Page 2 of The Cadence

“I liked to watch,” I answered. It was boring when his team’s quarterback ran onto the field because then Will wasn’t out there with the defense.

I definitely didn’t enjoy the parts where he got up slowly and sometimes limped.

But seeing him had made me feel as if we still knew each other, even though our connection was only on a tiny screen with hundreds of miles between us.

“I hardly ever come home,” he told me next. “Maybe I could have…” He let the idea fade away but he looked toward the other bedroom, where my grandmother had spent her last moments.

“There was nothing that anyone could have done for her,” I said firmly, which was same thing I’d repeated to more than a few people who’d returned here with me after the Funeral Mass. They wanted to be reassured that I didn’t blame them for anything or, more importantly, that my grandma hadn’t.

He shook his head. “I could have…” He stopped again, but this time he was looking at me. “Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”

I had watched him on the screen, but it really had been a long time since he’d seen me.

He might have been surprised by the differences after seven years, or maybe I did look terrible.

Several of my grandma’s friends had also seemed worried and had suggested that I needed to eat or get more sleep.

“I’m holding up,” I answered, which was another stock phrase that I’d used to respond to their concerns.

“The last few months have been hard, but I’m holding up.

” But as I spoke those hopeful words, I felt tears fill my eyes.

I had done really well today, so well! I had cried a little at the church but I had mostly bottled it up, so that the paper napkin I’d carried in my pocket had been sufficient.

I’d cried harder at the internment, but the napkin had still done its job, and then I’d calmed down enough to drive myself home and also bring along two of my grandma’s friends when their ride hadn’t shown.

Once we were all here, I’d been busy putting out food, making sure everyone had something to drink, and circulating to comfort the people who had filled my grandma’s living room. I hadn’t even needed another napkin.

So there was no reason for me to fall apart at this moment, but my tears came faster anyway.

I reached next to my bed and took a towel from the pile of laundry I hadn’t put away, because I had cleaned most of the house but had figured that I could keep the mourners out of my room.

First I dabbed my cheeks, then I wiped, and finally I just pushed my face into the soft, old cotton.

The only sounds I heard now were my sniffles and a few creaks from the chair as Will shifted again. I tried to stop. I really tried.

“Calla, do you want me to leave? I didn’t mean to make you cry like this.”

“No,” I said, my voice breaking and catching. “You should stay. There’s sweet potato soufflé and I made cookies, too.”

“I’m not hungry.” The chair creaked really loudly, and then my bed sank about a foot under his weight as he sat on it, next to me. “I came because I thought I should, since I knew her. And since she’d been nice to me.”

“She was nice to everyone.” I kept the towel in place but turned my face and leaned forward, so that I rested against him.

I felt his body go rigid. “Ok,” he said carefully. “Ok, you can do that.”

I had never actually touched him before.

Maybe we’d accidentally brushed hands when he’d slid his calculator across my grandma’s table, or he’d had to nudge me out of the way with his backpack as I’d held open the front door for him to leave.

But that was it—there had been nothing prolonged and nothing intentional.

Now I had pressed against the warm wall of Will Bodine and I let myself stay there.

“It’s just nice to have somebody here for me,” I explained. “I’ve been comforting everyone else but it’s nice to have it for myself, too.”

“I understand,” he said stiffly.

“Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it,” I went on. “I know that you’re busy with football and whatever that might entail, but you took time away and traveled to Tennessee just for my grandmother’s funeral. I’m glad that you remembered her.”

“Sure, I remember her.” He moved, a little shift away from me.

“Sorry.” I sat up and scrubbed over my face with the towel. “I’m making a lot of assumptions. Are you actually here because of your dad? Is he all right?” I knew about his recent problems, just like everyone else with eyes and ears was also aware of them.

“He’s fine,” Will answered, as briefly as he’d said it about himself. “Should we go out to the other room? People will start getting the wrong idea.”

It was probably too late, but I nodded and we both stood up. “Do I look tearstained?” I asked.

