Page 84 of Your Two Lips
EMILY
The Bakker Farmsbooth at the farmers’ market had stood empty since Bob’s heart attack. The barren hole surrounded by the color and energy of a bountiful harvest mirrored the empty hole in my life.
I kept my routine of massage and biking, though not with the Saturday group. Angela and Alex invited me to ride with them, which connected me to friends while my bruised heart struggled to build a protective shell. I was the fool who fell in love. I would do the work to climb out of it.
I drove to Seattle a couple of times on my days off. I loved my house, but the emptiness was sometimes hard to stomach. Usually, I stayed in with Dad and Elena, and we cooked or played cards. I really couldn’t take the sidewalk stroller parade lately.
Spending time with them was a balm. They were good together. It was obvious in the way they moved with each other, the casual touches. Life had thrown them both plenty of curves before they found each other, and now I believed they would love through anything.
After a dinner of fresh minestrone, brochette, and a salad with a scratch-made Caesar dressing, Dad and I went out to the balcony sipping a sweet limoncello for dessert. The Italian menu was one Finn’s mom would’ve appreciated, and the punch of another loss hit my gut.
Elena insisted on doing all the cleanup. It was her thinly veiled attempt to give Dad and me time alone.
“Dinner was delicious, Bunny.” My little girl nickname made me wish I could climb onto my daddy’s lap again, show him my boo-boo, and have him tell me how tough and brave I was. I didn’t feel tough or brave.
“Elena and I had fun cooking together. She’s a remarkable woman, Dad.” His smile was huge as he leaned against the balcony ledge of Elena’s downtown condo. I don’t know how he could do that. It was so high. I could only stomach it if I focused on the view of buildings and water.
“She enjoys seeing you. Thank you for giving her some of your time,” he said.
“I am not being generous. Time is something I have a lot of right now.”
“I know you aren’t seeing Finn, but what about your friends?”
“My friend Carrie … she and Dan are newly engaged and expecting a baby. A happy accident, I think.”
Dad turned his body toward me, and I attempted a smile. His warm hazel eyes held so much love.
“I’m happy for them. I just don’t want to be with them right now. She’s in her second trimester and glowing.”
I took a sip of the sweet drink. “She knows about my hysterectomy and says she understands my need for distance. It’s hard to watch someone, even someone you care for, have everything you never will.”
He looked out at the fading sunset and the clouds moving in over the Sound. “Life is long if we’re lucky. You don’t always know what you will never have. Your mom had three miscarriages between you and your brother.”
“Three? I thought it was one.”
“Three. That we knew about. A few times, she’d been late, and we hoped, then she got her period and cried. That was hard to watch.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I was mad at those babies for hurting her and mad at you, at first, for the risk you posed if we lost you too.” He looked back at me. “You are tough. A fighter. You survived against what we now know were a lot of odds. You can survive this.”
“Yeah. It’s easier to believe when you aren’t in the shit of it.” We both grinned.
“As much as I love seeing you, I wonder if you areavoidingthe shit of it more than getting through to the other side.”
He was right. I fled the city to avoid the pain of being in Seattle, and now I was fleeing to avoid Perry Harbor. I had to stop avoiding and start accepting, find the good that was still here. The best sex wasn’t enough. Not without love. I wanted bone-deep, genuine love like what I felt for Finn. Could I find it again? An image of Finn in a tuxedo floated through my mind.
Dad and Elena slogged through the tough parts and found the good on the other side. If I was truly going to build a new me, a new life, I couldn’t just live for the good times. I had to learn to live through the shit of it, too.
52
FINN
I smelledthem before I saw them. Mom’s apple muffins were my favorite sign of fall. I was having trouble focusing anyway; my brain kept replaying what Carrie said last night. Emily and I hadn’t talked about kids. Why didn’t she talk to me? Did I have the balls to talk to her first? I hoped so.
“Hello, sweetie, hard at work?”
“Son.” Dad nodded as he followed Mom in his standard uniform of a flannel shirt, Carhartt pants, and well-worn, scuffed work boots.
“Dad.” I nodded back. “Are those what I think they are?” I gestured to the covered plate in Mom’s hand.
“I brought enough to share.” She handed them to me. They were still warm.
