45
I speak at the funeral. I am raw standing at the altar delivering a eulogy for the second time in two years. I talk about what Phyllis meant to me—our talks, our passion for her weeping willow, her complicated relationship with Dr. Phil. I am about to land a joke about Phyllis’s fear of my being catfished, when I see him. He’s in the fifth row on the aisle. In his divorce-day suit and a powder-blue tie. I stumble over the joke, but a few people laugh.
I look back at my notes to regroup, but when I continue speaking, I am a bit out of my body. I watch myself give this eulogy, and the watcher remembers a younger me going on about how I am the architect of my own experience. And I guess it’s true: I have created this moment. I am here because I befriended an elderly lady. I stepped into all of that beauty of my own accord. I made my own decisions about leaving my job and hiding from my marriage. I am also the architect of the wall I built between myself and my happy ending. I could have been brave enough to try. I panicked because I was about to get hurt, and I decimated myself in the process. I’m teaching my kids to act out of fear, to run away from the happy thing.
His eyes are on me as I talk about Phyllis’s too-short fairy-tale romance. All eyes are on me, actually, because I’m the only thing happening in the church, but his are the ones I can feel. And I can still feel how just a look from him could make me happy and excited about my life. It’s unfathomable that I walked away from that. I let my fantasy about a life in Beechwood with him keep me from having any kind of life with him at all. I catch his eye and think, Any Ethan is better than no Ethan. I need to tell him.
Ethan’s standing outside the church with Frannie, Marco, my dad, and my kids. He’s talking to Cliffy and Iris in a natural, casual way. Greer stands back. My dad says something to Ethan and then shoves his hands in the pockets of his suit and turns back to Frannie. I approach them with complete uncertainty. I do not know how to say hello to Ethan.
My dad hugs me, which feels good and buys me time. I turn to Ethan, and he makes no move toward me. “Thank you for coming,” I say.
“Of course,” he says. “I know this is really hard.” For a second, I feel it, the beautiful weight of his gaze. But then he looks away, like maybe I don’t deserve it.
“Thank you,” I say, and the world’s most deafening silence falls over us. An avalanche of words waits to spill out. But I am surrounded by my kids and my dad. Frannie is trying to catch my eye, maybe just to tell me to let it go. The last thing I want to do is let it go.
“Well, I have to get going,” Ethan says. He shakes my dad’s hand, reaches to touch Theo’s head in the stroller, and walks off.
My unspoken words retreat and weigh heavy on my chest. Stay and Can we talk? settle rotten on my heart, like love withheld.
Before I can go after him, Sandy and Camille join us. I do not know what to say or how to approach their grief. They’re a lot older than I was when I lost my mom, but I can see in their eyes that there’s no such thing as being ready to lose your mom.
My dad steps in. “I am so sorry. I know how hard this is. Ali lost her mother two years ago. Her name was Nancy, they were very close.” And a mountain is moved by those words. He hasn’t mentioned her in so long. Just his saying her name shifts my heart. There’s a sprinkle of grace here, and sometimes that’s all it takes.
I take his hand and say to Phyllis’s daughters, “Your mom told me this pain is worth all the fun we had. And I believe her.” I need to go find Ethan.