Forever, Interrupted(64)

“All right,” she says, nodding. It’s the kind of nod that says she doesn’t know what to say next; she doesn’t know what she’s thinking. She gasps for air.

“I guess I’ll . . . head home,” she says. “It’s, uh, this is hard. I don’t want to leave but I . . . I mean, it’s not like I’m leaving him, you know? I think it’s more just . . . I had this to look forward to, if that makes any sense? I’m not making any sense. I’m going to go.”

I hug her. “It makes all the sense in the world to me.”

“Okay,” she says. She breathes out. She breathes with focus. She gathers herself. “Okay, I’ll give you a call next weekend.”

“Sounds great.”

She opens the door and walks out. I turn to see my apartment.

His things are in boxes, but I do not feel that I have lost him. It’s a subtle feeling, but it’s real. I am now just a little bit ready to realize the beauty of progress, of moving on. I decide to seize the moment. I grab three boxes of clothes and load them in the car. When I’m done with those, I grab two more. I don’t go back in for more because I’m afraid I’ll lose my nerve. I tell myself this is for the best. This is good!

I pull up in front of Goodwill and park my car. I take the boxes out and walk inside. A large man comes to greet me.

“What do we have here?”

“Some men’s clothes,” I say. I can’t look at him. I’m staring at the boxes. “All good condition.”

“Wonderful!” he says, as he takes the boxes from me. “Would you like a receipt?”

“No,” I say. “No, thank you.”

He opens the boxes and dumps their contents into a bigger pile of clothes, and even though I know that it’s time for me to walk away, I can’t help but stare. They are no longer Ben’s clothes. They are just clothes in a pile of clothes mixed with other clothes.

What have I done?

Like that, they are gone. The man has taken the large pile and shoved it into the back room. I want those clothes back. Why did I give someone else Ben’s clothes? What will he wear? I want to jump over the counter and sort through what they have back there. I need to get his clothes back. Instead, I am frozen and in shock over what I have done. How did I do that? Why did I do that? Can Ben see, from where he is, what I have done?

“Ma’am?” the man calls out to me. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

I turn around and get in my car. I can’t turn the key in the ignition. I can’t shift the car in drive. I just bang my head against the steering wheel. I let the tears fall down on the beige interior. My cheek is blaring the horn and I don’t care.





I leave the keys on the front seat of my car and I get out. I just run. I run and run even though it’s cold outside, even though my body is starting to heat up faster than it should. Even though I feel like I’m giving myself a fever. And then I stop, instantly and abruptly, because I realize that I cannot outrun myself. I go across the street and walk along the sidewalk until I see a bar. I don’t have my wallet, I don’t have my keys, but I walk in anyway. It’s early enough in the day that they let me right in and then I sit at the bar and I drink beers. I drink beer after beer until I can’t feel my nose. When I’m done, I pretend I’m going to the bathroom and then I sneak out the back, not paying, not tipping, not even saying thank you. By the time I get home, knowing full well I’ve locked myself out, I’m just plain sick.

I puke on my own front lawn. It’s barely 8:00 p.m. Neighbors see me and I ignore them. I sit down on the grass when I’m done and I pass out. I wake up around 11:00, and I’m too discombobulated and inebriated to remember where my keys are. I do the only thing that I can do to get back into my house. I call Ana.

“At least you called me,” she says as she walks up to the sidewalk to meet me. “That’s all I care about.”

I don’t say anything. She walks up my steps and unlocks my front door. She holds it open for me.

“Are you drunk?” she says, rather shocked. If it were any other time in my life, she’d probably think this was funny, but I can tell she doesn’t, even though I kind of do. “That’s not like you.”

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” I say and plop myself down on my own sofa.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Well, my husband died, so that was hard.” I don’t want to talk to her about any of this. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

“I know,” she says, taking my sarcastic remark as something genuine. She can’t possibly think that was really my answer. Instead, she is treating me sincerely so that I have no choice but to be sincere. It’s crafty, I’ll give her that.

“I moved his stuff out,” I say, resigning myself to the therapy session that is going to come my way. I don’t want to talk to her about our last conversation, about our fight, although I’m sure she’s going to force that on me as well. She moves toward me on the sofa and puts her arm around me. “I gave away some of his stuff to Goodwill,” I tell her.

Goodwill! That’s where my keys are.

“I’m sorry, Elsie,” she says. “But I’m proud of you. I’m really, really proud of you for doing it.” She rubs my arm. “I don’t know if I’d be able to do it if I were you.”