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We sit in silence for a while looking out at the lake. It’s a comfortable kind of silence. Seems like being in each others company is getting easier each day. All the turbulence gone. “When does it get easier?”
“Are you asking your mother or are you asking Dr. Zelda Anderson?”
It takes me a minute to answer. “I’m asking my mother.”
“The time it takes to heal is the measure of the love you give.”
In that case I’ll never be over him.
“You may not want to hear this, but you are so much like me in so many ways…your exuberance, your love of the chase…but the love you give, the size of your heart…that’s all your dad.”
I wipe the dampness from my cheeks and swallow.
“Be patient with yourself. Let yourself feel it. You’ll know when it’s done. And then it will be done for good.”
The next morning, Nan waits for me on the porch steps while Dad loads my luggage.
“Goodbye Elvis you sicko.” I pet his massive head and he hisses. “Bye Nan, love you.” I kiss her weathered cheek, sniff the combination of cigarettes and Shalimar, and she slips a check in my hand. Gene and Zelda drive me to the airport. On the way, I glance at Nan’s check. Twenty thousand dollars. I’m shocked and grateful and sad at the same time. I’m always sad now. At the gate, I hug them both and promise to visit soon. The whole thing seems less weird every day.
On the plane, I link up the wifi and do what I have resisted doing for weeks. I Google him. He’s given two interviews. Bob Costas and some woman I don’t recognize. Maybe a Canadian reporter. He looks so handsome, all polished and primped. His hair perfect, the beard trim. The suit impeccable.
But it’s the vacant look in his eyes as he explains to Costas that he did it to protect the memory of his best friend that breaks my heart.
Nobody deserves to be loved and worshiped more than Jake does. He’s had so little of it in his life and all he does is keep trying to give it away. I contemplate writing him an email, but all I do is cause him pain. It’s probably best I stay out of his life.
“I look like a beached whale. Just say it,” Jackie says as soon as I step in the house. Charlie puts down my bags and goes to give her a kiss.
“Nah, you look like someone who’s ready to squirt a baby out soon.”
“Ew, that gross.”
Five days later, Jackie waddles into the pool house and grunts as she falls into the couch. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she says, shoveling ice cream into her mouth while we binge watch Euphoria. “You have no idea how much I missed you. I almost made Charlie go fetch you like five times.”
She’s been very sentimental lately.
“Well good thing you almost got me killed for nothing,” I mutter. Jackie starts bawling and I start laughing. “I’m kidding! Jeez. This poor kid of yours. I feel bad for her.”
If it wasn’t for Jackie, I would’ve never met Jake.
“Have you tried calling him again?”
I’ve had a lot of time to think lately.
“No…I’m done trying. If he believes that I would do that to him, then I don’t know if we ever really stood a chance.”
Jackie nods pensively and doesn’t argue. Jackie is the most pragmatic person I know. If she thinks I’m doing the right thing by staying away, then it’s probably the right thing to do.
“Carrie! Jackie is going into labor prematurely! We’re headed to Cedar Sinai. Meet us there!”
The call came in when I was interviewing with Kate at the Huff Post and I sent it straight to voicemail.
Charlie sounds panicked. Charlie has never been anything other than chill since the day I met him an eternity ago, which means there must be something legitimate to panic about. It sends me into full-tilt hysteria.
I run around the underground parking garage of the building where the Huff Post is located like an inmate released from prison for CoVid. Right now, I have zero recollection where I parked Jackie’s Land Rover.
After wasting a good twenty minutes, a security officer takes pity on me and comes to my rescue with his golf cart. By then, my sister’s Stella McCartney blouse is soaked in sweat, and my hair (that Jackie insisted I leave down) is a Colombian necktie wrapped around my neck.
When did it get so unbearably hot in L.A.? I don’t remember it being this freaking hot. Somehow while contemplating the heat, I start longing for cold winter nights and snowstorms. There’s something seriously wrong with me.
By the time I get to the hospital, Jackie is in labor. I take a hold of her hand while Charlie is on the other side, but after the baby’s heart rate spikes the doctor tells her it’s time for a C-section.
