I Wish She Hadn't Ch. 02

"What is it, Libby?" Now, I was worried, probably more frightened than I have ever been in my entire life. I almost asked, because somehow, somehow I knew, even before she said it.

"It's Madi..."

"What, what about Madi?"

"Madi's dead, John... She died... in a car accident... yesterday... head-on collision. She died... instantly. I thought... I thought... you... should know; thought that you... would want... to know."

"No! No! No! Fuck no!" I screamed it into my cell. It hit me hard; I'll be the first to admit it. Part of it, I think, was the guilt instantaneously being purged from me, but whatever it was, I couldn't stop crying. Not for the longest time. I was sobbing like a fucking baby.

I hadn't seen Madi in 18 years, and I hadn't talked to her in almost that long. I didn't know anything about her anymore - whether she was married or not, if she had children, or even what she was doing with her life. Libby would catch me up on all those details. But, honestly, none of that mattered. What mattered was that I still hadn't done what I knew I had an obligation as a human being to do. I had never apologized, and now I never could.

I don't remember much about the rest of the conversation. We were both crying almost the entire time. I know that Libby told me that the funeral was going to be held in Omaha the following Saturday. The family had a plot at St. Mary Magdalene, and the body was going to be cremated and then the cremains - my God, I can't believe that's an actual word - were going to be flown up from Florida. That's where Madi had lived and died - somewhere just north of Gainesville. Apparently, she'd followed Libby down there years ago. Now, Libby was back home, helping her mother to handle the arrangements.

But that wasn't the real gist of our discussion. Mostly, I spent the next hour apologizing to Libby - apologizing to her for what I'd done to her sister all of those years ago, because I couldn't apologize to the person to whom I owed that apology.

There was one other thing that I remember saying. I promised Libby I would be at that funeral come hell or high water. As it turned out, I needed to be in Omaha the following Tuesday anyway for the interview at Creighton. Going to Madi's funeral was the least I could do. Let's face it, it was the only thing I could do.

It wouldn't even begin to make up for all of my misdeeds, but now I wasn't the same stupid, immature, and self-absorbed asshole that I used to be, and so, if I had an obligation, I met that obligation head-on. In the time that I knew her, that was the way that Madi had lived her life, and that was the way her life had been taken from her, so I owed that to her memory. Besides, I got the strange sense that Libby had called me, not just because she thought I "should know" or "would want to know', but because she needed me there.

I drove home on Thursday and stayed at my mother's place. On Friday morning, I called Libby. She'd left me her cell number, and I thought it would be appropriate if I offered to help her with anything that might have come up. In my experiences, there's almost always something like that that grieving people just don't have the time to do.

As it turned out, I was right. The funeral director had everything set for the rosary and the funeral mass, but he got his wires crossed on which cemetery to deliver things for the gravesite; for some stupid fucking reason, he was short-staffed on that Friday and Saturday, and couldn't get them to St. Mary Magdalene. I offered to pick them up and take them there.

That night was the rosary at the funeral home, and I showed up. There were a few people in the outer gathering area that I knew - some of Libby and Madi's friends from Omaha, their mother, of course, and their two brothers. I did the whole consoling shtick, and I think I did pretty well with it. It wasn't that I really knew how to be that kind of person, but if you really care about someone in your heart of hearts, I think it shows. It becomes something genuine, not some fake bullshit.

When I walked into the room where the rosary would be held, the first person I saw was Libby. We melted into each other's arms the moment we saw each other. "I've missed you, John", she said as she cried on my shoulder.

"I've missed you, too, Libby." We didn't say anything more. Just held each other like that for a long, long time.

When we finally broke the embrace, so that Libby could talk to her brother Stephen, I just couldn't stop staring at her. I know it was inappropriate, but I was just amazed. It was like she hadn't changed at all in those intervening years. Maybe she'd grown into her a face just a little, and I wondered whether or not she'd had some work done to her mouth, because she didn't have that pronounced overbite like she used to have. Her breasts were bigger, and maybe her ass was rounder, shapelier, and she was definitely tanner than I remember her, but all in all, she hadn't changed very much. If anything, she was even prettier than she was the last time I'd seen her.

