The Last Thing He Told Me (24 page)

“Show me how to do it,” he said.

We turned on the lights in my workshop. We had just left the theater, after our non-date, and Owen asked if he could come back to the workshop with me.
No funny business,
he said. He just wanted to learn how to use a lathe. He just wanted to learn how I do what I do.

He looked around and rubbed his hands together. “So… where do we start?” he said.

“Gotta pick a piece of wood,” I said. “It all starts with picking a good piece of wood. If that's no good, you have nowhere good to go.”

“How do you woodturners pick?” he said.

“
We
woodturners go about it in different ways,” I said. “My grandfather worked with maple primarily. He loved the coloring, loved how the grains would turn themselves out. But I use a variety of woods. Oak, pine, maple.”

“What's your favorite kind of wood to work with?” he asked.

“I don't play favorites,” I said.

“Oh, good to know.”

I shook my head, biting back a smile. “If you're going to make fun of me…” I said.

He put his hands up in surrender. “I'm not making fun of you,” he said. “I'm fascinated.”

“Okay, well then, without sounding corny, I think different pieces of wood appeal to you for different reasons,” I said.

He moved over to my work area, bent down so he was eye to eye with my largest lathe.

“Is that my first lesson?”

“No, the first lesson is that to pick an interesting piece of wood to work with, you need to understand that good wood is defined by one thing,” I said. “My grandfather used to say that. And I think that is definitely true.”

He rubbed his hand along the piece of the pine I was working with. It was a distressed pine—dark in color, rich for a pine.

“What defines this guy?” he said.

I placed my hand over a spot in the middle, blanched to almost a blond, totally washed out.

“I think this part, right here, I think it could turn out interesting,” I said.

He put his hand there too, not touching my hand, not trying—only trying to understand what I was showing him.

“I like that, I like that philosophy, is what I mean…” he says. “I kind of think you could probably say the same thing about people. At the end of the day, one thing defines them.”

“What defines you?” I said.

“What defines you?” he said.

I smiled. “I asked you first.”

He smiled back at me. He smiled, that smile.

“Okay, fine,” he said. Then he didn't hesitate, not for a second. “There is nothing I wouldn't do for my daughter.”

We sit on the tarmac, waiting for the plane to take off. Bailey stares out the window. She looks exhausted—her eyes dark and puffy, her skin a splotchy red. She looks exhausted and she looks scared.

I haven't told her everything yet. But she understands enough. She understands enough that I'm not surprised she is scared. I'd be surprised if she weren't.

“They'll come visit,” I say. “Nicholas and Charlie. They can bring your cousins if you want. I think that would be a nice thing. I think your cousins really want to meet you.”

“They won't stay with us or anything?” she says.

“No. Nothing like that. We'll have a meal or two together. Start there.”

“And you'll be there?”

“For all of it,” I say.

She nods, taking this in.

“Do I have to decide about my cousins right now?” she says.

“You don't have to decide about anything right now.”

She doesn't say anything else. She understands—as well as she is allowing herself to integrate it—that her father isn't coming home. But she doesn't want to talk about it, not yet. She doesn't want to navigate with me what things will look like without him, what they'll feel like. That too doesn't need to happen right now.

I take a deep breath in and try not to think about all the things
that do have to happen—if not right now, then soon. The steps we'll have to take, one after another, to move through our lives now. Jules and Max will pick us up at the airport, our refrigerator stocked with food for today, dinner waiting on the table. But those things will have to keep happening, day in and day out, until they start to feel normal again.

And there are things I can't avoid happening, like the fallout coming several weeks from now (or several months from now), when Bailey is on her way to something like recovery, and I'll have my first still moment to think about myself. To think about what I've lost, what I'll never have back. To think only of myself. And of Owen. Of what I've lost—what I'm still losing—without him.

When the world gets quiet again, it will take everything I am not to allow the grief of his loss to level me.

