Page 32 of Cruel Summer

“Just regular couple stuff. At first she regretted getting married so young. That was a regular thread in the fighting until Chloe came along. Then she was a lot more settled. Content. I don’t think she ever regretted being a mother that young.

But I didn’t make very much money at first, so we had stress over that.

I wasn’t as helpful to her as I should have been.

You know, it is just what it is. In the end, she made sure I knew that she was happy.

She said… ‘Isn’t it stupid that I used to regret getting so serious so young.

When young was all I had.’” His voice had gone low, and her throat tightened, emotion welling up inside of her, her eyes glossy with tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s just awful. It’s just awful.”

“It is. We made our peace. With the time that we had. But we will never know what would’ve happened if there was more time.

I’m grateful that we got to say the things that needed saying.

That she got to clear the air. I got to apologize for not helping around the house enough.

For staying out too late sometimes. Not understanding how stressful it was, staying home with the baby.

Not at first. Feeling like I was the one doing the hard work, you know. That dumb stuff.”

It hooked into something she recognized. Deep in her heart. An issue that she had often felt was simmering below the surface between her and Will, whether she wanted to think about it or not.

“Yeah. I know. The great workload conflict.” She swallowed hard.

“It has taken me all these years to begin to untangle what I wish I would’ve said to my mom.

Positive and negative. But I was too afraid to say it.

I looked at her lying there in the bed, and the words just stuck in my throat.

I couldn’t tell her what she meant to me.

I couldn’t tell her how she made me afraid.

Of the parts of myself that were strong-willed.

The parts of myself that were difficult or angry.

How she made me fearful sometimes of my own instincts.

But how also at the same time I knew she loved me so much, and she was such a good grandma to my kids, and a good wife to my dad, and…

I didn’t say any of it. Then there was no more time.

What the hell are you even afraid of when another person is lying there dying and there is no more time ?

What’s the point of being placating? What’s the point of being dishonest?

What’s the point of being silent? But I was silent.

I couldn’t stand the weight of it. I let it crush everything I had to say.

I just don’t get to say it now. So instead I’m just still afraid of tattoos and what she would think…

what she would think if she knew that Will had asked for an open marriage.

What she’d think if she knew that I left.

That I almost kissed you.” She rubbed her hands over her face.

“If she knew that, in her name, I toyed with the idea of a tattoo, she would come back from the grave and slap me.”

Logan shifted. “Well, if she did that, then you’d have a chance to tell her what you needed to.”

“Yeah,” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “So that would be the upshot.” She blinked back her sorrow. “I guess I can’t live for her anymore either.”

“No,” he said. “That’s another thing. The thing I’ve accepted after a whole decade of living with loss.

I want to make sure that I do right by Chloe, that Chloe remembers Becca.

In that sense, I want to live a life, and raise our child, in a way that would make her happy.

But when it comes to me, I can’t live for her.

Because she isn’t here for me to live for.

If I don’t find other things, I might as well lay down and die. But I had Chloe.”

“And zip lines,” she said.

“Exactly. I wish she could see how successful the business became. That’s the worst part of losing somebody. Someone you were trying to make proud. None of it matters. I would have bought first-class seats for her.”

“I know,” she said. “I meant what I said. Watching you with her was such a real expression of love. I will never forget it as long as I live. Actually knowing that you are like the rest of us, imperfect, makes it matter even more.”

“But you thought you and Will were perfect until relatively recently.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Don’t remind me of what an idiot I am. Because I am an idiot. An idiot who really wants a tattoo.”

“A tattoo.”

“I would like a tattoo,” she said, affirming it for herself.

“You really want a tattoo?”

“Yes. Because you’re right. It’s my body. My tribute. It’s not to make her proud. It’s to help me remember.”

“Then we’ll get you a tattoo.”

“I appreciate it.”

“It’s a full-service tour. Traveling the majestic Oregon Trail, making stops for roadside attractions and body art.”