There was one other thing about her appearance, and I couldn't get over it. Maybe my mind had played tricks on me when I was in high school and college, either that or I had forgotten an awful lot since then, but I couldn't believe how much Libby looked like Madi. If I didn't know better and it wouldn't have been so damn inappropriate, I would have had no trouble imagining her all dressed up for me in lingerie.

Afterward, Libby asked me if we could go somewhere. She said she wasn't driving, because the family doctor had given her a sedative. It was pretty obvious that she was in no condition to operate a vehicle. Anyway, I took her to a little pub downtown that was relatively quiet, and we talked.

I had a few drinks, and Libby had a couple, as well. And while we drank, she caught me up on everything that had happened to her after she left the Twin Cities - her boyfriends; the various nursing jobs she held; then, how she'd gone back to school; and later her career in nursing education. She talked about her marriage, and then, inevitably, her divorce a few months ago. I did the same thing. I told her very nearly the same story she'd told me.

And then after about an hour, she finally brought it up - the 800 lb. gorilla in the room - my inexcusable abandonment of Madi. "What happened, John? Why didn't you want to be with her?"

It had taken me years to answer that question, but I think I had finally figured it out for myself. Still, I didn't know if I should tell her the whole thing, because she was so integrally involved, and I suspected that she didn't know that and knowing might hurt her. In the end, I ratcheted up my courage and told her the entire story.

"I think it all started with you, Libby."

"With me? What did I have to do with anything? I wasn't involved at all, John."

"I knew you first, Libby, long before I knew Madi." I shook my head in fond remembrance. "God, this is such a long time ago! I still remember the first time I walked into my mother's living room and found you and Lizzie and one or two of your other fucking, lunatic friends blowing power hits from a joint into each other's mouths! Sitting there in my mother's living room, on her fucking davenport, smoking dope! If she would have known that, she would have had a goddamn coronary! You little shits were like 15 at the time, and I couldn't believe you were doing that in the living room! Hell, I wasn't that brazen. We usually went into the garage, or if it was too cold to do that, somewhere in the basement. We smoked one-hitters out of a bong and opened the windows because we didn't want to stink up the place. I was almost 18 at the time, and I thought I was so fucking grown up, and then you waltzed in there and all of a sudden I felt like I needed to catch up with you! But, anyway, it happened right away when I talked to you that first time. I felt it immediately."

"Felt what?" She was looking at me like I was crazy, and I guess I was.

"I felt it right then, Libby. I think subliminally, unconsciously I've been in love with you ever since, even if I didn't know it." She had this look of wonder on her face when I told her that, and then, of course, she asked the obvious question.

"Why didn't you say something? You've known me for going on 25 years, John, and you never said anything? You don't know how happy I would have been if you would have said something back then! Why didn't you?"

"Well, at first, it was that you were so much younger than I was, and seniors didn't usually date sophomores. Besides, you were friends with Lizzie, and that would have been awkward. Anyway, that was only a few months before I graduated, and a few months after that, I went off to school, and for a while, I never saw you."

"You know I had a crush on you when you were in high school, don't you?"

"Well, I sure as hell didn't know it at the time. Madi told me that when we were together, but I'm not sure I believed her. She also told me that she had a crush on me, and none of that made any sense to me."

"Why not?"

"Because girls liking me didn't make sense. I wasn't the kind of guy that girls were interested in. I was pretty quiet and anti-social, and not terribly confident. All I did was read books, listen to music, smoke dope, and hang out with the other misfits, and besides, I didn't put myself out there where any girls, no matter how crazy they might have been, would actually have been aware of me in the first place. It just didn't seem like anybody of the opposite sex would have had any reason to be attracted to me."

"You're crazy! There were a half dozen girls - both in my class and Madi's - that talked about you all the time. A lot of girls liked you, John, and Madi and I, we were at the top of the list."

