One True Loves (34 page)

A
s I get into my car in the back lot, I find my days-old sandwich sitting in the front seat. It has already given my car a sour, acrid odor. I grab it and throw it away in the Dumpster and then open up both of my car doors for a minute, trying to air it out.

That's when I see a car pulling in.

I don't need to look through the windshield to know who it is.

But of course I do anyway.

Sam.

My heart starts beating rapidly. I can feel rhythmic bass throbbing in my chest.

I run toward his car just as he steps out of it.

He's in slacks and a button-down with his tie untied and hanging loosely around his neck. His coat is unbuttoned.

It's the middle of the day and he should be at school.

Instead, he's standing in the lot of my store with his eyes bloodshot.

I look at him and I see a broken heart.

“I have to talk to you,” he says, his breath visible in the cold.

“I have to talk to you, too,” I say.

“No,” Sam says, putting his hand up. “I'm going first.”

I can feel my heart start to break in my chest.
Is it over?
I am devastated that my being unsure has led to the man I
love being unsure about me. I feel the urgent need to stall, to draw out this moment, to spend as much time as possible with him before he leaves me for good—if that's what he's going to do.

“Can we get in the car?” I say. “Turn on the heat?”

Sam nods and opens up his car door. I run around to the passenger side, rubbing my hands together for warmth. Sam turns on the ignition and we wait for the heat to warm up. Soon, my hands start to thaw.

“Listen,” Sam says. “I've spent the past four days thinking.”

It feels like a lifetime has passed but it's only been four days.

“I can't do this,” he says as he turns his whole body toward me. “I can't live like this. I can't . . . This isn't working for me.”

“OK,” I say. I can feel my chest start to ache as if my body can't stand to hear this.

“You have to come home,” he says.

I look up at him. “What?”

“Fifteen years ago, I watched you go off with Jesse and I told myself that you had made your decision and there was nothing that I could do about it. And here we are, all this time later, and I'm doing the same thing. That's not . . . I can't do it again. I'm fighting for you.

“I left work after fifth period today because I was considering teaching the jazz band how to play ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart.' I'm heartbroken without you. I have spent this time alone moping around like a bird with a broken wing just hoping that you'd come back to me. But it's not enough to hope. I'm an adult now. I'm not a teenager like I was back then, the first time. I'm a man now. And it's not enough for me to hope for you. I have to fight for you. So here I am. That's what I'm doing. I'm putting up a fight.”

Sam takes my hand and implores me. “I am right for you, Emma. What we have is . . . it's true love. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You're my soul mate. I can make you happy,” he says. “I can give you the life you want. So marry me, Emma. Marry
me
.”

“Oh, my God,” I say, relief washing over me. “We are so ridiculous.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks. “What do you mean?”

“You're fighting for me?” I say.

“Yeah.”

“I was about to come find you at your job to fight for you.”

Sam is disarmed and stunned. He is quiet. And then he starts to tear up and says, “Really?”

“I love you, sweetheart,” I say to him. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I'm so sorry that I had unfinished business. But it is finished now. It's over. And I know that you are the man I want to spend every day of my life with. I want our life. I want to marry you. I'm sorry I was lost. But I'm so sure now. I want you.”

“And Jesse?” Sam asks.

“I love Jesse. I'll always love him. But he was right for me then. You are right for me now. And always.”

Sam breathes in, letting my words flow into his ears and settle in his brain.

“Do you mean all of this?” he asks me. “It's not just something you're saying to be dramatic and wonderful?”

I shake my head. “No, I'm not trying to be dramatic and wonderful.”

“I mean, you've succeeded in it, for sure.”

“But I mean it. All of it. Assuming that you can forgive me
for being uncertain, for needing to leave, for needing more time with him, to find out what I think I already knew.”

“I can forgive that,” Sam says. “Of course I can.”

It's important to me that he knows what I've done, that I face it. “We went to Maine together, alone,” I say.

I don't say anything more because I don't have to.

Sam shakes his head. “I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to know. It's over. It's in the past. All that matters is from here on out.”

I nod my head, desperate to assure him. “I don't want anyone or anything except you from here on out, forever.”

He takes it all in, closing his eyes.

“You'll be my wife?” he says, smiling wide. I don't know if I've ever felt more loved than in this moment, when the idea that I might marry a man brings that much joy to his face.

“Yes,” I say. “God, yes.”

Sam leans over to my side of the car and kisses me, beaming. The tears in my eyes are finally happy tears. My heart is no longer pounding but swelling.

No more conflicted feelings. No more uncertainty.

“I love you,” I say. “I don't think I ever knew just how much until now.” It's a good sign, I think, that our love has proven to grow, rather than wane, when faced with a challenge. I think it bodes well for our future, for all of the things ahead of us: marriage, children.

“Oh, God, I was so scared I'd lost you,” Sam says. “I was capsizing over here. Worried I'd lose the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.”

“You didn't lose me,” I say. “I'm here. I'm right here.”

I kiss him.

The two of us are sitting awkwardly half over the console
with cricked necks and the stick shift digging into my knee. I just want to be as close to him as possible. Sam kisses my temple and I can smell our laundry detergent on his shirt.

“Take me home?” I ask.

Sam smiles. It is the sort of smile that any minute might turn to tears. “Absolutely.”

I move away from him, putting myself firmly in the passenger seat as he puts the car in reverse and backs out.

My phone and my wallet are in my car, as well as my weekend bag with all of my things. But I don't stop him. I don't ask him to wait just a minute while I grab them. Because I don't need them. Not right now. I don't need anything that I don't have right this minute.