He bent down to get a better idea. Unlike my tiny grandmother, I was a tall woman and was eye-to-eye with most people or looking at the tops of their heads. But Will had to stoop and then he nodded.

“Yes, you do,” he told me. “It’s normal that you would be.” Then he bent again to fit through the door to exit my bedroom and I spent a moment using the towel to pat off any remaining dampness and to wave some cooler air on my face to take away the blotches.

It was really no use because everyone else could also see it, just like Will Bodine had. “Bug’s been crying, bless her heart,” I heard one of my grandma’s friends murmur when I came out to rejoin them all.

“I’m hanging in there,” I announced to the crowd.

Will had positioned himself in the dining room, close to the sweet potato soufflé but not partaking of any.

He stared at his phone and, although the other guests had been momentarily distracted by my tears, they quickly returned to staring at him.

And soon, he was making his way towards the front door.

I put down the dirty plates I was carrying so that I could say goodbye.

“Thank you for coming,” I said.

“I’m sorry about your grandma. One of these ladies told me that she’s in a better place, but I bet you wish she was still here with you.”

I did, so much that it made my throat ache to hear those words.

I nodded instead of speaking, which was too difficult.

There was a lot I wanted to say to him, things like, “We should see each other again while you’re home,” or “When will you come back to Tennessee?” Instead, I closed the door and turned to face the crowd.

“I remember Calla saying that you knew Will Bodine,” Miss Theresa said. When she talked about Calla, she meant my grandma; I was named after her but most of these people called me Bug, as she had.

“He tutored me in high school,” I mentioned, and they all slid glances at each other. They already knew that and required more information.

“It was a sweet thing that he came all this way to pay his respects,” Miss Lisa noted, and I said yes and didn’t tell her that he had been in town anyway. Instead, I returned to collecting the dishes.

It was hours later that they all finally left, most of them carrying food in the containers that I’d saved. Miss Mozella had helped me clean up by drying the plates and forks as I washed them. When we were done, she carefully folded her dish towel and hung it over the faucet.

“I don’t want to go,” she confessed. “That makes it feel so final. I’m worried about you being alone here, Bug.”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised, but she grasped my arm again, like she had before.

“I just miss her,” she told me, and I nodded.

“I know. So do I.” I walked her out to her car and waved as she drove away.

The house was now empty, and although I’d been waiting all day to be alone, I didn’t exactly welcome it.

The thing to do when you felt sad was keep busy, that was what my grandma had always said, except that I was tired.

I changed and then sat down in her rocker on the porch instead of washing the floors, as she would have done after having so much company.

I needed to go through her room, too, but I didn’t feel quite ready.

I sat for a long time, swatting at no-see-ums and thinking as the sun set and dusk slowly settled.

We lived on a quiet street but I could hear the sounds of traffic on the interstate not too far away.

That was why I didn’t notice the car pulling up until it stopped directly in front of the house, and a large man got out.

“Will?” I called. I stood, smoothing the t-shirt and jean shorts that I’d put on after I’d hung the black dress in my closet. I’d also put away the clean clothes that had been stacked next to my bed, and threw the towel I’d used as a hankie into the bag to bring to the laundromat.

He stood on the little patch of lawn that was now mostly weeds. “Hello, Calla.”

“Did you leave something here?” I asked him.

“No. Can I come up?”

I nodded and he did, so I moved to offer him the larger rocker.

The smaller one had been mine when I’d arrived at this house at age thirteen.

“You’re so much taller than I expected,” my grandma had said when she’d first seen me.

“I don’t think you’ll fit in this.” She had gotten it so that we could sit on the porch together, and I hadn’t cared that it was a tight squeeze. She’d taught me to knit out here…

“Are you still crying?” he asked.

“I just started again.” I rubbed my eyes on my sleeve.

“Wait,” he ordered, and went back to his car. He returned with a box of tissues. “You didn’t seem to have any.”

“You got this for me?” Instead of opening the top, I hugged it to my chest. “Thank you!”

“It’s supposed to be for you to wipe off your face and blow your nose,” he advised. “You had a lot of mucus before.”