Page 49 of Bae

Was she joking? Did Valerie Anderson actually want to wear boots and joke?

I resisted the urge to glance out the window for signs of an impending apocalypse.

“I’m glad you came by,” she said, her voice taking on a more serious tone.

I swallowed thickly; my throat felt stuffed with cotton, so I drank some of the tea. It didn’t help, but it did stall for time.

“How are you doing?” Valerie asked, giving me a nudge.

The mug made a light thudding sound when I set it on the table. “Not very good,” I whispered, staring down into the dark liquid. I didn’t want to look at Valerie. I was afraid of what I’d see.

Pity. Sorrow. Understanding.

Even though I was here for the understanding, to be honest, I still didn’t want to see it reflected in her eyes. My pain felt singular. Unique. In many ways, the pain was the last connection I had with Evie. If I saw understanding in Valerie’s eyes, I was terrified it would somehow take away what little I had left.

No one can take away Evie. She is and always will be your daughter.

How easy the thoughts come; how very difficult to believe them.

“I feel stuck,” I elaborated. “Like I can’t move on. I want to, but it feels disloyal.”

Valerie reached across the table, her perfectly manicured hand settling over mine and squeezing.

“It hurts,” I admitted, emotion welling up inside me until my own skin felt stretched tight. “It hurts all the time.”

“It’s always going to hurt, sweetheart,” she answered.

I wasn’t expecting that, and I looked up.

She offered me a ghost of a smile and nodded. “There will always be an empty piece inside you that Evie took when she was lost. There will always be days when you look at the calendar and mentally calculate how old she would be that day. You’ll always seek out her face in children who look the way you imagined she would.”

My breathing hitched because she knew.

She knew my thoughts without me having to voice them.

“You keep waiting for the pain to dull, but it hurts a little more every day. People have probably told you it’s been long enough now. They’ve tried to put a limit on your grief.”

I nodded.

She knew.

“People do that because your pain makes them uncomfortable. It’s hard to see. Look at me, Rimmel,” she asserted.

I did because Valerie wasn’t a woman you ignored.

“The love you feel for Evie is not quantifiable; therefore, neither is the time it will take to feel human again. I’ve taken a long, silent look at you over the past year, my daughter-in-law, and I’ve learned quite a lot. But at the top of that list, I have learned your capacity to feel is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. It’s a blessing and a curse for you. A blessing because when you love, it’s with everything inside you. A curse because when you hurt, it’s almost crippling.”

I lifted my hand to brush away a tear trailing over my cheek.

“The good news is you learn to adapt. You learn to live with the loss of your daughter.”

“It feels like I’m betraying her memory,” I whispered. “To move on.”

“I know. But that empty spot I said she took with her?” she asked, and I nodded. “She has that piece of you. And that place inside you? That’s not nearly as empty as it feels. That’s her place now, and she’s going to be there forever.”

More tears fell. She was with me. Always.

“It was my fault.” I wept. “I’m not as strong as Romeo. I couldn’t keep her safe.”

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