This Close to Okay(54)
“Let’s go. These tombstones…I hate these things.” Tallie tugged his sleeve.
She took his hand as they walked to the bakery for a pumpkin spice cake with white buttercream frosting. While she was inside, Emmett went across the street to the farmer’s market, lifted a bouquet of sunflowers from its water bucket, dripped it over to the cash register. When she stepped onto the sidewalk with the cake, he took it from her, trading for the flowers.
“Aw, what for?” she asked, smiling.
“For you. And for Van Gogh.”
“Oh, yes, our sweet Vincent. Thank you, Emmett,” she said and hugged the flowers to her chest.
A fresh round of rain had sent the costumed kids and their parents scattering, golf carts slicking across the asphalt. Emmett and Tallie—hands held, hoods up—took their time walking to her house. Past the lit-up porches and pumpkins, orange welcome mats and Halloween wreaths. Tallie waved and said hello to her neighbors. They were friendly to Emmett, too, everyone, smiling and busy and it’s Halloween happy.
*
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: i still care about you too
Tallie,
I don’t feel like I’ve won. No, that’s not how this works. And thanks for answering my question of whether or not you’re seeing someone. Thanks for not making me feel like a fool for asking. (He sounds perfectly lab-created for you, btw.)
Yeah so…I want to tell you a couple things and then we can take some time off emailing, yes. If that’s what you want. Again, I want to say I appreciate you for reaching out. And I know it’s not all about me but, it really has made me feel better.
I want to confess something. Something I assume Lionel hasn’t told you.
Lionel found out about Odette and me first. He was fucking pissed and I truly thought he was going to kick my ass. Lionel can be scary. I begged him to let me tell you myself, but I was a coward and I didn’t…you found out on your own because you’re not stupid. The only reason Lionel didn’t tell you himself was because we were in the middle of our fifth IVF cycle. He said it would stress you out too much, knowing. He found out because a mutual friend of ours from the art museum told him. And I promise I didn’t know this person knew. Odette and I…well it’s not like we were openly flirting at work. Like I said, I never set out for any of this to happen.
I know you look up to Lionel and think his life is perfect, but I know some things…
He’ll hate me forever for telling you this but he confessed to me that early in their marriage, he stepped out on Zora. It was one time, when he was still half-living in NYC…a woman up there. He and Zora had only been married for a year. He confessed to her and he said their relationship has been stronger ever since. He learned his lesson and didn’t lose Zora in the process. I swore I wouldn’t say anything, so here I am breaking that promise. But the way he told me made me feel like maybe he was telling me…to encourage me into thinking if he and Zora could stay together and work something like that out, maybe you and I could too. When I moved out of the house and into Odette’s…I still held out hope you and I could…make it work somehow. I wanted to. I feel like maybe we were both considering finding a way to stay together…but everything happened so fast…and then…Odette told me she was pregnant.
I felt like it was okay to tell you this now because…well, because you really do sound happy and healed and like you’ve moved on. And I don’t want to keep any more secrets from you. Odette and I have been going to counseling and I’m learning how to be more open and honest. Therapy is essential to you/your life…and I know how much you tried to talk me into it…I’m just sorry it took all this for me to finally go.
Another thing I want to tell you is that I haven’t changed my Facebook password on purpose. I know you log in, I know you check it. I can see when it happens. Is it weird I like that we have the secret connection? We aren’t connected anywhere else…I didn’t know if we’d ever speak again…and then you emailed me.
I hope you do adopt a baby if it’s what you want. And I don’t care how corny it sounds…I hope you have the best life and that you get everything you’ve ever wanted. No one deserves it more. You’ll be an AMAZING mother. You deserve all the love and best things the world has to offer. And my inbox is open to you. No worries if this is the last of our emails, but understand I am deeply (grievingly) sorry for hurting you/us like this. I know these words can never be enough. You’re the complete opposite of broken. And your forgiveness means the world to me.
J
*
He took a shower, not able to get Joel’s email out of his head. End communication with Joel. It was stupid, and it was over. Now Emmett knew things Tallie didn’t, and he wouldn’t tell a soul. He hated knowing her brother’s secret and that he’d kept things from her; her face lit up when she talked about Lionel, even when she was fussing about him.
Emmett turned the shower water up as hot as it would go in an attempt to wash away his sins, got out smelling like Tallie again. He’d taken his small bag of toiletries into the bathroom and bent over to drink water from the faucet after he put a beta-blocker on his tongue. Emmett flossed and brushed his teeth with his own travel toothbrush and toothpaste, used his own woodsy-smelling deodorant to remind him he’d be leaving Tallie’s soon. He put on the navy-blue suit Tallie had hung on the bathroom door. She told him she’d considered returning it but forgot. Thought of donating it instead but never got around to it. So it’d stayed in a zipped bag in the back of her closet alongside her coats and dresses like some sort of dark spirit. A harbinger of exactly what, she said she didn’t know. “Maybe tonight,” she’d said, wiggling her fingers in a supposed-to-be-spooky way that made him smile.