If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This (17 page)

“Of course not,” I say. “We’re just best friends. We talked and ate dinner—exactly what we do when you’re here.”

“Huh.” She finishes her juice and stands to put the cup and cereal bowl in the sink to soak. “You certainly spend a lot of time together.” Her back is to me, her voice raised above the running water. “If I were seeing one boy that much, there’d only be one reason.”

“Alyssa, we’re not…”

“Okay, okay,” she says. “It just seems like you guys like each other a lot.”

“We do,” I answer. And I think about saying more to her than that. I think about reassuring her that no one could ever replace her father for me. I’m sure that is what she’s really asking. “I just don’t have those feelings for Kevin,” I begin.

“Why not?” she asks, turning toward me. “Kevin’s the best.”

“I just don’t.” I’m surprised at her tone.

“Okay, but what about him?” she asks. “Why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? Is he gay? You can tell me, you know. I’m not some ignorant kid.”

She’s pulling her hair into a high ponytail as she asks, and memories of Kevin lying next to me, of his body moving in mine sweep through me.

“No, Alyssa. As far as I know, he isn’t gay. And he does go out on dates. It isn’t always so easy to find the right person, you know.” I pick up my coffee cup and stand, as I see her shrug. “Life can be pretty complicated.”

“I’ll bet he’s secretly pining over you,” she says, leaning back against our kitchen counter. “If you ask me, that’s why he doesn’t have anyone else.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. And I didn’t ask you.”

“Really, Mom, I’m actually not kidding. Don’t you ever wonder what he’s doing? I mean, being here with you every Saturday night?”

“You know, Alyssa, Saturday night when you’re forty isn’t the same thing as when you’re fifteen. And it isn’t every Saturday night, anyway.” I nudge her away from the sink and spill my coffee down the drain. “It’s just possible that adults have things going on that are beyond your comprehension.”

“Whatever, Mom.” She pulls the zipper on Joe’s sweatshirt up as far as it goes. “It’s really no big deal. It’s your life, not mine.” She shrugs once more. “As long as he’s coming to the game.”

After she leaves the kitchen, I sit back down at the table and move the salt and pepper shakers around, fiddle with the napkin holder. I listen to her sounds from the other rooms, music, doors opening, closing, the toilet flushing, water running; but drowning them out is the silence that will replace my daughter, before many more years have passed.

H
eidi and I are seated side by side on folding chairs, among the fallen leaves. I’m lower than she, in a banged-up old metal beach lounger, bright yellow canvas stripes. In the biting October air, under the solid-gray sky, bundled in sweaters and scarves, I look positioned to work on my tan. She is enthroned on something that must have been ordered from a glossy catalog, a black contraption with pockets for magazines, cell phones. God knows what else. I have already apologized again for leaving her gathering, already mumbled my made-up excuse one more time, and she has already shrugged the apology off.

We watch Alyssa score the team’s first goal. Her thighs are raw red heat and muscle in the autumn sun as she plows past gaggle after gaggle of other girls. She slams the ball into the net, as though she is evening the score. The real score.

“Way to go, Al!”

“You rule, Lyssie!!”

She shrugs them off and jogs to her position. The girl discussing my love life in our kitchen is invisible on the field. She is all on and no downtime, here. She isn’t playing to the crowd. Not playing to me. Not really playing at all. She is at work. Joe coached her all through grade school, every fall and spring weekend, kicked endless passes back and forth with her in the evenings, when he got home. The season after he died, she was twelve and talked about quitting her team. “It just makes me feel too unhappy to play,” she said. But I talked her out of it, arguing how sad it would have made her father for her to give up, how nothing would make him happier than knowing she still loves doing what they had done together. Now she plays every game as though she believes he can see. I watch her dribbling the ball deftly down the field and think of how aware of him she is here; how unaware she seemed earlier, when talking to me about Kevin.

“She’s really very good, you know,” Heidi says.

“Her father was very athletic.” As the words come out, I spot Kevin across the field, waving both arms over his head. “Excuse me. That’s a friend of mine.”

Pushing myself up from my low perch, I find Heidi’s feet there beside me on the ground, and I notice for the first time that one foot is much larger than the other. Yet they are clad in identical shoes. As I straighten up and smile a bit at her—another goodbye, another time I am hastening to leave her—I realize she must have to buy two pairs of shoes, just to get one set she can wear.

