This Close to Okay(84)

“I’m not taking your money. I told you this,” she said.

“What do you charge for a therapy session by the hour? Two hundred dollars? Seventy-two hours together at two hundred dollars an hour, that’s fourteen thousand, four hundred dollars. There’s around ten thousand in there. I’ll mail you the rest,” he said. The delicate, low orange light of the streetlamp—numinous and scumbled—pressing his window like a promise.

“Rye, you’re not my client,” Tallie said, remaining as calm as possible. She knew how important it was when speaking with someone who was upset. She was upset, but there was no one there for her. She was alone, very alone, shuttering her windows from the raging wind of her own strong emotions for the greater good. Again.

“I’m not taking the money back,” he said, looking at her with soft eyes, not the hard, haunted ones she’d seen earlier.

“Can I take you somewhere else? Let’s not do this. Where else can I take you? I’m sure you’re as exhausted as I am. We’re running low on sleep and high on every possible emotion.”

“I forgive you. I’m not mad at you. Honestly. Thank you, Miss Tallie,” he said, pulling the handle.

“Rye, I’m not mad at you, either. I forgive you, too. And I’m not giving up on you! I’m not,” Tallie said, finally crying in a series of fragmented sobs. Primitive, desperate sounds escaped her mouth.

“Thank you so much, Miss Tallie,” he said, stepping out of the car with his jacket and backpack.

Tallie swung her legs out of the car, walked through the dread. A truck zoomed past with deep bass rattling its fiberglass before the world went quiet. The rain had put the earth through a full rinse cycle; the river perfumed metallic. She felt as if she could reach out and touch the black velvet darkness. She wanted to snatch it back like a curtain and reveal another world where this wasn’t happening.

“Rye. Please don’t do this. I won’t let you do this,” she said, raising her voice as he continued walking toward the railing.

Just quiet.

She prayed the first Bible verse that came to her mind, aloud. Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Rye stood still, listening. He turned around and closed his eyes to the night. Was he smiling?





RYE




Arcadia. Simple, peaceful. With his eyes closed, Rye saw the lake restaurant and the Honeybee House. The green hills behind it. A happy Christine and their smiling baby, Brenna—Sunshine. He floated through the moments of peace he’d had before. And he saw Tallie’s house, smelled those autumn candles and the rain. That suspended space of calm away from the noise of the world, the noise in his head. He was so tired.

Weightlessness.

Gravity.

Eternity tapped his shoulder, seduced him to turn around.

No more observations.

Nothing to report.

“Rye,” he heard Tallie say.

“Rye,” she said louder. He’d turned away from her, felt her hand grab at his back.

“Rye, please get in the car.”





TALLIE & RYE




They stopped for coffee on the way to Bloom. Tallie was okay with Rye cracking the window, smoking in the car. She held her hand up at him, refusing when he’d offered her a cigarette. They’d been mostly quiet. They’d cried privately, together, both trying their best to conceal it—wrung out. Bloom was three hours away, and they drove south, Tallie smoothing her car down the interstate at seventy-five miles per hour until it was time to turn off the exit ramp. Rye had listened to her make three phone calls. One to her mother. One to her father. One to Zora. In all three, explaining to them she’d be back at the hospital first thing in the morning before her appointments.

When they were stopped at a red light, she’d texted Nico, asking to see him on Monday evening after work; he’d said of course and called her lieve schat. Told her to talk back soon, and she promised she would. She’d asked Zora how Lionel was doing and, when she got off the phone, relayed the information to Rye in a casual tone that made him ache for those slow moments before Lionel caught fire. The same way his body and heart ached to turn back time and walk into his Honeybee House, hug his wife and daughter. Protect them somehow. The same way his body had ached those mornings after spending all night working heavy construction. The same way his body had ached when he was ill and sweating with stomach flu in prison. The same way Tallie’s body and heart had ached, trying so desperately to get pregnant. The same way Tallie’s heart had ached when Joel had moved in with Odette and when he’d told her he’d gotten Odette pregnant.

Tallie’s car hummed with ache as they drove to Bloom.

*



Rye’s dad opened the front door wide and clutched his chest, threw his arms around his son. How long had Tallie been crying? And Rye’s mom, in her flowered nightgown, walked into the kitchen and turned her head, covering her mouth and crying when she saw them. Tallie stood there spent and broken, the lamplight glowing up at Sallman’s Head of Christ hanging on the wall.





RYE




Rye, back home, promised he’d keep in touch with Tallie. He promised he’d find a therapist, and if he couldn’t find one he liked, he’d contact her and let her help. Before she left him at his parents’ house, he’d walked her to the car and asked if it was okay to hug her.