I arrive at my parents’ apartment unannounced. I hug my dad with both arms and stay in that hug longer than I have in years. He’s not very surprised to hear that I’ve quit my entire life in one day. We sit at the dining room table and my mom keeps asking if I’m okay, hungry, thirsty, sleepy.
My dad knows I’m fine. “Sometimes you have to walk away from all the things you don’t want to make room for the future. Blank canvas.”
“Yes,” I say, and Gracie reaches over and takes my hand. She doesn’t say a word, but I feel the hope that she’s given me her entire life. My dad puts his arm around my mom.
I did the right thing, I know it. But I’m exhausted. Breaking out of a life that’s not working is a lot of work. It might have been easier to have kept doing what I was doing for the next fifty years.
I smile at Gracie. “Should I get unpacked? It’s been a long time since we’ve had a sleepover here.” We walk into her room, and I throw my bag on the bottom bunk.
“Oh,” she starts. “That’s where I sleep.” I am feeling just how small this room is. I don’t know how Travis and I ever lived here together.
“That’s fine,” I say, moving my bag to the top bunk. “I like it up there too.” Gracie’s looking at me, like she’s waiting to see what I’m going to do next.
Her phone is pinging, and she looks at it and laughs. She types something in response and laughs. She looks up and seems surprised to see me still standing there. “Sorry, I’m just going to . . . My friend is calling. So.”
“Oh my God. Sorry,” I say. Gracie doesn’t want me here. Gracie is growing up and wants her privacy, and here I was hoping we were going to play safari and eat Twizzlers. Oh my God. I back out of the room and find my mom in the kitchen drying dishes.
“Do you think there’s any person on this earth who is more of a loser than I am?” I grab a towel and start drying. “Be honest, can you name one person?”
“You’re not a loser, Sam.”
“Really,” I say. “Let’s review the facts. I’ll be thirty-one this month. I have no job and no relationship. And,” I say, holding up the salad tongs for emphasis, “my twelve-year-old sister is too cool for me.”
My mom laughs, sort of. “It’s not so bad, Sam. You have your education and you can start again. And I’m pretty sure you weren’t dreaming of being Gracie’s roommate forever.”
“The last time my life was in free fall, she really helped.”
My mom places a stack of plates on the counter. “Are you in free fall?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve been watching you, like for signs that you’re not going to be okay. And you seem okay, but I don’t know. Maybe I can’t tell anymore.”
I take her in my arms, and her head is heavy on my shoulder. “Mom, I quit a job I didn’t like and left a man I didn’t want to marry. I just need to regroup and figure out what I do like. I’ll be fine.” This feels good to say, like I am capable of being my own parent. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
* * *
That night, on the top bunk, I get a text from Wyatt: I heard. You okay?
I stare at the phone for a bit, letting an odd combination of relief and fear wash over me.
Me: Well I’m single, jobless and homeless. So not sure
Wyatt: Did you do the right thing?
Me: Yes
Wyatt: I’m sorry I left like that. It was just all too much. I don’t know why I thought it would be fun to come out and help you get married
Me: Weren’t you already coming?
Wyatt: No. I wanted to see you, so I came. Honestly don’t know what I was thinking
My heart rate picks up and I strain my eyes in the dark to make sure I’ve read that correctly. He just wanted to see me. Lying in this bed and looking at that same crack in the ceiling that I studied for a year while waiting for Wyatt to call, I feel afraid. I have just made the first step toward getting reacquainted with myself, and I am terrified of opening up to the tidal wave that is Wyatt. And yet.
Me: You could come back
I wait an eternity for his reply.
Wyatt: I can’t. I have to be here for Missy’s new album and I kind of hate how it’s coming together. Like the more famous she gets, the more she ad libs and the songs feel wrong
It feels too easy, the way he’s changed the subject. Like he’s dodged my saying I want him to come.
Me: Maybe you should write for someone else
Wyatt: Carlyle would probably kill me. Anyway, glad you made a decision. Let me know if you need anything?
Sam: I’m definitely going to need a friend
I’d rather have Wyatt as a friend than not have him in my life at all, but it’s a half-truth. I’d say more, but I don’t want him to change the subject again.
Wyatt: Deal. Good night, Sam-I-am.
He’s gone, and I am smiling at the phone. He could have just said good night.
* * *
I ride the elevator up to what is now Jack’s apartment. There’s a gravity to what I’m doing, plus it also feels like breaking and entering. Jack knows I’m coming. I told him I’d use my key and then leave it with the doorman. He’ll be home in ninety minutes, which is plenty of time for me to pack up my stuff and be gone. When I get to the fourteenth floor, I walk more quickly than normal to the apartment door. I don’t want to see my neighbors. I don’t want to explain why I decided not to marry this perfect man. My family seems to totally understand. But people who know me less well, the ones who think I’ve got my act together, will think I’m making a horrible mistake, like I’m the girl in the horror movie who is running further into the house.
The key turns easily. I’ve brought two duffel bags with me and fill them quickly with my clothes. I fill a box with the stuff from my desk and a few framed photos of my family. I open and close the kitchen cabinets. Jack paid for all of that stuff, and I wouldn’t have any place to put it anyway. I stand there for a minute looking at my bags. I’m doing mental gymnastics thinking of how I could unpack them into a dresser that does not exist in a corner of Gracie’s room that is already occupied. I don’t know how I’ve moved so far backward in my life that I am sharing a room with Gracie, and I don’t know how I ever got so far from having a life that feels like mine. I look around this gray, gray room and I start to cry.
I don’t want this. I am sure of it. I say it out loud. I’ve been bowling with the bumpers up. Talk about pointless. I need space to regroup, and I need time in the ocean. I lug my stuff to the elevator and catch a cab to Penn Station.
58
Long Island is a great idea. The first night I’m there I eat popcorn for dinner and sit on the deck watching the waves reach their foamy hands out to me and invite me in. It’s still summer-warm but hazy, and the moonlight is diffused over the water. The limitlessness of the ocean beyond the horizon exhilarates me. I can’t see what’s just past that line, and if I swam out to it, there would be another line I wouldn’t be able to see past. I just know that what’s ahead of me is the rest of my life, starting with tonight. And then tomorrow.
There’s a light, constant breeze off the water that tickles my skin and makes me think of Wyatt. I’m confusing the feel of the breeze with the feel of his skin on mine. There was a time, of course, when these sensations would happen at once, the breeze skimming Wyatt’s hands on my skin. If I’m going to stay out here, I am going to have to get used to feeling him in the air, hearing him in the sound of the gulls. Now that I’m listening to my heart, I realize he’s been right there all along anyway.