Rory's Here

Eileen was waiting outside in the dark and the snow when headlights flashed in her eyes. A car pulled into the apartment complex parking lot and she watched as it slowly made a loop and pulled up by the curb where she was standing. Rory got out of the car. He was tall, stooped, but not in an embarrassed way, more like in a way that conveyed his ability to listen to people who were a lot shorter than him. As he carried Eileen’s bags carefully to the trunk of their dad’s Volkswagen, Eileen watched, willing time to slow itself down and trying frantically to make the moment feel “right.” She would have to look back on this day for the rest of her life and if she really thought about it, she realized she wanted it to be as interesting and peaceful and sad as possible. 

Sensing her husband behind her, she flinched and quickly turned around. Jeff must have been standing there for a couple of seconds before she noticed. 

How had he been feelingless enough to stay out playing scrabble til 1 am with Andrew the night before? How had he heard her wake? She’d been as silent as she could so she would not have to look in the face the man she had loved since middle school and ask would it be okay if she took the tent since it had been a wedding gift from her side of the family. 

“Is some part of him is longing for me to stay?,” She wondered. Not for the religious facade or the ability to have sex at any time or for his dad. She wondered if he wanted to hold her in his arms and cry, “I’ll never do it again, baby, this time I swear to God, I’ll never do it again, baby.” If he did, what was holding him back? If he acted on it, how would she even react? She wondered if her departure would acquaint him with her strength, or would it just echo the perception of weakness that he had inseparably linked with her since she used to sit by the loners in high school. This perception of weakness had pretty much grown stronger as she agreed to everything that would hurt her but please him. What a toilet hole. 

Anyway, that night, or that morning actually, they stood there all three of them cold in the snow watching Eileen leave, helping her swallow her pride and take the first step in the process of separating. Going back home didn’t scare Eileen. Once, she might have been afraid that living at home again would make her feel immature, but now, well, she looked forward to being loved and babied.

Jeff reached out and shook Rory’s hand. “ Hey, Rory, how you doing, man?” Rory smiled and said, “ Good." Jeff asked him about school and Rory replied something about his busy class schedule as he watched Eileen awkwardly push the TV into the trunk. Then she ran back up the stairs one last time. She opened the little cabinet under the bathroom sink to make sure her tampons were no longer there, then she checked her side of the closet. Ideal. One of her less comfortable bras hung there to remind him of what he was missing, just in case he ever looked in there after she was gone, which he would have to do. She wouldn’t be there to pay rent anymore, and he didn’t have a job. A private apartment cost $600 a month, and as she shut the door, she thought, " He has, like, no money." And the corners of her mouth twitched up. Yeah, he’d definitely have to clean out the apartment and move. It seemed like it was time to go and Eileen just threw her arms around Jeff’s neck and tried to hug him really meaningfully, but that just made things less memorable, which she realized. So she kissed his cheek and said she loved him and then quickly got into the car. Rory was watching and kept watching as she got in and placed her head quietly in her hands and leaned down to her lap. Rory reached over and handed her the end of her seat belt and she said, ‘Thanks,” looked back at the apartment, and snapped one last photo of it. There was their Fiji mountain bike locked outside the door on the third floor. Jeff stood comfortably and put his hands in his pockets, waved once, and scratched his neck as he turned around to walk back up the stairs back to bed. He used to do that same neck scratch every morning when he walked into class during high school. She thought it was so hot then. It was sort of cool to think about how much had happened since high school. It made her mind reel. She smiled. Disbeleif at the passage of time is kind of fun for the fist few times it happens while you're becoming an adult.

The sprinklers came on just as they pulled out the driveway, and that was the only sound for a little while. After 10 or 20 minutes, Eileen played the playlist her older sister, Megan, had made for her full of old classics their family had grown up on. John Denver, James Taylor, Cat Stevens and a whole bunch of songs by Adele and also other songs that involved a strong female lead and an abusive male significant other. 

The dark turned into dawn in a little while, and Eileen stared out the window, wondering how to make the day seem real. Rory had been quietly talking about how the girls were doing and how Mom and Dad had been having more fun now that the adoption process was settled and Mary, Peace, and Elena were getting comfortable with their new parents and school. 

Then it was quiet for a long time while they drove through Idaho. 

“You know I don’t really know what Colin would say if he were still alive," Rory said eventually, “I wasn’t as close to him as you and Megan.” “ He would have supported me," Eileen interrupted,“He wouldn’t want me cooking lil' smokies.”

She was almost as old now as Colin had been when he died. How weird that was to think about. Gosh, how weird this whole thing had been. The whole 3 years. Eileen thought a minute and wondered if Colin hadn’t died would she have been in a weak enough place to marry Jeff. It didn’t matter anymore. She was miles and miles away from him already, and she thought about positive possibilities in her future for the first time since deciding to leave. "Grad school I think," she sighed. It could be very exciting.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up as they pulled into the driveway. It was spring and the rhododendrons were almost in bloom. How wonderful. How exciting. She got out and walked in the front door.