soon as I got to college and found people who shared my interests, it wasn’t until I met Edward that I’d felt complete.
It was a tapestry. Life was. A tapestry. Needlework had never been my medium, but the metaphor fit. Life was a bundle of loose threads, really just a flimsy canvas until a few, strong, basic cords were woven in. My parents had been two of those cords. Liam was one. Lily another. And Edward.
Quietly he said, “Neither can I. Deal, I mean. I’ve really botched up this whole thing. I’m sorry I said what I did after the accident. I’m sorry I thought that erasing this part of my life would work. I’m sorry I didn’t call you before I moved here, and I’m sorry I said what I did tonight in front of Kevin, but I’m not sorry for the words. I am sorry we’re talking on the phone right now, because I need to say those words again and keep saying them until they sink in. Christ, Mackenzie, you’re stubborn.”
“Damaged,” I breathed.
“I heard that, babe, and you are so wrong. What you are is human.”
I wanted to argue, but didn’t have the strength.
Or maybe I didn’t want to argue.
Maybe I wanted to believe what he said, because I kept the phone at my ear.
“And here’s something else,” he said. “I need to find a place for Lily in my life. I tried removing her. I mean, hell, she’s dead, right? Only I can’t just say goodbye and walk away. You can’t just wipe out someone you made. She’ll always be part of me.”
A thread in the tapestry, I was thinking, but he continued to speak.
“When you left, I packed up my pictures, all those ones that you made frames for—hell, even your frames were artistic. But I thought it’d be easier to move on if I didn’t have to see them every day—you know, to see her—us—to see what I’d lost. So what I have now is a big hole where the best of the past used to be. What I have is a carton—cartons, plural—filled with photos that I want to put out but can’t.”
“You can.”
“Do you? I didn’t see any photos at your place, not downstairs, not in the bedroom.”
Pushing the covers aside, I slid from the bed to the floor, just far enough back to see the green velvet box underneath. I couldn’t actually see that it was green or velvet or even a box. The night was too dark and the light from my phone too small. But I could have been blind, and I’d have known exactly where it lay. “It’s too painful for me.”
“And it isn’t for me? But how does a cut heal if you don’t give it air to scab over?”
The question hung for a minute before he said, “I want to put personal pictures in my office, only I can’t, because people might ask about Lily, and I’m not sure I can hold it together enough to explain. And then there are ones of you and Lily, and you and me, and the shot of just you that your friend Juan-Louis took right after we met—remember that one?”
I did. Oh, God. Edward had adored that one. I had surprised him with it for our first anniversary. Lily was barely six months old, I was still carrying baby fat, still sleep-deprived, and I wanted him to remember me in better times. The vanity of that seemed ridiculous now, but it had been a lifetime ago.
Now, folding myself forward, I extended a hand, but couldn’t quite reach the box.
The voice in my ear said, “You have bangs and different eyes now, but the face is the same Mackenzie for anyone with half a brain to see, so I can’t take the risk, because you made me promise—”
“I get the point,” I said and straightened.
But he wasn’t done. “Do you? I want to be happy again, Maggie. I want to be whole. Is that too much to ask? Tragedies happen, but don’t we make them worse by dragging them on and on?”
“I can’t forget her.”
“Neither can I, that’s my point. I need to make a place for Lily in my life. I need to make a place for us. I want to be able to laugh without feeling guilty.”
I didn’t comment. Couldn’t. He wasn’t saying anything my therapist hadn’t said back when I was seeing her, but coming from Edward, it held more weight.
The silence lengthened. Finally, worriedly, he said,