The Finer Points of Sheila Ch. 05

I wished I could. I wished it were that simple.

"I miss her," Logan said.

"Me too," I picked him up and hugged him, "Me too."

***

EPILOGUE

It's been almost fifteen years since Sheila passed.

I'm forty-eight years old and in two days I'll see my son get married. I still feel hollow and empty, and even now I can't quite figure out to reconcile the loss of Sheila. Maybe that's why I'm at her grave right now, reflecting on the journey we took together. I've been looking down at the dirt and bright green grass blanketing her body for almost an hour now, unable to speak or even move. I know she is still in that shiny wood and brass box. I imagine her hands folded neatly over her stomach and looking beautiful in her simple black dress. Her eyes would still be closed and her lips still frozen in that simple, crooked smile. Time and decay would not have touched her. She would simply be asleep. Like in a fairy tale.

This was how I chose to think of her in this place. In my mind, we're still in the kitchen of her house making love for the first time or in Perkins' Grove, naked and wet from rain.

Finally, I find the courage to open my mouth and speak.

"Sheila," I begin, my throat tight and constricted, "I'm sorry I haven't been here with you enough lately."

I look down at the grave.

"I know," I say, and I can almost hear her chastising me now. "I'm being ridiculous I know."

I notice a weed growing near her tombstone. I kneel down and grab it by the base of its' stem and pull. It reluctantly comes out, dirt sticking to the wet roots and falling away in tiny clumps. I look at the tombstone for a moment and read, 'Sheila Messing, beloved mother, wife and friend, 1960-2015.'

A smile crosses my lips that I know won't reach my eyes. I look at my ring finger that never actually ever wore a ring but still somehow feels the weight of one. I shrug and tell her, "I added the wife part..."

I stand up, my back complaining and popping as I toss the weed away.

"Logan is getting married," I cross my arms and nod, "A real wonderful girl. They're going to move into the city. Ellen offered him a job at the office, and he accepted on the spot."

I wonder if Sheila was nearby, if she can hear any of this. I hoped she was.

"It's been fifteen years, babe. Why can't I even talk to another woman without feeling guilty?"

There's no reply. And then...

"Hey," someone says from behind me.

I don't need to turn to see who it was. I recognize the voice. "Hey," I reply.

Elle Crane walks up beside me. I look at her, and I'm not at all surprised to see she looks exactly like Sheila. She's dressed in an elegant black dress, her thick hair swept up and away from her face. Elle glances at me and for a moment and then falters. She looks down at the coffin and then back up at me.

"What can I do?" she asks quietly.

Birds chirp loudly in the trees as I stand alone, the sun warm and yet somehow chilling against my face. I say with all honesty, "I'm not sure, Elle."

"I'm sorry," she puts her hand on my elbow.

"She was a great woman," I say, unable to look up from the grave.

"She was a great mother," Elle whispers.

That was very true.

"I miss her," I feel a hot lump in my throat as pressure behind my eyes makes them water a little. I feel my sinuses closing up as the damnable relentlessness of grief pushes and pulls at my heart.

"So do I, Doug," Elle says.

"Missed you at the funeral."

"I'm sorry," she says again.

I nod and feel bitter. "Fifteen years... better late than never, right?"

Elle is quiet for a moment. She finally admits, "I deserved that."

"Well, it doesn't matter now."

"It does matter," Elle turns to face me as I start to walk away, "Doug, listen to me..."

"What?"

"I feel really bad over leaving, okay?" she gazes into my eyes and I see the heart of my childhood friend there, still alive and in as much pain as I am. She says, "Losing Mom is the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with, and I knew I couldn't say goodbye until I came back and tried to make things right. I just wasn't ready yet..."

I try to sympathize as I look at her, "She loved you so much."

Elle's voice cracks and she puts a hand to her mouth, "I know."

"Did you think showing up one day and just saying 'Oops, I fucked up' is going to lay anything to rest?" I ask her, feeling a small flame of anger in the pit of my stomach, "I accepted you had to leave. I respected your decision. I never expected you to write me or call or visit. But goddamit Sheila did. She wanted to see her daughter; she wanted you to be a part of our lives. She needed you. Where were you?"

Elle shakes her head slowly, her doe eyes wide and shattered with grief, "Doug, I couldn't stay."