***

They had to make an obligatory drive through Yellowstone, where she hadn’t been since the kids were little. It was crowded in spots, and warm.

But neither thing inhibited her enjoyment of the natural beauty.

“You want to run around with the buffalo?” he asked when they were stopped alongside the road by some of the grazing beasts.

“I do not. Have you never seen viral videos of tourists getting tossed around?”

“I have. I just thought you were, like, doing new things.”

“Roaming with the buffalo is not going to be one of them.”

“That’s probably a good thing.”

“I always wondered what kind of person you have to be to do stuff like that,” she said. “To totally disregard common sense and the rules.”

“Someone who’s in the moment,” he said. “Again, I’m not actually advocating for the North American edition of running with the bulls. But you know, there’s something to be said for being led by passion. By your impulses.”

“Is there?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure that I believe that.”

“No?”

She thought about that for a while as she watched the large, shaggy beasts grazing with their heads down. She tried to feel it. The kind of energy that would propel somebody to discard all common sense to run wild like that.

There was a sliver of it. She could almost feel it. The need to just let go. It was like wanting the tattoo. But it required her to unlock so many of these chains that she still had around her wrists. Chains she was often not at all conscious of.

But they were there. Who was she living for?

The list was long. She was not at the top of it.

She wasn’t even sure she was on it.

She had created for herself a life that she found very, very livable.

The alternative had been dealing with the heartbreak in the community. In her family.

The judgment that both she and Will would have received if they hadn’t gotten married would’ve been so much greater than the judgment they had gotten for that pre-graduation ceremony.

She’d kept that fear with her. If they split, then they would only ever be the couple who got pregnant in high school and got married for that reason…and failed.

Fear was very strong glue.

But it wasn’t enough.

“I can kind of understand,” she said. “I’m still not going to do it. Because I like living. But…” The words had almost come out. She had very nearly said it.

I’m afraid of my passion.

Her passion was how she’d had gotten pregnant at eighteen.

Her passion, her feelings, had led her to nearly kiss Logan when she was lost in the fog of her grief, and the loneliness that it created.

Both of those things had been a betrayal.

A betrayal of the values that she had been brought up with.

A betrayal of the vows that she had made.

What frightened her most was that it wasn’t a betrayal of herself. Not really.

Not the deepest part of her.

The part of her she’d been training to be someone new, someone better, since she’d first realized she might be dangerous.

Somewhere inside of her was a woman who wanted to run around with the buffalo.

That was scary. She didn’t like it, and she had spent the better part of the last twenty-two years suppressing it.

Even when she had been tempted with Logan, she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t done it because it was wrong. She hadn’t done it because it frightened her.

She hadn’t done it because you just…you couldn’t. You couldn’t do things like that.

On some level, she wondered if she was always policing herself. She was always afraid she would be that person. Who jumped out of the car at a national park into something idiotic.

Who wildly went against what she actually wanted in the heat of the moment.

So she was always on a leash. Always gauging her actions through the lens of other people.

It was why what Will wanted was more important than what she wanted. Why her mother being proud was more important than her having what she wanted.

It was why she was Patricia’s daughter. Will’s wife.

Jude, Aiden and Ethan’s mother.

A volunteer. A friend.

But not just herself.

Herself, she had decided, wasn’t trustworthy.

Herself was a problem.

Herself was a drunk girl that was going to get herself tossed in the air by buffalo.

But you never have.

Your marriage wasn’t you breaking the rules. It was you trying to be what everyone needed you to be.

“Sorry,” she said, realizing that she had lapsed off. “I… I was thinking.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m okay. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be okay again. There are just things you can’t put back in the box, can you?”

She realized that that could be taken several different ways. “I mean, the thing with Will. The thing with our marriage. Now I want to get a tattoo. He doesn’t like them, and I’m going to do it anyway.” She laughed. “Because seriously, fuck everyone’s opinions. Fuck. ”

“Okay.”

