He looked at her across the kitchen island. “I’m sorry you lost him.”
Tuesday licked her lips. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”
“Do you mind talking about it?”
“I’ll tell you if I can’t. Or don’t want to. It’s like any other terrible moment in a life. Everyone has them. It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced and it remains that to this day. Eric was part of my life for a long time. To never speak of him means I can’t draw on all that life. I choose not to live that way anymore.”
“But you did stop talking about him?”
“For about eighteen months after I scattered his ashes I didn’t. I never spoke of him.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
“My friends let me sleep in their guest rooms and I stayed with my siblings and other assorted family while I pretended I was someone else.” Someone who hadn’t lost a husband.
“Did it work?”
“Does it ever?”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to.
“After about a year and a half, Natalie asked me to come and stay in her new house with her for a while. And I ended up staying. I’m leaning toward shifting my emphasis and running a gallery. I want to make my jewelry and sell it, and art, in my shop. I may. It’s a multiple-year plan.” She shrugged, pretending nonchalance, but in reality that had been the first time she’d said it out loud like a definite plan instead of cloud talk.
“I do that,” he said as he tipped the green beans into a steamer.
“What?”
“Have multiple-year plans. I like to spread it all out and break it down into component parts.”
“It doesn’t seem as insurmountable when you break it down.” And so that’s how she’d taken each day. Task by task, hour by bour.
Their gazes locked as this depth of knowing passed between them. Ezra hadn’t lost a spouse, but he’d lost part of himself for a long time. He got her situation in ways very few others ever could. And yet she knew he wasn’t ready to see that right then.
He turned his attention back to the food. “Some days, checking stuff off a list was the high point. Hell, it’s still that way sometimes.”
While he finished the prep, she set the table and then went to the windows nearest his dining room table.
The cat, Goldfish, she remembered, hopped up onto the windowsill and walked back and forth, tickling her face with his tail until she picked him up. His purrs were loud as he drooled all over her arm.
“Oh shit, sorry. I should have warned you he’s a drooler.” Ezra handed her a paper towel she wiped her arm with.
“It’s okay. I’ll wash off.” She balled the paper towel and went to wash her hands before she settled at the table with him.
The food was really good and she said as much, complimenting his skills. “Did you once have a chef for a girlfriend or something?” she teased.
He laughed. “No. One of the women who was a counselor at the sober house I lived in after I left rehab. We all had to take turns making dinner. She taught me how to make this and a few other things. It gave me something to do.”
She’d been curious, but hesitant to ask too many questions about his experience with heroin and the recovery after he’d crashed and burned so hard.
“How long were you there?”
“I went to detox first. The place I went uses this process where you’re pretty much unconscious through the worst parts of withdrawal. They monitor your physical state, keeping you hydrated, watching your vital signs so that by the time the worst of it is burned from your system, you wake up. Then I went for another hundred and twenty days and after that into sober living for five months.”
“Wow.”
He tore off a piece of bread. “I had to learn how to cope again. I’d built my life around handling things a certain way and I couldn’t ever do that again.”
“Did you go straight there? From rehab to sober living? Is that how it works?”
“Not for everyone. They gave me the option of sober living once I’d finished rehab. My counselor recommended it. But I’d been out of pocket for four months at that point. Longer if you consider how useless I’d been for a year or so before that. I had shit to do and I was used to just doing it. I thought it would be easy since I no longer had any heroin in my system.” He laughed but there was no mirth there.
“They told me my addiction was way more than just a substance but I wasn’t going to listen to that bullshit. I kicked. I’d avoid the people I used with, which wasn’t hard because my family wasn’t going to let any of them near me. I was ready to get on with my life. And I walked into my house and the stress of it all hit me. It hit me as I stood in the powder room I’d been dope sick in. I’d be sleeping in a bed I’d used in. The whole house had echoes of that Ezra all through it, right to the studs in the walls. I wanted to use so badly right then I locked myself in a closet until it passed. Once I’d got past the craving, I realized I couldn’t live in that house. So I jotted down notes about what I wanted, I discussed it with my parents, who agreed to handle the demolition and construction while I was away and I got on a plane that afternoon and headed to sober living. By the time I got back I had a new house I could start over in and the tools to live with the consequences of the decisions I had to make, like leaving the band.”
He looked back to her, his gaze coming back from the past where he’d been dwelling a little as he told her the story.
