Eleanor & Grey(98)

He dismissed me.

Without even looking my way.

He pushed me away and told me to go, and that was all there was to it.

The whole flight back to Illinois, I cried. I sobbed for him out of fear. Out of worry. Out of heartbreak. And then I prayed to Mom to look over him, because I was certain there was nothing I could do to make him come back to me.





When I returned to Illinois, I began my search for a new job. I was picking up the pieces of my broken heart, and learning to teach them to beat on their own again.

Every now and then I thought of both my father and Greyson. I thought about their hearts, and I hoped they were still beating on their own, too. I did the only thing I could truly do for the both of them due to the muddy waters we were all floating through: I loved them from a distance.





56





Greyson





I missed her.

I missed Eleanor every single day since she’d left, but I did my best to keep moving along for my girls. They were my main focus, and until everything was right with them, I couldn’t think of anything or anyone else. Eleanor often raced freely through my mind, and I allowed it to happen. Truthfully, thinking about her made some days easier.

When December came around, it was our second Christmas without Nicole. Holidays were still so hard for us all to face, but the girls and I were facing it together. That Christmas morning, the grass was frosted, and the temperature was beyond chilled. I tossed on my winter jacket and gathered some blankets from the back closet, and headed to the living room where Lorelai and Karla both were sitting.

They both looked up at me with confusion in their stares.

“Where are you going?” Karla asked.

“I thought we could go visit your mom to wish her a Merry Christmas,” I told them. “Want to go grab your coats?”

They went off to do as I said, and we drove in silence to the cemetery. As we pulled in, I noticed others visiting their loved ones on the special day, sharing stories and memories.

The girls and I walked to their mother’s gravestone, and we lay the blankets down on the ground before sitting next to one another and squeezing close to keep warm.

We were quiet at first, just staring and reflecting.

“This is where I came,” Karla whispered, staring at the tombstone. “When I was skipping school, I’d come here to be with her,” she finally confessed. “It’s where I felt the most okay—when I was around Mom. It felt like she always had something to tell me, but I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t figure it out.”

I looked at my daughter and gave her a smile. “I used to do the same after she passed. And I felt the same way. Like there was something she was trying to say to us, but I couldn’t even figure it out.”

“Why didn’t you guys just ask her?” Lorelai questioned, confused. “I ask Mommy stuff all the time, and she answers.”

I smiled at Lorelai, and I truly hoped that gift she had to hold on to her mother would never disappear. I pulled her closer to my side. “For some people it’s easier, I guess, Lorelai. Some people are able to hold a very tight relationship with their loved ones after they passed away.”

“Yeah, Mom and I are best friends,” she frankly stated. “You should try just talking to her.”

“How do you do it, Lorelai?” Karla asked. “How do you talk to her and know that she hears you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “You just gotta believe.”

Karla took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Hey, Mom, it’s me, Karla. I just wanted to say that I miss you a lot. Every day, and it never really gets easier. I miss your bad jokes, and your laughter, and your terrible taste in music. I miss how you could make my bad days better. And how you could stop me from hurting whenever someone was mean to me.” Tears started rolling down her cheeks, and I wiped them away as she kept talking. “And I miss hugging you. I miss hugging you so much, but Dad’s been doing a pretty good job of being there lately for the hugs. So, yeah. We’re not okay with you gone, but we’re okay. We’re looking out for each other, and I just wanted you to know that. We’re okay, and I love you.”

She opened her eyes and wiped the tears away.

“See, Karla?” Lorelai whispered. “Did you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“Mommy said she loves you, too.”

And for the first time in over a year, I think Karla finally felt her mother’s words.





“You knew her before?” Karla asked as she walked into my office the evening after Christmas. She held an envelope in her hands and fidgeted with her fingers. Nicole always said Karla got that nervous habit from me.

“Knew who?”

“Eleanor. You knew her before she was the nanny?”

Just hearing her name made my chest tighten a bit. “Yeah, when we were in high school.”

“She was your girlfriend?”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“So she was just a friend?”

I brushed my hand against the back of my neck. “No. Not exactly.”

“You’re confusing me,” she said, arching her eyebrow.

“I know. It’s just hard to explain what exactly we were. She was her, I was me, and we were us. There was no label for it. We were just two people helping each other breathe.”