Chapter 51

51

I started writing again by throwing out every word I’d written before Sam died. My brain had changed, as though it were on a different frequency than before. Before. After. After felt curt, my sentences abrupt and sharp, like every paragraph could hurt someone. There was so much anger on the page, but I didn’t know what else to do with it. I wrote about things I knew nothing about. War. Pioneering. A mechanic shop. I sent the first short story I finished to a literary magazine that had published me before I had children. Their reply was as brusque as my submission letter, and it felt gratifying, the same way smearing blood across my stomach had felt after Sam died. Fuck you. I didn’t write this for you anyway. None of it made any sense but it filled the hours I had to get through.

I started going to a coffee shop a short walk away where they didn’t play music and the mugs were like bowls. There was a man I often saw there, a young man, maybe seven or eight years younger than I was. He would work on his laptop, never got refills. We both liked to sit near the back, away from the draft of the door. I liked the way he hung his jacket on his chair, so that the thick lining of the hood created a comfortable place for his back to rest on, and I started hanging my coat the same way.

One day he brought two older people with him, one of them with his very large nose and the other one his very dark eyes. He invited them to sit down and brought them coffee from the counter and a croissant to share. He placed two napkins gently on the table, one in front of each of them, like he was serving long-standing customers at a fine-dining establishment.

He had bought his first house! This news thrilled me. I listened as he explained each of the listing photos on his phone. The kitchen entrance is there, and this leads to the powder room, and oh, this will be the baby’s room. He would be having a baby! Like my Sam. I wanted him to look at me so I could smile, so I could acknowledge that I cared about his future, that I had worried about whether this nice young man had someone in his life who loved him.

They talked about property taxes and a roof replacement and how long his new commute would be. And then the mother asked about her son’s plans for when the baby was born in just a month’s time.

“I can come back to the city for the week to help, whatever you need. Dishes, laundry. It’s no problem for me, I’ve got the time. I can bring the cot from the spare room at our house.” Her voice was so hopeful, and I knew before the son replied that it would be one of the hardest things she ever had to hear. He explained that Sara’s mother would come instead. That it would just be better for Sara that way. That she could visit afterward, once they were settled, once they’d had some time together, just the three of them. And Sara’s mom. He would let her know when she could come. Maybe a few weeks or so later. They’d have to see how things went.

The mother’s head moved slowly forward and then back and she mustered the words, “Of course, honey,” and she put her hand on his for the most fleeting moment before she tucked it back beneath her thighs under the table.

A mother’s heart breaks a million ways in her lifetime.

I left then—I didn’t want to eavesdrop anymore. I walked the long way home.