First Comes Love (13 page)

“How'd you get there?” he asked.

“Kendra picked me up,” I said. “But she had a date…and left early, so I was hanging with other people. Shawna kind of blew me off, so I was upset. And I just kept drinking. A lot. Mixing stuff. Vodka and beer…Things got fuzzy, then fuzzier, then black.”

Gabe nodded.

“I don't remember leaving the bar. And I don't know how I got home….Somebody must have brought me back. Or maybe they called me a cab. I don't know….I just remember waking up in my bed. The room was spinning and there was a trashcan next to the bed. Someone put it there….Or maybe I did. I really don't remember….”

I blinked back tears for as long as I could, but at some point, I just couldn't stop myself from crying. I wasn't sure why, exactly, and I could tell Gabe wasn't, either. But he sprung into action, quickly paying the bill, then whisking me to the crowded parking lot. It was still daylight, and I hid my face in the crook of my arm as he opened my door, something he never did—chivalry wasn't really his style.

To my relief, he didn't ask more questions on that ride home. In fact, we didn't talk at all, in that way you can be silent only with a close friend. When we got back to my apartment, he came inside with me. I headed straight to my room to get ready for bed, changing into a long Georgia T-shirt I wore as a nightgown, brushing my teeth, washing my face. At some point, when I didn't come out, he knocked on my bedroom door and asked if I was okay.

“Yes,” I lied, quickly turning off my lights so he couldn't see my face.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes,” I said again, as I dove under the covers.

He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at me, and said, “What's going on, Josie? Why are you so upset?”

“I don't know,” I said. Because I really didn't. It was more of a feeling than anything I could put into words. A feeling that I somehow had something to do with Daniel's accident.

“Yes, you do,” he gently pressed. “Talk to me.”

“I just feel like…it might be my fault….” I finally said.

“How would it be your fault?” he asked. “That's crazy.”

“It's not crazy,” I said. “Maybe Daniel was coming to get me.”

Gabe shook his head, adamant. “I don't think so, Josie. You're being paranoid. He was going to get a burger. Isn't that what he told your mother?”

“Yes,” I said. “But…”

“But nothing, Josie. You're just experiencing…survivor's guilt or something. Your brother had an accident. It had nothing to do with you.”

I took a deep breath, my whole body shuddering. Then I told him I didn't want to talk about it anymore. Ever again, in fact.

“Okay,” he said, staring at me, his face a mask of concern. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” I said, peering up at him. “Please stay with me.”

He nodded, then kicked off his shoes, walked around the bed, and sat beside me, on top of the covers. He leaned against my headboard, his legs straight out in front of him, then reached over to awkwardly pat my back. Once, then twice.

“Thank you,” I said, my eyelids feeling heavy.

At some point after I had drifted off, I heard him get up to go. I rolled over and asked him please not to leave.

“Shhhh,” he said, rubbing my back through my duvet, blanket, and sheet. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don't leave,” I said again.

“I won't. I'll stay,” he said, and at that point, he took off his jeans and shirt and got under the covers beside me. It would be the only time we ever shared a bed, but nothing about it felt awkward, not even when he rolled over in the middle of the night and put his arm around me. It only felt warm, comforting, safe.

Until just before dawn, when my bedroom door opened and Will walked in. He took one look at us and announced, in no uncertain terms, that he and I were done.

F
or days following Josie's announcement, I find myself trying to pinpoint exactly why I'm so angry with her. Yes, I think her plan is ill-advised, half-assed, and selfish. And yes, I think that her child will, at some point and in some manner, become my burden and responsibility. But deep down, I also believe that Josie is right—that
is
what family is for, to help and support one another. And I truly
do
want my sister to experience the awe of motherhood. So why can't I just get on board, wish her good luck, and be happy for her?

One night, as Nolan and I are getting ready for bed, I pose the question to him, bracing myself for an answer I might not like. He's been surprisingly quiet on the topic, perhaps because he doesn't want to tell me that he's actually on her side. “Why do you think I'm so pissed off at her?” I ask.

“I don't know,” he says, rinsing his toothbrush, then tapping it on the edge of the sink. “You know I don't understand your relationship with your sister….”

I put on my oldest, most comfortable, and perhaps least attractive nightgown. “Do you think I was too harsh?” I ask.

Nolan gives me a sheepish look, shrugs, and says, “Yeah. Maybe a little…You went into attack mode pretty quickly.”

I know he's probably right, but still resent his answer.

“Can't you see that she just wants what
you
have?” he continues.

I sigh, thinking that this is how my mother always paints things. How they both insist that Josie's jealous of me.

“I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that,” I say.

