One True Loves(62)

Jesse picks up a candid photo of us on top of a mountain in Costa Rica and a picture of him on a beach in Sydney. You can tell I am the one taking the picture. You can tell, just from the smile on his face, how much he loves me.

“God, look at us,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

“Do you remember when this photo was taken?” Jesse says, showing me the one of him on the beach.

“Of course I do,” I say.

“That was the day we decided we were never going to make a backup plan, so that we had to pursue our dreams,” he says. “Remember? We were going to take jobs that allowed us to see the world.”

“I remember.”

I riffle through a few more pictures until I find another envelope inside. It’s addressed to him in my handwriting. It is the letter I wrote him before I went out on my date with Sam. I push it aside, allowing it to make its way, without being noticed, back into the larger envelope it came from.

And then I find the photo I’m looking for. Our prom. Me with my butterflies.

“All right,” I say. “Look at this picture and tell me the truth.”

We are standing in front of a large glass window, overlooking Boston. You can see city lights in the background. Jesse is in a cheap tux with a wayward boutonniere that I pinned on him in my front yard as all of our parents watched. I’m right beside him, turned slightly to the side but looking at the camera. I am standing in a bright red dress, with way too many clips in my hair and a series of already-faded and splotchy fake butterfly tattoos down my back.

A victim of early-2000s fashion.

Jesse immediately starts laughing.

“Oh, my God,” he says. “You look like you have some sort of skin condition.”

I start laughing. “Nope, just fake butterflies.”

“I remember thinking that those butterflies were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.”

“Oh, I remember thinking I was the coolest girl at the prom,” I say. “Just goes to show things aren’t always the way we remember them.”

Jesse looks up at me, trying to see if I meant anything by that. I decide to ignore how much it resonates.

“But you,” I say. “You nailed it. Handsome then. Handsome now.”

Jesse smiles and then turns back toward the steering wheel, getting ready to get on the road.

I gather the rest of the contents of the envelope and try to put them all back. But, of course, some fall to the floor and others get caught on the edge, unwilling to be crammed in.

I pick up what’s fallen, including my ruby ring, put it all back in the envelope, and then throw it in the backseat. Only then do I see that I’ve left something on the center console between us.

It’s an almost four-year-old article from the Beacon.

“Local Man Jesse Lerner Missing.”

Next to the headline is an old photo of him standing in his parents’ yard, waving, his right hand perfectly intact.

I was still in LA when the article was published, but a copy of it made its way to me shortly after I got back to Massachusetts. I almost threw it away. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of anything with his picture on it, anything that bore his name. I had so little of him left.

I grab it and fold it back in two, the way it has lived in the envelope for years.

Jesse watches my hands as I do it.

I know that he saw it.

I put it in the backseat, with the envelope. When I turn back around, I open my mouth to tell Jesse about it, to acknowledge it, but he looks away and starts the car.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

Do you ever get over loss? Or do you just find a box within yourself, big enough to hold it? Do you just stuff it in there, push it down, and snap the lid on it? Do you just work, every day, to keep the box shut?

I thought that maybe if I shoved the pain in there hard enough and I kept the box shut tight enough that the pain would evaporate on its own, that I’d open the box one day to find it was empty and all of the pain I thought I’d been carrying with me was gone.

But I’m sitting in this car right now and I’m starting to think that the box has been full for the past three and a half years. I’m pretty sure that the lid is about to come off and I’m scared to see what’s inside.

After all, Jesse has a box, too.

And his is packed tighter than mine.





Jesse’s family cabin.

I never thought I’d see this place again.

But here I am.

It’s about two in the morning. The roads to get here were so quiet, you’d think it was a ghost town.

The cabin, an oddly shaped house that resembles more of an oversized chalet, is warm and inviting—wood siding, big windows, a wraparound deck. It has the slightly mismatched sense that it used to be a tiny home but has weathered a number of additions.

There’s not a single lit lamp on the property, so Jesse leaves the high beams on in order for us to get our stuff.

I grab my bag. Jesse grabs a few things from the trunk. We head toward the front door.

“You chilly?” he says as he fiddles with the key. “I’ll get a fire going after we get in.”

“That sounds great,” I say.

The key turns and clicks, but the door sticks. Jesse has to lean into it to push through.

When it finally gives, the first thing that grabs me is the familiar woodlike musk.