Chapters (63)
“Every person I say those words to dies, Ben. That’s the result of my experiment.” And then I tell him what I was telling myself in the elevator on the way down to the lobby. “You told me I wasn’t being healthy—with the way I’m handling things with my sister. And you’re right. Just not in the way you think.” I swallow. “Before I met you, I trusted myself. I knew how to work problems and solve them. I could maintain focus. And knowing you has put me in this uncontrolled spin, and I have to recover, Ben. I have to.”
Because I’m not afraid of heights. I’m afraid of falling.
I move toward the door. Out of his orbit.
“Before you met me,” he says, “you had two parents. Your sister was sober. You hadn’t been forced to move across the country and take care of that sister all by yourself.” He crosses to me. “If you’re spinning, Mae, and I agree that you are—it’s not because of me. If you really want to end this, that’s your choice. I’ll accept it. But don’t make me the fall guy.”
I memorize his face in the moonlight that streams in through the window. The faint trace of freckles beneath his eyes, the thick brows, those long, dark lashes, the bleached tangerine hair. I know I will forget these details, just like I can’t remember if Mom’s teeth were straight or if Dad’s lips were thin.
Everything, everyone, becomes a watercolor left out in the rain.
“You are like him. In the good ways,” I say.
I could drink a case of you. Mom’s Joni Mitchell song about Dad. Italian wedding.
It was grief soup—that last pot of soup Mom made. Dad’s favorite, and he didn’t get a bite.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Ben’s cheek. Then I turn toward the elevators to take me back up to my sister.
I’m saving him. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m saving Ben’s life.
And my own.
But then a cool, Pacific Ocean voice says, Do you really think that?
I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know.