Bobby's Diner (23 page)

Was I angry? Hell, yes, I was
angry. I felt duped. I felt like
 
Helen
was a fake. All those times we’d spent together—sharing, talking, laughing—they
all meant nothing
 
anymore. So, I wrote
my own letter. All the anger I felt, from the start to the end, was expressed
in that letter. How when I first arrived no one could find the courtesy in
their hearts to
 
forgive me for taking
Bobby away from Vanessa, how they refused to even talk to me, how they shunned
me.

Well, Bobby left her. I never
asked him to leave. Never.

I never expected him to come by
the motel that night. He just appeared and I welcomed him in. I’ll never be
sorry. Vanessa didn’t know and Roberta won’t ever hear it from my lips. One
thing I learned from my momma was this: I never wanted to be like her, her and
all those men. So, when Bobby came over we talked for a good long time. I told
him what he was doing was wrong. I told him he should go back to his wife and
try harder. I told him he had a family who depended on him.

But, he wouldn’t hear it. He said
the moment he saw me, he knew. He said he knew we would be in love. He didn’t
really have to talk anymore because the second I let him in my room I’d fallen
in love with the man. I’d never felt anything so comfortable. I felt safe with
him like toeing into a deep bath tub full of bubbles and sinking
 
under for its protection. And, he was so
handsome! Handsome and he had this rumbling deep voice that reverberated in my
chest. He was right. How he could tell I’ll never know but I had fallen in love
with him that night.

He had to talk me into the whole idea.
I wasn’t about to
 
crumble like
shortcake. He had to promise me I wasn’t some fly-by-night fuck and then
good-bye. No sir. I even threatened him. Told him if we were going to proceed
with our relationship it wasn’t going to be some sleazy affair on the side. I
told him if we were to make love to consider it a contract. I told him I’d
scream to the mountain tops if he woke up the next morning and figured he had
made a mistake. He stayed with me until four in the morning. We only talked.
When he went back to Vanessa’s he told her he was leaving. Later that morning
he brought his belongings and moved into the motel room with me.

But, after reading the letter
Bobby wrote to Helen, I felt unwilling to forgive her. My response, from my enlightened
view point, was to be mailed to her the following day. Shock is a funny thing.
It wears off. And, when it does it leaves you open to many ideas. It’s like waking
and pulling off the covers in the morning. So, after sleeping on it I wrote
another one—one that described
 
my
surprise and hurt, but one that also described my forgiveness.

People have so many stories in
them. Some so beautiful and filled with longing and hope you want to hear it
repeated over and over. Many stories no one would
 
ever want to hear, let alone tell. It makes
me wonder about Helen’s stories.

I wonder what the story is like
for Roberta, too. What she tells Rick. She called the other morning and told me
they were considering the possibility of adoption. They want a baby. Maybe it
wasn’t necessary but I gave her my blessing. I think Vanessa allowed me that
right. She probably giggled from above at
 
my courage. Anyway, I’ve kind of grown on Roberta... like moss!

So, here I am now in one of the
most desolate parts of the country. Dry, dry Arizona. And, I’ve found myself a
well, an oasis, a lifeline—my only true family where I buried my husband and
then, my sister.

You know one day I was pulling
weeds in the garden and flipping them outside the fence. The gate was open. I
didn’t hear or see anything around me I was in a weed- pulling zone. Anyway,
this young deer had wandered down from the hills, probably a good mile off
their migration
 
path, that’s what they
normally did, stay away like that. But, this one was different. She made her
way in through the open gate.

My thoughts were elsewhere, I
wasn’t paying any attention to anything when I felt this breath close to my
back as I yanked out a dandelion. It wasn’t so long
 
since
 
Bobby had died, I said, “Bobby?” I still missed him very much and the
garden always made me think of him. We loved that garden and it still showed.
Maybe the doe’s instinct sensed it was shelter.

Anyway, she came up on me while I
was kneeling. When I felt her breath I straightened my back when I realized
that, of course, it wasn’t Bobby behind me. It wasn’t anything human. I turned
very very slowly. She was so scrawny. She didn’t have antlers so I assumed it
was a female. And, upon further inspection, if you know what I mean, saw I was
correct in my summation. She puffed out a little blast of air again and walked
cautiously around toward my hand holding the dandelion. I didn’t move—didn’t
utter a sound. In fact, I think I was holding my breath.

She lifted her head maybe in our
recognition of each other then almost pointed to the dandelion with her wet
snout. She looked awfully thin and so delicate. She looked hungry.

“Do you want this?” The words I
uttered were barely
 
audible even for me
to hear. When I asked her… she didn’t answer, of course, but instead put her
head low like she understood, you know? I raised my
 
hand
 
slowly
 
so
 
I
 
wouldn’t
 
startle
 
her.
 
