The Art of Losing Yourself (22 page)

C
ARMEN

“How would you say you handle conflict?” Dr. Rafferty sat in the leather chair across from Ben and me on the sofa.

“We don’t fight very often,” I said.

“But when you do?”

“We talk through it.” I looked at Ben, waiting for him to affirm my answer with a nod so Dr. Rafferty could jot down a note about the mature way we handled conflict. But what I found instead was the strangest expression on his face, like he was lost in a world I’d never been to. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking about tonight’s game or the phony answer I’d just given Dr. Rafferty. Once upon a time, I had only to glance his way and I could read every thought on his mind. At what point had that changed?

Dr. Rafferty asked Ben the same question.

I watched my husband as he answered, trying to see him as she saw him. He’d come to the appointment freshly shaved, dressed in a nice pair of slacks and his royal-blue Bay Breeze polo, which made his impossibly blue eyes even bluer. He was fit and broad shouldered and sat beside me in this easy, confident way that was totally and completely Ben.

Tonight the team had its final playoff game. If they won, they’d be off to Orlando. If they lost, the season would be over. Ben had zipped over here right after school. Getting these final appointments scheduled had been a disaster. Because of a short-lived stomach bug, Ben had to cancel his first appointment, which had already been scheduled later than I would have liked. He finally met with the counselor in mid-October and then Dr. Rafferty got appendicitis, of all things. By the time she returned to work, Ben had entered playoff season, a chaotic land where his schedule and Dr. Rafferty’s refused to cooperate.

I called our social worker to ask if we could have our final appointment with a different counselor, but she said no, not unless we redid our individual appointments. There was no way I was redoing anything. So here Ben was, before the biggest game of the season thus far, answering incredibly personal
questions about our marriage. He had arrived a little late. Some crazy nonsense about a missing goat and a teacher’s car.

I stuck my sweaty hands beneath my knees to keep from fidgeting. I just wanted this nightmare to be over. I wanted Dr. Rafferty to write up her report and deem us worthy so our social worker would put us back on the “good” list. She had to be close to finished. We’d been answering questions for forty minutes.

“And you, Carmen?”

I blinked several times. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Do you feel like you and Ben can share your grief?”

I could feel Ben watching me. Waiting for my answer. And all of a sudden, I was back in our old car after that third miscarriage with Ben beside me, asking what he could do to make it better. He’d wanted me to share my grief then, but I couldn’t. Because if I shared my grief with him, then he’d share his with me, and I wasn’t strong enough to hold his, not when I could barely hold my own. “Yes, of course.”

The counselor wrote a note on her clipboard.

After we finished and Dr. Rafferty had promised to get her report to our social worker as soon as possible, Ben and I walked together out of the office into the sunlight, our hands close but not touching. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. For lying in that office. For pretending everything was okay when we both knew it wasn’t. I wanted to promise him that it would be. All of this was for the purpose of getting better again. Once we had a baby in our arms, we could leave this desert wasteland of a season behind. I would be me again, and we could go back to the way we were before this chronic, debilitating ache had taken over my heart. But when we stopped in front of his car and I looked up into his haunted eyes, all I could manage was a faint, “Good luck tonight.”

G
RACIE

My manager gave me the night off. “Go enjoy the game,” he said with a smile. Like he was doing me some sort of favor. Well, I had no intention of enjoying a football game. I considered driving my new car into Pensacola to explore, but then I remembered the cost of filling up my equally new gas tank and decided
to drive around Bay Breeze instead, keeping as far away from the stadium lights as possible. Tonight the Sting Rays were playing the Franklin Seahawks, the team from my old school. Whoever won would advance to the state championship game in the beginning of December.

My mood was a melancholy gray, my ring a soft blush pink, which supposedly meant thoughtful. Both shoes fit. My mind kept spinning around Chris Nanning and his clichéd cheerleading fan club—Sadie Hall and Jenna Smith. All three of them were here in Bay Breeze. They were at the stadium right now, facing off with Elias and Ben.

I parked my Mitsubishi on Dock Street, shuffled past the shark-headed Hot Dog Hut, and ended on the dock, hands shoved in the pockets of my jacket, wondering how different life would be if I hadn’t used the bathroom that first day of school back in Apalachicola. If I wouldn’t have used the rest room, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to stick up for Chelsea Paxton and I wouldn’t have gotten into a fight with Sadie and I wouldn’t have been suspended. I wouldn’t have fought with Mom and she wouldn’t have threatened to send me to Dad’s and I wouldn’t be here.

