This Close to Okay(47)

“And that doesn’t…freak you out at all?” he asked.

“For me to be on the side of her good, positive gossip for once? Not really,” Tallie said.

Emmett smiled, and not one time when Judith was there did he think about dying. The bridge had gifted him the supernatural ability to recognize the smallest moments of light, effervescent with relief. Pretending to be the man Tallie wanted him to be smoothed his mind into a gleaming blank. He could pretend to be someone else who was pretending to be someone else. The cracked husk of his heart inside another and another, ad infinitum. Evidence of how he’d closed himself off out of necessity. Grief. Guilt. And fear.

Scrabbling every day since was the most exhausting thing he’d ever done. Survival was the reason she wouldn’t be able to find him online, the reason it took him an extra breath to recognize his name in her mouth. He could’ve been from Clementine, but he wasn’t. His name could’ve been Emmett Aaron Baker, but it wasn’t. Tallie had easily believed his lies, and he wished the telling had magicked them true.





TALLIE




When Tallie had been alone in the house with her mom, she told her not to mention anything about her being a therapist. No TLC discussions. And for as much as her mom loved to talk, she loved having secrets with Tallie even more. It really hadn’t concerned her, her mom stopping by, surprising her and Emmett like that. Immature as it might’ve been, Tallie liked how it made her seem mysterious, like she wasn’t the vanilla wide-open book everyone seemed to think she was. And things with her mom certainly could’ve gone worse. Once she started talking, there was nothing to do to stop it. At a young age, both Tallie and Lionel had learned to hold their breath and ride it out.

Tallie was used to making excuses for her mother. (“She didn’t mean it that way. She comes off rude sometimes, but she has a heart of gold.”) Her whole life, Tallie had suffered through her mom telling her things she should’ve kept to herself. From remarking on her new stretch marks as she bloomed into a teenager to trying to persuade her to take part of the blame when it came to Joel’s affair. (“How were things in the bedroom for you two? Were you closed off? Did you give him any signals that this sort of thing would be okay?”) Tallie became a therapist instead of going to one, and she knew well enough how deeply a trained mental health professional could analyze that decision. She automatically put everyone else’s feelings and situations in front of her own because she was raised by a self-absorbed mother. Judith had a way of making Tallie feel as if her life or problems would never be as important as Judith’s own. Tallie promised herself if she adopted a baby, she’d never make the same mistake. She was an easy forgiver but had realized early on that she and her mom would always have a complicated relationship. She didn’t know one woman who didn’t have a complicated relationship with their mother, and that was at least one thing keeping her therapy practice in business—in fact, she’d never met a client yet who wasn’t able to talk at loquacious length about their mama.

*



With her mother gone, Tallie sat at her kitchen table watching Emmett unload the dishwasher, then load it back up with their breakfast plates. She’d tried to stop him, but he told her it was therapeutic and that it really did make him feel better.

“It was probably therapeutic to burn your backpack in the grill last night,” she said. “It was for me…the wedding pictures.”

“Absolutely.”

Her orange cat made himself known, hopped up on the counter. Tallie stood, picked him up, and held him like a baby because he loved it. She petted his head.

“Want to know something else that’s hard for me to process?” Tallie asked Emmett after they’d been quiet for several minutes. Before he could answer, she continued talking. “I wonder who all knew about Joel’s affair. Everyone at the museum? All his friends? All her friends? Was I the only one who didn’t know? It’s all so embarrassing.”

“You aren’t the one who should be embarrassed. That’s on him,” Emmett said.

“That’s what I would burn if I could. Those obsessive, embarrassed feelings! But…okay! I know you’re not big on therapy or support groups, but there’s this concept I heard about that I think could be helpful for you. For both of us!” she said. She wanted him to know she’d been not only hearing him but also listening to him.

“Oh, really?” he asked from the sink with a light in his voice that relieved her. Like he’d flicked a lamp on in his throat.

“First, let me ask you this. What are some things worth living for? What makes you happy?”

“Suicidal the day before yesterday, making a list of things worth living for today…hmm.”

“Ah, joie de vivre,” Tallie said, putting the cat down.

“Um…days like this…the rain and nowhere to be. I love those days. And I don’t know…but yeah, that moment you realize you’re falling in love with someone who loves you back. That’s a good moment. And first kisses, first everything, really,” Emmett said. “Another easy one is the knockout of a home run on opening day,” he said, clicking his tongue to mimic the hollow sound. He turned to her, leaned against the counter. “And honestly? One time I had this peach at the lake…this perfect peach…when I bit into it, it bit me back. Second week in June some years ago. That peach…that peach alone is probably worth living for.”