I guess it’s not time for mine yet.
I said good riddance to my job last night and vowed to never do it again. I’m walking away with some perspective, though; everyone does what they need to do to survive. Some of the girls were single parents trying to raise a child on their own. Some girls were students trying to put themselves through college. Some girls were drug addicts trying to numb a pain no human being deserves. We all stripped to survive, it’s only the what we were surviving part that was different.
I talked to Mrs. L early this morning and thanked her for her hospitality. I told her I might be back in a few weeks. I won’t. I think she knew. She gave me a toasted pastrami on rye and the tie-dye scarf she was wearing as a parting gift. The sandwich was delicious, and the scarf smells like patchouli.
I visited Hope this afternoon. I took a bag of groceries, mostly fruit because she eats like shit otherwise, and told her goodbye. I hugged her like I always do when I leave. I don’t think she understands that she’ll never see me again, that’s what goodbye means this time. It means I won’t be back tomorrow to say hello and check on her, even though I worry about her and want to. It means I won’t bring her leftovers, even though I worry she doesn’t eat regularly and she’s too thin. It means I won’t bring her clothes when I find something in her size at the thrift shop on sale, even though I like to replace her threadbare, worn out, dirty clothes, with something new to her and clean. It means I won’t watch her favorite movie with her again, even though it makes us both laugh every time we watch it. It means I won’t buy her toothpaste or deodorant when she runs out, even though she needs the reminder sometimes, and I don’t mind being that reminder.
It means I’ll miss her. I’ll miss her dry sense of humor that peeks out when I least expect it. I’ll miss her mismatched outfits and her rumpled, constant bedhead that she won’t let me brush. I’ll miss her obsession with the pop radio station and her need to randomly sing at the oddest times. I’ll miss that look in her eyes she gets sometimes that makes me think she sees things the rest of us don’t.
I gave Hope an envelope with Seamus’s name on it and asked her to give it to him. It’s a letter telling him I’m leaving and that I’ll miss him, and asking him to watch out for Hope. I don’t know if she’ll do it, but I’m hoping that her delivering the letter will ease them into interaction. She’s standoffish at first.
Sadness I didn’t expect overtook me as I walked out of her apartment. I tried to hide the emotion, but Hope felt it. There are a lot of things she doesn’t understand—she’s a simple woman—but there’s almost a sixth sense about her. She always knows what I’m feeling. I told her goodbye a second time. She told me she loved me. I told her I loved her too, and that’s when the tears fell and I had to leave. No one’s ever told me that.
It’s late now, way past dark. I’m sitting under the tree in the spot that Seamus and I ate our first picnic. I’m watching his front window, the light’s still on. I’m waiting for him to go to bed, but until then I’m soaking up this last of our time together. I’m recalling every memory, every conversation, every smile I shared with him and his kids. And I’m wishing for their future, a future together and happy because they all deserve it. I’ve been waiting for it for hours, but when, in a fraction of a second, light blinks to dark, it’s jolting. The inevitable turned into a surprise. I hate surprises.
I also hate goodbyes.
That’s why I’m walking up the stairs to his apartment, and I’m not going to knock on his door. Instead, I stand on the W…E mat, right in the center, and I kiss the number three on his door. “So much more, Seamus. So much more.”
French onion dip and damage control compost
present
Three more days pass until I’m able to pick up Justine’s envelope again. It’s Friday night, or more accurately Saturday morning, just past one o’clock. I’ve had a few beers, and I don’t want to take my sleeping pill. I’m restless. It’s restlessness that demands action of some sort or another. I’ve paced the living room. That wrapped up quickly because my legs hurt. I watched a movie on Netflix that was so unimpressive I can’t recall the plot thirty minutes after finishing it. I ate the rest of the French onion dip I had in the fridge with the crumb-sized pieces of chips left in the bag in the pantry. The French onion dip expired last week, I’ll probably end up with the runs; it wasn’t my best judgment call. I’m blaming the alcohol.
I need something, anything, to occupy me.
And then my eyes land on it and I’m backpedaling, taking back the word anything and just leaving it at something to occupy me; it’s Justine’s letter.