Better Than None (27 page)

Hey stranger, want to grab a drink?

Would love to!
Sherri replied.

Great!

We arranged to meet after work. I still wasn’t totally sure what I was going
to say to her, but I needed to tell her about me and Brad. I wasn’t looking for
her blessing, but I knew how horrible I’d feel if we ran into her and I hadn’t
said anything. LA might be a big city, but it could be a small town when it was
least expected. Having run into Brad and Sherri and good old Dave, I knew that
all too well.

She was at the bar when I walked up and I immediately felt like a
horrible person, she was so genuinely happy to see me. A huge grin spread
across her face. Each time I saw her, she looked healthier and healthier. We
squealed our hellos as we hugged. When we pulled away, she must have mistook my
expression.

“Steph?” She asked reluctantly, “How’s your mom doing?”

I shook my head and swallowed. Tears filled my eyes almost instantly.
“She passed away a few weeks ago.” I choked out the words that were still so
hard to say. 

“Oh my God, Steph, I am so sorry! I don’t even know what to say.”
Sherri reached over and squeezed my hand. “She was such a lovely woman.”

I nodded.

“How are you doing?” She asked sincerely.

I managed a small smile and shrugged. “It’s been overwhelming, and
surreal… mostly I’m just sad. And I miss her. I miss her so much.” There was no
way to put into words what I felt, not to mention that I knew why I wanted to
meet Sherri. Accepting her sympathy just felt wrong.

“Now I understand why you wanted to get a drink.”

I bit my lip and looked down for a moment to gather my thoughts.
Here
goes nothing
. “Actually, I wanted to talk with you about something else.”
Her eyebrows furrowed and I swallowed hard. “When you were telling me about
your ex, that you had gotten back together…” I paused and she jumped in.

“Actually, we’re divorced now. Officially.” Her shoulders slumped and
she took a deep breath, as if saying those few words had exhausted her.

“Yeah, I know.”

Sherri straightened back up as she looked at me skeptically. “What do
you mean, you know?”

This time, I took a deep breath. “Sherri, when I met Brad, he said he
was separated, almost divorced, that he’d been living apart from his wife for almost
a year…” As I talked, Sherri just stared at me, dumbfounded, but it was obvious
that the wheels started turning. “I had no idea who his wife, eh ex, was, and
he assured me that he wasn’t cheating, that you’d been apart for so long and
were, for all intents and purposes, divorced. And then when I ran into you at
yoga and you started describing your ex, and Brad had just broken up with me to
go back to his… please know, I had no idea it was you… or him, or, God I’m
sorry, Sherri.”

Sherri just stared at me for longer than was comfortable. Finally she
said, “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“I don’t want you to say anything. I just felt that you had a right to
know. I wanted to tell you in the hopes that you’d understand that when we were
together, he wasn’t with you. I’d never do that to someone.”

She chuckled, “you’re the reason I got back together with him.”

“Huh?”

“He was like his old self. He was like the man I fell in love with. He
was light and happy. I thought he’d changed and that we had a chance again.”
She took a sip of her wine. “But once he came back to me, the lightness
disappeared. It didn’t take either of us long to figure out that we were better
off apart.”

I stayed silent. There really wasn’t much more for me to say. I slid
off the stool to leave. “I’m sorry, Sherri.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

I shrugged and turned to leave.

“Are you back together with him?” She asked to my back.

I turned around and shrugged again. “I’m not really sure. He really
hurt me when he left me… for you.” I smiled tightly at how ridiculous that
sounded. But my smile faded quickly.

“Do you love him?” she asked softly.

I nodded and bit my lip. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I do.”

She nodded this time. “You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to
tell me, you know.”

“Yeah, I did. I wish it were different, but I’d never be able to
forgive myself if you found out some other way.”

We both nodded and shrugged and then I turned around and left. As I
walked to my car, I figured it went as well as it could have. There were no
tears, no yelling. The facts read like a scene out of a soap opera but the
reality was far less dramatic and much more sad.  I’m not sure what the
protocol was for scenarios like this one, but like many things recently, I did
what felt right.

****

Brad and I hadn’t made plans to see each other that evening, but when I
got home, he was there, waiting for me. I wished he weren’t. Much as I was
enjoying his company, I didn’t want to discuss this and was looking forward to
a quiet night with my animals, all of them, well, maybe not Apricot.

“Hey.” He said softly and pulled me into a hug. The minute I felt his
body, mine relaxed. He kissed my head and we started walking towards the house.

“So, when were you going to tell me?” he asked before we got to the
door. He didn’t sound angry.

“The next time I saw you.” I smiled. “I just didn’t know that was going
to be tonight.” We walked in and were greeted by all the dogs and cats,
everyone excited to be fed and walked.