Waving across to Kevin, motioning him to stay on that side of the field, I think about that other mismatched set, the pair that is left over. The wrong one too big. The other wrong one too small. And I wonder whether Heidi throws away that useless pair.

“She’s pretty damned good, your girl,” Kevin calls out as I approach. “I can see that sports scholarship beckoning her.”

I hug him. “That’s all Joe in her,” I say. “No credit here. It’s all Joe’s genes.” And for a moment I want to add:
Remember?
Because I know that Kevin does. He remembers Joe, in sweats heading out for a run. Joe playing tennis. Joe just walking through a room. He remembers that Joe’s was a distinctly physical presence, that he had a body that demanded to be noticed as that, as muscle, bone, power. I want to say,
Remember?
and have the conversation; but I stop myself.

“So which one is she?” He nudges me with his shoulder. “Which one is old Long John Silver?”

I wave across the field at Heidi, who waves back to me. “That’s her,” I say. “But please don’t be a jerk.”

“A jerk? Me? What are the odds?” he asks, and looking at him I think:
Not very high
. “I’m disappointed,” he says. “You can’t tell anything from here.”

“I think maybe the idea of the leg is a bigger deal than the leg itself. You joining us for dinner tonight?” But to my surprise, he shakes his head.

“Date,” he answers, and cups his hands, bull horn-style. “Go, Alyssa! You go! Go! Go! Actually, I may have to cut out a little early.”

“Anyone real?”

“Real? You mean as opposed to prosthetic? She’s okay,” he says. “Better looking than interesting, if you know what I mean.”

“Sex?” I ask, because this is what we do. We pretend that this is simple. We pretend that we don’t mind.

“Female.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

The action of the game is close to us now. A crowd of red-cheeked girls jog by. Kevin and I stand side by side, silent, as though we have lost track of which of us should speak. A whistle blows and Alyssa is pulled from the game, rotated out. She waves from the other side of the field. We both wave back.

“I haven’t slept with her, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kevin picks up. “I might, though. It isn’t completely out of the question. If I were ten years younger, we’d have done it by now. I just don’t know. That conversation afterward looms larger and larger with every passing year.” He shoves his hands down into his pockets, and I touch him on the arm.

“Look. They aren’t letting her stay out.”

My daughter has taken her warrior stance again, poised to spring, her power covering an entire cosmos of conflict with the impossibility of loss. “I love how much this means to her,” I say.

“She’s lucky. To care so much about something.”

“Oh, I can’t stand the thought that she’ll be gone so soon,” I say, surprising myself with sudden, spilling tears. “Shit.” Kevin reaches over, stretches his arm around my shoulders, squeezes me close as I smudge my hand on my cheeks. “Maybe in the end that’s just what it comes down to,” I say. “Oh, fuck. I miss her already. I’ll probably miss you tonight. Jesus, look at me. I’m a mess.”

“You don’t have to miss her yet, Claire. She’s still right here. Don’t borrow trouble.”

“I know.” I burrow myself within his arm. “I know, Kev.”

“Between the past and the future…” I hear him sigh. “You know, you’re not leaving yourself very much.”

I lean into the comfort of his chest. “Don’t scold. Let me have my little cry, okay?”

And I feel him sigh again, his chest rising and falling against my back. “I’m just saying maybe you should try enjoying what you have,” he says. “That’s all. Maybe it’s time for a little Buddhism or something. Try being in the moment.”

Alyssa is pounding down the field now, her body a wall of force, her feet nimble as they move the ball along. Held by Kevin’s arm, I glance across the way and find Heidi there. She motions toward the game and gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I send one back to her. Her husband, Roger, has borrowed my chair, I see. He sits there beside her mismatched feet, and watching them I think to myself that I will tell Kevin about the different-size shoes. I think about making some joke to him about how what Heidi really needs is to meet a woman exactly her size who is missing the opposite leg; but as I open my mouth to speak, I see Roger across the field place his hand on Heidi’s knee. It is a casual, marital gesture, except that it’s her senseless, artificial leg he touches. He rests his palm on her as though she can feel him. Or as though that bloodless leg cannot disrupt any aspect of their bond. And Heidi sees the caress she cannot feel. She turns a little, smiles at him, and lays her hand over his. I look away and say nothing to Kevin. I make no jokes, no smart comments about Heidi and her feet.

