“Yes, you can.” She nods her head, reassuring me like she used to when I was a little girl.
“Mom,” I beg, clutching the basket like a life raft and I’m adrift in stormy seas. I cling to this stupid basket like the world may crumble away beneath my feet if I’m not careful.
“You have to let him go, Sadie.”
“I-I-I’m scared to lose him.” I confess. “What if I forget everything?”
“You’re not scared of losin’ him,” she points out softly. “You’ve already lost him and we both know that. You’re scared of findin’ you. You don’t know who you really are without Jake. I get it, okay? But you can’t stop living out of fear of what you may end up seeing.”
Mom holds her hands out to me like a peace offering or a saving grace. Maybe both. It’s enough to coax me away from where I stand. I sink to my knees with the basket resting in my lap, reaching in to pick up the softball jersey. I bury my soaked face into the fabric. I inhale deeply, seeking Jake’s scent, but it isn’t there anymore. Not there. Goddamn it, it’s not there! Not there. Never again. I’ll go the rest of my life wandering through this world trying desperately to just smell him. His fresh, manly sort of scent has become as good as a myth in my mind. The search for it doesn’t wane. It only taunts the whimpering shell that remains of my terrorized soul. My endless hunt for remnants, flickers, fleeting glimmers of Jake is a lost cause and yet I can’t stop. I plead with myself somewhere deep inside to stop. I scream at me to stop, but I can’t. It’s the most dismal feeling. I find it impossible to describe and even more impossible to withdraw myself from. Like a drug addiction of the most treacherous sort, my tenuous heart longs for that high. I yearn for that feeling of relief that I want so badly. With my eyes closed, I inhale slowly, deeply, hoping against hope that I’ll find what I seek.
The shirt just smells like the closet, a mix of leather and rubber-soled shoes with faint traces of laundry detergent. No proof of Jake except for the laundry basket itself, which now seems to be the only vestige to prove that he ever even existed. I’ve just wrecked everything else. Grief clenches around my wounded heart, sucking the air from my lungs as it tightens down around me mercilessly.
Mom gets to her knees in front of me. Her fingers tangle in the shirt I’m holding so tightly in my hands. I reflexively pull it to my chest. I don’t want her to take it, but at the same time, I want this ache to be gone. I want to free myself from this prison made of sweet memories and tragic circumstances. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t live.
“He’s gone, Sade,” she whispers coaxingly as her fingers gently tug at the shirt. I shake my head in resistance. “Say it.”
“Please, no,” I whimper, inaudibly gasping for air through my tears.
“It’s time to let him go, Sade. Say it with me,” Mom pleads. “He’s gone.”
“He’s gone.”
“And he’s not coming back,” she leads me in a sort of mantra.
“And h-he’s not—not coming back.” I hiccup.
“Come on honey, let go,” Mom insists softly.
My grip on the jersey loosens just a fraction, but it’s enough for the fabric to slip from my fingers. I watch, my vision blurred, as Mom shoves the jersey and the basket aside, scooting closer to me. Her arms envelope me and I’m pulled to her chest.
“Shush, honey. It’s all over now. It’s all over,” she coos tearfully in my ear, rocking me to and fro like a child. My body quakes and trembles against hers as interminable tears of release bubble to the surface and overtake me.
I haven’t allowed myself this. I haven’t given in to this kind of resignation to the truth. I’ve done quite the opposite for two years. I’ve fought so hard against this in some strange attempt to protect myself against more pain. Maybe somewhere in my tormented brain I thought that I could deny the grief and somehow I could keep Jake alive that way. Once you grieve for someone, it’s like that’s it—they’re really, really gone at that point. A person is born, lives, dies, and the people who love them grieve until the grieving is done and that’s it. I’ve never wanted to have a “that’s it” where Jake is concerned. Even though it has ripped my life apart, hurt the people around me, ended my potential career, and dashed my hopes of being with Zander, I’ve denied mourning because, in my mind, that would’ve been the end of Jake. I had no way of knowing that resisting grief also meant resisting life. My therapist might’ve told me something like that, I think. I heard him but I wasn’t listening.
I’m listening now.