Courting Mrs. McCarthy (20 page)

Nathan couldn’t help but feel like the conversation had not gone well even though he would see her the next day. He’d spent countless hours over the past weeks fantasizing about his next encounter with Jackie and how he’d make things right between them. He would’ve traded anything for just five minutes with her, but now having gotten that and more, he didn’t feel any better.

Part of him felt guilty for not giving her a more personal farewell on the phone. “I love you,” was out of the question and wildly inappropriate, but there was nothing wrong with, “I miss you.” Nathan desperately wanted to show her that he was still thinking about her constantly and that her pain was his own.

What Jackie had said appeared to close the door on their time together. She was returning for a brief while, only to leave for Virginia. Even if the worst had in fact happened, Nathan was still apparently not a part of Jackie’s plans moving forward as a single woman with three children that she could lose in a custody battle with a total asshole.

While Nathan wanted to take this hard, he refocused his mindset to remember that this was what Jackie had decided for herself. Damage had been done to her life regardless of his intentions throughout their time together, and that was fair. Her tone toward him didn’t suggest any level of anger, but he could understand why she wouldn’t want to be with him after what had happened.

The question that Nathan now faced was what to do with the time he had with her. Before, he was determined to win her back. Now, that idea just looked selfish any way he tried to spin it.

The possible scenarios and options were numerous. Nathan could sit in his bed and ponder them for hours. He could ask Griffin for help, but he knew the stance his friend held. Putting Griffin in that kind of position to objectively play devil’s advocate wasn’t very fair either, considering the favors he’d done for him already.

Jerome had refused to aid Nathan is his question to figure out what to do. His father might have done that because he believed that Nathan could do it all by himself or possibly just because he didn’t want to get involved. He wanted to think of this as a vote of confidence, but his father was also biased, having firsthand experience with a failed relationship. He needed the advice of someone who both knew him and didn’t have any past misgivings. He needed Mrs. Buchanan.

Chapter 26

The drive to the library was more awkward than the one to the coffee shop to meet Jerome. It felt odd to say that Nathan cared more about the feelings of an old woman than his own father, but he felt immense guilt not only for avoiding her, but also for the fact that he was ending this embargo only to seek her advice once again.

He stopped to get her a tea as a peace offering. Truth be told, Nathan had no idea if she actually knew what had happened. Mrs. Buchanan was no gossip, but he hadn’t much clue as to how far word had spread. He wouldn’t be surprised if someone had told her, though he might have expected a telephone call if that was the case. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to know already which would save him from having to tell the story yet again but it would also add to the awkwardness. The idea that he might be able to lie to her never crossed his mind. Nathan was past that stage in his life.

Mrs. Buchanan was sitting in her chair, as expected. She was reading a large book and appeared to not notice him walking up to her. She glanced up from her book. The situation was eerily similar to the coffee shop where Nathan had met Jerome. He tried his best not to think about that.

“Ah, the prodigal son returns. And bearing gifts I see,” she said with a grin on her face. Nathan doubted that she knew anything about Jackie.

He handed her the tea and sat down without saying a word. He regretted not plotting out what he was going to say to her just as he’d opted not to make a plan for Jackie’s phone call. But the time to change his course of action had passed.

“I’d ask if the sun was treating you well, but I can see that you haven’t been spending much time outside,” she said while she looked at him with a puzzled stare. Nathan was uncharacteristically pale. His skin was normally much darker for this time of the year, though he’d spent minimal time outside, save for some reading on the back porch of the Rousseau house.

Though it was obvious that Mrs. Buchanan had no idea what had happened, Nathan knew he had to tell her. He’d come for her advice and it was time to talk about what had happened to someone other than Griffin or Jerome. He wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“I take it you haven’t heard what happened then,” he said, not realizing that his sorrowful tone could lead her to believe that someone had died.

Mrs. Buchanan put her book down. “No, I have not. When things happen, people don’t generally make it a habit to rush to the library to notify the old woman. If it isn’t on the news, I don’t really hear about it. Maybe I should get a Twitter.” Her colloquial nature was making Nathan feel better about being there.

“I don’t think it was on the news. I hope not, at least,” he said, realizing that he had passed the point of no return. He wondered how much more gas he had left in the tank. “Do you remember that girl I was asking you about a few weeks ago?”

Mrs. Buchanan kept up her friendly nature. “No. I remember you cryptically babbling about someone, but you didn’t give me enough details to form any sort of memory as to whom this person might be. But go on,” she said with amusement.

He felt somewhat relieved by her handling of the conversation. Mrs. Buchanan didn’t need to be braced for a bombshell. Knowing that she’d probably be on his side no matter what, Nathan finally stopped beating around the bush.

“There was a reason I was so secretive. The girl in question wasn’t exactly a girl. Well, no, that came out wrong. She’s a woman, a married woman who was leaving her husband. I formed a relationship with her and then it got out. Things are a huge mess and I was ashamed and I didn’t want to see you or anyone else because I care about her. Now her life is ruined and I don’t know what to do.” He fought back tears as he emptied his thoughts to Mrs. Buchanan.

If she was surprised or horrified by this revelation, she certainly didn’t show it. Instead she reached into her purse and pulled out a napkin and stood up from her armchair. She went to the table Nathan was sitting at and gave him the napkin and held him. For someone who had never had children, she seemed to know how to comfort a grieving adolescent quite well.

“It’s okay, Nathan, you don’t have to justify anything to me,” she said while patting him on the back. “Just take your time and say what you need to say.”

It took him about an hour to tell the full story, starting with the glimpse of her at the opening ceremony. He left out the graphic sexual parts as he had when he told his father. This was the most complete account of the events that Nathan had told anyone up to that point. Not even Griffin had heard this complete of a testimonial.

