Page 51 of Silver Linings

thirty

. . .

By the time five am rolls around, I’ve gotten a collective two hours of sleep.

I’ve spent the whole night tossing and turning, intermittently waking up and remembering the day before, either my mother or Hendrix at the forefront of my mind each and every time I startled awake..

Eventually, I toss back the covers and get out of bed, needing to just…move. I don’t know. I just need to be anywhere but here, where all I do is think of him.

I can see him standing in my kitchen as I make us lunch. Hendrix on a ladder in my room, pants fitting him so perfectly, it was impossible not to ogle. Hendrix standing in my living room, offering to help me with the store and me stupidly agreeing to it.

After quickly washing my face and brushing my teeth, I change into leggings and an oversized cable knit sweater, before I head out the door and start walking.

The air is colder this morning than it was yesterday, and I welcome the bite it gives to my skin, waking me up a little more with each step. I have no direction but away from my apartment as my feet pound the pavement.

The city is still quiet, not quite abuzz with activity yet, but I wish it was. I left my phone and earbuds at home in the hope that the city would distract me from the relentless thoughts swirling in my head. So far, I have been unsuccessful in that mission.

I stop by one of the food carts on the sidewalk hawking stale pasties and burnt coffee to get myself a cup, forgetting I didn’t bring anything with me. When I say as much, apologizing to the owner, he takes pity on me and sends me off with a drip coffee and a donut that tastes like ash in my mouth.

I walk for miles as I watch the city wake up—cafés putting out their shop signs, joggers on their morning runs, food carts setting up for the day.

Around and around, people run about to their next destination without noticing me.

I am one in roughly eight million, inconsequential to everyone around me.

Buildings a thousand feet high all bursting out of the ground around me making it very easy to feel small–insignificant.

I weave in and out of the streets of Midtown, passing through Times Square and all its bright Jumbotron screens, easily walking around the minimal number of people who would have a reason to be here this early on a Sunday morning. It’s almost eerie, seeing this part of town so quiet.

Before I know it, my aimless wandering has dropped me off at Central Park South, and it seems kind of poetic to me that I would wind up here, the place I always came to when I was feeling alone in a city full of people.

I would torture myself by reading all the bench plaques engraved with tributes and words of love and admiration for people I’ll never meet but who meant the world to someone somewhere.

I thought I was starting to understand that kind of love for another person, to actually let it in and feel it for the first time in my life, but I guess I was wrong.

I slowly pass bench after bench as I walk around the southern portion of Central Park, working my way higher and higher.

To my wife Delia, for making every day an adventure.

For our parents, who sat on this bench every Sunday and played the crossword together.

Celia, James, and a love that transcended it all.

For Miley, who loves to bask in the sun on this very hill. You saved me, baby pup.

On and on, the confessions of love go as I wind through the lush walking paths of the park, reading every single one with tears threatening to spill.

I walk, fingers grazing against engraved steel plaques until my heart can’t take it anymore, my knees crumbling beneath me. I catch myself on the arm rest of the closest bench, sit down, and finally let them fall.

I have no idea how much time has passed. Minutes, hours, years—it could be any, and I wouldn’t be surprised.

I miss my dad, and I wonder what he would have made of all of this—of me.

I wonder who I would have been if my childhood wasn’t ripped away from me.

Would I have liked who I was—who I would have become?

Would I have ever met Kena, or been as close to Nan as I am?

How many different paths could my life have taken if the experiences of my youth didn’t bring me down the one that led me to a park bench on a Sunday morning?

More silent tears spill because I don’t know the answers, and I’ve never been good with uncertainty, always preferring the road that led to the destination I could predict.

At this point, I am one giant tear, and I don’t know how there are any left.

Every emotion that I’ve bottled up over the last twenty years, breaking through the dam, drowning everything out.

A gentle hand settles on my shoulder, startling me. When I look up, it’s to find the kind eyes of my nan staring back at me, Kena standing just behind her.

“What—” I get out one word before the tears start anew.

Nan sits down next to me, Kena taking up the other side. She pats my leg and grabs my hand, bringing it into her lap. “I thought I might find you here.”

“How did you get here?” Baffled is the only word to express what I’m feeling right now.

“Something called Uber? Creepy business, if you ask me, telling people it’s okay to ride in cars with strangers.”

I choke on a laugh that bubbles up my throat. “I meant in New York, Nan.”

“Well, Bear, I think it’s obvious I took a plane.”

Kena finally interjects. “I called her yesterday and told her she might want to come in.”

“Ah, yes. My sweet boy said my best girl might need me.”

“How did you find me here—in the park, I mean?” I could have been anywhere.

“You used to always want to see the Balto statue when you were a little girl. When you weren’t at home this morning, and didn’t answer our calls, I figured this would be the best place to start.”

I look up at my surroundings, and there he is, the magnificent Balto in all his burnished glory. I didn’t even realize this is where I settled when I stopped walking and crumpled.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the reopening party?” Nan settles a wrinkled hand on my knee.

I wipe under my eyes with the back of my sleeve, and look toward Balto. “You hate flying. I didn’t want to put you through that for a small party.”

“You’re downplaying it,” Kena says. “You’ve spent months working toward that small party .” His subtle irritation puts me on edge and I can feel the urge to assuage him, rush to the surface, but Nan interrupts before I can.

“Tell me what’s going on, Bear.”

