On Second Thought(27)

"Anyway, I went outside, and I took a butcher knife with me! Just in case!"

"Oh, Gram-Gram. That's not a good idea."

"Well, guess what it was?"

I glanced at my watch. It was 8:28, and Jonathan hated when we were  late. "What was it?" I pulled into the lot behind the Hudson Lifestyle  offices. Of course, there were no free spaces, so I had to back out on  the street and try to parallel park.

"It was a skunk! Can you believe it? A little black-and-white skunk! Oh, it was adorable! I left it some cat food."

I turned off the engine and grabbed my purse and phone. "You probably shouldn't feed it, Gram-Gram."

"Well, I did. I'm an independent woman. I can do what I want."

I laughed. "I guess that's true. I have to go now. Love you!"

"I love you, too, honey. Come visit me! We can go to Walgreens together."

It was her favorite place. "That sounds like fun." I did love the As Seen On TV aisle.

"Or a wake. Someone's bound to die soon. All these old people. An  ambulance comes here every day! And you never know. Wakes are great  places to meet someone."

I snorted. "Bye, Gram-Gram." Granted, I didn't really want to go to a  wake with my grandmother, but her friends were dropping like flies, and  she liked to show me off at wakes and funerals. She always called me her  granddaughter. Never once used the word step.

I ran up the stairs to the office. Everyone looked up and went quiet.  Lateness was on par with beheading puppies as far as our boss was  concerned. His door, at least, was closed. "Hi, everyone," I said in a  low voice, hoping to slip into my cubicle like Bob Cratchit avoiding  Scrooge.

His door opened. "You're late," he said. "Please come in for a moment."

"Hi, Jonathan." I stood up, my face flaring with heat. Was he going to  bring up Friday night? Or the fact that Eric announced that I complained  about my job? More likely, he was going to deliver another lecture  about punctuality and godliness. He did have that Calvinist preacher  vibe.

Jonathan closed the door behind me and sat down, regarding me with his  unblinking, pale blue eyes. His office was not a place where happy  conversations occurred. Not with me, anyway.

"I'm sorry I'm a tiny bit late. I was talking to my grandmother, and she  has dementia, a little anyway, and it was hard to get her off the  phone. But she's very sweet. A widow for a long time. How was your  weekend?"

"Please sit down," he said. His voice was very deep, almost a growl,  like the dragon Smaug from The Hobbit movies. Rachelle was convinced it  was the one sexy thing about him, but everything he said to me always  sounded very...disdainful.

"Have you seen The Cancer Chronicles this morning?" he asked.

"Uh, no." The CCs were supposed to be done, though Eric had run a  maudlin piece about Nathan just after he died. "Jonathan, speaking of  Eric, I'd like to keep our, um, little scene from the other night to  ourselves, okay? We're...well, we're getting back together."

"Are you?" An eyebrow lifted.

"Yes. Probably. I mean, definitely. It's just a blip."

He sighed, then turned his monitor around so I could see.

It was Eric's blog, running as usual under the banner of Hudson Lifestyle Online.

The Cancer Chronicles by Eric Fisher, it said, and then the headline:

Cutting Free from the Corpse of My Old Life.

On Friday night, it began, I made a difficult, exciting decision. To  live life large. In order to do this, I had to assess what had been  holding me back. Now that my Cancer Journey has drawn to a close, and  because the Universe has shown me how fragile life is, I had to make  some changes.         

     



 

The first step was big. I had to separate myself from a person close to  me, even knowing it would cause her pain. But sometimes pain makes you  stronger. It did in my case. The pain of cancer was the fire that  burnished my soul. (Sigh. There really hadn't been much pain.)

On Friday night, I used my strength to cut free from the person who represented the old, sick me: Sunshine.

The corpse of his old life was me.

My lips started to tremble, and the words jumped around on the screen.

He had to break up with me, the blog said, despite my tender loving care  during his "life-and-death battle" because I was "the weight around his  ankle," dragging him under. My lack of support, my love of the status  quo, my failure to understand that life "demanded more" now that he had  "stared Death in the eye."

