“There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”― Mark Twain
I came home and spent the day going through the pictures and other odds and ends I took from Leigh’s room. I added some of my own mementos from over the years growing up together. By the time I was done, I had transformed the living room into a small shrine to Leigh. I sat down and started putting together all the notes and memories I had been jotting down and collecting from other people into some sort of cohesive order. Once I started writing, everything came together to tell the story of Leigh.
By the time I stopped, I had a good first draft, and the light in the room was fading. I knew it had to be well after 6pm which meant I needed to get ready to go to Jack’s for dinner. Instead of the nervousness I felt earlier about the entire ordeal, I actually found myself looking forward to it. I had known these people nearly my whole life, and I missed them. Plus, Benny would be there too. I shouldn’t depend on my brother to fight my battles, and I didn’t, but it was nice to know that someone would be there to have my back if needed. Jack had said he wanted to put the past behind us and move forward, which I’m sure he had told his family by now. The Hallowells would support him in that, even his mom.
With that thought, I cranked up the volume on my 80s hair bands playlist on Spotify and began getting ready. Guns-n-Roses was in the jungle when I got in the shower, and Poison was figuring out roses had thorns when I got out. Glancing out the window, I saw Benny’s Jeep in the driveway. Just then, he yelled up the stairs, “Tess, I’ll be ready in 20 minutes.”
“Okay.”
I opened my window and stuck my arm out to check the weather before figuring out what to wear. It was getting into late spring in Virginia which meant it could be hot and in the 80s or cool and in the 60s/70s or cold and in the 50s. Trying to predict Virginia weather between March and May was like trying to predict where the ball was going to land on a roulette wheel. The only thing that was predictable was when summer finally hit us for good, she hit us hard. Muggy, hot, and humid weather would be here soon enough. I would take the unpredictable spring over the always stifling summer any time.
A cool breeze blew in and carried with it the sweet smell of the honeysuckle that climbed the side of the house under my window. It would be a nice night. Grabbing a pair of jeans and an ivory colored, long-sleeve peasant top, I quickly got dressed. Completing the look with a pair of brown wedge sandals, I checked my outfit in the mirror. Not wanting to look overdone, I left my hair down and put on a little light makeup. I did not want to look like I was trying to dress for a date. This was a family dinner, nothing more.
Benny and I hopped in his Jeep with ten minutes to spare for the three-minute drive to the Hallowell’s. We pulled into the driveway and parked in one of the few spots left. Everyone must be home for dinner. The house was lit up with light shining out of every window.
A nervous excitement coursed through me. I looked at Benny and hoped I didn’t look like a deer in the headlights. He gave me an encouraging smile before he got out of the Jeep and opened my door. My dad always did that for my mom and me, and he taught Benny to always do the same.
“Ready?” he asked as he grabbed my hand to help me out in my sandals.
“Yes, I am.”
We headed to the house and knocked on the screen door, as the front door was wide open, as always. It could be 90 degrees in the shade in summer or 20 degrees and snowing in the winter, but the Hallowell’s front door was always open.
“Since when do you people knock?” yelled Max from the couch in the living room where he was watching television. “Get in here.”
Benny opened the screen door as Mr. Hallowell came out of the kitchen.
“Tess,” he said, giving me a hug. “We have missed you.”
“I’ve missed you all too.”
“Benny,” Mr. Hallowell said, reaching out to shake my brother’s hand.
“Hi Mr. Hallowell. Thank you for having us over for dinner.”
“Of course, you and Tess are always welcome here.”
Max came up and flung his arm around my shoulders. “Good to see you messy Tessy.”
I rolled my eyes. Max called me messy Tessy the first time he met me when we were kids and apparently was never going to stop. I tried to give him an annoyed glare, but I couldn’t hold on to it when looking at his good-natured, smiling face.
“How have you been, Max?” We headed into the kitchen, followed by Benny and Mr. Hallowell. Remembering what Benny told me this morning, I tried to look for anything different about Max, maybe something I never noticed growing up, but he seemed to be the same happy person as always. He must have perfected hiding what was going on beneath the surface. I idly wondered if he could teach me how. I seemed to do the exact opposite and broadcast what I was feeling to everyone.
