Yes, lady, I’m tempted to answer. Actually, I do know. Every bone in my body knows.
I promise to visit her and Brad once I’m back in Massachusetts, and we hang up.
I scan my initial sketch for my mother’s grave and send it to Joe, along with the playlist I’ve been listening to while working on it. All Brit bands I think he would appreciate.
Dear Joe,
I think it’s time we invite our muses back. Don’t you think?
—E.
The answer to my question is, apparently, no. Joe never bothers to reply. Not even when I find a place to DoorDash him toad-in-the-hole for his birthday, which I think he would appreciate, as a fellow Anglophile.
The next day, I send him another email. This time with old-school sketches I did long ago. The ones Dad sent me in the box all those months ago. The box I now know was meant to prompt me to come back home, not taunt me about my sins.
I add a few quotes I think would speak to him. Quotes about creativity and the muse. By William S. Burroughs, Stephen King, and Maya Angelou. This time, I don’t write him anything more.
I’m not counting on him to get back in touch because he misses me. We’ve both shown admirable self-restraint in that department before. I’m counting on him to do so because he wants his creative mojo back.
After the third email I send him, I start feeling like a con man trying to convince him that I’m an African prince whose family got tragically killed in a helicopter accident and needs him to give me his bank account details so I can transfer all my millions into it, but I keep pushing through.
I don’t hear from Joe on the third day, or the fourth one. I keep sending him tidbits of what I’m doing, things I’m working on. Music. Lyrics. Sketches. It’s like pulling teeth. It is possible that he doesn’t check his email very often. Or that my emails go straight to spam. It feels like flooring the accelerator when the car’s in neutral. But it’s better than not doing anything at all, and I can’t stop thinking about what I promised Mom. I have to get better about how I treat the people I love who are still here.
And then, one day, two weeks after Joe’s birthday, I log in to my email and find a new message from him. His name is in bold. Joseph Graves. My fingers quiver. So much hinges on his answer.
Please stop bothering me before I file a restraining order against you is a possibility.
But also, Okay, let’s play. Want to hold each other accountable? I’ll write a little every day, you’ll sketch.
When I open his email, I find neither.
There is no text at all. Just a Word document attachment. With words. Four thousand three hundred and two of them, to be specific.
I open the file and gulp the words down like a parched man who has found water in the desert. Joe picked up where he left off in his manuscript. His character, a Holden Caulfield of sorts, is still on the road, trying to find the meaning of life in New Orleans. Although in the last chapter, he decides to move to Raleigh to get away from the drugs. I love it. It’s raw. It’s dark. It reminds me of the stuff I grew up on.
I write him an email back. It’s one word.
From: Ever Lawson
To: Joseph Graves
More.
This time, it takes him less than five minutes to reply. Has he been waiting all this time for me to read it? What if I hadn’t seen it right away? Adrenaline is running through my veins.
From: Joseph Graves
To: Ever Lawson
Do you think it’s too Kerouac?
From: Ever Lawson
To: Joseph Graves
I think all authors use their literary hero’s voice until they find their own. Keep going.
From: Joseph Graves
To: Ever Lawson
This is purely about work, Ever. I don’t want to get together. Every time we do, you leave.
He is right. He is right and it kills me. He is right and I deserve this. He is right, and I don’t want him to be right, because I know, deep down, it was always Joe.
From: Ever Lawson
To: Joseph Graves
I understand.
From: Joseph Graves
To: Ever Lawson
Know how I spent my birthday?
From: Ever Lawson
To: Joseph Graves
?
From: Joseph Graves
To: Ever Lawson
A threesome. They were great. I didn’t think about you. Not for a minute.
I swallow down a scream. I want to tear the walls down. To break everything within reach. I want to stumble out to the street, a crazed woman, grab a rando, and fuck him in an alleyway as payback. But I can’t. Because he had to watch me run off to a romantic Puerto Rican vacation with his brother. Because I still wear Dom’s engagement ring.