This Close to Okay(38)

“Y’know earlier when you were talking about how it feels for Joel to get something he wanted so much…his baby…I’m sure part of it does feel wrong and weird for him. Doing it without you, since he always thought it would be you,” Emmett said.

If what he said surprised Tallie, she didn’t let on. Instead, she kept her face plain, shrugged.

“What’s something small about him you miss? Christine would drink from my water bottle. I’d leave it somewhere and come back to a pink lipstick print on it that tasted like strawberries or cherries. I miss that.”

Tallie put down her knitting and paused the movie.

“A sweet memory. Thank you for sharing it with me,” she said, crossing her legs on the couch.

“I don’t really talk about this stuff to anyone,” he said.

“That’s why I mean it when I say thank you for sharing it with me.”

“You’re easy to talk to. I’m sure people tell you that all the time.”

“I’ve heard it before, yes,” Tallie said.

Barbra Streisand was frozen on the TV screen—a silent witness to their conversation.

“It’s okay if I mention something I don’t miss about him first?” she asked.

“Such a rebel.”

“I am.” She smiled at him. “Joel was obsessed with the news and would get constant notifications on his phone. Wanted to keep CNN on all day long. Drove me mad! I stopped keeping up with the news after he moved out. I hate it.”

“Understood,” Emmett said. Another reason to love Tallie—she hated the news as much as he did.

“A little thing I miss about him is that he would sometimes leave his bag of chips on the side of the couch when he was done instead of putting it back in the pantry. It used to annoy me, but I found myself missing it once he was gone. I’d put a bag of chips there myself, to feel like he was here. And this is embarrassing, but his…lunulae…the, um, half-moons on his fingernails. They’re really pretty. He has really nice hands. It sounds so ridiculous to say aloud now,” she said.

“Don’t be embarrassed, please. And it doesn’t sound ridiculous to me,” he reassured her.

Not much surprised Emmett, and not much sounded ridiculous to him, either. He had his own nights when he’d stayed up, wrecked and crying. The longest nights of his life. Nights he’d slept with Christine’s T-shirts on her side of the bed, hoping to wake up next to her. Nights he’d sat alone in the chair in his living room, rocking and rocking, thinking of Brenna, Brenna’s eyes, Brenna’s voice. Brenna had been real; he knew it. But where had she gone? There were wide cracks in his sanity, something he’d been so sure of before.

After had devoured before, leaving him crumpled.

“Some big things I miss about him are…how funny he is and honestly, his body…ugh, I was just so physically attracted to him it almost made me sick. And…I also miss sharing sadness. Now, lucky me, I get it all to myself,” Tallie said. “We spent a lot of time alone together. Entire weekends in this house, only us. I guess that’s why I find myself thinking…was I making all that up? Where the hell did it go?”

“You weren’t making it up.”

Tallie scrunched her face, then straightened it. “What’s something big you miss about Christine?” she asked, pulling her hair over her shoulder.

“Her messy aliveness. She really went for it, y’know? So full of life and couldn’t get enough of even the things she hated. She really rocket-burned out instead of simply fading away,” he said, the answer breaking through quickly, requiring almost no brain energy from him at all.

“That’s beautiful. Tragic and beautiful.”

“Well, yeah…that’s a perfect way of describing her.”

He let his mind drift, and Tallie seemed to do the same, both of them transfixed by the quiet and the weight of the conversation and Barbra’s face on the TV screen. When she spoke again, Tallie asked Emmett to tell her something he loved about himself.

“I’m good in the kitchen,” he said.

“That you are. What else?”

“Not a proper answer?”

“No! I was only wondering what else you’d say.”

“Um…I’m a hard worker. I don’t half-ass things. Except my bridge jump…yeah, I guess I half-assed that, but it wasn’t all my fault. You’re partly to blame, you’ll have to admit,” he said, smiling at her. She looked uncomfortable, but he kept smiling. Kept smiling and smiling until she finally smiled back. “There we go,” he said.

“I didn’t like that joke.”

“Sorry. But yeah. I’m normally pretty emotionally resilient. An easy heart. I can usually deal with a lot…more. I have before.”

“Easy heart. I can see that in you, but we all have our weak moments, for sure.”

“What’s something you really love about you?” he asked.

She took her time and thought about it before answering. “Well…I’m patient and rarely rude to anyone. And I try to look for good things in people, even when I’m hurting.”

“And that’s why you didn’t kill your ex-husband in his sleep?”

“Exactly why. And when I do get lonely, I spend a lot of time with Lionel and his family,” Tallie said.