Page 5 of Operator
Because once upon a time, I tried. I cored myself like an apple, giving him all the tender, fleshy insides of my soul, but he walked away without a second look back. Like I’d been nothing. Like it didn’t matter that he left me to rot on the ground like a piece of roadkill.
I feel the stares of the whole checkout line as I carry my groceries out the sliding door. Bunny eyes me warily as I open the passenger door to her Explorer. You’d think with a name like Bunny of all things, she’d be meek and mild, but no sir. “Reece women have spine,” she told me after Ian had proposed. “Remember that, sugar, and you’ll fit right in.”
Maybe we didn’t always see eye to eye, but Bunny Reece had been there for me when no one else had, and that was something I’d never forget.
“This heat done wore off my mascara. I tell you, if it gets any hotter, I’m gonna have to take drastic measures. Do you think I’d look good with them false lashes?” She bats her eyes layered tarantula leg thick with Maybelline.
“I think you’re beautiful just the way you are, Bunny.”
“Well, ain’t you sweet.” She twists the knob until the A/C jets out frigid air, a drastic contrast to the steaming heat of a North Carolina summer afternoon. “You feelin’ okay, sugar? You look like you saw a ghost.”
If she only knew.
“I’m okay. Where to next?”
* * *
When Ian first suggested moving next to his parents after leaving the Marines, I thought he was crazy. His mother wasn’t my biggest fan at first, and I hated the thought of living so close to my in-laws, but it’s turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After Ian died, they were the only thing that kept me going.
Mostly because what Bunny wants, Bunny gets, and I was her only link to her son, who was ripped violently from this world all too soon. She pestered me into survival, essentially. She may be overbearing and a little too much, but she cares in her own way, and that’s good enough for me. If it weren’t for her, I’d have no one else, so I cling to her probably as much as she clings to me.
Is that the definition of dysfunctional? Probably. So much about my life is dysfunctional these days.
“I’ll pick you up again tomorrow after your shift at the diner for your doctor’s appointment,” she hollers out the car window. “Three o’clock, right?”
“That’s right!” I shout back. I have to because she had HOT 100.9 FM cranked all the way up, screaming about how Earl had to die.
Shaking my head, I carry my sacks of groceries to the front door and juggle them all in one hand to unlock it. Daisy, the fifty-pound Goldendoodle Ian convinced me to rescue from the shelter, leaps up and I manage to block her with an arm. Over a year old and bigger than she thinks she is, Daisy is still very much a puppy, despite her size.
“Down girl, down.” Her fuzzy little butt wiggles with the force of her tail wags. “I know, I’m excited to see you, too, but we can’t have all that jumping now. It’s a bad habit.”
She butts her head against my leg as I inch my way to the dining room table and unburden myself of the bags. Daisy noses my thigh and I give her a good rubdown, which sends her into a fit of delight. I don’t blame her too much for being excited. She’s a simple creature and loves me with an unconditional joy I can’t help but reciprocate. She’s one of the very few things in life that keeps me going these days.
“Wanna go outside, girl?”I ask her once I have the refrigerated items put away.
Her floppy ears perk up and she spins around in a quick circle. The rest of the groceries can wait. After that scene at the market, some fresh air and wide-open spaces would do me good.
Daisy zooms out of the screen door as soon as I have it opened. She flies down the stairs and into the bushes for some reason. She’s the goofiest thing ever sometimes, I swear.
I settle on the porch swing, eager to rest my aching feet. A light breeze is the only respite from the sweltering heat, but I don’t mind it too much now that I’m back at home, away from the crowds from the lunch rush at the diner and their stares. Daisy ambles about, happily sniffing flowers and chasing butterflies while trying to eat them.
My eyes shoot open when I realize the calm, relaxed feeling that settles over me is something like happiness. I haven’t felt it in so long it takes me by surprise. I never thought I could feel this way again after Ian died.
It still hurts and I imagine in some ways it always will. Time doesn’t wash away the hurt, but it does dull it a little.
Not a lot, but a little.
For a while after Ian’s death, I thought I’d never be able to live in our cozy house again. I stayed at Bunny’s for months until I could face the place where we’d made a life together, made a home together. Imagined a future together. The scents of him still linger in some places and now it’s almost like I can still feel him with me and that helps, too.Most of the time.
He’d loved this house, even though it wasn’t really anything special. A small three-bedroom one bath ranch style, it had pink tile in the bathroom and disgusting 70’s shag carpet in a stylish shade of mustard when we’d accepted it from the Reece’s. I’d been revolted, but he’d been ecstatic. I couldn’t tell him no when I saw him so happy. There was so little that made him happy after his one and only deployment, I could barely ever tell him no. He never took advantage...well, except for this instance. I hated to tell him he was right, but he had been right about this house.And, eventually, about his parents.
We’d renovated it together, though maybe gutted would be a better word. The carpet had been replaced with wide plank wood floors we salvaged from beneath and the pink tile replaced with a crisp white subway tile. It was cozy and homey, but more importantly, it was ours. He’d loved toiling away at projects and I loved watching him.
Remembering it brings a wave of melancholy, but not as overpowering as it had been a little less than a year ago. I suppose this would be the acceptance stage of grief I’d heard so much about. Funny that it would come now, when everything else feels so discombobulated.I still have so many questions about his death, but one day soon I’ll have answers.
I’ll make sure of it.
Lost in thought, it takes a minute for the sound of Daisy’s alarmed barking to register. Which is a miracle considering how loud her deep booming bark actually is. She’s poised at the gate at the end of the short walkway that leads to the front porch and staring fixedly at the driveway. A truck kicks up a cloud of dust as it heads straight for my house.Denial is first. I find myself shaking my head without conscious thought. Clenching my jaw, I order my racing heart to calm, my shaking hands to still. Surely it’s just a neighbor. Right?
