Digging In: A Novel(32)

But that bubble had burst. I needed to build a new life, and widening my social circle was one way to do it.

I smiled at Mykia. “I get off at five thirty. Do you need help packing up?”



When Trey arrived, trailed by the slim-hipped, bespectacled Colin, we’d already sat down to dinner. Jackie and Glynnis had pitched in, and we had chopped some early potatoes with some green onions and Swiss chard, topped them with some cheddar, and stuck them in the oven. Then we’d fried some bacon I’d found in the freezer and a half dozen eggs Glynnis had bought from the market and whipped some fresh cream to accompany the strawberries, which Mykia had said were on borrowed time.

The boys grabbed plates, their movements awkward, almost shy. For all Trey’s talk of Colin’s rebelliousness, in a room full of women they both returned to boyhood, all jerky limbs and mumbling. Glynnis stood to make room for them at the table, and both boys blushed furiously as they found their places. We ate silently until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What do you think of the garden, Colin?” I said in his general direction.

Colin finished chewing, a long, laborious process, before he spoke. “Are you having a midlife crisis?” he said, blue eyes boring into me.

“That’s what I asked her,” Trey mumbled.

Colin’s expression was one of anticipation. This one liked to stir the pot.

I thought for a moment. Crisis. What did that really mean? I was in crisis when Jesse died. That was pure existential terror. How did my feelings of meaninglessness and isolation compare to run-of-the-mill, pass-me-a-glass-of-Chardonnay-I’m-in-my-forties anxiety?

I fought my irritation whenever I heard women complain about their fine lines and premenopausal weight gain, about their husbands always traveling for business, and, in this neighborhood, about the high cost of maintaining a summer home while saving for retirement. But they complained without true fear. The aging process didn’t seem nearly as daunting when you had someone to age with. I would never have that. Did that meet the definition of crisis? It was more than that. Like watching your future undergo a full nuclear meltdown, Fukushima-style. The effects threatened to last long after damage control was complete.

“I wouldn’t call it a crisis; it’s more like exploration,” I said to Colin, borrowing a word from his father. “Sometimes people change slowly, because life moves slowly.” I leaned forward, warming to my topic, though there was a definite possibility I was talking out of my ass. “For example, my grandmother’s sight diminished over years and years. First, she squinted at traffic when crossing the street. Then, she got glasses when she could afford them. Then, the doctor upped her prescription every year. Finally, she couldn’t see a thing unless she was wearing her glasses. She adapted to it over time. She kept her glasses on her nightstand, and during the day she wore them on a string tied around her neck. She adapted. She changed. But it was over many years.”

“Seems like an easier way to do it,” Mykia said as she helped herself to more eggs.

“But wasn’t that a necessary kind of change?” Glynnis asked. “Your grandmother had no choice but to adapt. What about change that you choose for yourself?”

I smiled at her earnest desire to understand. “I would argue that all change is necessary.”

“What about Dad?” Trey said, his tone bitter. “Was that a necessary change?”

“We can’t control life and death,” I said. “But we can control how we react to them.”

“Is that what you’re doing by digging up the backyard? Reacting? Dad would never have done that to the backyard.”

“No, he wouldn’t have,” I said after a moment. “And I wouldn’t have when he was still alive.”

“So you’re saying you’re a different person now,” Colin said, satisfied with his deduction.

“I think the fundamentals stay the same, but parts of me are different.”

Trey snorted. “Which part of you dug up the backyard?”

“The part that wants to build something meaningful.”

“That’s the heart,” Mykia said. “You had a heartshift.”

“I had a heartbreak,” I admitted.

The table went silent.

“I want to know . . . ,” Glynnis said quietly.

I smiled at her, encouraging. “What?”

“I want to know what the other kind of change is. The kind that isn’t slow.”

Tears burned at my eyes, hot and quick. “It’s the kind that pulls you by the hair. The unexpected jolt. It’s merciless, and it doesn’t allow you to change cell by cell, cushioning the blow with time. It smacks you into a new reality. It forces you to examine things you’d rather leave under a rock.”

I paused, embarrassed. Why had I said that? I was happy with my life, but the life I had before required Jesse to make things work. We were just fine living in the small world we’d created for ourselves. It worked for us. But what happened when “us” became “me”? Isolation. Loneliness. Fear.

The tears began to flow. Trey’s eyes filled, too.

“That kind of change is the kind that’s fucking unfair,” he said. “It’s the sucker punch.”

“And the only thing you can do when that happens,” I added, reaching out to touch his arm, “is to breathe your way through the pain.”