Page 66 of A Lifetime of Afters
By Wednesday, day eleven, I couldn’t bear the endless, empty workday ahead, and I needed a reprieve from the pitying looks that landed on me at regular intervals. If we’d been a secret before, we were definitely not anymore.
“Bruce? I think it’s long past time to introduce you to your namesake.”
Holding up a DVD, because for some movies you had to go old school, I continued, “This is Bruce Willis. This is a man. The man. Triple threat. Fierce, funny, and fuckable.”
By the end of the movie, I’d gone through almost an entire box of tissues. “I know, Bruce. I’m not fierce. Not at all. Not even a little bit.”
The detritus of my binge lay scattered over the surface of the coffee table. Where I fully intended on leaving it. My heart was a crime scene, and here lay the evidence. Seeing the mess was bizarrely satisfying. I decided not to examine it too closely. Introspection was Max’s deal, not mine.
I had just tossed another used tissue onto the growing pile when the doorbell rang.
Sitting forward on the couch with my elbows on my knees, I sighed deeply. Maybe if I ignored them, they’d go away.
The doorbell rang again.
Through the peephole I watched the delivery man retreat down my path. Swinging the door open, I called out a thank you and looked down to find a box wrapped in a swath of paper and plastic. Peeking inside, a tiny indoor garden awaited me.
“Oh!” I could handle sympathy if it came like this. Bringing it inside, I peeled off the paper.
A bowl, shallow and wide, housed tiny flowers interspersed among a variety of succulents. Tiny ceramic gnomes and forest creatures frolicked between them.
My fingers trembled, knowing who sent it but fearing the letdown if I was wrong, as I opened the card.
A simple ‘H’ scrawled across the card revealed little of his intent in sending me this gift, but I understood the reference.
My mother’s collection of garden gnomes delighted me as a child, embarrassed me as a teen, and destroyed me as an adult when she left them to me.
Noelle,
There is magic in the world. I know this to be true based on the wonder of all that is you. Open your heart and you’ll find it.
I love you always.
Mama.
It was Hawkley who found me taking a hammer to her gnomes.
It was Hawkley who wrestled the tool from my hands, and Hawkley who rescued the remaining statues from my grief-stricken tirade.
I showed him the note and watched as tears came to his eyes.
He swallowed hard and nodded before handing the note back. “She’s right you know,” his voice cracked. “If anyone deserves magic, it’s you.”
Kind words.
They’d always been my undoing.
From him, they were kryptonite.
My anger melted away and I crumpled. His arms caught me as he followed me down to the hard ground and rocked me as I silently grieved, sucking in great gulps of air in my effort not to cry.
I often wondered what happened to the survivors, but I never asked. If my dad got rid of them, if they lay in a landfill somewhere, I didn’t want to know. My mother’s final gift to me and I destroyed it. So long as I didn’t ask, I could picture them tucked away in a shed or a closet somewhere. Not at my dad’s place. I’d searched every nook and cranny. But somewhere.
Inside, I cleared the coffee table and set the fairy garden at the center.
“Don’t touch it, Mr. Willis,” I whispered. “This is important to Mama.”
Suddenly fatigued beyond measure, not understanding the intent behind Hawk’s gift, and more than a little angry at its ambiguity, I went to bed and slept through to the next morning.
