Page 61 of The Cabin
So, I know how grief works. But this, with Adrian, it’s different.
I didn’t have him long enough.
We were just getting started.
I didn’t have long enough to accept that he was dying.
I find myself on the floor of the bathroom, in my wet bathing suit, my towel rucked under me, not crying just…drowning.
I can’t wallow in it anymore.
So, I force myself to take a long, hot shower. To actually style my hair. Put on a little makeup, just a touch, to conceal the hollows in my cheeks and the bags under my eyes. Get dressed in jeans and a sweater. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I get in my car and go anyway.
I end up exploring the little town, perusing touristy gift shops and the library, the general store. I walk around and smile at the locals who smile back and say hello and ask me how I am and even manage to sound like they actually care about the answer. They know I’m new, and they’re all curious, but no one asks me anything.
There’s a little cafe, a place that serves breakfast all day and specializes in chicken-fried steak with this incredible—and incredibly unhealthy, I’m sure—gravy that’s so thick you can stand a spoon up in it, and flaky, buttery biscuits. My nutrition has been whole foods, organic, artificial sweetener-free, all that stuff for years. I got into it while I was studying for my RN, having gained way more than the freshman fifteen and having not ever lost any of it. And then it became a way of life, and Adrian converted to it when we got married because it was just easier than trying to keep two separate kinds of food. But now? I just can’t bring myself to care. Maybe at some point I will, but right now, I just want to eat food that I didn’t make, and enjoy it. And hell, I need the calories anyway. I haven’t—and don’t dare—stepped on a scale, but I know I have to weigh less now than I did in junior high.
There’s a lot of staring by locals, a lot of open curiosity, but everyone is polite enough to keep it at merely open curiosity.
I look like hell, I know I do.
I probably have a look that just screams “shattered widow.” Something tragic in my countenance, probably. No matter. It’s why I’m here, right? To get rid of it. And I’m going to do it with chicken-fried steak and gravy and biscuits and red wine, and when I get home, a whole bar of chocolate as I lie out on the dock watching the stars.He’s on his porch when I get home from dinner in town. I wave, he waves, and that’s it.
Part of me wants to go over there and talk to him, just to hear my own voice. But I don’t.
I stay inside reading—I finish the Lee Child thriller and start a biography of Einstein, more reading that’s out of the ordinary for me. Horizons? Expanding. The biography isn’t as enrapturing as the novel, but I plug away at it gamely until I look up and realize it’s dark and I’m more into it than I thought I would be.
I take my bar of chocolate out to the dock, along with a blanket. Spread the blanket out on the dock and lie down, stare up at the stars. I don’t recognize pretty much any of the constellations but the Big Dipper. I make up my own, trying to trace lines from star to star in patterns.
I hear the other dock creak under Nathan’s tread. I stay where I am. But I do wonder what he’s doing out here, at whatever time of night it is.
I hear the feet of a chair thunk onto the boards. A moment of silence. A few hesitant strums of an acoustic guitar. A chord, tried a few times, the strings buzzing inexpertly. A muttered curse, a sigh. He tries the chord again, and this time gets it. Tries a change to a different chord, fumbles it, tries again, gets it. He plays like someone who used to play a lot, but fell out of practice. I slip a sliver of chocolate into my mouth and let it melt as I listen. He’s warmed up, refamiliarized himself with the instrument, and it sounds like old skills are returning. He now seems to be working on remembering a particular song, a handful of chords tried a few different ways, a low rough hum from his voice.
I recognize it, when he remembers how to play it all the way through. “59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)” by Simon and Garfunkel. Not what I’d have expected him to play. I would have assumed Johnny Cash, or maybe some early Metallica, or Journey. Instead, he plays Simon and Garfunkel. I hear him murmuring the words, playing and singing for himself. I don’t think he even realizes I’m here—I’d be a dark lump on the dock, even from up close, and he’s a ways away.
