2. Her Wedding Dress

"No one even called me." I sat motionless, except for the twisting of the white envelope in my hands, at the selling point counter of the contemporary styled kitchen of our apartment. The letter from the estate lawyer laid on the glazed hardwood surface in front of me. "She was my mom." I read the first sentence again, "You are asked to attend the reading of the last will and testament of Ms. Mary Lea Shire..." I set down the envelope and buried my face in my hands. This isn't real. It can't be.

"Are you going? I mean you haven't spoken to her in years." Terrance offered as though somehow that softened the blow. He turned to me, ignoring his skillet of eggs for a moment. The sunlit him from behind making his light brown hair look almost blonde. That charming man stood in the glow of what might have been a perfect morning if it weren't for mail. I didn't meet his deep blue eyes. Terrance, like drugs and alcohol and poetry, had a way of making me nostalgic. His presence was a distraction, a beautiful delicious diversion to my melancholy reality. They say that is love makes one blind. Love does not make one blind to the person they are enthralled with; that person seems to be all one can see. Love makes one blind to everything else. That is why it feels so good to be in love. Delving into the dangerous lands a euphoria is not something to go about lightly for one is essentially high, all the time. My love had kept me from returning to Fox Hollow when the city became too much for me. Love, Terrance, has rescued me from dark places I hadn't known I was headed towards. But he was one euphoria that, I knew, couldn't last forever. As the letter on the counter before proved, love never lasts. The best it can do is temporarily blind us from the knowledge that it is fleeting.

"Creamer?" He slid a freshly brewed coffee towards me in one of those awful gift shop mugs from the Grand Canyon. I ran my fingers over the bold font lettering feeling the warmth on my fingertips, a familiar feeling though it stirred up strange memories.

In the golden light of sunrise that saturated the white country kitchen, my mother would drop an ice cube into the cup to cool down her drink, and sip at it while she made us breakfast. While she worked she would sing, absent-mindedly, usually a hymn from church. Growing up, I remembered, my mother had always managed to wake up before the rest of us. The kitchen would fill with the smell of herbs from her daily tea. She hated coffee. It made her jittery. She always drank tea though. Once the smell would dance through the short hall into the little bedroom I called my own I would perk up, and run past Robbie's room- I stopped myself from plunging any further into that reminiscence.

"I just spoke with her last Easter," I replied to Terrance. This isn't real. He had refocused on making breakfast and had his back to me as he whisked the eggs in the pan, adding a little milk. He tried to inconspicuously gauge my thoughts with a short glance back at me.

"That was like six months ago. Creamer?" He gestured to the coffemate. If this was real, Terrance would be more sympathetic. This is a prank. He was waiting for an answer and gave the creamer a little jiggle.

"No. Thank you." I pushed my drink away and went to the living room. Breakfast was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

"God, you're actually upset?" He said, moving the eggs off the burner and following me.

"What? Terrance. Yes." Turned to him. "Yes."

"I'm sorry." He looked ridiculous in his Kiss the Chef apron with that forced pity splattered on his face. I loved Terrance for his happy-go-lucky charm, but he was clueless when it came to actual emotion. The look on his face at that moment was the same look he had worn when I told him about Robbie. I stopped myself again. Of course, Robbie would come to mind when I thought of my mother. Of course, Terrance would not know what to do. Of course, I would want to scream and sob and send the letter back, pretending I had never seen it. Terrance did not understand what I felt. It was not in his DNA to process trauma so life-altering.

This is real. My mother is dead, and I am alone.

He approached trying to formulate a response that would not result in an argument. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed my cheek. "I'm so sorry. That really sucks."

I did not respond.

"When's the funeral?" Terrance let go, still unsure of himself.

"According to the letter, three weeks ago." I moved away from him and sat on the modernist velvet red couch. I pressed one hand to my forehead, distress rising from a new place in me. I could feel the pressure in the back of my throat, the pools in my eyes.

Terrance was anxious to comfort me. But unable to come up with a charming answer, he stood diffidently wringing his hands. I needed him to speak. I needed to hear anything: that he was at my side, that he could shield me from this, that he could bring her back. Silence.

Inadvertently I started rambling, "It went to my old place. Then it got rerouted." I stopped and met his eyes, as though he might have the answer, "But how could no one even call me?"

A brazen tear ran down my cheek and fell into my lap. I looked at the dark spot where it had landed on my leg and soon it had company. Like a sudden storm, the rain worsened and worsened until the clouds had nearly dried up. I could not bring myself to move off the couch, or eat, or be reasoned with. Terrance was nearly useless, except that he called the office and informed them of my condition and the reason for it.