“Well, regardless. Can't you
roll
with it?” he says, undressing down to his boxers.

“Roll with her having a
baby
?” I pick up his clothes from the closet floor, where he always leaves them, then drop them into the hamper.

“No, roll with her announcement. Humor her….For one thing, the chances are only about fifty-fifty that she actually goes through with it. At
best
.”

“You really think so?” I ask, feeling mostly hopeful that he's right, but also an unexpected dash of disappointment, perhaps because I
do
realize that being an aunt is more fun than being a mother.

“Well, let's think about this,” Nolan says. “Did she get the PhD or master's she's always talking about?”

I shake my head.

“And remember her big plan to move to California?” he asks, walking into the bedroom.

“Yeah,” I say, following him.

“Never happened…And what about the fact that she pays rent every month when she's talked for years about buying a place?…Enough examples?”

I smile and tell him I'd like one more, please.

“Okay. How about Will Carlisle? She certainly didn't close the deal there, did she?” he asks, as we stand on our sides of the bed and pull down the covers.

“No,” I say. “She certainly did not.”

“I'm glad
I
closed the deal with you,” he says with a wink before climbing into bed.

I smile, then get in next to him, both of us reaching up to turn off our bedside lamps. He gives me a quick kiss on the lips, then rolls over, dropping his head to his feather pillow, while I do the same on my hypoallergenic one.

“Good night, Mere,” he says, his back to me.

“Good night, Nolan,” I say, relieved he doesn't want to have sex tonight. I wonder if he's tired of being turned down or simply too tired, and hope it's the latter. I try to recall the last time I initiated but can't. It's been that long. I feel a pang of guilt, commingled with worry, but tell myself this is all very normal, happening all over town. “I love you,” I add.

“Love you, too,” he says, his voice muffled.

A few minutes later, he is breathing deeply, and I can tell he's asleep. I wonder exactly when the snoring will begin, and if it will get loud enough for me to move to the guest room, as my mind returns to Josie, and Nolan's statement that she wants what I have. For a few seconds, I feel sorry for her, but then I remind myself that Josie made her own bed, blazed her own self-destructive path. She could be listening to Will snore right now, or plenty of guys for that matter, but instead she chose to put fun and games with Gabe over a real commitment.

And then it hits me with a jolt: the sudden realization of why I got so upset the other night when Josie told us her news. I suddenly see that it actually has far less to do with the decision, or any of the pitfalls of single motherhood, and more to do with Josie
herself
. The fact that she has always done exactly what she wants, when she wants, how she wants. My sister puts herself first, period. And maybe, for this reason alone, I'm actually the one who is a little bit jealous of
her
.

T
HE NEXT DAY,
Nolan and I take Harper to Isla Graham's fourth birthday party. Isla is Harper's best friend, which is really to say that her mother, Ellen, is my best friend (though Nolan and Isla's father, Andy, are close, too; hence Nolan's attendance at a Pinkalicious tea, wearing a pink checked shirt, no less). We arrive at the party early, as suggested by Ellen, and walk up the long, winding driveway of the Grahams' Brookhaven home. Nolan rings the bell, which Ellen had rewired to, in her words, sound less foreboding, as I simply open the door and head straight through the house to the backyard.

“Wow,” I say under my breath, taking in the pink wonderland. Clusters of hot and light pink balloons bob in the breeze. A long child-size table is elaborately set with crystal and silver, pink polka-dot linens, and pink hydrangeas. All of the food is in various shades of pink—mini bagels covered with strawberry cream cheese, jelly sandwiches cut into hearts, strawberry yogurt in pink porcelain bowls, cubed watermelon tossed with raspberries, even peeled hard-boiled eggs dyed pink. Ellen is a far cry from Martha Stewart, so I know her mother-in-law is behind it even before I see her emerge onto the porch, carrying a pitcher of pink lemonade, Ellen trailing behind her.

“This place looks amazing!” I say, giving them both a hug.

“It's all Stella,” Ellen says, gesturing toward her mother-in-law as I notice the goody bags in a basket by the back door, tied with pink tulle and filled with pink candies and pink Play-Doh.

“It was fun,” Stella says modestly as I feel a little sheepish about Harper's lackluster farm-themed party in our backyard, complete with a mangy pony, two ornery goats, and a rather pointless flock of dingy brown hens.

Meanwhile, Harper runs to embrace Isla, both girls in pink tutus. Andy hands Nolan a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and the two head inside to watch the second half of the Georgia–Tennessee game.

“Did she buy your dress, too?” I say, once Stella is out of earshot.

