relate. I’d walked away from my family—at least that was how they said it. Leaving the state by going into the Army after college had sealed the fate of my relationship with my siblings and parents—they wouldn’t speak to me for years, and so I didn’t speak to them. I still called at Christmas and on birthdays. Every once in a while, one of them would answer the ancient house phone line and give me a clipped response, but most times no one picked up.
But something changed after Jenny got married, and I’d been invited home for a Fourth of July barbecue. That was the second of two visits in my twenties before I moved to Germany. Strangely, I’d hoped maybe the occasion of a holiday, and belatedly celebrating Jenny’s marriage, might make it all better. It was filled with reminders of why I’d been encouraged by my therapists over the years to put in sturdy boundaries. I had, but I’d always felt like maybethistime, they’d be proud of me. They’d see how I worked so hard and advanced myself, paid back anyone I owed, and did well. After the second visit turned out so much like the first—and a stockpot worth of heartache—I gave that up and never really looked back. I started reveling in things that went starkly against their grain—like my big dinner parties and nice cars.
The idea of wanting to stay connected to basically anyone other than Jenny was pretty much unfathomable. She and I texted every few weeks to check in, but otherwise, we all just lived our own lives.
I didn’t hate that. I just… didn’t like it either. And seeing Ariel being so close to her family made me see how lovely an adult relationship might be with parents or siblings. At the same time, I had no desire to go back home. Fortunately, I didn’t have to, and I was about to make life here even better with this new job.
But Ariel canceling wasn’t the worst happening of the week, though I did really regret that I couldn’t spend time with her. The thing that made me spitting mad was happening upon Dennin after he’d torn down my flyers for the food and boot drive.
The best space for advertising where people would pay attention was at the community post office, and I walked through the doors to check the donation box just as he was exiting, hand full of both the flyers I’d posted. They were bright, fluorescent green, and sure enough, missing from each board when I went to check.
He slammed into my shoulder on the way out, hard enough that the soldier behind me steadied me. “You okay, ma’am?”
“I’m fine,” I said, rubbing where he’d run into me.
Apparently, my lack of romantic interest in him made me the enemy or some nonsense? I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d come to my house, and I’d only seen him at a distance. We didn’t typically work together, and I thanked God for that.
He hadn’t acknowledged me in any way other than the shoulder-check. I didn’t know whether to be relieved he hadn’t said something or even angrier because of it. In the end, I could post more flyers. No problem. But did this mean he was going around pulling them all down? How did he even know it was my project, and who wants to stop people from donating to a canned food drive?
If I hadn’t already felt beaten down by the week and justdone, I would’ve reacted more. As it was, once I got my mail and made it back to the safety of my car, I didn’t rage or cry or feel scared like I might’ve. The countdown clock ticked away toward morning when I’d see Nick, and the closer I got, the more anxious and focused on that event my mind became. Dennin’s childish destruction and running into me couldn’t hold my attention.
By the time morning came, I’d slept very little. I’d reread all of Nick’s letters because I liked to torture myself, especially since that last one seemed so very different. The one just before it had felt like a beginning, a door opening. This latest one read like an ending.
Letter aside, I was ready to help Nick and his team. I could do my job, and hopefully see a bit of London since I’d only ever been for a short trip early in my time in Europe. And I wouldn’t obsess over the quiet man who now held me away from him when all I wanted was to get close.
