“I understand. I do. I’m a widow, too. It’s hard to lose the person you thought would always be with you.” Her chest burned for a moment as she thought of Robert. She forced her smile to be even brighter. “It’s like your life has become some sort of game where they changed all the rules in the middle. But it’s not the end. My mama used to say that when you lose something from your life it just means that you’re making room in your heart for something new.”
Merritt closed her eyes and began breathing deeply, her hands clenched into tight balls. Owen used to do that when he was a toddler and was on the verge of a meltdown. She wished Merritt would throw a big caterwauling, screaming-and-jumping-and-throwing-things kind of tantrum. It wasn’t good to hold everything inside, even if you were from Maine and thought you were supposed to.
Through very thin lips, Merritt said, “Please leave. And don’t say another word. You can’t help me. Nobody can, and not for lack of trying. Why can’t I just be left alone so I can work through things on my own?” She turned back to the closet, and Loralee thought for a moment that she’d walk inside and shut the door and maybe not come out.
She wasn’t sure whether Merritt wanted an answer, but Loralee had one anyway. “Because you seem lost. And most people can’t let it alone when they see someone bumping into walls.”
“Merritt?”
They both turned to see Owen in the doorway. “There’s a man at the front door saying he’s here to fix the air conditioner. Can I let him in?”
Merritt looked like she’d just gotten a stay of execution from the governor’s office. “Yes, thank you. I guess we didn’t hear the doorbell.”
She walked past them into the hallway. Loralee watched the back of her prim white blouse as Merritt descended the stairs, knowing it was high time for Merritt to have a hissy fit, to clench her fists and then grab something and hurl it across the room, watching each piece explode against the wall like a raindrop in dry dirt. Loralee had done it several times during her thirty-six years and knew for a fact that watching the pieces scatter was like seeing all of your hurts lessened somehow, each part finally made manageable and bearable. Yes, Merritt was due a hissy fit, and hopefully soon. At least before Loralee had one more hurt to lay at her feet.
*
Loralee leaned heavily on the buggy at the Piggly Wiggly as she studied the organic produce in front of her, weighing her decision of what to buy between how healthy it was and how likely it was that she’d get Owen to eat it. Merritt would eat anything that was put in front of her, although in rabbit-size portions. Robert had said that Merritt ate like a linebacker when she was a child to fuel her appetite for climbing trees and running races with the neighborhood boys. All while wearing sequined tops with matching headbands. Loralee had seen the photographs or else she wouldn’t have believed it.
According to Robert, the climbing and racing had ended with Merritt’s mother’s death, but not the designing part. Not even Loralee’s marriage to Robert had grounded Merritt’s creativity. Loralee wasn’t sure when that had stopped, and when this new Merritt with the tight lips and ill-fitting clothes had begun, but she was starting to think it had to have been around the time of Merritt’s marriage to Cal.
Loralee picked up a package of organic kale and tossed it into the cart without looking at it. She needed to be quick, before the last spurt of energy left her completely. She thought of her mother and how long she’d been sick before she died, and how she’d wished for a pill to just get it over with. Loralee understood that now, how dying was such a process. How the end would come sooner or later but it would come. Some mornings she felt so bad that she wished it could just be over. But it was too soon. There was Owen to think about, her precious boy, who would be an orphan. Who would need somebody to take care of him. That thought alone gave her the energy she needed each day to put one foot in front of the other, to smile, to cook breakfast, to do all the things that made it look like everything was fine in her world. Except, of course, that it wasn’t.
She leaned all her weight on the handlebar, pretending to study a package of baby carrots like they were the instrument panel in a 747 while giving her body a little rest. Just for a moment. If she didn’t think she’d be noticed, she could have easily slid to the floor, pressed her cheek against the cool laminate, and gone to sleep immediately.
“Loralee?”
She jerked her head up, automatically smiling as she recognized the voice. “Dr. Heyward. So nice to see you.” He held a six-pack of beer in one hand and a bunch of bananas in the other. Even if she hadn’t already known he was a bachelor, that alone would have tipped her off.
“It’s Gibbes, remember?”
“Gibbes,” she repeated, admiring how nicely he filled out his light green polo and how his gold eyes and white teeth looked in his tanned face. He’s bigger than life and twice as handsome. Loralee almost giggled out loud as she recalled what her mama used to say when they spotted a good-looking man.
“I’m glad I ran into you. Outside of the house, that is,” he said.