Page 94 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

“Breathe,” Adam says, but I barely register it. He’s underwater.

My heaving sobs come faster. I gasp for air, but it’s no use.

Mrs.Lewis grabs her husband’s sleeve. “Richard, you’re a doctor. Do something!”

“I’m a podiatrist!”

It’s the last thing I hear before I fall underwater too.

24

A Minnesota Goodbye

Dr.Lewis diagnoses me with a “fairly generic” panic attack. I could live without the color commentary, but I’m in no position to take offense. Despite the foot focus of his medical expertise, he remembers enough from his emergency rotation to talk me down until the panic subsides.

In the privacy of the Lewises’ office, it comes out all at once.

“Sam meant so much to me,” I start, because despite all of the lies, this feels like the most important truth. “But we were never very serious. I didn’t know he hadn’t told you about the breakup until I was at the funeral.”

The Lewis family speaks on top of each other. All at once, I hear:

“You’re not his girlfriend?”

“I thought Sam wanted it this way.”

“What kind of person does something like that?”

With the simple raise of his hand, Adam stops the cacophony. “She broke up with Sam a while ago, but at the funeral, Rachel asked her to go along with the whole girlfriend thing.”

“He broke up with me, actually,” I say, correcting him. “Right before Labor Day.”

I turn to Adam to watch the moment he realizes I wasn’t enough for Sam, but he’s staring at the door with a faraway look.

“You knew?” Mrs.Lewis asks Adam. He nods, never looking away from the door.

It’s then she notices that he’s still holding my hand. He grabbed it when I started panicking and hasn’t let it go since. She clutches the silver pendant in her palm. “You two are together.” Her voice isn’t angry or betrayed, just tired. Of me. Of this. Of today, maybe. Of missing her son who’s not coming back, no matter how many necklaces she gives away.

Adam drops my hand.

Rachel cops to her part of the ruse. How she never imagined I’d become this entangled in everyone’s lives. How she was only trying to help the family heal from this terrible loss.

I want to tell them that Sam and I were just becoming friends again and how I still feel stunned by the permanent loss of him. I want to apologize and beg their forgiveness. Instead, all I say is, “I only wanted to help.”

The Lewises look back at me, faces depleted.

Adam walks out. I mumble more useless sorrys at the family and chase him to the front door. His legs are longer, but my boots don’t have laces, and I manage to catch him before he makes it off the porch.

“Adam. Adam. Where are you going?” I start to grab his hand, but I stop myself.

“I need some air.” Adam already sounds miles away from me.

“What’s going on?”

“This isn’t the right time for this, Alison. You just—” He cuts himself off and faces me. “Are you okay?” he asks, concern carving ruts in his face. Hope billows through me. “Does that happen a lot? The panic attacks?” he asks.

“No, but it’s happened before.” When my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I was diagnosed with BRCA and suddenly our insides were lying in wait to attack. I’ve been seeing a therapist on and off ever since.

Adam doesn’t speak again. Silence fills the space between us on the snow-covered porch, choking out any conversation before it starts, like suffocating fumes. I feel the pressure of what he’s not saying pressing against my lungs. Every so often, he twitches as if about to speak but no sound comes out. His mouth doesn’t move.

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