The strangest thing will stop it from leveling me. I'll have an answer to the question that I'm only now starting to consider: If I had known, would I be here? If Owen told me, out of the gate, that he had this past, if he had warned me about what I would be walking into, would I have chosen him anyway? Would I have chosen to end up where I am now? It will remind me briefly of that moment of grace my grandfather provided shortly after my mother's departure when I realized I belonged exactly where I was. And I'll feel the answer move through me, like a blinding heat. Yes. Without hesitation. Even if Owen had told me, even if I had known every last bit. Yes, I would choose this. It will keep me going.

“What is taking so long?” Bailey says. “Why aren't we taking off yet?”

“I don't know. I think the flight attendant said something about a backup on the runway,” I say.

She nods and wraps her arms around herself, cold and unhappy,
her T-shirt unable to compete against the frosty airplane air. Her arms covered with goose bumps. Again.

Except this time I'm prepared. Two years ago—two days ago—I wasn't. But now, apparently, is a different story. I reach into my bag and pull out Bailey's favorite wool hoodie. I slipped the hoodie into my carry-on bag to have it ready for this moment.

I know, for the first time, how to give her what she needs.

It isn't everything, of course. It isn't even close. But she takes her sweater, putting it on, warming her elbows with her palms.

“Thanks,” she says.

“Sure,” I say.

The plane jerks forward a few feet, and then back. Then, slowly, it starts easing down the runway.

“There we go,” Bailey says. “Finally.”

She sits back in her seat, relieved to be on the way. She closes her eyes and puts her elbow on our shared armrest.

Her elbow is there, the plane is picking up speed. I put my elbow there too, and I feel her do it, I feel us both do it. We move a little closer to each other as opposed to doing the opposite.

It feels like what it is.

A start.

I'm at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, participating in a First Look exhibition, with twenty-one other artisans and producers. I'm debuting a new collection of white oak pieces (mostly furniture, a few bowls and larger pieces) in the showroom they've provided.

These exhibitions are great for exposure to potential clients, but they are also like a reunion of sorts—and, like most reunions, somewhat of a grind. Several architects and colleagues stop by to say hello, catch up. I have done my best with the small talk, but I'm starting to feel tired. And, as the clock winds toward 6
P.M.,
I feel myself looking past people as opposed to at them.

Bailey is supposed to meet me for dinner, so I'm mostly on the lookout for her, excited to have the excuse to shut it all down for the day. She's bringing a guy she recently started dating, a hedge funder named Shep (two points against him), but she swears I'll like him.
He's not like that,
she says.

I'm not sure if she is referring to him working in finance or having the name Shep. Either way, he seems like a reaction to her last boyfriend, who had a less irritating name (John) and was unemployed. So it is, dating in your twenties, and I'm grateful that these are the things she's thinking about.

She lives in Los Angeles now. I live here too, not too far from the ocean—and not too far from her.

I sold the floating house as soon as Bailey graduated high school.
I don't harbor any illusions that this means I've avoided them keeping tabs on us—the shadowy figures waiting to pounce should Owen ever return. I'm sure they are still watching on the off chance he risks it and comes back to see us. I operate as if they are always watching, whether or not he does.

Sometimes I think I see them, in an airport lounge or outside a restaurant, but of course I don't know who they are. I profile anyone who looks at me a second too long. It stops me from letting too many people get close to me, which isn't a bad thing. I have who I need.

Minus one.

He walks into the showroom, casually, a backpack over his shoulders. His shaggy hair is buzz cut short and darker, and his nose is crooked, like it's been broken. He wears a button-down shirt, rolled up, revealing a sleeve of tattoos, crawling out to his hand, to his fingers, like a spider.

This is when I clock his wedding ring, which he is still wearing. The ring I made for him. Its slim oak finish is perhaps unnoticeable to anyone else. I know it cold though. He couldn't look less like himself. There is that too. But maybe this is what you do when you need to hide from people in plain sight. I wonder. Then I wonder if it isn't him, after all.

It isn't the first time I think I see him. I think I see him everywhere.

I'm so flustered that I drop the papers I'm holding, everything falling to the floor.

He bends over to help me. He doesn't smile, which would give him away. He doesn't so much as touch my hand. It would be too much, probably, for both of us.

He hands me the papers.

I try and thank him. Do I say it out loud? I don't know.

Maybe. Because he nods.

Then he stands up and starts to head out, the way he came. And it's then that he says the one thing that only he would say to me.

