The Lost Husband (31 page)

For dinner, I made a big, sensible salad with cucumbers and lettuce and carrots from the garden. I ate it by myself in the kitchen, listening to the clock ticking and the cars zooming past down on the highway.

I had just decided to go looking for the first volume of Jean’s zombie book when the phone rang. I literally jumped up at the sound, things had been so quiet for so long. Then I walked over and spoke the first word I’d said all afternoon. “Hello?”

It was Sunshine. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked. “I’ve got some great gossip on O’Connor.”

“Gossip?”

“Want to hear it?” she asked.

I only nodded, but she went ahead anyway.

“I talked to Russ yesterday, prodding him for the scoop, and even though he gave me no current information on what O’Connor’s doing in Austin, I did get something else out of him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

“I had a date yesterday,” she said. “Don’t you want to know what he said?”

“What?”

“O’Connor isn’t married.”

I held my breath. “Isn’t married?”

“Nope.”

“But—” My mind was flickering like it might short out.

“I know!” Sunshine said, delighted to have the goods. “Check it out: They’re divorced.”

“But—”

“I know!” Sunshine said again. “And Russ knows for certain, because he drew up the papers.”

“Why would they still be together if they’re divorced?”

“Well,” Sunshine said, winding up for the full story, “O’Connor didn’t want the divorce. She was the one who left him. He signed the papers because she insisted, but then he tried to get her back. The night of the car accident, O’Connor had talked her into going on a date.”

“Was she going to take him back?”

“Apparently she was thinking about it.”

I took it all in. “And then, on the way home—”

“A kid on a cellphone breezed through a red light,” Sunshine said. “And totally crushed Erin’s side of the car.”

“Shit,” I said.

Sunshine nodded. “O’Connor spent months sleeping on a sofa in her hospital room. And when she was well enough to go home, she had nowhere to go. Her sister was out of the country and wanted to put her in a facility, but the insurance only covered three months.”

“The sister didn’t come home?” I asked.

“Nope,” Sunshine said, “because of her husband’s job. They had a contract to stay for three years.”

“But now the contract is over and they’re back,” I said.

“Exactly,” Sunshine said. “Plus Erin and her sister never liked each other much. So there was that.”

Now the pieces all fit together. I said, “He didn’t want the sister to take Erin, but after his neighbor had that stroke, he ran out of choices.”

“He couldn’t work,” Sunshine chimed in. “He was draining all his savings. And he’s not an indoor guy. You’ve seen how he gets indoors.”

I had.

“So now he’s let the sister take her,” I said, “and he’s moved to Austin to keep an eye on her.”

“Looks that way,” Sunshine said.

I let out a sigh.

“It’s a lot to process,” Sunshine said. “I’m free if you want company.”

I absolutely wanted company. I was so sick of my mopey self I could have carried a sign:
WILL WORK FOR COMPANY
.

But Sunshine wasn’t usually free on Saturday nights anymore. “Don’t you have a date?”

“Not tonight,” she said. “He’s playing pool with the guys. We’re meeting up later.”

We agreed to meet at the haunted house. I was in charge of marshmallows, and she was in charge of beer. I felt overjoyed at the prospect of having someone to talk to. The last person in the world I wanted to spend the evening with was myself.

“Isn’t it great?” Sunshine said before we hung up. “O’Connor’s free. He’s not tragically unavailable after all. He’s been free this whole time.”

But it wasn’t great, actually. And the more I thought about it, as I sat by the bonfire with a bag of marshmallows on my lap
waiting for Sunshine, the more I realized just how very not great it was.

My first reaction on hearing the story had been the same as Sunshine’s—if he wasn’t married, there was at least some hope of us maybe, possibly getting together. But then I started thinking that if we weren’t together by now, despite multiple opportunities and my own overwhelming willingness, and if it wasn’t a tragic obligation elsewhere that had been holding O’Connor back, then there must be another reason. And the only other reason I could imagine was that he just wasn’t interested.

Which was worse than a tragic obstacle. Because it made me an idiot. Isn’t that the rule about guys? If you think they don’t seem interested, that’s because they aren’t.

