Great Big Beautiful Life(121)

I nod. “About my parents. About everything they’ve taught me.”

“That’s a beautiful idea,” Bianca says.

“It’s not a Margaret Ives biography,” I say. “There’s no guarantee anyone will want it.”

“You can’t think about that yet,” Bianca says. “Right now you just have to think about what you want to write about.”

I want, I realize, to write about the same thing I’ve always wanted to write about.

“I want to write about love,” I say.

Bianca nods. “Then do that. Write about love.”



* * *



? ? ?

After one last group hug, I deposit my friends in an airport-bound cab. Mom and I wave as they retreat, the sun setting brilliantly behind them.

I think, as I always do at sunrise and sunset, about the tiny mosaic in my bedroom.

The colors of Nicollet. The colors of hope.

Back inside, we set up the camera and recorder and get back to work.

A month goes by. I garden with my mother during the day, the recorder running as we talk. We listen to music while we cook at night, all of Dad’s old favorites. Afterward we look through photo albums and watch old home movies.

I treasure every word she gives me. Not just the ones about my father, but the ones about her too. She was right when she said it wasn’t too late to know him, but the thing I’m realizing is, it’s not too late to know her either.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions when we wrap up work early in the day, we’ll sit outside on the grass, drinking beer and darning socks while the sun melts into the horizon, painting everything with its glory.

Sunset, I learn, is my mother’s favorite time of day. It relaxes her more than a hot shower or a glass of wine or anything else, to watch another day come to a close, everything in its right place.

We video call with Audrey when she’s able, and she tells us about her work and asks us about ours.

My mother isn’t a different person. I’m not either. But she asks me to send her a few of my favorite stories I’ve written, and sometimes, when she’s reading them at night on the couch opposite from me, she even laughs. She pushes her wire-frame glasses on top of her head and looks at me and says something like “You’re so much like him,” something that makes me feel not just seen but loved, liked.

Theo texts me a couple of times, but when I give as little in our exchanges as he does, they quickly peter out. It’s not a breakup, because it wasn’t a relationship, and I’m okay with that.

I try not to think too much about Hayden, but he’s everywhere. In one month, he invaded every facet of my reality. Like the Cosmo Sinclair song.

Hayden, Hayden, all the time.

I’m still doing work for The Scratch, but mostly short-form pieces, with phone interviews and email exchanges. Once, I go to Atlanta for a weekend to interview a chef, but mostly I spend that whole first month at my mother’s side, her shadow once more but still my own person.

Five weeks after my friends left, I talk her into ordering pizza again.

“It was pretty good,” she allows, then negotiates, “no more than once per month though.”

We shake on it, and then I call the order in.

She’s in the shower when it arrives, and I’m putting the finishing touches on a fresh salad. “Coming!” I shout in the general direction of the door, then rinse my oniony fingers and pat them against my legs as I jog toward the door.

I swing it open and the sunset blinds me for just a second, before the inky blot in front of me resolves into a person.

A tall, devastatingly handsome, walking, talking glower of a person.

“Hayden,” I gasp, feeling vaguely like I’ve run at a dead sprint into a wall.

He stares at me, face hard and impassive as ever. “What is this?” he asks sharply, and holds up a piece of paper.

Nothing fancy. Notebook paper with blue ink scrawled across it, front and back. My handwriting.

For a split second, I go ice cold with the fear that I mailed the letter to the wrong person. Him instead of Margaret.

Then I realize the flaw in that theory. I don’t even have Hayden’s address.

“Does it look familiar?” he asks me.

I try to speak. No sound comes out.

When he realizes I’m not going to answer, his eyes drop to the front of it. He clears his throat and reads tersely, “?‘Dear Margaret, you asked me once if you could trust Hayden. I told you that you could, but that wasn’t the whole truth.’?”

“I know what it says,” I weakly manage, but he goes on.

“?‘Yes, he has some walls up, the same as you do. And just like you, he has his reasons. He’s careful about who he lets in, but when he does, he loves them wholly. He’s blunt, and he’s honest, but he’s never cruel or unkind. He can be hard to read, but he doesn’t play games.

“?‘He doesn’t sleep well. He knows where every twenty-four-hour diner is within forty minutes of Little Crescent, and probably where all of them are back in his own neighborhood too. He’s careful about his health—he doesn’t have a complete family medical history to rely on, so he tries not to take risks.

“?‘He’s funny, very funny, but because he’s so dry about it, it might take you a while to realize that.