“Well, why don’t you tell me all about it while we walk the dogs.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Subtle.”

He rolled his eyes right back.

We walked hand in hand with all the dogs on our left. Little miss
Apricot was prancing ahead of everyone trying to be the leader and still peeing
over the boys’ pee, but all in all, she was settling down.

“So you love me, eh?” He asked. Immediately, my face flushed and heart
beat faster.

“I guess Sherri told you?” I asked sheepishly.

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “She told me not to fuck it up with you. And that
you’re probably too good for me.”

“I knew I liked her.” I said and Brad gently hip checked me before I
became more serious. “I was going to tell you that I talked with her.”

“I know. I wish you would have told me before…”

“I didn’t want to ask your permission. This was something I had to do
for me.”

“I wasn’t talking about asking. I just would have liked to have known,
though Sherri enjoyed the fact that I didn’t.”

“Sorry.”

“Steph, you know, if we’re going to be in a relationship…”

“I know. I should have told you. There’s still a lot for me to get used
to.”

He stopped and turned me towards him. “You mean like telling
me
you love me before you tell my ex-wife?”

Shit
. I bit my lip and worried my face. “When you say it like
that, it sounds really bad.”

“There’s a simple way to rectify things.” He waited expectantly with a
smirk.

I’d never said those words to anyone other than my mom. Some people
tell virtual strangers they love them. I wasn’t one of those people. But he was
right. If this was going to work, I was going to have to figure out how.

I swallowed and looked down before I looked back up at him and smiled.
“Brad, when I first met you, I thought you were a mean, arrogant prick of a
man.” He furrowed his brows. “And the circumstances under which we met were
less than ideal. Actually, they were horrible. But you’ve shown me that you’re
also sweet and tender and patient and loving. And you’ve become my friend. And
for all those reasons, I… I… shit, I love you.”

He grinned and shook his head. “You know, you could have left out the
preamble.”

I shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”

“Nor would it have been you.” 

“I love you, Stephanie.” He said and then leaned down and kissed me
tenderly at which point Apricot was getting tired of our conversation and
started jumping on our legs. Brad rolled his eyes and smiled. “Tell me again
how you and she are different?”

I think my first true love was my mother. Not in a romantic way, of
course. But in every other way we were each other’s soul mates. We completed
each other and spent more time talking and arguing and laughing and caring and
being with each other than many married couples do. Our connection was
undeniable, our bond unbreakable. We were stronger together. She was my best
friend and I couldn’t imagine loving anyone as much or as wholly as I did her.
With all of her faults, and there were many, she was my entire life. Until she
wasn’t.

Barb and I shared the whole loaf. I never thought about it until she
was gone, but that’s what it was. Was she the perfect mother? No. Nor was I the
perfect daughter. And Brad wasn’t the perfect man. But even those who seemed
almost perfect like Sherri or Marty, they obviously had their faults too.

I had spent so much of my life determined not to let anyone in for fear
of rejection, fear of looking weak or needy. Ironically, once I finally was
weak and needy, people still loved me. The weakness and the need didn’t define
me as I feared it would. It was simply a small part of what made up the bigger
picture. A picture that was still in progress, still being formed and one that
now included others.

For someone who was an artist by trade, I couldn’t imagine my life
without my mother. It wasn’t a blank canvas, it was an empty one. But soon
after her passing, it started filling in, not with substitutes, for nothing, no
one could replace what she was to me. So the picture looked different, and I
wished she were in it, but I would have been lying if I said that there weren’t
parts of that new image that I was starting to like.

I wasn’t sure if I could give Brad the whole loaf. I didn’t know if I
had it in me to give. Yet offering him less than that didn’t feel right. He
deserved the whole thing. We both did. Maybe my mom had the idea wrong the
whole time. Maybe it wasn’t about what pieces and parts someone else would
offer. Maybe it was about sharing it. Or maybe the whole loaf analogy was
stale.

Brad and I became an official couple, and for the first time, at 38
years old I had a boyfriend. And a friend. The only thing that would have made
what I had with him better was if I could have shared it with my mom. She would
have been over the moon happy for me. Perhaps a little jealous. I’m sure she
would have flirted with him. In front of me. And then chastise me for getting
mad at her for flirting with my boyfriend… I pictured these little scenarios
constantly and laughed to myself. They reminded me of her, and reminded me not
to sweat the small stuff, like if she really were there flirting with my
boyfriend. Because I’d give anything for that… But she wasn’t. So all I could
do was not squander the time that I had. I’d spent far too much time with such
a skewed view of life and men and relationships. I couldn’t get that back. All
I could do now was move forward.

####