At a quarter to five in the evening, he woke me, though I do not remember having fallen asleep, and into my hands, he placed a sheet of paper. He pushed back a curtain of brown curls that had fallen over my red and puffy face.

"It's time to go home." He stated. I glanced down to see what was on the page. A plane ticket to Cody, Wyoming.

Slowly, I pushed myself up.

"Why? I already missed the funeral," I remarked, aware that lip had quivered as I had spoken.

"That's not how you want to say goodbye, is it?" He frowned. "A letter on the kitchen counter? Your mother means more to you than you admit-"

"Terrance, you don't know what you're talking about." I pulled my knees close to my chest.

"Fine, maybe I don't." He propped his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands, "but you have spent the entire day on the couch. Did you even know that Kelly came by? You looked right at her, and she tried to talk to you but you were not there. You've been sobbing or sleeping or staring at the wall all day. You're upset, which is fine but you have to admit that something is going on. She was your mom and as much as you deny it, she mattered to you-"

I knew what he was going to say before he said it. I bit back fresh tears.

"-and now she's gone."

Unwittingly I gave a little cry. He patted my shoulder and left me alone in the living room, which felt anything but alive.

Within the next eighteen hours, I was packed and armed with the ticket to my past. He had offered to come with me, but it had seemed like a bad idea. Somehow having a new face in the old house felt disrespectful. Terrance had not liked that answer. I knew he felt that he had to be a hero, the shoulder to cry on, but I couldn't let him. An argument, an Uber to the airport, and two glasses of airplane wine later I was looking out the window at the dark midwestern landscape below.

The amber light of a sunrise met me as the plane touched down in Denver. I looked at the glowing screen of my phone and noted that I would have to run across the length of the terminal and possibly take one of those trams to the other side. My eyes scanned the side of the building looking for my gate. I didn’t see it. I’m trying to get back to you.

As soon as I could be, I was running through the terminal. The sound of my soles smacked on the poured concrete. My grey duffle bag bounced against my side as I ran. People moved, some in a hurry, others killing time, around me in a growing cacophony. Noise echoed in the cold corridors, laughter, wheels of suitcases, coughing, human noise- somehow louder than the city I was leaving behind.

Mom, I'm coming back.

That airport, that transitional place, bellowed with the shadows of the places we had been, or to which we were going. I was sprinting through a castle of memories, a maze of passing thoughts.

Mom, I'm coming home.

In my mind's eye, I could see her smiling, light filling up the room, making the place glow. Then actually in front of me, I saw the gate. My flight was boarding. The section my ticket dictated, economy, was already in the cabin. I ran, faster, pushing my legs as hard and as fast as they could carry me.

I'm almost there.

The memory of her, petting my head, telling me that it was all going to be ok, danced through my head and then vanished. The attendant looked at my ticket and sent me through the long carpeted hallway that extended out towards the sky vessel. I was the last one to board, tears pouring down my face.

Mom, I want to get back to you.

I could feel the warmth of her last hug, hear the shake in her voice at church when she was nervous to sing in front of all those people, her laugh, her hardworking hands, her bravery, her solitude, her love.

Love never lasts. The best it can do is temporarily blind us from the knowledge that it is fleeting.

I sat, alone, in a plane full of people going somewhere they could still get to. I was going somewhere I would never reach again. More than anything I wanted to be there, home. But that flight had left six months ago.

Light from outside the dusty window freckled the wood planks of the attic of Fox Hollow. The home, now belonging to me, felt empty without her there. A soft rain pattered away at the roof.

What's up here, mom? Boxes. The plastic Christmas tree? Your old skis? Then I saw it, the faded blue box in the center of the room. I ran my hand along the edge looking for the opening. Taking the corner of the lid I lifted off the top to see its contents: pearls, lace and folded white garment. Almost instantly I knew what I was looking at, her wedding dress.

She had always believed in love, even after it was stolen from her. When Robbie passed she hadn't, for a second, stopped. I had. The empty house where we had all broken out hearts moaned in the wind and I wept, remembering all the pain that we had lived through at Fox Hollow.

"I can't believe you back to life, mom." I closed the box, again tears flowing from my eyes, "The lawyer today said that you were with Robbie. I didn't have the heart to tell him that you're not. That you are both just gone. He said that one day I will see you again but I can't believe that either. Mom, I tried to get home, but I was never going to reach you in time. Mom."

There was no answer, only a stormy empty silence.

"Mom, if it's real, if there's more, please, come back. If there is a god and he took you from me, tell him to send you home."

I pressed my hand on the lid of the box. "If you come back, I promise, I'll wear your wedding dress."