"Yeah, that's what Madi said too, but why is that? Why?"

"Because you were mysterious - we couldn't tell whether you were a hippie or a punk, but either way, it was obvious you didn't give a shit... High school girls at that time really liked boys like that, at least high school girls like me. And you were kind of a rebel, but in a nice, really innocent, sort of peaceful way... like you wanted to explode with rage, but were too polite to do it. I just thought you had your shit together. Besides, you were nice to me, really nice, and you didn't have to be. You were a senior; you could have been a shit or, short of that, you could have ignored me, which is what most seniors did. But you, you didn't do that." She smiled at me really sweetly and paused.

"I remember that first time at your mother's house! I already kinda liked you, even though I'd never spoken to you. And that day! You were trying so hard to be the mature, older brother! You were cute! I think at first Lizzie was afraid you were going to rat us out. You kind of told us that we should really find a better place for our 'debauchery' - you actually used that word, do you remember that? - that killed me! But you didn't get mad. You were really nice, and you kept smiling at me the whole time! I just thought that was so cool! But, John, you still haven't really answered my question. If you liked me so much, why didn't you say anything... l mean, later on, after high school."

"I guess I was afraid, and like I said, after I graduated I didn't see you for, like, almost two years. Anyway, by then you'd already started dating Tommy, and that drove me absolutely crazy!"

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, I never thought he appreciated you. He wasn't very supportive, and he certainly didn't listen to you. And Jesus, Madi, Tommy has never really respected or even, I think, liked women. You ought to hear the shit that man spews these days!" She shrugged her shoulders as if to acquiesce on that point.

"And then, there were those nights that I stayed at his house, and you were there. This is before you got married. And I would party with you two, and then I would go to bed in that room upstairs - right above Tommy's room, and I had to lie there and listen to the two of you having sex! And that made me so fucking mad! You were with him? Fucking him? And all the time, I would have died for just one innocent, little kiss! I was so jealous! Anyway by then, I'd lost any shot I had with you." She didn't say anything. I think she was pretty embarrassed thinking about me listening to the two of them. Anyway, I kept going.

"And then when I did meet Madi, you were already married. So I figured, if I couldn't have you, Madi was the next best thing, and for a while there, I sort of felt like if I was making love to her, it was almost as if I was making love to you. But damn it, Libby, even then, you were always there, always around, and I could never get you out of my mind." Her eyes were about the size of two full moons by that time, and I decided to capitalize on her stunned silence.

"Libby, I've thought about this a lot, and I certainly don't want to make you feel guilty by telling you this, especially now after what's happened. But I think that subconsciously I convinced myself that I couldn't be with Madi, no matter how fucking good she was to me, because I still had a thing for you. And then, she was just so over-the-top in her fucking idol worship of me, and I was so undeserving of that worship that I just couldn't handle it, even though I really fucking liked her! And I'm not going to kiss and tell, but, Jesus, the shit Madi did in bed! It was just too much!"

"She loved you, John. That's why she did it!" She paused, but I didn't say anything. "Why didn't you just tell her the truth? Why didn't you just let her down easy?"

And then, every fucking thought I'd had for 18 years just detonated in one gigantic blast. "Jesus, Libby, I know that now! I know she loved me! But how can you not see that that makes it so much worse! So much harder! And you tell me, you tell me, what should I have told her? Should I have told her that she should stop being so fucking nice to me because I didn't deserve it? Well, I did tell her that, and it didn't work. In fact, it just got worse, much worse! Should I have told her that I didn't want to be her boyfriend because she was just too fawning and obsequious, and that kind of adulation is just stupid? Should I have told her that everybody likes to fuck porn stars, but nobody falls in love with them? Should I have told her that I loved her sister and not her? Jesus, Libby, how in the hell was any of that going to 'let her down easy'?"

With the force of my explosion exhausted, and all my energy spent, I just stopped and emptied my glass. These were all rhetorical questions, but even if none of them deserved a response, I still thought I'd get one. I didn't. She was just staring at me, totally astonished, and so I had no choice but to finish it.

