Page 63 of Torn
“I knew I couldn’t ask her to do anything more, but I also knew I’d get teased and bullied if I showed up at school in that jacket. I cried myself to sleep and tried to keep it quiet. Grandma slept in the twin bed across from me, and I know she heard. And I know she understood why I was bawling. But she didn’t say anything.
“No, what she did was take me to Marshall Field’s the following weekend. And, even though she couldn’t afford it, she bought me the most beautiful wool navy-blue blazer she could find. The tailor altered it so it fit perfectly. I was the best-dressed kid in that damn school program.”
“That’s so sweet. She was kind, your grandma.”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. Like that jacket? She didn’t have the money for it. I found out much later, she’d sold the ruby birthstone ring she always wore to our neighbor down the hall to pay for my blazer. She did stuff like that. Took care of us when things were tight, which was a lot.”
Tom turned to me. “What am I gonna do without her? I thought I had time to repay her for all her kindnesses to me.”
I hugged him. “You’re gonna keep her alive.” I tapped his chest, right above his heart. “Right here. She’ll always be close, always be watching over you like she always has.”
We fell asleep that night in each other’s arms, Tom in tears and me letting him cry. “Sh” was all I could think to say as I stroked his shoulder, his hair.
I realized that night that sometimes, “Sh” was all you needed to say.
THE FUNERAL,as I said, is now kind of a blur in my memory. I remember how pathetic it was. Linda and Tom, me, a couple of neighbors were all that had shown up.
My heart broke for Tom.
Which is why, at the end of the week of the funeral, we moved in together.
Rash, you’re thinking, right? You’ve only known each other a few weeks. You’re yelling, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.”
Sometimes you know, though. Sometimes you know when it’s right.
Tom needed me.
And I needed to be needed.
So it was a natural fit.
It felt right.
Epilogue—PRESENT DAY
SO NOW,Mr. or Ms. Smarty-pants, you’re thinking you know how I chose when I was, as the song title says, “Torn Between Two Lovers.” Think again, oh smart one.
Tom, right? He wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he was good people. And he was sexy—a rugged blue-collar man. You might picture us snuggling in front of the TV for anI Love Lucymarathon while the Chicago snow tumbles down outside our apartment window. You might picture us having Sunday dinner at his mom’s—pot roasts and mashed potatoes made with cream cheese and butter. You might picture the flame of our lust constantly reigniting and never going out, sort of like the eternal flame at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery (or the song by the Bangles).
You can picture a lot of things, can’t you?
Or are you thinking Walt? Maybe that I went back and reconsidered, that we had a lot in common, besides an undeniable attraction, and that I came to my senses? That perhaps I took him up on that veiled offer to be a house sitter for that gorgeous place in the wilds of New Hampshire? Maybe we spent a blissful winter there… writing, making love, and eating vegan curry.
Um, no.
Walt and I may have been compatible in many ways, but the fact was, as I quickly discovered, there was no spark between us. No matter how logical a union between us might have seemed, I’ve learned that a spark needs to be there to kindle love’s fire. Sometimes sparks can be wild and unpredictable. And sometimes they can be entirely inappropriate and devoid of logic.
But I believe more in the heart than the head. And a spark, to me, is essential.
Besides, remember when I told you about my contracting hepatitis on my trip to England?
Um, yeah, about that. Walt came down with hepatitis shortly after I flew out of Boston. He made the connection and called me. I didn’t deny it. I also won’t deny it wasn’t a very pleasant conversation. And I won’t deny the pesky virus put the final nail in the coffin of our romance.
I never heard from Walt again, save to see his name occasionally in a newspaper or a magazine, writing about some exotic locale or, once, his description of how freeing it was to live in his southern California yurt.
Everything is freeing when you have a trust fund to fall back on.
I’m being bitchy and getting off track.