"Where were you?" I demand.

"Doug..."

"She deserves an answer," I point to Sheila's grave, "It's one thing to go find yourself, it's a whole other thing to ditch your family. Now where were you?!"

"I was lost, Doug."

"Why?"

No answer.

"Why?" I insist.

"Because I'm in love with you!" Elle screams at me, her eyes red and streaming tears as she unleashes her guilt. She says, "Because I was in love with my best friend back then and I'm still in love with him now! I couldn't watch you two be together and be your friend, Doug. I had to leave!"

I feel shell-shocked. I say slowly, "But that was back then, Elle..."

"No Doug," she rolls her eyes and wipes her tears away, "No, it's now too, okay?"

I had believed until this moment my life couldn't get any more complicated. As I watch Elle cry, I discover I was wrong.

"I can't move on with my goddam life because I can't get over you," she says between sobs, her eyes flaming at me, "I realized that you were the one thing I wanted most in my life and now I can't ever have you."

I'm flabbergasted as I shake my head in disbelief, a thousand questions running through my mind. Finally, I ask, "Why come here, Elle? Why tell me this?"

Elle shook her head. "I don't know anymore."

"You never got married?"

"No."

I feel the anger and bitterness fall away from me. I realize now that my anger with Elle over the years was misplaced. She hadn't been living her life gleefully ignorant of her family or her heart. It seems now that as far as she had run from this place and as far as she had run from Sheila and I, she hadn't gone very far at all. Elle was still here; her heart was locked up here with her mother and me. I take a deep breath and say, "I'm sorry."

"So am I, Doug," she smiles at me weakly through her grief.

I say, "She never spoke badly of you."

Elle begins to weep openly now. She had believed that her mother and I resented her all this time. The truth has opened her floodgates as she closes her eyes, sinking to the ground and her legs folding up underneath her. Elle covers her face with her hands and sobs. I hesitate for a moment and then kneel down beside her. I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her to me. Elle rests in my embrace and lets the fear and guilt drain from her soul into the soil of the cemetery.

"She never once spoke badly," I repeat again.

Elle squeezes my arm as her tears soak my shirt. She looks up at me and is so beautiful, her face so relieved to know that her mother loved her despite her absence. She waits expectantly for me to finish my thought. She knows me too well. I add, "I never did either."

And that was the truth. I hadn't.

"You know," I say to her and hug her, "Logan has missed his big sister."

"I miss him too."

"Want to see him?"

"That would be nice," Elle nods.

I help her up off the ground as she brushes the grass that clings to her dress away with quick motions of her wrist. I hold her hand and for the first time in a long time, I look into another woman's eyes and don't feel guilty or ashamed. Elle returns the gaze and smiles warmly at me. I can admit to myself that I've always been attracted to her, and as I remember the night she offered herself to me, I can recall that several times during my time with Sheila that I was grateful she had gone away. Elle had been a temptation for me in many ways, and as I looked at her now I could admit that.

Elle squeezes my hand, "You alright?"

"Yes," I say, but I can feel the stirring in my heart.

Elle leans forward and kisses me on my lips gently. Her manner isn't all like Sheila's, and I find myself also realizing that as much as Elle looks like her mom, she isn't. It's been so long since anyone kissed me, and I return the kiss softly. It's tentative, filled with anticipation and anxiety and yet wonderfully familiar as I pull back slowly and look to her.

"I'm not my mother," she tells me.

"I know," I reply.

"It's been fifteen years, Doug," she says and holds my hand again, "Let me show you what it is to be loved again."

My heart begins to race. I look to Sheila's headstone and listen for some indication that the thoughts in my head aren't a betrayal of her, that I'm not being selfish or impulsive. I quietly ask her for a sign, any sign of her acquiescence to what I knew I could grow to feel for Elle. Overhead, a single white dove glides down and perches on the headstone. It flaps its wings and cocks it's elegant head. The bird seems to look right at me and I feel a strange sensation in my stomach.

The dove lights from the headstone and flies away, up and over the trees and into the sky. I smile to myself and feel Sheila around me, around us both like a blanket. Elle smiles and looks at me, "Did you feel that?"

I nod, "Yes I did."

I offer my arm to Elle and she hooks hers around mine.

"Where to?" she asks.

"Home," I say to her, "Home."

***

THE END