Page 98 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
He nods again like things are falling into place, but for me, nothing has ever made less sense than Ro Jackson being truly out of reach.
“I didn’t get it at first,” he says. “When Ro told me about your sister settin’ you up. You didn’t strike me as someone who needed help findin’ your people. But when I heard you talk about your dad, it made sense. Being left behind like that—I know what it does to a person. My own dad leaving changed me in ways I’m still figuring out. Even as an old man.” He looks so much like Ro when he smiles like that. “Once I knew whatthat kinda loss felt like, I didn’t wanna depend on anybody. Didn’t wanna get used to needing somebody who could leave. And there was a time where being good on my own felt like a superpower. It meant I was untouchable.”
Mr. Jackson looks back to the garage, where his wife’s face is framed by the plexiglass window. She laughs at whatever was just said on the other side of the door, and Mr. Jackson smiles right along with her.
“But thirty years ago, Ro’s mama decided she was gonna know me whether I wanted her to or not,” he says, laughing. “I didn’t always like learning how to let her in, but I’m so grateful I didn’t waste too much time fightin’ her on it.” He’s still watching Mrs. Jackson as he continues. “She knows me better than I know myself now. And even if I forget everything else, some part of me will always know her. I’m certain of that.”
He turns back to me as he finishes, his eyes wet with tears, and it takes everything I’ve got not to turn away from the kindness Mr. Jackson offers so freely. It takes everything I’ve got not to run anymore.
“You make it sound so easy,” I say, blinking past the sting in my eyes.
His laugh surprises me, but as he catches a fallen tear, the emotions playing on his face aren’t warring. He welcomes them all.
“Ain’t nothing easy about livin’. But how lucky are we that for today, at least, we get to do it anyway?”
34
The drive home from thegarage is as familiar as it is excruciating. Which is, ironically, also how I’d describe the sound of Ro’s voice emanating through the car’s speakers. The distance I hear in his tone makes him nearly unrecognizable to me. A stranger. Still, I let the entire voicemail greeting play. It’s torture to hear him this way, but it’s also the most I’ve had of him in too long. I can’t hang up.
I search Ro’s deep timbre for a hint of the warmth I remember. Pause to hear a smile alter the shape of his words the way it always does. Neither comes. Because this recording isn’t my Ro. And the truth is, he was never really mine at all. I don’t blame him for ignoring my calls while he goes back into his real life.
Ro’s real life.
For as close as he’d felt to beingmine,Ro’s real life is one I know very little about. I can’t begin to guess how he’ll spend his first day back in the city, or who he might spend it with. When we walked those streets together, they felt like they belonged only to us. The thought of him stepping in our footprints with someone else leaves me sick with regret.
I shift into park in the driveway and reach for my phone, butI don’t know who to call. Ro’s gone. Liv’s with Travis. And me feeling sorry for myself isn’t a good enough reason to pop Zola’s newborn bubble.
I’ll pop Mom’s instead.
1:37pm
Me:How’s it going up there?
Mom:Hi! I actually left right after you did. I’m exhausted.
If she’d been on her way home, she would’ve said so. Mom’s going to get her rest in a bed that’s not her own.
I wait the requisite beat or two it usually takes to feel the way I always have with the confirmation that Mom’s chosen a new guy to fall into—disappointed, abandoned, angry. Even after my conversation with Zola, I’d expected it, but my indignation doesn’t come.
This pang in my chest actually feels closer to envy. Jealousy that after the night we just had, there’s someone waiting to wrap Mom up in their arms. Jealousy that no matter how many times she’s been hurt by the fall, she remains unbroken by it. That her heart is just as open now as it’s ever been.
In a week or a month, there could be leopard slippers and red wine—she’s got to know that as well as I do, but she’s not scared of it. Not enough to build up walls to hide behind. And for the first time in my life, I don’t know that it makes her wrong or reckless. It might just make her brave.
Me:Get some sleep. I love you.
Mom:I love you too.
Eventually, I’ll go back up to the hospital, but for all the ways my world has shifted, I think I’ve earned a few hours of rest, too—my bed, my sweats, and my favorite guilty pleasure.
—
Ten minutes into one of my forever top fiveDatelineepisodes, I’m shifting in the bed like this mattress is to blame for my discomfort. The police tape, the body bag, the grieving friend reflecting on how the dearly departed lit up a room. My stomach churns and I’m no closer to finding the thing I’d been so desperately craving—that comfort that comes with the absolute certainty of a sad story’s sad ending.
The dreams they shared, the plans they made. The finality of words left unsaid and love left with no place to go. None of it feels like entertainment anymore. It’s a tragedy.
A voiceover plays as the scene cuts to a backdrop of a staged morgue. I rip out my AirPods, fumbling to lock the screen before the next heartbreaking scene can be set.
My eyes, reflected in the screen’s total blackness, are red-rimmed. My skin, clammy from a smattering of tears I hadn’t even felt fall. I hardly recognize the person staring back at me.