She approached tentatively, carefully, keeping her entire
body—everything but her head—a safe distance from me. Her snout felt warm and
wet against my palm as she nibbled right from my hand. I felt like God was
blessing me for something. I didn’t know what. He’d forgiven me for all of my
sins right then and there. That’s how it felt. Amazing. It was something else.

After the doe took her morsel of
food she did the sweetest most delicate thing, she nuzzled and she licked my
hand. “You’re welcome.” Our eyes connected and the world spun away from me. I’d
never had anything so pure happen. I was stunned but went back to pulling my
weeds. She continued through the garden with me. But, she was making no visible
decisions (that I could see, anyway) to eat just the weeds. She ate everything.
Anything she wanted. And, you know what? I let her.

Looking back, I think the doe
came to me because someone, God I suppose or whatever your version of God
is,
 
wanted me to understand that I
wasn’t alone in Sunnydale. I had Bobby, yes, and Vanessa and Roberta, even
Helen. We had some hard times, bumpy times, with each other. There’ll be more,
you can bet on it. But, we overcame our obstacles.
 
We hurt. We cried. We yelled at each other.
We cried more. We tried to hurt one another with actions and with words. We
realized so many things about each other but in the end we
 
had no visible scars, no bruises, no long-lasting
pain. We’re all scrawny does, hungry for something.

Our time together became mundane,
everyday, pedestrian even. And, how can I say this, well, our normalcy became
fundamental to our relationship. We became family.

Then another miraculous thing
happened—it was slow, subtle, and took it’s time—but we missed each other when
we were apart. I needed Vanessa so much and she needed me. I missed Roberta
too, but with her it was different—more like a cousin. Not now, of course, now
we’re closer than that but for a time Roberta and I were like cousins. However,
Vanessa and I shared so much. Bobby, divorce, death, pain, loss, memories, the
diner, cooking, business,
 
shopping—we
shared so much. And, our relationship settled
 
into something beautiful, easy, soft to the touch, you know? Like that kiss
from the doe—sweet, gentle, and perfect. Vanessa became my family and I became
hers.

We talked endlessly about the
course of our lives, how things happened, what we would do differently. But, we
knew if we changed one iota on the road to where we were, we wouldn’t be the
same. And, neither one of us wanted that. We wanted each other just the way we
were—full of faults, errors,
 
bad
judgment, kindnesses, honesty, growth, compassion, willingness to explore. We
new we had value—if only to
 
each
other—we had value.

Vanessa made me promise when she
died that I would
 
spend more time with
Roberta. I gladly gave her my promise.
  
See, God has this little secret. He knows that even when you’re alone if
you have family you’re always loved. I think that
 
should
 
be the first commandment in the Bible, but I didn’t write that book. Can
you imagine if I had? I think there would be only one rule if I wrote it. It
would go like this: love every living thing.

Because all people, not only
blood relations, can be
 
family—it’s our
choice to include or exclude people, to
 
love or to hate—a conscious choice, a conscious decision.
 
And, after these years I believe that a
person has infinite space to tuck yet another somebody into their heart. A
person can love many, many people and all at once. And, aren’t we
 
lucky for that? Think about the exponential
effect if we only took ten someone’s into our hearts. A net would be cast out
from us, and from those ten others would be cast, and again and again until the
web would be huge and buoy us and
 
lift
humanity hundreds and hundreds of rungs higher on the ladder of compassion. Now
wouldn’t that be wonderful.

Tonight, as I remember Vanessa’s
funeral, my eyes are fading. Tomorrow and for a week to come we won’t
 
open the diner, out of respect. We’ve had a
death in the
 
family. We’re going to
revel in our thoughts of life with her and without her. We’re going to suffer
and celebrate, cry and laugh, hope and fear, and we’ll be more human for it.
After all, I can’t help believing in humanity, that people will be born, will
fall in love, and will die—all of it
 
over and again. But, see, the future will be bright because we’ve built
our family. We’ve built a catch net.

The End

ABOUT SUSAN
WINGATE

Susan Wingate, born in
Phoenix, Arizona to James & Amie Ajamie (a writer and an artist,
respectively), tried to fly,, at age five off the roof of their family house
using newspaper, wire hangers and scotch tape. She’s been dreaming of flying
ever since. Oh, by the way, she never jumped. Her mother ran out in the nick of
time to stop her from take-off.

 
Wingate
realized her dreams when she entered the world of writing. At first, she wrote
songs and poetry but then her writing blossomed when she tried her hand at
fiction.

In 1997, she
devoted her days to writing and in 2004, she began writing full-time.
Since then, Susan has written several plays, one screenplay, one
short story collection and seven novels. In 2008, she even started a
memoir.

A lover of the arts,
Susan draws and paints abstracts using oil as her favored medium. She has taken
up playing the violin (it’s been a squeakly start) and she loves the theatre.

Susan lives in Washington
State with a bunch of pets and her husband, Bob.