Page 88 of Those Two Words

Bringing the heels of my hands to my eyes, I rub the building pressure away.

I walk into the kitchen to tidy up the dishes from dinner. Jo calls it dinner, but it was a charcuterie board made up of whatever she could scrounge from my pantry. I reach for the stack of Post-it notes by the fridge to write myself a reminder to always have cheese stocked for her.

When I glance down at the small stack of papers, writing on the top note has my hand freezing where it’s reaching for it.

You make me happy.

I read the words over and over. You make me happy. Simple words to most, but not to me. Not to us. Because those words are the exact four that I left on the pillow after our first night together.

Everything fell apart after that morning, and I convinced myself she never saw it or that I never actually wrote it.

Seeing them written in her neat handwriting, the ink still fresh, tells me she did.

I’ve always wanted to make her happy. As happy as she’s made me most of my life. Jo’s happiness is intrinsic to my own, and as I trace the cursive words, I wonder if she even knows how effortlessly she does it.

A buzzing sounds from the other side of the kitchen, my screen lighting up with an incoming call. Walking over to where it’s sitting, I see George’s name.

“Hey, George,” I greet. I balance the phone between my ear and shoulder and continue tidying the kitchen.

“Hey, Pat, how are things?” he asks.

“They’re good, busy as always, can’t complain though. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” There’s a long pause before he clears his throat and speaks again. “Listen, umm, I’ve been trying to get a hold of Jo, but she’s not answering her phone. Have you spoken to her today?”

Does he know she was here? Jo still hasn’t spoken about what went on between her dad and her, but to avoid his calls seems so unlike her.

“Yeah, she was actually here tonight.” I’m not about to lie to him about where his daughter is, but also, we’re grown adults. “She left about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh. And she’s okay?”

“She’s great. Tired like me, but good. Is there something going on, George?”

“I worry about her, is all. Doesn’t matter how old your little girl is, you’ll always worry.”

“I know the feeling.” I sit down on one of the chairs at the dining table, abandoning the dishes.

“I’ve worried about her over the years, more so than I should, but I can’t help it. She’s…she’s been through a lot.” I can hear the tiredness in his voice as he sighs through the phone. “I didn’t know how to help or if I ever did. Her leaving was hard on us all, for you especially. I always thought it was the best thing for her, but now I worry that I pushed her away when maybe she needed me the most. Needed the people of this town the most.”

It takes a second for his words to sink in, and I question what I even heard. “Why would you be the one to push her away?”

The silence that follows feels like it lasts eons, rather than minutes. “I don’t—Patrick, Jo never left town willingly. I wish she had, but she fought me on it for weeks. You didn’t know that?”

My mouth goes dry. My mind runs through a thousand scenarios as to why she left, none making sense.

It feels like my mouth is stuffed with cotton, but I manage to get my words out. “No. I thought she just…left.”

“Listen, son. I’m not here to tell Jo’s side of the story, that’s not my place, only hers. I don’t want you jumping to any conclusions about why she left, and I know that’s hard, but trust me. Sometimes we reach our limit. She would have stayed here had her sister and I not begged, and I mean begged for her to get on that flight. She sees it now, but back then, she was barely keeping her head up. I worry she would have drowned had she stayed.

“I never expected her to stay away for so long, to make a life out there, but it seemed to work for her. When I asked her to come home and work at the restaurant, I prepared myself for her to turn the offer down. Having her here has been amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I also worried she wasn’t ready to come home yet, that all her hard work would unravel. That the town and its people would remind her of those hard days. That was stupid of me to presume, because if I know anything about Johanna, it’s that she doesn’t do anything without thinking it through. It took time, but she knew what she was doing out in Tennessee, and she knows what she’s doing now.”

There’s a lot to dissect. The sucker punch to the gut is that she never left willingly. I spent years being angry and bitter about her leaving, right up until a couple of months ago, and it looks like all that was misplaced.

“I don’t know what to say, other than, I care for her. So much. Having her back in my life is...”

“I know. And I know you care for her, and I have no doubt she cares for you too. I just worry this is all going to be too much for her to han?—”

“With all due respect, George,” I cut him off. “Johanna can handle a lot of things. You’re right, I don’t know the full story, but I’m also not letting that change how I feel about her. She’s the strongest person I know.”

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