He described my anger on Friday. How I kept eating lobster (I regretted that now). My insistence that we should get married.

Rather than focus on the heart of the matter, she repeatedly asked me  about the Tiffany engagement ring I bought her. And I had bought her  one, but that was before I understood my life's new meaning.

And while he regretted having to hurt me, he was nonetheless "ready to take on the challenge of living life in the moment."

Jonathan was silent. Outside his office, the rest of the staff was silent. So they already knew.

"Please," I whispered. "Take...take it down."

"Look at the comments."

I tried. I was blinking rapidly, as if the computer were about to slap me, which, metaphorically, it already had.

There were 977 comments.

The blog posted at 6:00 a.m. every Monday.

977 comments in two and a half hours. No, 979. Nope, 985. 993. 1001. 1019.

Oh, my Jesus.

This guy is a total dick, the first comment read. She's better off without him.

Bruh, good for you! said the second. Women always think it's about them.

As a leukemia survivor, I also had to scrape some people off my shoe...

This column makes me sick. He used her, plain and simple. Live life large, my ass. He should be...

Outside Jonathan's office, the phone started to ring. Another line.  Another. I could see the lights on Jonathan's phone. The magazine had  five dedicated lines. All were lit up.

"Take it down, Jonathan," I said, my voice shrill.

"I'm not going to do that. I'm sorry."

"You have to! You hate this column anyway."

1034. 1041. 1075. God, it was going crazy! I put my hand over my mouth, unable to process what I was seeing.

Jonathan turned the screen back and clicked a few keys. "Our Facebook  page has seven hundred new likes since yesterday. The story has been  shared on social media more than a thousand times."

Oh, shit. Shit! The blog automatically linked to our Facebook, Tumblr  and Twitter accounts...all of which I'd set up when I started work here.

"Take it down!"

"Ainsley, I can't. It's gone viral. I'm sorry." He almost sounded sincere.

"So? That's my life there! That's me being humiliated! Please take it down." Tears were spurting out of my eyes.

Jonathan folded his hands together. "You're the one who fought for this  column. I'm sorry it's your personal life, but that was exactly what you  and Eric wanted. And clearly, we can't turn away this kind of  exposure."

"Do you have a beating heart, Jonathan? Come on! Please."

His door opened, and Rachelle stuck her head in and looked at me  apologetically. "Mr. Kent, Good Morning America is on the line."

"I have to take this," he said. "Excuse me."





Chapter Twelve

Kate

My mother called seconds after Ainsley left. "How are you?" she asked. I  could hear the clatter of something in the background. My mom was a  multitasker; unless you hired her, she would never just sit in a chair  and talk. "Things good?"

"Yeah, they're, uh, fine. Fine." As fine as things could be, considering  my husband was dead. I didn't mention that Ainsley was staying here.  Mom would not approve.

Today was May 1. Our five-month anniversary. No one had mentioned that  so far. I was probably the only person who knew. Nathan would've known.  He would've bought flowers.

"It's important when dealing with grief to continue self-care and your  normal routine." That was probably a line from one of her books.

"Yes. Well, I'm going to the studio today."

"Good! Work is balm for the soul at a time like this."

"Yes."

"We'll talk soon. I'm here if you need me."

"Okay. Thanks for-" Nope, she'd already hung up.         

     



 

My mother had never been warm and fuzzy.

I had a vague memory of Dad's second wife, Michelle. She smiled a lot.  Baked cookies on the weekends Sean and I came over. When Ainsley was  born, Michelle let me give her a bottle, even though I was only seven at  the time. But Sean and I didn't go over a lot. Our father's job as an  umpire meant that he traveled from April through October, home  infrequently for short visits. And Mom didn't like us going to see  Michelle if Dad wasn't there.

And then, of course, Michelle died.

The divorce and Ainsley were never discussed at home; Sean and I were  little, after all. Or little-ish. Mom had suffered the all-too-common  indignity of being dumped for a younger, shinier woman, who'd been  pregnant before the marriage, before Dad left. After the divorce, Mom  had to work more hours, and dinnertimes were tense affairs with dry  chicken and vegetables from a can.