Other People Manage by Ellen Hawley

Author:Ellen Hawley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Grief;family;lesbian;LGBT;Elizabeth Strout;Lorrie Moore;Alice Munro;Sorrow and Bliss
Publisher: Swift Press
Published: 2022-03-29T09:57:08+00:00

I bought takeout at a Vietnamese place on Lake Street that night, and we sat up with Jude and Dex long after the kids were in bed while Jude told us everything Deena had said, and everything she’d said, and everything Deena had said back, then hashing out all the moves Deena might make and the countermoves we could make if she did. It was like playing chess when you couldn’t predict the ways the pieces would move. Was Deena prone to legal actions or kidnapping, emotional scenes in front of the kids or suicide? Did she move two squares forward and one to the side or throw the whole board on the floor and stomp on the pieces?

“I don’t think she’s got the patience for lawyers,” Peg said.

“Or the money,” Dex said.

“Or the money.”

That left us with the more disturbing possibilities. We picked at the last bits of food and when the food was gone we gathered up the cardboard cartons and extra napkins and soy sauce packets and threw them all away. Jude started crying. She was still holding the garbage bag we’d thrown everything into.

“I shouldn’t feel this way,” she said, “but it’s not just the kids. I hate having her back is what it is. I just hate having her back.”

Dex came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. No more than that: just stood there, a little embarrassed, a little awkward, but touching her in spite of that. If I’d been Jude, I’d have grabbed that moment and wept out every ounce of sadness that had ever crossed my life, because if she hadn’t chosen a partner with a gift for closeness she’d at least found one who was willing to wade through his own discomfort and touch her shoulders when she needed him.

All she did, though, was smear her tears with one hand and listen to Peg saying Deena’d always been hard on her, it was natural for her to feel that way. I’d have wept over that too: absolution, and from a relative. Dex lifted his hands off her shoulders, took the garbage bag from her and tied the top. She stopped crying. The moment was over, but that’s all any of us have. Moments. Seconds, hours – weeks if we’re lucky. Flashes of time when we’re more than ourselves and can let another person touch us. Flashes of time when we give ourselves over to someone else the way Jake and Kerri still could, the way Krys was learning not to do. And it lasts until the other person reaches for the garbage bag. If you wait long enough, and if you’re wise enough or lucky enough, or maybe both, it happens again.

Peg was still talking about how hard Deena’d been on Jude, and Jude was saying, “I thought it was just me,” and, “I thought everyone would say it was my fault.” Dex took the garbage out, and I came up behind Peg so I could wrap my arms around her shoulders and rest my chin on the top of her head.

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