Sam holds my left hand with his right. He does so the entire way home except for a twenty-second period when I lean forward and dig through his glove compartment for his favorite Charles Mingus CD that he keeps buried in the dash. I still can't stand jazz and he still loves it. In both important and unimportant ways, Sam and I are the same to each other that we were back then. When the music begins, Sam looks at me, impressed.

“You hate Mingus,” he says.

“I love you, though, so . . .”

This seems like a good enough explanation for him and so he grabs my hand again. There is no tension, no pressure. We are at peace simply being next to each other. A deep calm comes over me as I watch the snowplowed streets of Acton turn to those of Concord, as the evergreens that hug the highway leading us through Lexington and Belmont turn to brick sidewalks and brownstones in Cambridge. The world feels like a mirror, in that what I see in front of me is finally in perfect synchronicity with what I am made of.

I feel like myself on these streets, with this man.

We park and head up to our apartment. I am tucked into the crook of his arm, using his body as a shield against the cold.

Sam turns the key and when the door shuts behind us, it feels like we've locked the whole world out. When he kisses me, his lips are still chilled and I feel them warm up with my touch.

“Hi,” he says, smiling. It is the kind of “hi” that means everything except hello.

“Hi,” I say back.

The smell of our apartment, a scent I'm not sure I've ever noticed before, is spicy and fresh, like cinnamon toothpaste. I spot both of the cats under the piano. They are OK.
Everything
is OK.

Sam pushes himself against me as I rest against the back of our front door. He puts his hand to my cheek, his fingers slip into my hair as his thumb grazes under my eye.

“I was afraid I'd lost these freckles of yours forever,” he says as he looks right at me. His gaze feels comforting, safe. I find myself moving my head toward his hand, pressing against it.

“You didn't,” I say. “I'm here. And I will do anything for you. Anything. For the rest of our lives.”

“I don't need anything from you,” Sam says. “Just you. I just want you.”

My arms reach up around his shoulders and I pull him close to me. The weight of his body against mine is both stirring and soothing. I can smell the drugstore pomade in his hair. I can feel the short stubble of his cheeks. “You're it for me,” I say. “Forever. Me and you.”

I was wrong before, when I said there's nothing more romantic than the end of a relationship.

It is this.

There is nothing more romantic than this. Holding the very person that you thought you lost, and knowing you'll never lose them again.

I don't think that true love means your only love.

I think true love means loving truly.

Loving purely. Loving wholly.

Maybe, if you're the kind of person who's willing to give all of yourself, the kind of person who is willing to love with all of your heart even though you've experienced just how much it can hurt . . . maybe you get lots of true loves, then. Maybe that's the gift you get for being brave.

I am a woman who dares to love again.

I finally love that about myself.

It's messy to love after heartbreak. It's painful and it forces you to be honest with yourself about who you are. You have to work harder to find the words for your feelings, because they don't fit into any prefabricated boxes.

But it's worth it.

Because look what you get:

Great loves.

Meaningful loves.

True loves.

I
wear a pale lavender dress at my second wedding. It is sleek and ornate. It feels like the wedding dress of a woman who has lived a full life before getting married. A dress that signals a strong, well-rounded person making a beautiful decision. Marie is my maid of honor. Ava is our flower girl; Sophie is our ring bearer. Olive gives a speech that leaves half the room in tears. Sam and I honeymoon in Montreal.

And then eight months and nine days after Sam and I say our vows in front of all of our friends and family, I am talking to Olive on the phone as I close up Blair Books on a balmy summer night.

Marie left early to pick up the girls from our parents'. We are all meeting up for dinner at Marie and Mike's house. Mike is grilling steaks and Sam promised Sophia and Ava he'd make them grilled cheese.

Olive is talking about the first birthday party that she is throwing for her baby, Piper, when I hear the familiar beep of call-waiting.

“You know what?” I say. “Someone's on the other line. I gotta go.”

“OK,” she says. “Oh, I wanted to ask you what you think about sea animals as a theme for—”

“Olive!” I say. “I gotta go.”

“OK, but just . . . do you like sea animals as a theme or not?”

“I think it depends on what animals but I have to go.”

“I mean, like, whales and dolphins, maybe some fish,” Olive explains as I groan. “Fine!” she says. “We can FaceTime tomorrow.”

I hang up and look at my phone to see who is calling me.

I don't recognize the number. But I recognize the area code.

310.

Santa Monica, California.

“Hello?”

“Emma?” The voice is instantly familiar. One I could never forget.

“Jesse?”

“Hi.”

“Hi!”

“How are you?” he asks me casually, as if we talk all the time. I have gotten postcards from California a few times, even one from Lisbon. They are short and sweet, simple updates on how he is, where he's headed. I always know he's OK. But we don't text that often. And we never talk on the phone.

“I'm good,” I say. “Really good. How about you?”

“I'm doing well, yeah,” he says. “Miss you guys in Acton, obviously.”

“Obviously,” I say.

“But I'm good. I'm . . . I'm really happy here.”

I don't know what else to say to him. I can't quite tell why he's calling. My silence stalls us. And so he just comes out with it.

“I met someone,” he says.

Maybe it shouldn't surprise me—that he met someone, that he wants to tell me. But both things do.

“You did? That's wonderful.”

“Yeah, she's . . . she's really incredible. Just very unique. She's a professional surfer. Isn't that crazy? I never thought I'd fall in love with a surfer girl.”

I laugh. “I don't know,” I say, locking up the shop, walking out to my car. It's still bright out even though the evening is fully under way. I will miss this come October. I make a point to appreciate it now. “It kind of makes perfect sense to me that you'd fall in love with a surfer girl. I mean, it doesn't get much more California than that.”

“Yeah, maybe you're right.” Jesse laughs.

“What's her name?”

“Britt,” Jesse says.

“Jesse and Britt,” I say. “That has a nice ring to it.”