Page 53 of Bursting With Love
“It’s remarkable. Your voice, too.” He turned his body toward her so he could study her more closely. A memory snaked its way into his mind, and he had to share it. “She sat right there once with that same look on her face. We’d just decided to try to have a baby.” His throat swelled, and he paused as a chill ran through him. “She said…” He narrowed his eyes to keep the tears that burned from falling. “She said, Let’s do it, Jackie. That was all. Let’s do it, Jackie.”
“She loved you, Jack, and she would have loved your children.” Elise touched his arm. “Do you remember when you guys first got married? Remember how she made me promise to never let her turn into one of those sisters who forgets she has a life outside of her marriage?”
Jack nodded.
“She never did, Jack. She always made time for me and you.”
A tear tumbled down his cheek. He tried to blink it away, but more tears spilled, and he dropped his eyes to the couch.
“I miss her, too, Jack.” Elise wiped her own eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Elise. Not just for letting her go out that night, but for being such a jerk afterward. I loved her so much, and I missed her—miss her—so much.”
“I know you do, Jack. We all do.” Elise’s voice was just above a whisper. When she spoke again, strength had returned to her voice. “But, Jack, everyone misses you. Your family, my family. You have a lot of life to live ahead of you, and we worry about you.”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “I thought I could escape the pain. I thought if I didn’t see anyone, I could forget the blame and the accusations in everyone’s eyes.”
“Jack, no one blamed you but yourself.”
Jack shook his head. “Your father blamed me, and I’m sure everyone did.”
“No, Jack. What Dad said, he said out of anger and grief. Don’t you remember? The last time you saw him, you two argued. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was on Linda’s birthday after she’d died, and he told you to stop blaming yourself and to pull yourself together.”
Jack remembered it well. The shock of rage that tore through him. The gall of anyone telling him to forget his pain—to forget Linda—and move on with his life. They didn’t understand that he was unable to do that. He could not physically muster the energy to even think about forgetting or letting go of the guilt.
“Jack, look at me.”
He met her empathetic gaze.
“It was you who blamed yourself, Jack. You argued until my father was red faced. Remember? Think about it, please. It’s important that you see how things really happened. You got right in his face and said that you would never speak to him again if he continued to tell you to let her go, and the whole time, he wasn’t telling you to. He was giving you permission to move on with your life.”
Jack grabbed the sides of his head and leaned his elbows on his knees again. “No. I saw it in his eyes, Elise. I saw it. His hatred was so blatant.”
“No, Jack.”
The strength of her statement drew his eyes back to her. He felt his chest rise and fall as his breathing became fast and loud.
“That was you, Jack. You hated yourself. You blamed yourself. You scared us, Jack. Dad was afraid you’d do something horrible, think about suicide or something, and the more he tried to release you from your own self-imposed guilt, the angrier you became. He finally gave up and said, Fine, Jack. Go wallow in your guilt. While away your life in some self-imposed prison. Is that what you want to hear?” Elise stood and paced. “Damn it, Jack. You’ve always been so damn stubborn. You looked him in the eye and said, Yes, goddamn it. It’s the truth.” She crouched before him and held his knees in her small hands, waiting until Jack was looking at her before continuing. “Jack, that’s when he said it. That’s when he told you that you were the reason she died. He said it to appease you, Jack, because every attempt to dissuade seemed to make you angrier and more belligerent. And do you remember what you did?”
Jack’s chest hurt so badly that he couldn’t tell if his tears were from the pain or the grief that constricted it.
“You thanked him, Jack, and then you walked out the door. And that was almost two years ago. My father has lived with the guilt of that conversation every second of his life. And you?” She leaned forward and ran her hand up his arm and found the scar behind his left biceps. “You have lived with it, too.”
Elise moved to the stone hearth and sat down across from Jack. She folded her hands in her lap and waited, respectfully shifting her eyes away from him as he wiped the tears from his cheek and weighing her words, allowing the truth of them to sink past the dam he’d built within him. The one that kept him upright during the day and anxious at night. They sat in silence for ten or fifteen minutes. It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Jack didn’t think of what to say next or how to act. He simply allowed himself to be present, to accept and feel the hurt of the reality she’d brought him—and that alone was a huge step forward.