“I’ve been good. Did a stint in the rodeo for a short time but I’m home now and helping TJ get this horse business off the ground,” he said.
I nodded, but before I could say anything in response, we were in the kitchen with the rest of the family. TJ and Nick rose from the large kitchen table as we entered, and Mrs. Hallowell stopped chopping potatoes at the kitchen counter.
Great, she’s got a knife, I thought wryly.
Benny and I greeted TJ and Nick with handshakes and hugs. All the Hallowell men were roughly six feet tall, give or take an inch, and towered over Benny and me. I was just about to ask where Jack was when he came into the kitchen.
He was wearing jeans and a long sleeve Henley shirt that showed off his very strong shoulders. I couldn’t help but notice. His hair was wet and tousled from the shower. All he did was run his hands through it. He didn’t bother using something as troublesome as a brush. If I remember correctly, I don’t think he ever actually owned a brush. Must be nice to always have that perfectly messy hair that looks so good on guys.
“Hey Benny,” he said, shaking my brother’s hand and clapping him on the shoulder as he made his way into the kitchen.
“Hi Tess,” he said, giving me a hug. His hair had a woodsy, minty smell that was pleasant, not overpowering. You had to be close enough to notice.
Benny and Jack’s brothers went into the living room to watch television, which left me alone with Jack and his parents. His mom still hadn’t said the first word to me.
Mr. Hallowell sat down at the kitchen table.
“Have a seat Tess, tell us how you’ve been doing,” he said invitingly. I glanced at Mrs. Hallowell but couldn’t read her expression. I think she was trying very hard to not show what she was thinking.
“Is there anything I can do to help with dinner?” I asked her.
“No, dinner is covered,” she said. “Just finishing cutting the potatoes for boiling.”
“Okay,” I said quietly and walked over to sit at the table with Mr. Hallowell. Jack sat down next to me. I could feel the tension in the room despite Jack and his dad trying to keep the mood light and friendly.
I wasn’t sure of the best way to proceed with Mrs. Hallowell. A lot of people did not like her. But they didn’t know her. Most of the people in town considered her to be stubborn, demanding, and unforgiving. To be effective at managing the business end of a farm, she had to be. Suppliers will feed you every excuse in the book for why an order was late, short, or not there at all. Customers always wanted more and more, but to pay less and less. While I was growing up, I’d watched how she managed it all; she even taught me how to do some of that part of the business over the years. Managing all the various customers and suppliers for a farm could easily be a full-time job. She did it while also raising four boys and pitching in with the hard outdoor labor that was needed, too.
One thing everyone could agree on, she was fiercely protective of her family. That encompassed more than just her boys and husband. Anyone she had welcomed into her home and life was her family because she didn’t do that easily or often. But she did it for Benny and me. She had treated us no differently than her own kids growing up. My mom was one of the few women she called a friend. By nature, Mrs. Hallowell didn’t easily make friends or let people get close.
She let me in and let me get close and I hurt one of her boys. Badly. I wondered if we could ever get back to where we were before. Had I permanently damaged our relationship?
“What kind of work did you do in Arlington?” Mr. Hallowell asked, to break the silence that had taken over the kitchen.
I tore my eyes away from Mrs. Hallowell. She had turned her back on me and gone back to cutting her potatoes.
“I worked for a little restaurant called The Olive Tree. An Italian restaurant. I was with them from the beginning when they first opened. I became friends with the owner Vito. I was assistant manager,” I replied.
“Wow, that’s really cool Tess,” he said. “Will you have to get back soon for work?”
The pit of my stomach turned. I guess it was a bit of a miracle no one had asked about work before now. Everyone was preoccupied with so many other things going on between Leigh’s funeral, Benny and his business, Ruby’s illness. My employment, or lack thereof, was not top of mind. I saw Benny glance at me a couple of times like he wanted to ask if I was working or a job was going to miss me eventually but he seemed to sense that I did not want to discuss it. His brotherly intuition was on point.
