RYE
Arcadia. Simple, peaceful. With his eyes closed, Rye saw the lake restaurant and the Honeybee House. The green hills behind it. A happy Christine and their smiling baby, Brenna—Sunshine. He floated through the moments of peace he’d had before. And he saw Tallie’s house, smelled those autumn candles and the rain. That suspended space of calm away from the noise of the world, the noise in his head. He was so tired.
Weightlessness.
Gravity.
Eternity tapped his shoulder, seduced him to turn around.
No more observations.
Nothing to report.
“Rye,” he heard Tallie say.
“Rye,” she said louder. He’d turned away from her, felt her hand grab at his back.
“Rye, please get in the car.”
TALLIE & RYE
They stopped for coffee on the way to Bloom. Tallie was okay with Rye cracking the window, smoking in the car. She held her hand up at him, refusing when he’d offered her a cigarette. They’d been mostly quiet. They’d cried privately, together, both trying their best to conceal it—wrung out. Bloom was three hours away, and they drove south, Tallie smoothing her car down the interstate at seventy-five miles per hour until it was time to turn off the exit ramp. Rye had listened to her make three phone calls. One to her mother. One to her father. One to Zora. In all three, explaining to them she’d be back at the hospital first thing in the morning before her appointments.
When they were stopped at a red light, she’d texted Nico, asking to see him on Monday evening after work; he’d said of course and called her lieve schat. Told her to talk back soon, and she promised she would. She’d asked Zora how Lionel was doing and, when she got off the phone, relayed the information to Rye in a casual tone that made him ache for those slow moments before Lionel caught fire. The same way his body and heart ached to turn back time and walk into his Honeybee House, hug his wife and daughter. Protect them somehow. The same way his body had ached those mornings after spending all night working heavy construction. The same way his body had ached when he was ill and sweating with stomach flu in prison. The same way Tallie’s body and heart had ached, trying so desperately to get pregnant. The same way Tallie’s heart had ached when Joel had moved in with Odette and when he’d told her he’d gotten Odette pregnant.
Tallie’s car hummed with ache as they drove to Bloom.
*
Rye’s dad opened the front door wide and clutched his chest, threw his arms around his son. How long had Tallie been crying? And Rye’s mom, in her flowered nightgown, walked into the kitchen and turned her head, covering her mouth and crying when she saw them. Tallie stood there spent and broken, the lamplight glowing up at Sallman’s Head of Christ hanging on the wall.
RYE
Rye, back home, promised he’d keep in touch with Tallie. He promised he’d find a therapist, and if he couldn’t find one he liked, he’d contact her and let her help. Before she left him at his parents’ house, he’d walked her to the car and asked if it was okay to hug her.
“Are you serious?” she asked before reaching out to him. Their lies, their mistakes, their anger dissolved into stardust and shimmered its way above them as they held each other.
“You’re too tired to drive.”
“I’m running on adrenaline at this point. I’ll keep the windows down, turn the music up,” she said. “And after everything, I’m being completely honest when I tell you I’m so glad I met you. I mean, life is short, clearly, but I want to live it. I was open with you, and you hurt me, but I don’t regret any of this.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I can’t say that enough.”
“And I’m sorry for not being up front with you.”
“I betrayed your trust after you were so kind to me,” he said.
“Yes. And I forgive you. That’s how forgiveness works. Do you forgive me?”
“Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
“See?” she said. And after she nested herself inside the car she said, “Goodbye, Rye.”
“Goodbye, Tallie.”
He watched her drive until her taillights blurred, until she turned and disappeared.
*
Before he crashed in his old bedroom at his parents’， he looked at the picture of Tallie and the one of them together that she’d sent him, to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. He went through his backpack, pulling everything out and putting it in a pile next to the bed. The envelope of cash was in there, and he didn’t know how or when Tallie had snuck it back in. His parents stood in the doorway, not wanting to let him out of their sight.