“The could-have-been boys still love you,” Owen says. He isn't looking at me when he says it, his voice low.

The way you say hello.

The way you say goodbye.

My skin starts burning, my cheeks flaring red. But I don't say anything. There's no time to say anything. He shrugs and shifts his backpack higher on his shoulder. Then he disappears into the crowd. And that's that. He is just another design junkie, on his way to another booth.

I don't dare watch him go. I don't dare look in his direction.

I keep my eyes down, pretending to organize the papers, but the heat coming off me is tangible—that fierce red lingering on my skin, on my face, if anyone is paying close enough attention in that moment. I pray they are not.

I make myself count to a hundred, then to a hundred and fifty.

When I finally allow myself to look up, it's Bailey that I see. It cools me out, immediately, centers me. She is walking toward me from the same direction Owen has gone. She's in her gray sweater dress and high-top Converse, her long, brown hair running halfway down her back. Did Owen pass her? Did he get to see for himself how beautiful she has become? How sure of herself? I hope so. I hope so at the same time I hope not. Which way, after all, spares him?

I take a deep breath and take her in. She walks hand in hand with Shep, the new boyfriend. He gives me a salute, which I'm sure he thinks is cute. It isn't.

But I smile as they walk up. How can I not? Bailey is smiling too. She is smiling at me.

“Mom,” she says.

I started working on this book in 2012. There were many times I put it aside, but I couldn't seem to let it go. I am so grateful to Suzanne Gluck, whose astute guidance on each iteration helped me to find the story that I was hoping to tell.

Marysue Rucci, your thoughtful edits and sage comments have elevated this novel in every way. Thank you for being the best partner a writer could hope for, my dream editor, and a dear friend.

My gratitude to the amazing team at Simon & Schuster: Dana Canedy, Jonathan Karp, Hana Park, Navorn Johnson, Richard Rhorer, Elizabeth Breeden, Zachary Knoll, Jackie Seow, Wendy Sheanin, Maggie Southard, and Julia Prosser; and to Andrea Blatt, Laura Bonner, Anna Dixon, and Gabby Fetters at WME.

Sylvie Rabineau, we've been in this thing together since book one, day one. Thank you for being my most trusted advisor, Jacob's “Sylv,” and one of my favorite people on the planet. I love you.

I am indebted to Katherine Eskovitz and Greg Andres for their legal expertise, to Simone Puglia for being a great Austin guide, and to Niko Canner and Uyen Tieu for the gorgeous woodturned bowl that sits on my desk, and that inspired so much of Hannah.

For reading many drafts (over the last eight years!) and providing other invaluable help and insight, thank you: Allison Winn Scotch,
Wendy Merry, Tom McCarthy, Emily Usher, Stephen Usher, Johanna Shargel, Jonathan Tropper, Stephanie Abram, Olivia Hamilton, Damien Chazelle, Shauna Seliy, Dusty Thomason, Heather Thomason, Amanda Brown, Erin Fitchie, Lynsey Rubin, Liz Squadron, Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., Kira Goldberg, Erica Tavera, Lexi Eskovitz, Sasha Forman, Kate Capshaw, James Feldman, Jude Hebert, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Marisa Yeres Gill, Dana Forman, and Allegra Caldera. And a special thank you to Lauren Levy Neustadter, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Harden, and the incredible team at Hello Sunshine—your belief in this book is nothing short of a dream come true.

My heartfelt gratitude also to the Dave and Singer families and to my wonderful friends for their unwavering love and support. And to the readers, book groups, booksellers, and book lovers whose company I am so grateful to keep.

Finally, my guys.

Josh, I'm not quite sure what to thank you for first. It probably should be something about how this novel wouldn't exist without you and your faith in me (it wouldn't), or how I can't quite believe I get to have a partner who, after thirteen years, I'm still so crazy about. But is it okay if I start with the coffee? I so love the coffee. And I love you beyond all measure.

Jacob, my inimitable, big-hearted, wise, hilarious little man. I was reborn when you entered this world. And now I walk through it grateful and humbled by everything you teach me. What can I say, kid, that I don't tell you every day? The great blessing of my life is being your mama.