Page 76 of Happy After All

“Who can say,” Elise says. “I will. I ... It’s hard. I feel like right now I’m happy. Right now things are good. I wish they didn’t need to change, but I also think they do.”

That’s a little too close to my own issues.

Yesterday morning I felt pretty good.

Right now I do not.

“Life just ... keeps on going.” I look around the courtyard at all the families, at all my residents. I pick up my pink flotation device. “We need to get the movie started.”

The festivities get going, the movie beginning to play the familiar, cheerful intro. Families are seated together around the pool, and I feel a real sense of joy that even my Nathan sadness can’t kill.

People make memories here.

Which is something I can be proud of.

They can have the happy childhood memories that I don’t.

All due to something I created, that their parents chose to give to them.

If I can’t have everything, at least I have that.

During the midway point of the movie, I get out of the pool and make my way over to the cake table. Solis is cutting and serving cake for everyone, putting the knife in a cup of water between slices. Something I learned from her when I first arrived. My family is so fractured that before I came here, I hadn’t had the chance to spend time around a functional family.

It’s been one of the greatest gifts I’ve gotten. The warm family dynamics I get to see with Emma and Elise, and Juan and Solis and their kids. The infinite wisdom I’ve been able to receive from women like Alice.

And along with it, an insight into how beautiful life is when your hair goes gray and your skin develops lines from all the years you’ve lived.

“Cake?” Solis asks me as she bats Angel’s hand away from the frosting.

“Yes,” I say.

Suddenly I can’t leave Nathan’s absence alone. He’s ignoring my texts.

“Can I have another slice?” I ask. “Please. We have a missing guest, and I feel like I should deliver this to him.”

“Of course,” she says as she hands me another plate with a heavy slice on it.

I pause at one of the empty bistro tables and set the cake down, and then I put my swimsuit cover-up on. It’s pink and flowy and covers pretty much everything, so I feel appropriately girded as I make my way to his room.

I don’t know why he hasn’t texted me, and I’m aware this might feel like too much to him. Like me pushing in when he set a clear boundary.

But I can’t leave it alone anymore. I might have lost him anyway, and one thing I can’t deal with is the reality that I might not be able to know himever.

I want to.

I need to.

I knock on his door, and I wait.

I hear noise. The sounds of his footsteps, the movement of a chair, the leg scraping against the floor.

He opens the door, and a wave of alcohol so strong it smells like despair rolls out as he does.

He pushes his hand through his hair, and his eyes are stormy. Clear in spite of his obviously inebriated state.

“What?”

I’m not deterred by how unfriendly he sounds, not now. Not when I’ve kissed him and touched him, had breakfast with him and made out with him in a national park. Not now that I know he disappointed his dad, even though he’s a bestselling author.

---