“Noooo,” I said with a bit of hesitation. “I’m no longer working there.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say I may have another opportunity, but I wasn’t ready to get into the offer in New York and should I or shouldn’t I. Of course, what I want is not going to stop Mrs. Hallowell from going straight to the point.
“So, what do you plan on doing then?” Mrs. Hallowell asked from the other side of the kitchen, startling me a bit.
“I’ve got some ideas, but I’m still trying to figure that out,” I hedged. “I have some money saved up, but I don’t want to eat up all my savings, so I will need to figure out something soon. For the time being, though, I’m focused on helping Benny write a business plan for the shop. And writing Leigh’s eulogy.”
Mrs. Hallowell didn’t respond with more than a nod of her head to acknowledge she heard me. She put the pot of potatoes on the stove to boil and joined us at the kitchen table.
“So, you’ve finally decided the world doesn’t stop because of Tess?” she asked.
The blood drained from my face at her harsh words. I had heard Mrs. Hallowell let people have it over the years but had never been on the receiving end. I really wanted to get up and run out of that kitchen and never look back, but that would be the worst thing I could do. Running away and not looking back caused most of the pain and damage to my most important relationships. If I wanted to fix my relationship with Mrs. Hallowell, I had to stand up for myself and fight back. She would never respect me again if I didn’t.
“Mom,” Jack said heatedly. “I told you to give her a chance and not be like this when she got here.”
Mr. Hallowell reached over and grabbed his wife’s hand. “Jenny,” he said quietly, but nothing more. I thought it was probably pretty wise of him to stop there and learned from much experience.
I swallowed, took a deep breath, and sat up straighter in my chair. I felt like I was preparing to do battle with Lancelot and I was nothing but an untrained squire.
“It’s okay Jack. I know as well as you do you can’t tell your mom to do anything, especially in her own house.”
“Would it be okay for you and me to talk alone?” I asked her. She looked a little surprised; maybe a little pleased, but that might have been wishful thinking on my part.
“We can,” she said and gave Jack and Mr. Hallowell a look and a nod. Gladly taking the hint, they made a beeline for the living room to watch television with the others.
Mrs. Hallowell sat silently after they left. I had asked for this conversation with her alone and she was waiting for me to start.
“I know I hurt many people after my parents died. I didn’t handle it well. I was angry.” I paused here, trying to collect my thoughts. She gave me time and said nothing. “That doesn’t excuse the way I treated everyone, especially Jack.”
“Have you ever heard of the five stages of grief?” she asked, catching me off guard.
“Ummm, no,” I said, a little shocked.
“I wanted to understand what was going on with you and how we could help.”
“You did?” I was more than a little surprised.
I wouldn’t think Mrs. Hallowell put much stock in the whole mental health movement. She was more of a suck it up and move on type of person. If you told her you were depressed, she would roll her eyes, tell you to eat a donut, and go do some bush hogging. She was of the mind that physical labor could make anyone feel better, probably because it worked for her. Truthfully, she wasn’t entirely wrong. It’s well known that exercise goes a long way in helping people with their mental health. I’d wondered many times over the years if I had stuck with my running routine during that whole time, maybe I would have handled things better.
Wishing I could take back the past and get a do over would not get me anywhere though.
“There are five stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance,” she continued. “It’s not a hard and fast rule, but generally, these are what most people go through after an immense loss in their life. There is no timeline for each stage and no map for how to get someone who seems stuck in one stage over the hump and moving onto the next stage.”
She paused and took a sip of her coffee. I was a little shocked, not knowing how to respond. This was so out of character of the woman I thought I knew.
“Best I could tell, you were stuck between denial and anger. Honestly, I’m probably one of the few people that thought you did the right thing when you packed your crap and left. I don’t think you realized it at the time, or even now, but you were protecting yourself. You needed to get out of here, I think. Needed a change of scenery, a change of people. I’m not some damn therapist or anything, but I know what it’s like to want to just lash out, get the anger out, and maybe make people hurt because you hurt. And you can’t deal with all that hurt.”
