Or maybe I’m just projecting back onto myself what I know now.
After the ice-cream-and-theater extravaganza, there was an average of one visit per year, the photos following the same pattern: age-appropriate indulgences and a few hours spent in her company—before she swept off again, back to her glamorous life.
In middle and high school, some of the photos are of me at her concerts or with her afterward, and I can still remember the mingled smells of her makeup and her sweat when she draped an arm briefly around me before she was called away—to sign an album or meet with a producer or because a rich-and-famous man invited her to have dinner with him.
By age fifteen or so I’d learned the pattern well enough not to let myself have feelings about her arrival or her departure: Seeing her was a thing I did to oblige her and my grandmother or because it benefitted me—the gifts were great, and I could take selfies with a famous pop star to impress my friends.
My mother was warm and effusive where my grandmother was not, and that sometimes made it hard to steel myself against her, but I did anyway.
It’s just as hard to steel myself against this book. Against the thought that even though she couldn’t come to the wedding, she bothered to pull this together for me. She sat with these photos and these memories, and they couldn’t have meantnothingto her, could they have?
I don’t want the tears to well up in my eyes; I don’t want to want to call her to say thank you; I don’t want to hope that maybe as adults we’ll have a relationship.
I’m gripping the book too tightly, my hands shaking. The cardboard sleeve tumbles off my lap onto the floor, disgorging a sheet of paper—the packing slip, with its gift message:
Your mom asked me to put this together for you. We both wish you all the happiness in the world. Love, Luann.
45
Rhys
My court appearance in NYC is a nonevent, the final hearing in an uncontested divorce. I probably could have talked the judge into letting me Zoom in for it, but the client thanks me at least ten times for coming, so ultimately, I’m glad I did.
I think of Matias telling me that divorce is a sacrament, and I look at my client, who carries herself like I’ve personally lifted a thousand-pound weight from her shoulders, and I think,I may be cynical, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
It’s my job, lifting that weight off people. Unburdening them.
This is my job. This is my life. New York is where I belong.
I haven’t let myself think about where I’m going with Eden, but there has to be a reckoning at some point. Because this part of my life does exist. And because, fundamentally, I’m still afraid of hurting her.
I’m still the guy who, when it came down to a ring and a wedding and the possibility of forever, walked away because my gut screamednoso loudly I couldn’t ignore it.
If I try again with Eden, she’ll be the one I’m hurting this time—and I can’t stand the thought of that.
Eden walked into things with me with her eyes wide open. She knows who I am and what I’m capable of—and not. The other day she backed me up when I told Matiasno.
I’ve had enough marriage and almost-marriage for a lifetime.
So it’s not like she thinks I’m a good bet, either.
I pack up my messenger bag. I put on my coat—New York is having an early fall day—and sling my bag over my shoulder. I say goodbye to my client, shake opposing counsel’s hand, and stride out of the courtroom.
And nearly crash into someone.
“Fay?”
“Ha,” my ex-girlfriend says. “I wondered if I’d run into you.”
Right. It’s the courthouse where we first met.
“What are you here for?”
“Filing a motion in an upcoming case,” she says. “You?”
“Final hearing.”
“You won?”
