Page 22 of Letting Go at 40

The last time I visited, Lynlee had a burn mark on her inner arm. Samantha claims Lynlee bumped into her when she was holding a lit cigarette. I don’t believe Samantha, but Lynlee backs up her mother’s story.

I hate the position I’m in with Samantha.

One of the first nights during our reunion of sorts, we are gathered in the sitting area. Zack’s boys are in bed. Mila and Lorna are up in Mila’s room. Calvin and Bryce have been released to do what teen boys do on a summer night. Baby Ben is in his car seat, asleep.

Autumn breaks the momentary silence. “So, I have something for each of you.”

Eyebrows lift while Logan strokes a hand up his wife’s back.

“Before Ben passed away, he gave me an envelope for each of you,” she continues.

“Jesus,” I hiss, and immediately glance at Anna, who sits in an oversized chair.

Her face pales and she glares at her sister-in-law. “How did I not know about this?”

Autumn ignores Anna’s outburst and continues. “He explained to me the four points needed to be recalibrated every year.”

She carries on, explaining who represents each point of the compass, adding how there is an envelope for Anna’s brother, Archer, the absentee McCaryn, which upsets Anna. Anna doesn’t have a clue where her brother is or where he’s been over the years, but apparently Autumn has a contact.

I watch Anna’s face morph from irritation to confusion.

Autumn ignores the emotion rolling off Anna and addresses me. “Technically, you lived north but he’s calling you West. Where the sun sets.”

My hands shake as I take the envelope from Autumn.

Where the sun sets. If there is some prophecy in that statement, I’d take it to mean the end of a day. The end of a life. The end of our friendship.

Maybe Ben finally wised up to my feelings about his wife and his letter will tell me to fuck off. Exit their lives now that he isn’t present.

“Ben suggested you open them on your own time but during these two weeks. In fact, he hoped that whatever you find on the page inside will begin during these two weeks. You have a year to fulfill his suggestion, which gives you until next summer when you meet back here. You can share your letters with each other, but he thought it best to make it a personal challenge.”

I roll my eyes. “A personal challenge.” Just what the fuck kind of game is this?

“There isn’t one for me?” Anna questions, staring at the envelope remaining in Autumn’s hand. “Archer isn’t even here,” Anna reiterates, her tone curt, her eyes searching her sister-in-law for some explanation.

“I think Ben hoped he might be.”

Silence weighs heavy in the room. My eyes don’t leave Anna.

Abruptly, she stands, visibly upset. “I’m going to bed.” She storms off toward the hallway leading to her bedroom. Everything in me longs to follow her. I’ll give her my letter. She can read for herself what Ben has to say.

Anna thought she had to face the rest of her life alone, but she doesn’t. I was here for her. I’d done my diligence with Ben. The real struggle was going to be holding her together.

She’d need a friend, as Ben said he needed in me. I would be that friend.

“Well, what the fuck,” I announce to the room ripping my envelope open and staring at the two words handwritten on stock paper. I blink, uncertain I’ve read them correctly. “Bastard.”

I stand almost as abruptly as Anna and circle the couch heading to the barroom off the kitchen. Swiping a bottle off the counter, I press open the screen door and don’t bother to hold it, to soften its return to the doorjamb. The slam punctuates the darkness, and then I’m thundering down the stairs to the beach, crumbling the parchment in my hands and upending the bottle, taking a swig directly from it.

Zack eventually finds me in an Adirondack chair on the dark beach and admits he isn’t ready to open his envelope.

“Coward,” I tease. Ben said I had a heart and I needed to use it more often. He forgot about that damn lion in The Wizard of Oz. I’m the one who is cowardly. Then again, it takes a brain to decipher Ben’s meaning in his note and I don’t have a clue what he’s trying to say to me.

+ + +

“What are you doing?” Calvin comes into view as I slowly open my eyes to him. I’m drunk, but not drunk enough that two words on a piece of paper will stop haunting me.

“Sitting in the hallway.” I state the obvious while avoiding the truth. I’m listening for Anna’s tears. There are many nights I’ve sat here, outside her door, listening to the tortured sounds of her sobs. Every teardrop unlocks my heart, flooding it with a need to take her in my arms and comfort her. Hold her. Be here for her.