“Problem is, you hurt Jack,” she continued. “That’s where I have a hard time. I had to keep away from you after that whole prom scene. I understood your lashing out, probably better than most, but I couldn’t forgive that. At least, not right away. But, it was a long time ago and Jack is a grown man now. You’re grown now. I’m not going to hold onto some grudge I had against a traumatized kid years ago.” She picked up her coffee and took a big gulp to finish it off. “Anybody that does hold onto that grudge is an asshole and you don’t need them anyway.”
If someone smacked me with a feather, it would’ve knocked me out of my chair at this point. I’ve known Mrs. Hallowell since the second grade, nearly my whole life. My parents were friends with her. She was Jack’s mom. She had been as much a part of raising me as my uncle, Ms. Ruby, and, of course, my parents. She was the image of a strong woman who would call it like she saw it and did not have time to worry about hurting feelings.
How many people had seen the side to her I’m seeing now?
I thought about what she had just said about the stages of grief and mental health. When Jack and I were kids, his grandmother passed away. She lived with the family and helped raise the boys. They were all very close to her. It was hard on all the boys but I think especially Jack. They always seemed to have a special bond, I think because of Jack’s photography.
Of course, I never realized it as a kid but the boys didn’t just lose a grandmother.
“When you lost your mom?” I asked.
“Not just my mom,” she said. “I lost my dad when I was eight to cancer. My grandmother moved in with my mom and me. Then we lost Grandma when I was 16. And then my mom died when you were around 12 and Jack was 13.”
“I remember,” I whispered.
She looked at me and let me see the grief she still carried. It showed on her face, plain as day. The number of people she allowed to see this side of her were few and could probably be counted on one hand.
“You’ll carry the grief with you always,” she said. “But it does get … less. I found what helped the most was having the people I cared about around me. I did the same as you at first. After my dad died, I acted out, got in fights at school, ran away a couple of times, and did whatever I could to push people away, including my mom and grandmother. I was young and in so much pain that I didn’t know how to handle.”
I sat in silence and listened, scared that if I made any sudden movements or even breathed too loudly, she would clam up and stop talking. I always thought I knew Mrs. Hallowell. She praised me, scolded me, taught me as if I was one of her own growing up. She loved her boys fiercely and would do anything for them, but I think she liked the idea of having a little girl to bring up too.
But I knew her as a child knows an adult. She was this all-knowing being that had all the answers. She was never sad or depressed. I don’t think I’d ever seen her cry once the entire time I’ve known her. Even at her mom’s funeral. Now, I was getting to know her like an adult knows another adult. The child, adult relationship was over. It was time to move onto something more mature. Something that had a little more depth of understanding.
“A teacher at my school reached out to my mom and told her she thought it would be good for me to talk to a therapist. Back then, needing therapy and taking care of your mental health wasn’t something that was discussed. If you needed therapy, you were crazy.” She rolled her eyes. “Mental health is just as important as physical. Even today, people think of it as two separate things. You are not just a body, so why people would think that’s all that needs professional help is beyond me.”
“My mom got in contact with a counselor at the high school that my teacher recommended. Besides working as a counselor at the school, he worked as a grief counselor and led support groups. I started meeting with him up to three times a week at first. It took a long time but slowly, I came around. I had to make that happen, though. No one can do it for you. Therapists, friends, family, they can all help but, at the end of the day, it’s you that has to do the work. You have to decide you will not be beat by the grief and lose who you are because of it.”
Flashes of memory came back to me of the time after my parents’ deaths. Mrs. Hallowell showing up randomly at the house to bring Benny and me some food she made and make sure everything was clean and in working order.
I was lying on the couch after school one day, staring at the television without really listening to whatever was on. She came over and sat down with me and just held my hand. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. She sat there until Benny came home from work. The next week she came over after school and I was laying in the same spot on the couch. She turned off the television, and I stared at the blank screen, not really caring that it was off.
