The Art of Starting Over

Chapter 44 - Laundry

Proud Mary starts playing on the radio and the laundry basket almost slips from my hands. All the hairs on my body stand on edge and my knees and fingers go weak. I half expect Millie's singing voice to creep into my ears, slightly off-pitch as usual. But of course, it doesn't.

I take a few deep breaths, in and out. It usually works. It's how I survived the past ten and a half weeks. But in this moment, as I lean against the railing for support, I'm not so sure deep breathing will be enough. I set down the basket and kneel on the floor beside it, trying to stop the balcony from spinning.

The smell of our freshly washed clothes reaches my nostrils, a cruel reminder of how they don't smell as good as when she did laundry. I use the same detergent, the exact same amount of softener. I leave the machine running for the same amount of time at the same temperature. I do everything the way she used to. But they just don't smell the same.

I tell myself, maybe it's the machine, or maybe the air in the south was different, but the truth is I just don't have her magic hands, or her grace or patience or wisdom.

The truth is I'm drowning.

I wave the unruly strands of hair out of my face as my breathing finally slows down. I pick up the laundry and hang it up to dry on the washing line. Then I go back inside and throw out the boxes from yesterday's take out dinner. I pour myself a glass of cheap wine and sit on the folding bed, still unmade even though it's two o'clock in the afternoon.

Oh, Millie, you'd have a right fit if you walked in here right now. I really should clean up. The place is a safety hazard.

Hearing my phone vibrating somewhere behind me, I search frantically through the sheets, spilling wine on them in the process. It's Keith. My heart pounds once, painfully, as the apprehension settles in my stomach.

"Hey," I croak.

"Hi. Are you okay?"

I set my glass on the nightstand taking my time to reply. "Yes. I was about to start clearing up. I did the laundry."

Pause.

I hold my breath.

"You have the late shift at the bar tonight, right?" he asks, his voice cold and hollow.

How can things change so much in such a short time?

"Yes."

"Okay. I don't think I'll be home by then. I have band practice and we'll probably head out for a few beers after that."

It will be the third time this week he didn't come home until very late in the night.

"Okay," I say trying to sound cool about it.

Another pause.

"Okay, then," he says finally.

"I love you," I blurt out, instantly cringing at how pathetic I sound.

The silence that follows is thick and painful. I hear him holding his breath on the other end of the line.

"Do you?"

His words are a stab to the gut.

"Yes, Keith, of course I do!"

He hangs up, twisting the dagger further into my wound. The phone drops from my hand as I reach over to the nightstand for my wine.

I hurt him. I hurt him and now it's too late. Every choice I made broke him a bit more and I couldn't see it. He tried so hard. But it was never enough and he knew it.

After that night in the hospital, Jeremy had kept his word. He never left me ever again. He was always one step ahead of Keith and, not realising it was a competition, I chose him over and over.

Keith would call me from work while Jeremy was right there next to me, holding my hand. He brought food for me from the bar every night and every night I refused it saying I wasn't hungry, the empty containers of Jeremy's home-cooked meals in plain sight on the windowsill. He brought blankets for me because Millie's room was so cold at night only to find me sleeping on the armchair with Jeremy's jacket over me. 

He never said anything. He took all of it patiently and quietly.

But when he arrived at the hospital on the twentieth of December and found me crying ceaselessly into Jeremy's chest next to Nanna's empty bed, just minutes after they had carried her out of her room, I knew I had gone too far.

Jeremy let go of me as soon as he saw him walk in, his face mutinous. He raised his hands in the air innocently. He tried to calm him down. He swore to him there was nothing going on behind his back but Keith was seeing red. He thought I had called Jeremy and not him. Because I didn't call him. I had just lost the one person that meant everything to me, the only family I had left, my centre of gravity, and it didn't even cross my mind to call him.

I tried explaining that I didn't call Jeremy either. Jeremy was just there. Like he promised he would be. He had come to the hospital to check on me after seeing that I didn't show up for the staff party and caught me just before I crashed on the waiting area floor. But a fat load of good that did.

"Right! Because he's always at the right place, at the right time when it comes to you!"

I will never forget his snarling face. Keith who was always so cool, so happy and mesmerising, suddenly frightened me. It became clear that he is not someone to be taken for granted. He may be patient but he will not be made a fool of. And that is exactly what I had done. I made a fool of him and taken him for granted because I was so focused on losing Millie, I forgot about keeping everyone else, including him. Especially him.

We didn't say much after that but then he was there. Right there. All the time. He held me throughout the funeral service because I couldn't hold my own weight, all the while eyeing Jeremy, warning him to keep his place. And when I told him that I had to find a new place to stay because the landlord doubled the rent on Millie's house, he wordlessly and without question packed my stuff and moved me into his studio apartment, making sure I wouldn't need to take up Jeremy's offer to buy the house himself.

But now he's cold. He is angry. I've lost his trust. He no longer believes he has nothing to worry about. He insisted I stay away from Jeremy. Jeremy, who paid for Millie's funeral because all the money we had managed to save up was put into my lessons and course fees and her medical appointments. Jeremy, who fought tooth and nail with me and begged me with tears in his eyes to let him help me so that I can keep Millie's house. Jeremy, the only person who understands how lost I am without her and who calls every Friday night in secret, at eight on the dot to check in on me.

That is our relationship now. A quick phone call full of lies. 

He hears the misery in my voice when I tell him things are great. I hear the loneliness in his when he says everything is fine. I want to hold him, to ease his pain and maybe let him ease some of mine. But that can't happen. Not without completely destroying Keith.

I tried talking to Sosa about it, but she has her own mess to struggle through. Her mother finally fled with some divorcee she'd been having an affair with for the past five years. Her father is spending days on end without coming home and when he does, he reeks of alcohol. Shaun is tired of being the other guy and the complexity of her position is finally catching up to her.

So, yes, everything is a great big mess. Just like this room. I remind myself of my promise to Millie for the fifth time today. I'll be fine. I won't dwell in darkness.

And I know that things could be fine if I could just get the damn clothes to smell as fresh as when she did the laundry.