Page 48 of The Scars I Bare
Thankful it was just my arm and not something awful like, God forbid, my leg.
That was my favorite one.
A reporter had come to the island to interview me and had the nerve to say on camera, “Well, at least you didn’t lose something really important, like a leg.”
I asked him to think of me the next time he tried to get dressed in the morning or make his wife a nice dinner.
It took the moron a few seconds to figure it out. He probably had to picture himself going through the motions of undressing himself with one hand.
Finally, his eyes met mine.
Eyes filled with pity.
My mom had sent him pies for a week straight as an apology.
Not my finest hour.
But, tonight, I truly believed I was lucky.
To be alive.
To be in this town. In this moment.
With this woman and her daughter.
I knew I was crossing a line, going way beyond the friendship I’d promised Lizzie. But, for the first time in three years, ever since a bubbly nurse had sprung into my hospital room, I felt alive.
Truly alive.
And, this time, I wasn’t going to waste it.
The long walk home did nothing to dull my spirits, and the moment I bolted through my front door, I immediately went for my journal.
I spent hours writing about Cora and Lizzie.
I wrote about how worried I was over her past, how much I hated her ex for everything he’d put her through.
I wrote of Lizzie’s email and mine in return, and I wrote about Cora.
Her smile and the way she laughed. How I could spend hours making her do so. How she’d invited me in for tea tonight, but we never actually drank any. We’d just sat around the kitchen table, holding hot mugs between our hands until they went cold, and the night grew dark.
By the time I finished, it was well past midnight, and my hand ached from the effort. Closing the notebook, I did a quick check of my email, nearly missing another message from Lizzie amid all the junk.
Hi,
It’s Lizzie Ashcroft again. Thank you for having dinner with Mommy and me tonight. You made her tears go away. She cries a lot when Pappy calls. I think she misses him. I miss him, too. Or at least, I think I do. I don’t remember him much. Or my Nana either. I have a picture of them in my bedroom. Well, it’s in a box right now, but I can show it to you if you want.
Anyway, thanks for making my mommy smile.
Can you keep making her smile?
Also, I came up with ten more finger foods. They’re listed below.
Love,
Lizzie
Sure enough, right below her name, there was a list of ten random foods she’d come up with, including a Japanese dessert, mochi ice cream.How the hell did she even know what that was?Even I had to Google it. But she knew.