“My mom hates that word.” She put her fingertips on her forehead and rested her knees to her elbows. “I’m still a child. I let all these other people tell me what to do. Even without them having to tell me. It’s crazy. I know it is. But I do it anyway. I do it anyway because I’m afraid.”

“That’s fair. Fear keeps you safe sometimes. You know. From them.”

She laughed. “I guess. I think I’ve always thought my fear and common sense were the same thing. I don’t want to run with bison, though. Maybe I need to separate the two. Maybe sometimes fear is just fear, and I can trust my common sense more than I think.”

“That’s a pretty bold statement. I like it.”

“We can drive away from the buffalo now. The longer we linger, the more I actually am afraid that I’m going to jump out of the car.

Because I’m having revelations at a pretty lightning speed, and that is more or less terrifying.

The amount of times a day I challenge my own worldview is getting exhausting. ”

“I bet.”

“It’s grief, in a way. When you lose somebody that you love, you find yourself completely disoriented.

You have to find a new way that you fit in the world.

A new way that your life looks. This isn’t the same.

But it’s like I’m tearing apart every little piece of everything, which I was afraid to do.

I was steadfastly not doing it on that first trip.

Because I kept asking myself, ‘If I tear it into too many pieces, at what point will I not be able to put it back together?’”

That was really when her stomach hollowed out. She wasn’t sure anymore if putting it back together was what she wanted.

She wasn’t sure she cared. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she had to keep tearing it apart. Because if it could be broken into so many pieces that it couldn’t be recovered, then it didn’t deserve to be.

But then, who was she?

She couldn’t be Patricia’s daughter, and she couldn’t be Will’s wife…

Samantha.

She would just have to be Samantha.

“I think I’m doing this wrong,” she said.

“I was doing it at him. Proving to him that I didn’t need to change.

That we didn’t need to change. I knew what the outcome would be.

I put it out there like it was hypothetical.

Like we were going to see. I didn’t let myself believe that at the end, he might choose that life.

Away from me. I certainly didn’t let myself believe that I would be the one who might want something different.

I have been certain for a very long time.

The disruption of that certainty is always difficult for me.

My mom’s death was that. This…it’s a whole other piece.

I hate it. So I needed to make it something that I could control.

Something I can be sure about. You’re right about me.

I pretend to go along with what everyone wants, and externally I often do, but I also want my way.

Pretty deeply. I thought I was going to be able to quietly and without conflict strong-arm my way into that. What would happen if I let go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I. I don’t know. I don’t know, and I’m not even sure that I want to. I don’t need to. Dammit, that is really hard to say. I like to know how it’s going to go. How it’s going to end.”

“It’s okay if you don’t,” he said.

“I guess this is the part where you settle on that old cliché. That it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”

“Sometimes clichés are clichés for a reason.”

“I’m sorry. You’re not getting paid to be my therapist.”

“I would hope, Samantha, that after all this, you consider me a friend. Friends don’t need to get paid to listen their friends talk about their problems.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. You’re my friend.”

It felt momentous to say that. An admission of the independent affectionate feelings that she had for Logan, rather than putting it all onto Will and their friendship.

It felt like a step toward danger, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

Maybe it was more of that distrust of herself.

She had to stop with that. She had to stop doing that.

They drove back to the main highway, continuing on down the road toward where they would be staying for the night. “I did it,” she said. “I did not do anything stupid. I even let myself think about it.”

“Is that an achievement?”

“I don’t know. It feels like it. It feels like being able to trust myself is maybe something I need to work on. Or at least work on making myself the authority in my own life.”

“Well, tomorrow maybe you’ll get a tattoo.”

“I have to research tattoo shops.”

“Research away.”

Because she was wild. More so than she’d ever been in this moment. Braver, maybe, too.

But she also had no natural inclination toward getting that body art.

Reckless abandon…but with the appropriate amount of caution.

Maybe that was who she was. Maybe, if she let the chains loose, that was exactly who she was.