It’s odd really, looking back. I felt like I was caught up in three separate love stories that had somehow coalesced into one.
The first love story was my relationship with my uncle, with the man who’d given up everything to make sure I had a healthy childhood. He’d given up his own love story to make mine come true, his relationship with the man he’d loved.
The second love story was my relationship with Heathcliff. It was a strange romance. We shared a peculiar kind of commitment, as if we couldn’t escape each other, and yet it hadn’t been enough to keep him with me.
The third love story was Paps and Mams, an old story I didn’t really know, but that somehow felt like it mattered anyway, as if Heathcliff was a broken off piece of his grandfather, and I was a younger version of Mams.
It was three different love stories, and yet they were all the same.
The morning after our night in the building, I left Heathcliff standing in dew-covered grass, a hazy sun hanging over the trees. The air smelled like honeysuckle and dreams, as if the fog that weaved along the ground meant to keep the memory a fantasy rather than a reality.
Driving away felt wrong, like I was saying good-bye. Maybe I was. Not to what I’d shared with Heathcliff, but to adolescent expectations.
My hand gripped the steering wheel of my catering van, a tear rolling down my cheek, and I suddenly broke. My foot hit the brakes, throwing me against the seatbelt as I pulled the van into park. Unclicking my belt, I threw open the door, and jumped into the dirt road, my gaze flying to the shed.
Heathcliff was leaving, his hands in his pockets, his feet carrying him toward the trees. Dew, fog, and green foliage surrounded us. Cobwebs hung from the trees and along the ground, the kind of webs that always seemed to be there when you woke up in the morning but were gone by noon.
“I love you!” I called suddenly, my voice wavering. Heathcliff froze, his back to me, and I took a step forward. “You don’t have to say anything. You don’t even have to look at me. That’s okay. I just needed you to know.” The early morning air was heavy and wet, sitting on me like a cotton soaked blanket, and I swatted at my frizzy hair. “In my dreams, I’m standing in a kitchen cooking. Next to me is a table full of the people I love. All of them alive.” Another tear rolled down my cheek. “There’s meatloaf and cherry pie. No pecans anywhere. We’re all barefoot because with no shoes on no one would be tempted to leave. In my dreams, I’m a buzzard, and I’m saving the world from the sun, bringing back everyone I’ve ever cared about.”
Heathcliff turned, and I swallowed hard, words tumbling out of my mouth, so that he didn’t have a chance to speak. “But this,” I gestured at the woods, “isn’t a dream. You say I keep people. I do. Here.” I patted my chest. “I may lose them but they’re kept, too, and I’ll never let them go.” The tears were coming fast now, and there was no way to stop them.
“Do you know why I like cooking so much?” I asked. “Because when I was growing up, I used to stare at food magazines, at the covers. The ones that featured a table full of food surrounded by family, laughter, and love. Most girls pin up pictures of celebrities. I tore out those table pictures and kept them in a drawer near my bed. They’re still there.” I glanced up at the sky and then back down again. “Food brings people home. It brings them together. I keep cooking because one day I keep thinking my table will be full.”
My gaze went to the building we’d shared so many memories in, and I thought of Heathcliff but I thought of Mams and Uncle Gregor, too.
“I love you,” I finished, “and I just thought you should know that.”
Heathcliff started to step toward me, and for the first time, I turned into a true coward. For the first time since I’d known Heathcliff, I was the one to run away. Because, in that moment, I didn’t need to hear him tell me he loved me. I just needed him to know that, wandering soul or no, I’d always have a plate waiting for him at my table.
So, I left, and I didn’t look back.
Chapter 35
In the true scheme of things, life is love and loss. It’s a never-ending cycle of the two, like a row of dominos falling over. Occasionally, when the dominos finish toppling, there’s one left standing.