Page 101 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

Back outside, I thank Russell for his part in my emotional epiphany. He presses me into a firm hug. “It won’t be the same without you, babe,” he says, I think sincerely.

We wave to him, and high on my own power, I shoot off a text.

11:11 AM

Alison:

I’m not going to Patagonia. Or taking that job. You were right about everything.

It’s not enough, but the things I need to say can’t be communicated over text. It’s an olive branch. Dancing dots appear. Disappear and then reappear. My heart is a pattery mess as I wait eagerly for his response. We can fix everything—I know we can—if he just responds.

11:14 AM

Adam:

No.

11:14 AM

Adam:

I wasn’t.

I wait for more, but more doesn’t come. My heart flickers like a candle burning out.

•••

I step into my apartment hallway picking at the dirt caked on my jacket and find a familiar face sitting on my doormat.

“Rachel?”

“Sorry to show up like this. I have a sixteen-hour layover, and I wanted to talk in person. I was worried you wouldn’t answer if I called. Not that I’d blame you.”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I got your address from Adam.”

My body clenches. “You talked to Adam?”

“Not really,” she answers. “He wasn’t very chatty over text.”

My heart sinks as I shove my key in the lock. “I wouldn’t take it personally. Do you want to come in?”

She nods and follows me. Her eyes examine my limited seating options before she settles into a bistro chair in my kitchenette. I shrug off my stiff jacket and sit opposite her.

She eyes the dried blood on my cheek. “Are you okay?” I’m not sure if the question is asking after my current physical appearance or my general well-being, but it doesn’t matter because she keeps talking. “I shouldn’t have asked you to lie. I didn’t consider what that would be like for you.” Her jaw shakes and eyes swim with each word. “This has been the worst time in my life—in my parents’ lives too—but before Thanksgiving, I felt so…alone in it all.”

I clutch her hand across the table to steady her. “Would you like coffee? This feels like a conversation that requires coffee.”

Her face pinches in confusion until I reach my other hand out to my counter and pop a K-Cup in the Keurig without missing a beat. The joys of tiny living.

Her laugh is a warm breeze. “Yes, actually. I’ve been up since yesterday. Coffee sounds really good.”

I hand Rachel the full mug and replace it under the coffeemaker with another while she tells me about growing up with Sam. How they were each other’s closest confidants. How their parents were always anxious about their children’s insatiable wanderlust. She tells the kind of stories you’d share at the funeral of someone very old, where guests are capable of celebrating a loved one’s long, full life, rather than dwelling on the unfairness of a shortened existence in a numb stupor. It’s as lovely for me as it is cathartic for her.

“They loved us, but they didn’t get us. I knew I was never going to please them, so I figured why not drop out of college and become a flight attendant—travel the world as much as I could. Sam couldn’t disappoint them like that. He didn’t move out with me, even though we talked about it all the time. He lived in their condo and tried to be both people, but he just felt so guilty that he didn’t crave the settled life they wanted for him. That’s why I wanted you to go along with it, so he’d get to be both people. I didn’t realize it would feel like I was the only one mourning the real Sam. They were so fixated on the guy he wanted them to see and not the amazing person he actually was.”

“That must’ve been really lonely. I’m sorry I bolted as soon as it all came out.”

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