“I almost envy Heidi,” I say instead.

“What?” he asks. “Why?”

I only shake my head. The halftime whistle blows. My lips sealed against more tears, I see Heidi rise. She moves slowly toward the girls who have gathered for water and snacks.

The first time we met, I just happened to pull my beach chair up next to hers. There was an empty stretch of lawn beside her. We introduced ourselves. It was the second or third game of the season, and Alyssa was already the team superstar. I pointed her out to Heidi as mine, and she was impressed. She pointed her daughter out to me, and I said something nice about her as well. Something like
Oh, she’s been great
. Soccer-mom etiquette. We watched our girls play, cheered when we should, made asides about the ref, the other team, the weather, the practice schedule. At half-time, as both of us stood and began to walk toward the girls, I noticed Heidi’s clumsy gait, the drag of that second step of hers.

“I lost my leg to cancer, when I was sixteen,” she said, catching me stare.

I lost my husband to cancer when I was thirty-six
.

“I’m very sorry,” I replied without a pause.

“I’m lucky to be alive, I know.”

I just nodded my head.
Yes. Yes, you are
.

“Listen, Claire,” Kevin now begins, his breath grazing me with his words, the warmth of him all around me. This soccer field is ringed, I know, with couples who care about each other less.

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“There’s no good way to put this…”

“What?”

His arm tightens, squeezing me.

“Honey, I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?” But I already know what he means. I know right away. I try to move from him, but he pulls me in. “Can’t do what?” I ask again.

“Come on.” I feel him turning me away from the field. “Let’s take a walk.” His hand on my shoulder is pressing more powerfully now. Everyone around us has started moving the other way. “Come with me, Claire,” he says. “Just for a minute.”

“I don’t know…” I begin. “I should go talk to Alyssa.”

“Don’t. This is important.” He stops and draws his arm away. We’re facing one another, far enough from the others that their voices are muted and seemingly abstract. “We need to talk,” he says. On each of his cheeks is a patch of red. His nose is runny. He wipes it on his sleeve. “Maybe it’s just me that needs to talk,” he says. “Sometimes I think you could just go on like this forever. You could, couldn’t you? Just you and me, bobbing along like this, on the surface?” Stepping back, he looks up to the sky, and all I want is for him to stop talking. “God knows,” he says, still looking up, “God knows, I have tried to be patient. I have tried to be the perfect friend. But I just can’t be this… I can’t be your person like this.” His eyes move straight to mine. “Your guy. But not really your guy. Your pal. Who used to be your guy. Or, at any rate,
a
guy.” He wipes his nose again. “You know, sometimes I think I’ve made this way too easy for you.”

“Easy?” There’s an anger in my voice, that I hear before I feel it. “Just what’s been easy for me, Kev? Widowhood? Grief? Being alone? Single parenthood? None of it feels easy to me.”

“Easy
may be the wrong word,” he says. “I just wonder if I haven’t held you back somehow. Given you a way to skip over having feelings…”

“Oh come on, Kevin—all I do is have feelings.”

“New feelings, Claire. For once, I’m actually not talking about what happened three years ago. Believe it or not, this isn’t about Joe. That’s yesterday’s news, Claire. It’s three fucking years!” His voice is suddenly loud, our postures shifting into those of people in a fight. I look to the field to see if we’re being watched, but the small crowd is distant and unconcerned. Kevin’s face is only inches from my own. “You tell me, Claire. When do I get to stop being your husband’s eunuch substitute? Is there an end plan for that? Or do we just keep on like this for the rest of our lives? Because I don’t think I can do it anymore.”

“God.” I take a step back, but he moves with me.

“I can’t just be his stand-in anymore. I can’t pretend that I’ve died too. If it’s not me, Claire, if I’m not the guy for you, if I’m not it, then let me get out of the way—and you go find him. Go have a life with someone. Honestly, don’t you ever think it’s time to put the widow’s weeds away? Stop raising that girl in a mausoleum?”

“Jesus, Kevin.” The tears that were threatening disappear. “Isn’t that a little harsh? I never asked you to—”