I flipped back through my memories. Had I imagined everything? He’d seemed interested at the farmers’ market when he’d given me the fake kiss, but maybe he was just putting on a great show. He’d seemed interested on the night of Jean’s birthday party, but maybe he’d just felt sorry for me. And he’d seemed interested the night he drank his body weight in Budweiser and then banged on the door, but that, I’d already decided, had just been beer goggles.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it seemed that I’d been letting my own wish-fulfillment fantasies skew my perceptions. I’d developed a crush on this unsuspecting guy, and then I’d woven a tragic and fictitious story through every one of our interactions to make the crush seem viable.

I felt a warm flush of humiliation. I hadn’t thrown myself at O’Connor, exactly, but I hadn’t held myself back, either. I hadn’t flirted, but I hadn’t masked my feelings. My words were always appropriate, but my eyes, I knew, were kind of the opposite.

And that’s the thought that hit me just as Sunshine pedaled up the gravel drive to the haunted house.

As I walked to meet her, I was primed to obsess over this new information and examine and theorize about every angle. But Sunshine was no longer in any condition to do that. Because, when I reached her, she’d let her bike tump over in the yard and she was crying.

“What?” I said, rushing closer. “What happened?”

But she didn’t speak. She just wiped her cheeks and pushed past to stand beside the fire.

I followed. “What is it, Sunny?”

She stared at the flames and shook her head.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me,” I said. It was something I’d told Abby a hundred times.

Finally, without turning to meet my eyes, she pulled a wadded-up piece of paper from her hip pocket and handed it sideways to me.

I took it and opened it up, fold after fold. But even before I was done, I knew what it was. It was the cover page of the tabloid.

“Where did this come from?” I asked, without looking at it.

And then the tears really came. “Marshall’s mother has a subscription.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We tried to get them all.”

Sunshine looked over. “You did?”

I nodded. “Jean and I went around town the morning they hit town and collected them all up to burn them in the trash pit.”

She smiled a little and started crying harder at the same time. “You did?”

I nodded. Then I hugged her.

“I just can’t escape,” she said, all muffled into my shirt. “It’s like my old life won’t let me go.”

“You’ve already escaped,” I said, stroking her hair. “This stuff can’t touch you.”

“But it can haunt me,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “we’re all haunted by something.” And I was struck by how true that was.

Sunshine wiped her face with her T-shirt, took a few deep breaths, and then said, “I broke up with Marshall, by the way.”

“What?” I said. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Because!”

I held up the page. “How did you even get this?”

“I dropped by his place for a kiss on the way over here. And it was on his sofa.”

“And that’s why you broke up with him? Because this was in his house?”

“Because it was in his house. Because he didn’t tell me about it. Because now he’s seen it, and that makes it real, and things will never be the same.”

“He’s always known who you are,” I said. “It’s not like he didn’t know.”

“I’m just done with it all,” she said. “I’m done with men. I’m done with love. I’m going to move to Antarctica.”

“You realize no one actually lives in Antarctica,” I said. “Just penguins.”

“Fine,” she said. “Perfect. I love penguins.”

From her pocket came the muffled sound of her cellphone ringing: Aretha Franklin. She pulled it out and looked at the number.

“It’s him,” she said.

“Answer it.”

But she stared at it as Aretha sang on.

I pointed at her. “Men may cause all sorts of trouble,” I said.

“But they’re better than penguins. And it’s not his fault that his mother reads trash.”

“Fine,” she said, lifting the phone to her ear. She answered with: “Whatever.”

She was quiet for a long time as she listened to Marshall. He had a lot to say, and she was going to hear him out. I watched her face soften as he went on and on, and then, after a while, she said the only word she contributed to the entire phone call—“Okay”—and hung up.

She looked up at me. “I have to go.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said he’ll never look at a Snickers bar the same way again.”

I grabbed her for a hug. “So you’re better now?”

“What can I say?” she said. “He’s persuasive.”

Then Sunshine turned toward the fire, crumpled up the tabloid page, and threw it in.

