If It Makes You Happy
Julie Olivia
Prologue
Michelle
JULY 1997
I prepared for today the best I could—set out my simple black dress, picked up flowers, met with the priest—but telling my family I’m divorced at my mother’s wake wasn’t on my list.
“I’m leaving in five minutes,” Allen whispers sharply in my ear.
“I know.”
“I will tell them if you don’t.”
I grit my teeth. “I know.”
Allen can’t miss his flight. Sure, my ex-husband could have booked it for tomorrow after the vigil, but if you’re no longer legally tied to a family, I guess it’s irrelevant whether you pay respects to your ex-mother-in-law.
I run my pendant along the thin necklace chain, watching the long line of visitors snake through the chapel. I force a smile at someone I don’t recognize.
I inhale sharply and evenly let it out. “We shouldn’t do this today.”
Allen looks away. His lip curls. “Yes, but we should tell them together. Today is our only option. It’s the right thing to do.”
The right thing to do.
Two months ago, a much peppier, younger woman than me called our house to say she didn’t know Allen had a wife. Like him, she also said telling the truth felt like “the right thing to do.”
I don’t point out his moral inconsistencies. There’s no point in arguing if I can’t win.
We should have told my family about our decision to get divorced. His family knew weeks ago. But when my mom’s health suddenly declined, it never felt like the right time. I was dotting the last i in the paperwork when Dad called, telling me she’d passed.
Allen clears his throat, running his palms over his beautifully tailored suit jacket. Most men might nervously fiddle with the buttons of their suit, but Allen isn’t the kind of man to show weakness in public. Not in his white coat at the hospital. Definitely not at a wake.
A lot of those in attendance are from Mom’s former nursing days, and some are even my employees at work, but there are many more I don’t recognize. These strangers mourn in loose suits and abandoned fashions, like they scrambled to find appropriate garb. An older woman beside the last pew is wearing plum stockings. The man beside her is in glasses from the seventies that swallow his cheeks.
“Who are these people?” I murmur.
Allen shrugs in response.
A family approaches the coffin—a man, a woman, and two daughters. They’re some of the new faces. The man wraps a large arm around a skinny teenage girl with stringy blond hair curtaining her blotchy, tear-soaked face. A much younger girl is hiked on his hip, gripping his tie. The woman—I assume his wife—stands behind them with crossed arms and a bouquet of flowers.
I wonder if they’re happy. Allen and I decided—as a unit, like we always did—to not have children. We protected our careers and the nice townhome that couldn’t withstand crayons on the walls. Our rugs were too expensive for spilled milk. Children were too wild, and we were too … not.
I watch the dad set down his reaching little girl. He takes the bouquet from his wife, peering over the bobbing heads traversing their way through the small chapel. I wonder who he’s looking for. He swivels his eyes toward us, and his gaze lands on mine.
It snags, like a stuck zipper in fabric, jerking against my stomach and taking threads with it. My gaze can’t budge. His doesn’t either.
In some ways, he’s traditionally handsome—very much like Allen. His defined jaw is freshly shaved. The high cheekbones cut creases into his cheeks. His Adam’s apple sticks out from a thicker neck, dipping into a protruding collarbone, exposed through his unbuttoned white shirt and the loose tie his daughter tugged earlier. He’s taller than the other men in line. His broad shoulders fill out his suit. Yes, very traditionally good-looking.
But then there are other ways he’s attractive—the non-Allen features. His dark brown hair isn’t trimmed close—loose is the best way to put it, like maybe he tried pomade but ran a stressed hand through the strands too many times. His nose is slightly crooked at the bridge. And even though his lips are pulled in a taut line, there’s a small crease along one side of his mouth. It’s a laugh line that doesn’t know how to disappear, even at a wake.
His eyes relax, like he’s mentally extending a chair for me to join him in our silent, all-seeing space. He’s kicking his feet back. He’s not going anywhere.
I inhale a shaky breath. How can he seem so at ease, staring at a stranger? He lazily flicks his eyes to Allen, then back. I can feel his stare in the pit of my stomach, like maybe he can see what I’m hiding—like he knows about the divorce.
“Psst.”
My heart jumps into my throat at my sister’s voice. Sara’s head pokes out from the side door in the vestibule behind us.
“Shelly, come here.”
Allen rolls his eyes as Sara tugs me backward into the room. I attempt to steal one final look at the other man, but the door shuts in my face before I can.
In better circumstances, this room serves as a bridal suite. An oval cheval mirror is propped in the corner. Padded mahogany chairs circle a small table. I can still picture my three bridesmaids sitting in the corner five years ago—Sara, Allen’s sister, and my old college roommate. I don’t know the last time we spoke.