“That’s good. Very good.” He nods enthusiastically. “Why do you think that is?”
Andrea and I have something in common. That’s how Rebecca put it that day in her office, in her delicate sidestepping of her own obvious ordeal.
“Andie feels like Rebecca understands,” I explain, collapsing onto the sofa again wearily. “Knows something the rest of us don’t.”
“How’s that?”
“Rebecca has some scars. She’s been through stuff. Heavy stuff, and Andie feels like she relates, I guess.”
“And you feel that way too,” he observes, eyes narrowing astutely.
“Yeah, I kinda do, actually. Only Rebecca’s stronger than me. I can see that.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he says. “People handle their grief in all kinds of ways, Michael. Some are just better at coping on the outside.”
I think of her hand, the jagged rough scar in the middle of it. And I think of how ashamed she is of not being perfect. “She’s lost a lot,” I say, “but she keeps moving forward.”
“As do you, Michael.” Maybe. Or maybe not until I met her.
“I have another date with her,” I confess softly.
“How does that feel?”
I’m not completely sure how to describe what being with Rebecca does for me, how it’s awakening me for the first time in a year. “You ever see any of Spike Lee’s movies?” I ask after a moment, and he nods. “Well, there’s this weird visual effect he uses. Almost kind of a Hitchcock thing, where the people seem to move forward, but the background recedes, and it’s like they’re not even walking. Ever notice that?”
“I think I know what you mean, yes.”
“That’s how I’ve felt for the past year,” I explain, raking my fingers through my hair. “Like I’m moving among all these people, everywhere. My family. Work. My gay friends. Straight friends. Strangers.” Pausing, I gaze up at my doctor for emphasis. “Like I kind of see everyone from the end of this really dark tunnel.”
“I’ve heard grief described precisely that way before.”
“But that’s just it. The other night, at the game? The tunnel was gone. The weird Spike Lee effect, all gone.”
“That’s great, Michael. Very healthy.”
“Are you sure?” The tunnel was my comfort zone, and like a suicidal man constantly staring down the barrel of his rifle for a year, I’m wary of its sudden absence.
“You know that it is.”
“I’m jazzed about the date tomorrow night.” I smile. “But I feel guilty, too.”
“You’re the one who’s still here, Michael. You can’t feel guilty about that.”
“I haven’t stopped missing Alex.” That much needs to be clear: Rebecca and Alex exist on two different planets for me. Venus and Mars, I guess. Falling for her hasn’t altered an ounce of how much I long for him.
“Michael, you will probably never stop missing him,” he answers firmly. “If that’s your goal, it’s an unrealistic one.” This is news to me. I thought Weinberger wanted me to move on, to let the pain go. He continues, “Your loss is a part of you. It’s organic, in a way. Your goal is to learn to live with that.”
“But it can’t possibly keep hurting so damn much.”
“I didn’t say it would always hurt. Just that it would always be a part of you.” Like Rebecca’s scars, or my tattoo, I realize. Same as loving Alex will always be.
“Loss is a natural part of living,” my doctor continues gently. “We have to make our peace with that fact.”
I nod, and we fall silent for a while; I lie back on the sofa again, watching the bend and sway of the leggy palm trees outside his office window. Dry leaves, dead leaves, still hanging in there though. A lot of crap’s muddling around inside of me, a lot I probably should tell my doctor. Like the fact that lately I have this weird sense that Alex is spying on me. That I’ve developed a mini-obsession with wearing his old clothes, and sometimes I even swear I can still smell his scent on them, too.
Maybe I should tell the good doctor that I have a midnight tendency to wander into Al’s surfboard room, a small dimly lit spot at the back of our house—little more than a closet really—and just run my fingers along the fiberglass, feeling the rails and fins and concave curves of all those smooth shapes he used to love so damned much. It helps me to go in there, when I can’t sleep, like I’m in some kind of Richardson temple or something. Like a little piece of him is stowed away, too, along with the twelve boards he left behind.
Sometimes I fantasize about paddling out with him, feeling the swell of icy ocean beneath my body, the foam and spray in my face. I hear him whooping beside me with pure, unadulterated joy just to be back in the water again; we’re together, exactly like we’re meant to be.
I wonder, too, if I shouldn’t tell Weinberger that I’m thinking of taking Allie’s ring off before my date with Rebecca tomorrow night. Maybe that’s something he should know—or not, because maybe that should remain between Alex and me for now. Like all the other secrets we’ve kept between us, to the very grave.