My last breakdown was mid-October. Serena brought me to the farmers market to get apples because she wanted to make an apple pie. I didn’t want to go but she insisted. When we got to the market the outside was decorated with pumpkins and bales of hay. Off to the side of the entrance was a huge display of ghosts and goblins. I didn’t open the car door. I couldn’t. I told Serena to go in without me. She was used to my mood swings and didn’t argue with me anymore, so she went on in without me.
As I stared at the festive display with tears streaming down my face, I remembered our first Halloween Party together as freshman in college. His fraternity house was having a party and at the last minute he told me we had to dress up. I was so pissed because he knew I didn’t dress up for Halloween, and even if I did, we didn’t have costumes to wear. I remember the argument so clearly.
We were standing in his bedroom, and I’d just finished drying my hair when he decided to tell me about the Halloween Party.
I was so mad at him, I was seeing red in the mirror instead of my ashy light blonde hair. My mouth started spewing before I could stop myself. “Why do you always have to do things last minute? Can’t you get your shit together just once and think ahead?”
Not answering, not arguing back, not even looking at me, he strode over to the bed and grabbed the two sheets off it. He still hadn’t said a word even as my spewing continued.
As I watched him, my fury only grew. “What the fuck are you doing now?”
Taking the sheets into his bathroom, he came out holding a pair of nail scissors.
He walked over to me with the sheets in his hands; he started cutting holes in it. When he was done he grinned at me. “Here, you be a ghost,” he announced, while tossing the cut up sheet over my head, “And I’ll be a goblin,” he said while cutting the other sheet into strips and wrapping his body with it.
“I’m not wearing that. I’m not wearing any costume. I hate Halloween,” I hissed at him as I pulled it off my head. But he knew why I hated Halloween and I knew he knew why. Of course he knew why; it was the day my parents’ plane crashed some many years ago. “Fine then, be your own fucking gorgeous self,” he remarked, grinning at me as he pulled me to him and kissed me hard. “Now let’s go to the fucking party and have some fun.” And just like that, we went to the party.
He didn’t take my shit; he just took care of the situation, of me, always. So as I sat in Serena’s car missing him and remembering that day, I thought God he definitely had his flaws, but he always had a way of calming me down. That was how it was with us. If I was mad at him, he was always the calmer one, taking control, and making things work out.
I wish I could have done the same for him, but it never worked out that way. When he was mad at me, his anger would linger no matter what I tried to do or say. It could last one hour or one day. I had learned to just stay away and let him come to me when he was ready. He didn’t express his love in words very often, but his gestures more than made up for it because at the end of the day he always made sure I knew how much he loved me. That’s just one of the many things I miss every day.
12 months after…
March 4, 2011
Grace insisted I stay with her last week and she took me to see my therapist every day. She received an update on his killer. The police told her the shooter would be standing trial within the next twelve months. When she told me, she made me go to her house; she knew how upset I was.
I didn’t mind staying with her really because the loneliness and heartbreak were eating away at me, but I finally came home today. Home. That’s a funny way of putting it. More like I came back to the house that he and I shared as our home before he died.