Whatever that meant. But I couldn’t say no to him. “I promise. I’ll be back. I’ll keep in touch.”
But I didn’t, not really. Because on Christmas day my grandmother died in the hospital while I held her hand. Her labored breathing ceased and the machines pumping who knew what into her all flatlined, a horrible continuous chirp coming from one of them. I could smell death in the room and it filled my nostrils, made me swallow over and over. One minute there was life, a straining, rotting, struggle for existence, the next it was gone. The room was empty.
A nurse appeared and said things. Things I didn’t remember two seconds after she spoke them as I stared blankly at my grandmother. Her eyes were closed and I felt… nothing. And everything.
My phone beeped with a text from Devin.
Merry Christmas. Xxx
Hugs, but not kisses. I stared at the screen for a second, not sure what to do. The nurse clasped my hand, led me into the hallway. There were Christmas lights twinkling above the nurses’ station and the staff was all wearing Santa caps. A tree was in the corner with red and gold balls hanging on it. I stood in the hallway, looking back over my shoulder at the room where my grandmother lay.
Another nurse came up to me and put her arm around my shoulders. “Is there someone you want to call, hon?”
I shook my head. There was no one to call. It had always just been me and my grandmother. “No.”
There was no ferry to the island at night, so I slept on the chairs in the waiting room, my coat spread over me.
I woke up under the bright lights with Christmas music blaring around me, someone laughing down the hall.
It smelled like antiseptic and I closed my eyes again. Alone.
Sitting in Cat’s living room, I stared at nothing. “I have to go back,” I told her. To Richfield. I didn’t really want to, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe I just didn’t know what to say to Devin. I didn’t want him to look at me and feel sorry for me. That I had been mistreated as a kid. That my grandmother was dead. To see that he didn’t want a relationship with me after all, because of my lack of sexual and life experience. That friendship and desire would devolve into pity.
So mostly I wanted to drink coffee at Cat and Heath’s and read one book after another. I didn’t want to do anything and I didn’t want to even respond to Devin, whose texts to me were getting increasingly agitated. He’d even called me twice. I hadn’t answered any of them, which was awful and immature. I knew that. But I couldn’t deal with him, not when I was dealing with my grandmother’s death. I didn’t want to admit I’d allowed expectations to grow beyond what they ever should have.
“No, you don’t,” Cat told me. She was lacing up her running shoes. The promised blizzard hadn’t arrived and there was only the usual soft December snow on the ground. She didn’t let that prevent her from jogging. Heath was outside already splitting wood. “You can stay here. Your grandmother’s house is yours, you know. It’s a shithole, but it’s your shithole. You can do online classes like you originally planned.”
“I promised him I’d go back.”
She opened her mouth. Then she just bit her lip and stood, pulling on a knit cap and mittens.
“You don’t think he’ll care, do you?” I asked. I was wearing sweatpants and I plucked at the loose fabric. “It’s the right thing to do, regardless.”
“So go back and resign or whatever. He wasn’t here for you when your grandmother died. You don’t need that kind of guy in your life.”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“What?” She stared at me.
“I didn’t tell him she died. It’s been five days and I haven’t told him.”
“Why not?” she asked, clearly astonished.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t. Maybe it had something to do with me not wanting to have either his pity or his disinterest. I was afraid of his response. I didn’t trust that he would give me the one I needed.
It wasn’t fair to him, truthfully.
And he was clearly worried about me. But I couldn’t unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. All of this only served to illuminate how different our worlds, our lives, were from each other.
There wasn’t going to be a funeral. My grandmother had already been cremated and she was in a box in a grocery bag I’d taken from the house. I had locked everything up and left it with the heat turned down, doubtful that I could ever bring myself to live there. I wasn’t sure how all the legal stuff worked but hopefully I could pay back the funeral home and ditch the house somehow. There wasn’t even anything I wanted in it.
The only thing I’d taken was the pot holder I’d made. I’d found it in the trunk in my grandmother’s bedroom, along with pictures of my mother growing up.
“I wish you would let people help you,” Cat said. “I mean, whatever Devin is doing, he clearly does care about you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said he is playing me.”
She pursed her lips. “He brought you to the hospital. He’s been blowing up your phone. He clearly cares.”
“Yeah.” My grandmother’s words echoed in my head. Rich man’s mistress. The keys to the jeep he’d bought me were still in my coat pocket.
That’s not the way he had intended it. I knew Devin. He would have given me the jeep regardless. He’d actually ordered it before we’d even shared our first kiss. It wasn’t a manipulation. He could get pu**y whenever and wherever he wanted it. With a lot less work and a much more satisfying outcome for him. With women who knew what they were doing. He also wasn’t the kind who manipulated others just to see if he could get his way. He just wanted me, for whatever reason.
I thought about the simple pleasure on his face when he’d given me the box. How eager he’d been.
Pulling my phone out I sent him a text.
Hope you had a good Christmas. Can you pick me up at the ferry dock? I’m ready to come back to Richfield. Sorry it was longer than I thought.
That wasn’t good enough. I knew it wasn’t. Not after going dead silent on him for five days.
Which was obvious when he texted back.
I thought you fell in the ocean. Yes. When?
Tomorrow? Any time you’re free. Thank you.
“I wonder if he went to New York,” I mused out loud. “If he stayed at the house by himself for Christmas, I really am a total jerk.”