“Tess, you need to talk to someone. A counselor at the school, a teacher, me, I don’t care. You can’t keep going on like this.”
I said nothing to her. I just got up and went upstairs to my room and left her sitting in the living room by herself. Not to be deterred, Mrs. Hallowell didn’t give up. She kept coming over; she even called the school and had the counselors try to talk to me. No one was getting through to me, though, because I didn’t want them to break through those walls. Those walls were holding back the hurt. The anger and lashing out at people was protecting me from having to feel the crushing pain every time someone talked about my parents.
When I was in the middle of it, I never thought that Mrs. Hallowell was trying to help me and might know what I was going through. I had the self-centered mentality of a child that still didn’t realize adults were people, too. It didn’t occur to me I had been to her mother’s funeral. That she might understand the pain. She kept trying to get through to me until the night of Jack’s prom. After that, she stopped. She loved me; I knew that, even then. I actually never questioned it. But I had crushed and humiliated one of her boys, and that was a step too far.
Now, sitting across from her in this kitchen drinking coffee and seeing her with an adult’s eyes, I realize I am just starting to know this woman who has so much more depth to her character than I think me or most people in our small town ever gave her credit for.
“It took a long time, a lot of counseling, and probably growing up and becoming more mature for me to really learn how to handle the grief. I was a daddy’s girl through and through. Losing him upended my whole world. I had to learn how to live again after he was gone,” she said.
She stopped talking and put her empty coffee cup that she had been twisting around in her hand down on the table. “I shouldn’t have stopped trying to get through to you after the whole prom fiasco. That was wrong of me. I am sorry for that.”
“You’re apologizing to me?” I said incredulously. Not in a million years with a million different scenarios to choose from would I have ever thought that this was how this evening was going to go. “Mrs. Hallowell, you have nothing to apologize for. You and your family have always been amazing to me, and Jack was and still is one of my closest friends. I hate remembering that night and knowing how horrible I was to him. I wish I could take it all back, but as that’s impossible, all I can do is try to make things right now and move forward.”
She grimaced. “Well, normally, if a girl treated one of my boys like that, I’d hunt her down and make her wish she never met me.” She sighed. “But I’ve known you most of your life. I know your family. And I know you care for Jack. Whether you are friends or something more, I know you care for him either way,” she said, shrugging like it was a fact of life. Because it was.
“I love him.” I looked her in the eyes. “I know that we’ve been apart for years and things did not end well between us. But I never stopped loving him. I always have loved him since that day on the playground when he told the other kids to shut their pie holes and let me play.” The memory still made me smile. Mrs. Hallowell laughed and the sadness that she had been wearing through the conversation melted away.
“Jack’s one of my best friends. We may never be more than friends again, but I will always love him,” I said.
Just then, Jack strolled into the kitchen like it was just another day, and he didn’t have a care in the world. I felt a little drained after such an intense conversation with his mom. But, at least, the anxiety I’d been having about seeing Mrs. Hallowell was gone.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
I knew he had to hear at least the tail end of our conversation. How I felt about him wasn’t exactly a secret, but it’s still a little embarrassing to have the man you are talking about walk into the room when you are talking about him. I looked at his mom and knew I definitely looked like a deer in the headlights now. She tried to hide her face behind her coffee cup and cover her laugh with a cough.
Jack walked over to me and crouched down next to my chair. He put his arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Just wanted to make sure you two are good again,” he said, reaching over to his mom’s hand and patting it. Then he stood up and went back to the living room.
Mrs. Hallowell and I sat silently for a moment. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but butterflies started having a field day in my stomach. It felt like he just opened the door a little more to the possibility of being something more.
Mrs. Hallowell reached over and patted my hand. “How about a glass of wine? Dinner should be done soon.”
I nodded. “That sounds great. I’ll set the table.” I walked over and grabbed the dishes out of the cabinet and the silverware from the drawer. She handed me a pile of napkins on my way to the dining room.