We watched it ignite and burn, and I said, “Good girl.”

Before she left, Sunshine paused, worried about leaving me alone. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Stay here and have a séance.”

“Tell Danny I said hi.”

“But you know what?” I went on. “I think it’s going to be my last one.”

Sunshine nodded, like she really got it. Like it was as clear to her as it was to me that everything had to change. Because we really didn’t need those séances anymore, if we ever had. She leaned in to kiss my cheek.

“Thank you for being my friend,” she said.

Long after she was gone, I stood by the fire, watching the flames and, without really meaning to, talking to Danny. “It is
the last one, you know,” I said out loud. “And you can’t argue with me, because you’re dead. In case you didn’t know.”

I missed him acutely right then. I felt as alone as I ever had. And figuring out that O’Connor didn’t care for me in the way I’d thought made me absolutely long to run into the arms of someone who did. But those arms weren’t there anymore, of course. There was no one to run to.

I crossed my own arms over my waist as a gesture of comfort. But when the wind kicked up, it blew right through me anyway.

And then I realized something: I would always miss Danny. No matter how full my life became, there would always be a hole where his living presence had been. But the truth was, I was already better. And not despite that hole—but because of it. His loss was now a part of the story of my life. And that was okay. The things I had weren’t negated by the things I didn’t have. In fact, missing things made having other things that much sweeter. And, what’s more, the very worst thing I could possibly imagine had happened to me, but I was still okay. And not just okay, but standing by a gorgeous fire on a windy night, brave in a wild wilderness near my long-lost childhood home.

You can’t just wish strength for yourself. Or wisdom. Or resilience. Those things have to be earned. I felt calm as I thought about it. I never would have traded Danny for those things. Now that I had them, though, I had no choice but to be grateful. And I was so lost in the idea, and the universe seemed so connected and gusty and magical at that moment, that when Sunshine returned and walked up behind me, snapping a twig with her shoe, I genuinely thought for half a second that it was Danny.

But it wasn’t Danny. And it wasn’t Sunshine, either.

It was O’Connor.

“Hey,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

I was so surprised, I didn’t speak. All my calmness completely disappeared the moment I saw his face. Only a second before, I had been at peace with all the loneliness and sorrow and tragedy of the universe. But one look at those blue eyes of his sent me right back to war.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

“Camping at Enchanted Rock,” I said. Then, “How did you find me?”

“Sunshine.”

I nodded and then turned back to the fire. I was so unreasonably thrilled to see him, it made me want to slap him across the face.

He walked up beside me and we stood side by side watching the flames.

“How’s Abby doing?” he asked.

“She’s fine, actually,” I said. “She’s kind of become a second-grade celebrity.”

O’Connor nodded. “As she should be.”

“And, of course, she has George’s undying devotion,” I added. “If he could get a tattoo with her name on it, he would.”

“The cut’s healing up?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Well, it must be,” he said then, “if you let Jean and Russ take her camping.”

I smiled in spite of myself. It felt good to be teased. “Yes,” I said, “but they’re keeping her in a germ-free tent, like the Bubble Boy.”

“Of course,” O’Connor said. There was a pause, and then he said, “I have a question for you.”

A question for me. I held my breath. Against all logic and reason
and basic common sense, against everything I knew and had figured out, I suddenly felt certain that this man I hadn’t seen in days, who I had never even really kissed, and who wasn’t interested in me at all, was going to ask me to marry him.

Maybe he’d just moved to Austin. Maybe he was still in love with his ex-wife. I’d been working for hours to accept that he’d never been crushed out on me the way I had been on him. But there’s a testament to the way that hope can triumph over information. It was sad but true: My heart took flight with longing.

“What’s the question?” I asked, and the words themselves felt like feathers.

O’Connor took a step closer, then another, and then another. He stopped close up and looked right into my eyes.

“Can I have your marshmallows?” he said. “I’m starving.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. But I looked down and realized that I was, in fact, still holding a bag of marshmallows. Still, I stared at him like he’d spoken another language.