The tears were very uncharacteristic of him. He generally took after his father when it came to publically displaying emotion. The last time he’d cried in public was when he sprained his wrist jumping off of his swing set. Emotion did not come easily for his family. But after lying to nearly everyone who cared about him, it came naturally.

When he’d finished his account, he nearly fell back in his chair with relief. He disagreed with his aunt’s assessment that he needed to see a psychiatrist, but it felt good to be able to talk to someone about what he was going through who he didn’t have to live with and who wouldn’t scold him like he was a child.

Once Nathan was done giving his account of the events of his summer leading up to that point, Mrs. Buchanan stood up to retrieve her presumably cold tea and returned to her armchair. She took a long sip of the tea and stared at him without speaking.

This was a bit troubling to Nathan, who wasn’t used to being this exposed emotionally. “I’m sure you’re horrified by all of this,” he said without looking at her. He began to worry about the effect this would have on their friendship moving forward.

Mrs. Buchanan wasn’t all that worried. “I’m not horrified, Nathan. Your generation’s biggest problem is that you’re all so connected that you forget there was life before you and your fancy cell phones came out of the womb of technology.”

Nathan struggled to understand the relevance of this slight. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You think that what you did is something new that an old woman like me couldn’t possibly understand,” she said sarcastically. “You forget where I came from. Scotland shares an island with the country that invented modern day divorce. People killed each other over the right to be with someone else. I might have been with the same man my entire life, and in my perfect world that’d be an ideal way to avoid a lot of mess. This being no exception of course.”

Nathan tried to reply, but she cut him off. “Let me finish. You spoke for an hour and I’d hope you came here to hear what I had to say. I know you’re worried about what people around town have said about you, but my God, child, wake up. This world has changed so much it’d be hypocritical of anyone to dictate what consenting adults wish to do with each other,” she said while banging her cane on the floor like she was a social activist.

The sight of the old woman causing a scene in the library was amusing to Nathan, but he still had plenty of questions to ask of her. “But what about her husband? He’s done a number on her,” Nathan said, presuming Mrs. Buchanan had forgotten about him.

“That’s Jacqueline’s business, not yours, Nathan,” she replied in a cold manner that was unexpected.

Nathan didn’t agree with this. “Not entirely. I was a willing participant,” he said, defending his woman.

Mrs. Buchanan rested her head on her cane. “A participant to what? The loss of her children? No, what you did was different. I have told you this time and time again, you cannot control what other people do, even if that causes you pain. The only thing you can control is how you react to it. This is a mess and it would be a mess if you were in your thirties. But you can’t change that.”

He couldn’t argue with anything she’d said, but Nathan wasn’t filled with the clarity he’d hoped for. “What should I do when I see her tomorrow then?” he asked. It seemed unfair to put that kind of pressure on her, but Nathan took advantage of all the help he could get.

She picked up her tea and gulped the rest of it down and tossed the cup across the room in an overly dramatic fashion. “That isn’t for me to say, is it? I’m not the one who’s tangled in this.”

Nathan feared that she was giving him the same results that his father had a few days before. “That’s not very helpful. You’d think with all your years on this earth you could give me better advice than that,” he said, trying to get a rise out of her.

It didn’t quite work that way. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have ignored me for so long,” she said, firing back at him. “I’ll tell you this. Go in to tomorrow prepared to tell her what you want moving forward. Don’t try to play a guessing game of what she wants. Believe me as a woman…I know you’ll never get it.”

“That seems rather selfish,” Nathan replied, confused at what she’d just told him to do.

“It’s not if it’s what she wants, too. If it’s not what she wants, then it’ll be over and that’s that. You’ve had break-ups before, it won’t be fun but at least it’ll be over. Now go get my tea cup.”

Nathan stood up from his chair and retrieved the beverage container she’d tossed. He stood in front of her and said, “Thank you.”

She picked up her book again. Looking into the pages, she said, “The time for sappy stuff is over. Good luck tomorrow. Don’t wait a few weeks to let me know, I don’t have anything interesting going on in my life, you know.”

Nathan felt oddly calm at dinner as if a big weight had been lifted off his shoulders. This newfound cheerfulness was not lost of the Rousseaus, who were pleased to hear that he was getting back into his old routine. Griffin was excited to hear that he wouldn’t need to take off more work before their vacation or have to plan more extravagant excursions.

He decided not to tell them that he was going to meet with Jackie the following day. They had a certain right to the information, but revealing his plan would cause them to worry. He didn’t want anyone to try to stop him from doing what he needed to do. Knowing that closure was more important than anything else, he kept the meeting to himself.

The night was spent with trashy television. The rather quiet Tuesday evening was just what Nathan needed. He looked forward to getting over his sadness and concluding his time as a hermit. The outside world would still have their questions, but they wouldn’t need to be addressed for a while.

When it was time for bed, Nathan noticed that the pile of movies was still in his bedroom. It was too late to move them back into Griffin’s room so he could only hope that his friend didn’t notice or care that he had been snooping around. The desire to watch any more of them had dissipated.

Control was the thing that separated Nathan from his cinematic contemporaries. Outside meddling had affected them all, but Nathan didn’t have to sit back and allow his fate to be decided by someone else. He could enter her house with his pure intentions and be turned away anyway, but he could at least know that the decision was out of his control.

The options weren’t necessarily limited to stay together or break up. Nathan instead set his mind on the mystical third option that had been working well for the two of them until photo documentation split them apart. Mrs. Buchanan hadn’t told him what to do in this instance, but her recommendation that he go with the flow had helped him get to where he was in the first place.

Nathan rededicated himself to the fight to reinstate the status quo. Success with seeing where things went had not been the problem. Fixing the problem didn’t have to advance anything. He didn’t know if he could get things back to the way they were. But he was going to try.