Lost Along the Way(53)

“It’s not. Not if it’s broken to begin with. Some things can’t be fixed,” Meg replied.

“I don’t want anyone to know my life is broken,” Cara said, the sadness in her voice so hard for Meg to hear.

“I know the feeling,” Meg said.

“Yeah, well, your broken lives aren’t on the news. So you can feel good about that. And for once, I win! All of our marriages might be in disarray, but no one has it worse than me. Finally, I’m in first place. I thought it would feel different,” Jane joked, trying to add some levity to the conversation.

“If we had each other to talk to this entire time, maybe we would’ve made different decisions. Keeping everything quiet didn’t do us any favors,” Cara said. “I wish I’d have reached out to you guys.”

“You can’t think about things like that,” Meg said.

“What do you think about, then? When you look back on the choices you made that led you here?” Jane asked.

“I guess the best any of us can do is to make the decisions that make you happy when things are good so that you have nice memories to fall back on when times get hard. I think that’s the end game for everyone,” Meg said. “I have some really great memories. They help. Not enough, but a little.”

“Are you happy being away from Steve and hunkered down in this admittedly adorable beach house alone? Is this the decision that makes you happy?” Jane asked.

Meg pushed herself up off the floor and teetered over to the small leather bar cart she had parked in the corner. The bar cart had been her grandfather’s, and her father’s after that. Now it belonged to her. She traced the soft edge of the leather before she grabbed the wine bottle and filled her glass. She wondered how many of her ancestors had drunk away their problems with the help of this bar.

“Of course not. But it’s for the best,” Meg said, hoping that they believed her, but knowing them both better.

“Why don’t you let him decide what’s best? He’s a big boy. Do you really think you should be making those decisions for him?” Jane asked.

“She’s right,” Cara answered. “You got one of the good ones. You shouldn’t give him away just because you won’t be able to have children. You can adopt. There are other ways. I’m sure it’s been awful and I’m not trying to downplay it at all, but leaving him isn’t the answer.”

Meg eyed the black lacquered box on top of her bookshelf. She hesitated before removing it and carrying it over to the coffee table in the middle of the room. She crossed her legs under her and placed the box on the table. It had been so long since she’d opened it. She couldn’t for the life of her understand why she felt the need to show them, but she didn’t fight it. She was tired of fighting.

“What’s in the box?” Cara asked.

“Is there a bowl or some rolling papers in there? Do you smoke pot?” Jane asked.

“What are you, fifteen?” Meg said.

“Oh please. Like you haven’t smoked since high school,” Jane said.

“I haven’t!” Meg said. “I didn’t smoke pot in high school.”

“Well, that’s an entirely different issue we should probably address,” Jane said.

“Jane, I’ve got news for you: most grown women don’t sit around in their apartments smoking weed by themselves.”

“Who said I was alone? Sometimes I invite the maintenance man over, too.”

“Sometimes I feel like you haven’t changed a bit, and sometimes I feel like I don’t know you at all,” Cara said.

“I am a paradox, aren’t I?”

“What’s in the box, Meg?” Cara asked again. Her voice was timid—their cease-fire was tenuous and she knew it.

“Is it a Ouija board? Because I swore off those after it told me I was going to die at twenty-five. It completely screwed me up for a while,” Jane said, remembering that awful slumber party and pretending to shiver.

“They’re letters, actually,” Meg said. She rubbed the top of the box gently, like she was petting a kitten.

“What kind of letters?” Jane asked. “The only letters I’ve gotten are hate mail telling me how I deserve to die. I found it’s not good for my self-esteem to keep them around. Throws off my inner chi.”

“They’re letters from Steve. He sends me one a week. I haven’t written back, but I keep them. It makes me feel close to him just knowing they’re around. Don’t laugh at me.”

“You mean to tell me that you have an entire box full of love letters?” Jane asked. She was incredulous, as if Meg had just told them she had a million dollars in cash stashed under the couch cushions in the living room. “Listen, Meg, I realize that I’m in no position to tell you what to do with your life, but if you’ve got a guy who actually writes you love letters, you’d be a complete idiot to throw that away. I didn’t know Steve was a romantic. I just thought he was a sap.”

“He’s not a sap. He’s old-fashioned in that way. He used to say how no one ever writes love letters anymore and how everything is so impersonal. He hated how the kids in his classes thought that an appropriate sign-off to an e-mail was ‘TTYL.’ He doesn’t think that anyone really knows how to communicate with one another anymore.”