Ellen laughs. “Close. I borrowed it from Margot,” she says, referring to her sister-in-law.

“I don't think I've ever seen you in anything pink,” I say, fondly remembering the day I met Ellen, shortly after I moved back to Atlanta from New York. I was behind her in a long line at the post office, sizing up her outfit the way women do with one another, noticing the details of her faded blue jeans, ripped at the left knee and rolled at the ankles, her bold gladiator sandals, olive-green linen tunic, and layers of funky bead-and-leather necklaces. She looked cool in an effortless way, and although she wouldn't have stood out in New York, she made an impression in the Buckhead sea of brightly colored Tory Burch, Lilly Pulitzer, and Lululemon. Then I glanced down at her package and saw the familiar address of my old New York apartment building in black Sharpie: 22C, exactly three floors down from my 25C. It wasn't like me to chat up strangers, but this coincidence was too great. I tapped her shoulder and said, “I don't mean to be nosy, but your package…That's my old building! I lived in 25C.”

Her face lit up, instantly elevating her from plain to pretty. “You're kidding! My good friends Hillary and Julian live there. Did you know them?”

“No,” I said, smiling back at her. “But small world, huh?”

She nodded and said, “So you're a New Yorker?”

I told her no, I was actually a native Atlantan, but that I'd lived in the city for years. “I miss it,” I added.

She nodded and said, “I do, too. I lived there for years myself. Why'd you come back? For a job?”

“My husband's job,” I said. We had only just married, and saying the words
my husband
still felt so foreign to me.

“Same here,” she said, then introduced herself as Ellen Graham. I told her my name, and we continued to talk in line. I learned that she was a professional portrait photographer, originally from Pittsburgh, married to a lawyer, and I told her my bare-bones biography. She waited as I completed my transaction. Then, on our way out to the parking lot, she reached into her tote bag, handed me a little square business card, and suggested that we go for coffee sometime, maybe grab dinner with our husbands.

“I'd love that,” I said, feeling that rush of new-friend excitement that becomes rarer the older you get.

A few weeks later, I called Ellen, and the four of us went to Leon's Full Service, a restaurant in Decatur. It was a very fun night—easy and relaxed—the double-date chemistry perfect. Nolan and Andy were both Lovett grads (though Andy was several years older); both now worked with their fathers; and, perhaps the biggest thing they had in common, both had married women so different than they—women they had met through their siblings. (Andy's sister, Margot, had been Ellen's best friend first.)

As Nolan told our story, he mentioned Daniel, and I watched Andy piece it all together, connecting the dots from my maiden name to the Lovett alum turned Yale med student who had died in the Christmastime car accident.

He turned to me, his face somber. “Was Daniel Garland your brother?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” I said, then briefed Ellen so that Andy didn't have to. “My brother died. In a car accident.”

Andy mumbled that he was sorry, looking down, exactly the way most people do. But Ellen looked directly into my eyes, took my hand, and said the same words but in such a different way.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling a deep connection to her even before she told me that she had experienced a big loss at a young age, too, her mother dying of cancer. “Not that it's the same thing,” she quickly added. “Brothers and sisters are supposed to be from the cradle to the grave….”

“Yes, but still…I'm really sorry, too,” I said. Although the death of a parent is a more comprehensible void than losing a sibling, because it follows the natural order we expect, I couldn't imagine life without my mother. I especially couldn't fathom losing her when I was still a teenager.
No matter how you slice it,
I remember thinking,
life is tragic.

“Has your family…healed?” Ellen asked. “Did it bring you closer?”

It was such a compassionate question, and I found myself confiding in her, as the guys branched off in a separate conversation about golf and travel and their work. I talked a lot about Josie, how walled off she had become, how she refused to discuss Daniel and seemed to view my desire to do so as unhealthy. I asked Ellen if she had siblings. She said yes, an older sister named Suzanne. She told me how different they were, yet still so close. “She really is my best friend.”

It was something I never said about Josie, and I felt a pang of wistfulness and regret. I wanted to be close like that, but couldn't imagine it ever happening. “Did losing your mom make you two closer?” I asked.

“It did,” she said, nodding. “But we were always close….My dad sounds more like your sister. He seldom talks about my mom. It's funny how grief is different for everyone….”

I nodded, thinking how true that statement was, remembering a quote from a support group I had briefly attended with my mother.
Grief is a mystery to be lived through, not a problem to be solved,
our counselor—who had lost her nine-year-old daughter—had written on the chalkboard. Maybe she was right. Yet it seemed to me that talking about it, trying to solve it, was the only way to truly accept it. The only hope for healing. I said as much to Ellen that night, and she quickly agreed.