Widowish: A Memoir(56)

He looked into my eyes. He wiped my tears with his thumbs. “Hey,” he said. “It’s OK. You’re going to be OK.”

He took my hand. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you home.”

I wrapped my fingers in his and wiped my face with our clasped hands. He laughed.

“Sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“Being such a mess, I guess.”

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t apologize. I’m a blues musician, baby. I sing the blues, I play the blues, I feel the blues.”

He sort of sang that last part, and I shook my head wearily—this was so Marcos. What did his being a blues musician have anything to do with anything?

“I feel crazy,” I said, “but you may actually be crazy.”

“I am crazy,” he said. “Crazy about you . . . because I love you.”

“What?” I said.

“Does that help you feel better? At all? Maybe a little bit?” he asked.

I looked at this brown-eyed, soulful, truly good man standing in front of me. He must be the one the psychic told me about, right? He had a son. And even if he had never said it out loud, I knew he loved me, because I felt it.

Marcos often made no sense to me. As a couple, we made even less sense. We lived on “different sides” of the boulevard and occupied what seemed like two different worlds at times. But he was so open, so ready to take me in. Me and my widowed heart.

He stood in front of me, so happy, even though I was a wreck.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” I said.

“Do nothing then. Just receive, sweetheart. Think you can do that?” And then we kissed. My anger, sadness, and anxiety dissipated every time our lips touched. It didn’t matter that I felt so broken and overwhelmed and confused, so confused all the time . . . Marcos accepted me as I was.

I slept alone that night. Sophie was in her room; I was in mine. I read my passage from Healing After Loss by myself and said my memory with my eyes closed, picturing Joel on the sidewalk that night.

As I went about my life and routines that week, Leigh’s words bounced around inside my head, as much as I tried to ignore them.

Driving Sophie to school, I’d hear Leigh telling me, Personal stories are powerful!

Paying bills and writing checks, her words echoed: Write about the deep and meaningful emotional journey that you’ve been on!

Cooking. Every. Single. Meal. The words Start writing about what’s going on for you personally played over and over in my mind.

I also pictured Marcos. On the sidewalk. In the dark. Professing his love for me . . . while Joel stood just over his shoulder.

I wanted so badly to resist Leigh’s suggestion. It felt so personal. Joel was mine. He belonged to me and Sophie. I didn’t want to share him, not at all. And how would I even be able to write about Marcos? I was still processing all of it. I had nothing figured out . . . But I couldn’t stop writing in my head. I had so much to say on the subject of widowhood. Not just what I was feeling on the inside, but the way I was perceived as a widow in the world . . . the things people said to me, the things I said to them . . .

By the time I got to class that week, I was bursting. When we finished our meditation and went over some writing prompts, my fingers flew across my computer keyboard in a way that I can only describe as otherworldly. I wasn’t even aware that I was writing so when the timer went off, I was shocked to see that I had written close to ten pages. Single spaced. In a small font. What I had written was personal, intense, and it was all true. I sat there and sobbed while reading it aloud to my classmates. I appreciated their patience as I choked and shnorkled over every sentence. So much for being the only “professional” writer in the class.

For the next six weeks and the whole following session, I wrote about Joel and the MS. About the confusion in the hospital. About the day he died. About his ashes, and the dogs, and shiva. I wrote about Sophie and feeling the weight of responsibility as an only parent. I wrote about our neighbors and our neighborhood and our friends. I wrote about the depths of my sadness and how my heart was broken and expanding at the same time. Once I started writing personally, about all that I was experiencing, I couldn’t stop. The writing was cathartic, it was healing, it has been the thing that has saved me the most. The best part is, in writing about Joel, it keeps him close and alive.

And even though I was feeling love for Marcos, I couldn’t admit it to him or myself before I made Sophie fully aware of our relationship. By now, he and I were a real couple. It just happened, and I just let it happen.

Sophie had started high school, and we had made the transition to those early morning rides to the bus and new friends, and all that comes with being in a new school at fourteen years old. On occasion, I would allude to Marcos, but it would always be a casual mention.

By the way, I saw Marcos for coffee today, and don’t forget, Smoosh, you need to bring your French book to school tomorrow.

But I was ready to help her understand that Marcos and I were more than friends. It was the evening of the freshman dance at Sophie’s school. Her friends and their moms were coming over to get ready at our house.

I had made some snacks for the girls as they got dressed in the living room. Some of the moms and I were hanging out in the kitchen. There was perfume and makeup and giggles, lots of giggles . . . and then the doorbell rang.