How odd, the chain of events that were set in motion because of a full bladder.

I lay back against the warped wood, dangled my legs off the dock, and gazed up into the nighttime sky, made darker by clouds that blocked the stars and the moon, thinking on the deeper things of life. I was almost positive I believed in God. I just wasn’t sure what kind of God. Was He like a puppeteer who manipulated my bladder so I would go to the bathroom at that exact moment, knowing what would transpire? Did He orchestrate the entire thing so I would end up here, at this very moment, for some unknown reason?

Or was He more like the bystanders Principal Best talked about in his bullying unit, passive observers who neither joined nor prevented? I swung my feet like pendulums over the water, waffling back and forth, coming up with new possibilities, as dark clouds rolled across an even darker sky and footsteps sounded behind me.

I sat up with my heart thud-thudding inside my chest. I didn’t turn around. By now, the football game would have ended. Elias had come to his dock.

His footsteps stopped beside me. “No work tonight?”

“My boss thought I might want to watch the game.”

Elias lowered himself into sitting. He wore a hunter-green beanie and looked cuter than any boy had a right to look. “Your boss must not know you very well.”

A nippy breeze blew in over the water, fluttering wisps of hair into my face. I peeled some strands away from my lips, waiting for my heart to settle. It felt like a bunch of giant white elephants stood in line behind us, all of them named Parker’s Party. The two of us hadn’t had a real conversation since my drunken escapade. Parker’s suggestion that I was no more than one of Elias’s projects flitted to mind. It took a good bit of effort to push it away. “So…?”

“So what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you make it to the state finals?”

“We did.”

The news brought a twinge of satisfaction. It was kind of fun, imagining Chris and his meatheaded friends on the somber bus ride back to Apalachicola. “I’m glad.”

“Since when are you glad about us winning a football game?”

“Since you played the Franklin Seahawks.”

“Ah.” He nodded slowly at the sea. “No love for your alma mater, huh?”

“Zero.” Before he could ask why, I turned to look at him. “Why do you come here after games?”

“I told you. My mom used to work at Jake’s.”

“I don’t mean how you found this place. I mean, what is it you do here, exactly?”

“Brainstorm ways I can beat you in debate class.”

“Har, har.”

Elias smiled. “I don’t know. I guess I come because it’s a good place to talk to God.”

I quirked my eyebrow. “Does He talk back?”

“Sometimes.”

“Audibly?”

“No, not audibly.” He patted his chest. “He talks here.”

I must have looked skeptical because Elias cocked his head. “Is that hard to believe?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what that sounds like. I mean, how do you know it’s God talking and not just your conscience?”

“Who’s to say our conscience isn’t one of the ways He talks to us?”

I squinted at the boy beside me. Our conversation was getting a little theologically heavy for a Friday night. That seemed to happen a lot with him. “I heard you signed with Mississippi State.”

“You heard correct.”

“Ben thinks you’ll go pro in two years.”

“Nah.”

“Elias Banks is doubting himself? Now that is a first.”

“Oh, I’m not doubting myself. I could go pro in two years.” He said this with a teasingly cocky grin. “I just don’t want to.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“You’re telling me that if you had the opportunity to play in the NFL, you’d say no?”

Elias traced a large
X
over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die. I’ll even stick a needle in my eye if you want.”

“Gross.”

He gave me a friendly nudge. It felt good, joking around with him again. “I’m being for real. What you said that first night here on this dock—about football being overrated? I happen to agree with you.”

I eyed him suspiciously. He was the star athlete on the state’s best team. He couldn’t be serious.

“Look, it’s a fun sport. I enjoy being on the field, but at the end of the day, it’s a means to an end.”

“What end? Becoming famous and filthy rich?”

“More like getting a full-ride scholarship. Football’s my ticket to a higher education. I’d like to do something with my life besides get concussions.”

I shook my head. “If you have a chance to go pro, you won’t turn it down.”

“Okay, Miss Confident, how about we make a bet?” He stuck out his hand. “A hundred bucks says I never go pro. If in four years, I’m drafted, I’ll pay up. If not, you pay up.”

“We won’t even know each other in four years.”

“Sure we will.”

The simple sincerity of his response had my gray mood warming a little. I slid my hand in his big one and as we shook, I couldn’t help but notice that
beneath the dock lighting, Elias’s eyes looked extra green tonight. According to
The Meaning of Color
, green represented peace and stability. At the moment, I could understand why.