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As I was moving closer to her, I watched her slowly turn her head in my direction and then look up at me when I came to a standstill in front of her. Her eyes grew big and her lips parted. Then the bottom one began quivering so hard just like mine was. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer, so I stepped up to Stevie and wrapped my arms around her trembling body. She melted into me, then buried her face in my chest and started wailing.
Things began to blur around me, so I leaned my head down and rested it on top of Stevie’s, closing my eyes. I opened them again when I heard Stevie’s crying begin to calm and I realized she and I were swaying back and forth. We weren’t moving ourfeet. Just the upper part of our bodies. It was a sort of mourning slow dance that we were doing, rocking each other in this way, and it was so needed by both of us.
I raised my head back up when I felt Stevie start stirring in my arms but I didn’t let go of her. I looked down at her as she looked up at me. Seconds passed and we just couldn’t pull our eyes away from each other. I wanted to say something to her but my tongue was suddenly tied and hers seemed to be too. Then she nodded at me. She was telling me so many things at once without saying a word. She was letting me know that she was okay, that it was okay that I was here, and that she was glad I made it.
I knew it was time for me to move on and let the other people in the receiving line express their condolences to Stevie, so I unwrapped my arms from around her. Before I stepped away from her, though, I took her beautiful face into my hands and leaned down to kiss her cheek, but she turned her head last second and our lips met. It was brief but it still reignited everything inside me. When I looked back at Stevie, she searched my eyes while I tried to keep my bearings. A few seconds later, I walked away from her in a daze.
Bash came up to me, put his hand on my back and guided me over to Brooke standing a few yards away. She gave me a mother’s smile, and then she, Bash, and I headed into the large foyer by the front doors of the church, where Brooke asked me if I was going to stick around and try to talk to Stevie one-on-one.
“No, I’m gonna have to wait. It’s still not the right time,” I told her.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m very sure.”
“Okay. Then let’s get back on the road to Dallas. We can stop somewhere along the way and eat if you guys want to. My treat.”
As we were nearing the front doors of the church, a deep ache began filling my chest that made me stop right where I was. I took a deep breath and then another while looking back and forth at Brooke and Bash.
“Zac, what’s wrong?” they asked at the same time.
I held up my finger and told them to give me a minute, then turned around and walked back to one of the entrances of the sanctuary. My eyes immediately found Stevie. She’d walked away from the line of people and had made it to about a quarter of the way up the aisle from them, coming in my direction. When she saw me, she stopped walking and started crying again. Through her tears and through mine, we smiled at each other then I lifted my hand to my chest and patted it twice above my heart. Stevie did too.
57
#youthere
Stevie
AFTER MY DAD’Sfuneral I spent two weeks in his parsonage, slowly going through his belongings, which included many items that had belonged to my mom. I didn’t throw anything away; I couldn’t yet. I just packed up all the things that I knew for certain I wanted to keep, such as my Dad’s bible, the wine glass that he used whenever he drank Pinot Grigio, the canvas on which my mom had painted “Wait a minute, baby. Stay with me a while. Said you’d give me light but you never told me about the fire,” and also my mom and dad’s wedding photos.
During those two weeks, the assistant pastor, the church secretary, several other church members, and Melissa checked on me often to see how I was doing, and so did Graham. He actually spent the first three nights with me at my dad’s parsonage. Knowing he was there was comforting to me, and I was able to sleep soundly.
On the first night, I didn’t want to be alone in my bed and asked Graham if he’d just hold me—and he did. When I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom he wasn’t in my bed any longer, so I got up and walked into the living room to find him sleeping on the couch. I sat down on the floor andwatched him while thinking about us, our history, our son, and my feelings toward Graham. During that time, I allowed myself to accept the fact that he and I weren’t going to get a second chance, because I realized the love that I felt toward him was only that of a very good friend. That was all it was ever going to be.
When I talked to him about it a few days later, he took it well and told me that he was thankful we could at least be friends. Then he brought up Zac.
“The tall, muscular guy with the short beard and blue eyes in the receiving line at your dad’s funeral, who didn’t wanna let go of you, and whom you kissed on the lips, and also whom you went to go find after he left the receiving line—he’s the man you had an affair with, isn’t he?” he asked me.
I told Graham yes, and then he asked me another question about Zac. He wanted to know if I was going to get back together with him.
“No,” I said.
“But you’re still in love with him and he’s still in love with you. It’s so apparent.”
“It doesn’t matter that we’re still in love with each other. It will never work between us as long as he’s married…and he still is. He had on his wedding band. I saw it.”
“It wasn’t a wedding band, Stevie. It was your name in a Celtic design tattooed on his finger.”
I didn’t believe Graham at first. But then I remembered how everything was so blurry to me on that day unless it was right in front of me. As I kept thinking about Zac’s third tattoo, I wondered why he’d gotten it and I wondered how that had gone over with Avery. Then I thought that maybe she and Zac were living separate lives underneath the same roof again and he just didn’t give a damn about anything anymore. Having my nametattooed on his ring finger was like the last big middle finger that he could give to Avery about our relationship.
On the day before I was supposed to return to work, I called Melissa and asked her for more time off. I wasn’t ready to go back. What I was ready to do was get far away from Austin to somewhere tropical. I needed to swim in an ocean and let it heal me. I needed the warmth of the sun on my skin and the salty air in my lungs. I couldn’t go to Destin, though, because it would only remind me of Zac. I couldn’t drink Hendricks gin again either and for the same reason.
Where I finally decided to go was the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands—2,247 miles away from my hometown. I bought a first-class ticket and sipped on Blue Chair Bay rum by Kenny Chesney while on my flight to paradise. Upon arrival, a taxi drove me over to the beach house I’d rented for the week and then I unpacked my suitcase, put on my new bikini, and went home to Mother Ocean to swim in her warmth while letting my tears fall.
Today was my fifth day on St. Croix, I was sitting on the beach and I was soaking up a few more rays. There was about an hour before it got dark but I wasn’t planning to go inside anytime soon. I wanted to watch the sunset like I had on all the other nights. I also wanted to watch the sky fill with stars while listening to the new music playlist that I’d made.
I had just grabbed my cellphone off my beach towel to take another picture of the rolling ocean waves when it chimed. I was shocked when I saw who the text was from. It was Zac.