Old habits nip at my heels, begging them to dig in, to not worry my family with the heartache that’s plaguing me.

But another part of me, the part that Hendrix dug out of the muck, is pleading with me to let them in—to let them see the mess I’ve been hiding behind easy smiles and professional deflection skills.

Brave. Hendrix once told me I was brave, and while even recounting the memory of that conversation makes my heart cave in on itself—I feel the urge to prove him right.

For the first time in my life, I open up and tell her everything, spilling my guts out onto the pavement at our feet.

The scent of coffee floats through the air, filling my senses as I tell Nan how Hendrix and I met.

How I thought I had lost my shot, only for him to be dumped on my doorstep, a tool belt slung low around his waist. I admit to my fear of commitment, thinking everyone would just leave me in the end, but tell her how he showed up every day at six on the dot, ready to help me with coffee in hand.

My eyes drift around the park, now more alive with people, and I laugh when I give her examples of some of the ridiculous questions we’d ask during our endless rounds of twenty questions.

Tears form when I tell her about our first kiss, how it scared me so acutely, I needed to pull away from him, but he kept showing up, kept proving to me he cared.

Nan gasps and puts a hand to her mouth when I tell her about the attack, how Hendrix made me feel safe just by being there, and in that moment I knew things would be okay.

Everything changed after that, and despite my fear—I let him in—started to crave the sound of his voice, the steadying weight of his touch.

I recount the weeks following our first date, how he made being in a relationship with him feel fundamental, how he eased my fears and made me feel like I was something to be cherished.

I swallow, looking down at my feet when I tell her how Mom showed up, uninvited, to the store before opening day, and it brought back every feeling I’ve had since I was eight.

Worthless, a burden, never good enough for anything or anyone.

But Hendrix never made me feel that way, and I just wanted to hear his voice.

All I needed was to hear his deep honeyed voice telling me it would be okay, and that he was on his way.

But he never answered, and then he never showed.

I don’t tell them how I’ve felt hollow ever since, like a large chunk of me is missing where my heart should be. My gaze darts around the park, not wanting to look at them after stripping bare, wishing I could stuff all the words back inside my mouth.

“Something’s not making sense to me,” Nan says, brow furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s just the picture you painted of this man of yours… It doesn’t add up with him not showing up for you yesterday.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Kena chimes in.

“Tell that to his voicemail,” I mutter.

“No, but really,” Kena starts. “I’ve seen him with you. That man is in love with you. The way he talked about you when we were at the Brooklyn Flea made that very obvious.”

My heart skips a beat at his words, at the hope that blooms and then withers in my chest.

“Do you really think, after everything he’s done to show you he cares for you, he would just up and leave with no notice?” Nan asks, though she knows my answer.

“I didn’t think so, but he didn’t show and hasn’t called. What else am I supposed to assume?”

“I think you shouldn’t assume at all.”

“Nan, be realistic,” I scoff. What else am I supposed to think after yesterday?

“Honey, I know life dealt you a bad hand when you were a kid, but you have to realize there are people who would go to the ends of the Earth for you. Hendrix sounds like one of them.”

“Thank God someone said it!” Kena throws his hands in the air.

“What’s happening?”

Kena cups my hand in his, resting them on his lap. “You are my best friend, and I would do anything for you. But I know there’s a part of you that you have always kept hidden away.”

My body locks up tighter than a vault, ashamed by his observation and the truth behind it.

“I know it’s a defense mechanism you developed after your mom left, I understand.

Even when it’s me, your best friend, you still feel the need to hide and put on a brave face.

And that’s okay. I know you’ve let me in more than anyone else before.

But sweetie, you started to let those walls down for Hendrix after a few weeks.

You felt safe enough to let him see behind the curtain of the fabricated version of you the world sees.

That kind of connection doesn’t happen to everyone.

I know you’re scared, but don’t you think that’s something worth fighting for? ”

“What if—” I pause, my words breaking off at the thoughts swirling in my head.

“Say it. Don’t hide from the pain,” Nan encourages.

I take a deep, shuddering inhale. “What if I’m not enough?” I’m shaking my head as new tears form in my eyes. “I don’t think I could survive it. Not from him.”

Kena moves to kneel in front of me so I’m now looking down into his warm face. “Do you honestly think he thinks that?”

I shrug.

Nan cuts in, her tone resolute. “I need you to listen to me now and hear what I’m about to say to you.

I don’t know where you got this idea that you’re not enough, but it’s a lie you’re using to keep yourself from being truly happy.

You’re running scared. But the unavoidable truth is—every time you give a piece of yourself to someone, you run the risk of being hurt, but that doesn’t mean love will only end in pain.

You have to realize the people around you want to show up for you, love you, if you’d only let them close enough.

I would have been on the first flight out to be at your opening, threat of probable death be damned. ”

I let out a shuddering breath. “I’m scared. What if he wakes up one day and decides to leave?”

“Ah, my girl, that’s the silver lining of it all, isn’t it?

When you allow yourself to be brave, to do the thing that scares you most, only then will you really learn who you are.

We have to choose to risk our hearts every day to truly know what it is to love and be loved.

To live . Sometimes, it doesn’t work out, and we learn valuable lessons, but sometimes, it works so perfectly, we don’t know how we survived without it.

There’s no point to this floating rock in the sky without love. ”

Nan might have a point. I was just having a hard time grasping it while my heart was in tatters.

“So tell me, who are you , Silver James?”