"Look, Libby, I know it was my fault. I was completely to blame. I've known that for 18 years. But I just want you to understand. I didn't tell her, because I liked her too much, and I didn't want to see her get hurt, at least not right there in front of me, where I had to witness her pain. So I just slunk away like the coward that I was, because for some reason, I thought that was the way to 'let her down easy.'" There were tears in her eyes now. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they were tears of acceptance, understanding.

That was a good note to end on, and I think Libby sensed that, so I wasn't all that surprised when she asked if we could leave. She said she wanted to smoke some dope with me. I hadn't smoked dope for years, and I don't think Libby had either, but she'd asked someone to get some for her when she arrived in town and, for some reason, she wanted to share it with me, for old time's sake, or something. We drove far out into the country, and I parked my car on a hillside that overlooked the city.

That's when she began her little seduction. To be quite honest, she wasn't very clever or devious about it. Her intentions were as obvious as the full moon in the night sky. But even though we were both fairly high, and I knew I couldn't resist forever, I just couldn't do it that night, not until we put Madi in the ground.

But Libby still tried to talk me into it; she even offered to get us a hotel room for the evening. We were passing a joint back and forth, and then she told me that story - the one about what her grandmother had said to her two weeks after her wedding to Tommy, when the photographer's pictures came back, and everyone saw the one of Libby and me together. Tommy wasn't there, but she said her grandmother told the rest of the family that I was the person that she should have married because I was "going somewhere."

I shook my head in disgust. "Well, I guess your grandmother was right, Libby - I am 'going somewhere' - straight to hell."

I decided I could put an end to it by telling her a story of my own. I remember I was smiling like a damn fool reminiscing about my trip with Madi up to Minneapolis all those years ago. I mentioned how Madi told me in bed one morning that she knew I had a thing for her sister. I told Libby that Madi knew me better then than I knew myself, because I kept denying it even though deep down I knew she was right. Still, even if Madi knew, even if she'd known all along, it wouldn't have been fair to her. "I've already hurt her too much, Libby." I said weeping. "I can't bear doing anything more to hurt her."

After that, I dropped her off at her mother's house, and as she was getting out of the car, she thanked me. I told her that giving her a ride was the least I could do, and she looked at me really strangely, tilting her head in confusion when I said that. "I wasn't thanking you for the ride, John. I was thanking you for saying 'no.' You were right, and I was wrong, and tonight would have been a huge mistake. Thank you for doing the right thing for both of us."

"I guess that's progress, Libby. I just turned 40 years old, and I think I finally grew up enough to stop being selfish."

The funeral was hard on me. I sat by myself and cried the whole time. Thank God she'd been cremated, because I don't think I would have made it if would have had to look at her. Madi's husband was there. I never talked to him - I thought that might be kind of tacky - but it seemed like he was a decent guy, and I was glad she'd found someone who loved her the way she deserved to be loved. I also saw her daughter Hayley, and the moment I did, I knew exactly who she was without anyone having to say anything. She must have been about 14 at the time, but I couldn't believe how much she looked like her mother.

Libby's brother Michael did the eulogy, and he was really good. There was one moment when I think he was speaking directly to me, but I couldn't be sure. He said, "Madi managed to hold her head up without fear, regardless of how fast or frighteningly life's roller coaster moved. Throughout, through triumphs and disappointments, she just never stopped loving - every second of every minute of every day of every year - she never stopped loving the people in her life." I know eulogies are kind of a crock sometimes, but he was absolutely right about that. No truer words were ever spoken.

And the last thing he said was kinda cool. He reminded everyone who was going to the cemetery that they were invited to bring something to leave in the cremation container with the urn - something personal. Apparently, everyone in the family and all her friends already knew about this little arrangement, and so almost everyone had some kind of keepsake that they wanted to give to her. I didn't know about it in advance, so I didn't have anything. Libby must have forgotten to tell me.