Tuesday licked her lips. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too.”
“Do you mind talking about it?”
“I’ll tell you if I can’t. Or don’t want to. It’s like any other terrible moment in a life. Everyone has them. It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced and it remains that to this day. Eric was part of my life for a long time. To never speak of him means I can’t draw on all that life. I choose not to live that way anymore.”
“But you did stop talking about him?”
“For about eighteen months after I scattered his ashes I didn’t. I never spoke of him.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
“My friends let me sleep in their guest rooms and I stayed with my siblings and other assorted family while I pretended I was someone else.” Someone who hadn’t lost a husband.
“Did it work?”
“Does it ever?”
He didn’t respond, but he didn’t have to.
“After about a year and a half, Natalie asked me to come and stay in her new house with her for a while. And I ended up staying. I’m leaning toward shifting my emphasis and running a gallery. I want to make my jewelry and sell it, and art, in my shop. I may. It’s a multiple-year plan.” She shrugged, pretending nonchalance, but in reality that had been the first time she’d said it out loud like a definite plan instead of cloud talk.
“I do that,” he said as he tipped the green beans into a steamer.
“What?”
“Have multiple-year plans. I like to spread it all out and break it down into component parts.”
“It doesn’t seem as insurmountable when you break it down.” And so that’s how she’d taken each day. Task by task, hour by bour.
Their gazes locked as this depth of knowing passed between them. Ezra hadn’t lost a spouse, but he’d lost part of himself for a long time. He got her situation in ways very few others ever could. And yet she knew he wasn’t ready to see that right then.
He turned his attention back to the food. “Some days, checking stuff off a list was the high point. Hell, it’s still that way sometimes.”
While he finished the prep, she set the table and then went to the windows nearest his dining room table.
The cat, Goldfish, she remembered, hopped up onto the windowsill and walked back and forth, tickling her face with his tail until she picked him up. His purrs were loud as he drooled all over her arm.
“Oh shit, sorry. I should have warned you he’s a drooler.” Ezra handed her a paper towel she wiped her arm with.
“It’s okay. I’ll wash off.” She balled the paper towel and went to wash her hands before she settled at the table with him.
The food was really good and she said as much, complimenting his skills. “Did you once have a chef for a girlfriend or something?” she teased.
He laughed. “No. One of the women who was a counselor at the sober house I lived in after I left rehab. We all had to take turns making dinner. She taught me how to make this and a few other things. It gave me something to do.”
She’d been curious, but hesitant to ask too many questions about his experience with heroin and the recovery after he’d crashed and burned so hard.
“How long were you there?”
“I went to detox first. The place I went uses this process where you’re pretty much unconscious through the worst parts of withdrawal. They monitor your physical state, keeping you hydrated, watching your vital signs so that by the time the worst of it is burned from your system, you wake up. Then I went for another hundred and twenty days and after that into sober living for five months.”
“Wow.”
He tore off a piece of bread. “I had to learn how to cope again. I’d built my life around handling things a certain way and I couldn’t ever do that again.”
“Did you go straight there? From rehab to sober living? Is that how it works?”
“Not for everyone. They gave me the option of sober living once I’d finished rehab. My counselor recommended it. But I’d been out of pocket for four months at that point. Longer if you consider how useless I’d been for a year or so before that. I had shit to do and I was used to just doing it. I thought it would be easy since I no longer had any heroin in my system.” He laughed but there was no mirth there.
“They told me my addiction was way more than just a substance but I wasn’t going to listen to that bullshit. I kicked. I’d avoid the people I used with, which wasn’t hard because my family wasn’t going to let any of them near me. I was ready to get on with my life. And I walked into my house and the stress of it all hit me. It hit me as I stood in the powder room I’d been dope sick in. I’d be sleeping in a bed I’d used in. The whole house had echoes of that Ezra all through it, right to the studs in the walls. I wanted to use so badly right then I locked myself in a closet until it passed. Once I’d got past the craving, I realized I couldn’t live in that house. So I jotted down notes about what I wanted, I discussed it with my parents, who agreed to handle the demolition and construction while I was away and I got on a plane that afternoon and headed to sober living. By the time I got back I had a new house I could start over in and the tools to live with the consequences of the decisions I had to make, like leaving the band.”
He looked back to her, his gaze coming back from the past where he’d been dwelling a little as he told her the story.
