Not Easily Broken Read online

  “I’m going home,” she said.

  Michelle’s smile started slow, but it kept growing until it covered her whole face. She dropped the groceries in the doorway and grabbed Clarice.

  “Oh, my sister, my sister! I been praying so hard for this, and now look if it ain’t happening!”

  “Easy,” Clarice said, smiling as she pulled away. “I don’t know what David’s going to be like, or if he even wants to see me.”

  “Oh, he will, Clarice, I just know it. And anyway, you’re taking the first step, and that’s what counts right now. Oh, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus!”

  Michelle, singing hallelujahs the whole way, had helped Clarice carry her stuff to the car.

  “Now, tomorrow, at the office, you tell me everything,” she said, leaning breathlessly through Clarice’s window. “But, no . . . wait. Maybe you’ll need to come in a little late tomorrow, if the reconciliation gets a little hot and heavy?”

  “Oh please, Michelle. It’s baby steps right now, remember?”

  “That’s right, that’s right. Ohhhh!” She leaned in through the window for one more hug before Clarice could back away. As Clarice pulled into the street, she saw Michelle dialing her cell phone. She was probably calling Todd, Clarice guessed.

  When she came home to an empty house, Clarice started to feel the tendrils of fear creeping between her ribs. What if David didn’t come home? What if things were already too far gone? What if she’d already waited too long and their last chance at putting things back together was gone?

  Somehow she held herself together as she waited. And then, while she was sitting on the couch, her cell phone rang. He was home.

  It was a start, Clarice thought as her eyes closed. Just a start, but so much more than nothing. She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but whatever it was, this was a better beginning place than they’d had before.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Julie carefully pressed the gray-haired woman’s foot while supporting her calf with the other hand. The woman winced.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Clancy, but we’ve got to stretch those thigh muscles a little bit more.”

  “I know, dear,” the thin little woman said. “I’m trying not to be a whiner.”

  Julie laughed. “Oh, no, Mrs. Clancy. I’ve seen whiners, and you’re not one.” She leaned close. “They’re mostly men,” she said, giving Mrs. Clancy a conspiratorial wink.

  “Okay, I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?”

  “I certainly do,” Mrs. Clancy said. Julie helped her sit up on the table, then carefully eased her down the stepped footstool to the floor. She waved as Mrs. Clancy walked away toward the front foyer, then grabbed the treatment folder and headed for her desk to fill out the session report.

  She made it to her cubicle before the tears came; at least that was getting better. The first few times she’d had to explain to patients why she was suddenly weeping. They were very sympathetic, of course—one lady even gave Julie the name of her counselor and offered to pray with her. But it was better if she could hold it in until she had a little privacy.

  The hardest thing was when she first woke up in the morning—it meant she had actually slept. But as soon as consciousness returned, so did the weight. Julie had figured out, though, that it didn’t get any easier if she just laid there. She’d pry herself out of bed and get about the business of pretending to have a real life.

  And once in a while, she surprised herself by saying or doing something she might have done before, ages long past it seemed, when Bryson’s death wasn’t riding on her shoulders like a backpack full of sand. Like just now, with Mrs. Clancy. It was nice when Julie could catch herself doing something a normal person might do.

  She’d never realized how much she thought of Bryson in a typical day. But now, when every thought of him was like a tiny dagger in her throat, she realized he had never been far from the surface of her mind.

  She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and signed the session report for Mrs. Clancy. She was about to go file it when her desk phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Julie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, uh, it’s Brock.”

  “Oh, hi, Brock. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, really, uh . . .”

  This man actually earned his livelihood by speaking?

  “I was just wondering how you were, that’s all.”

  “Oh, you know, Brock. Ups and downs.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in lunch?”

  These days, Julie’s appetite was as sparse and unpredictable as the annual rainfall in Sudan.

  “I’m really not very hungry, Brock.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that, I guess. But maybe you’d like to just sort of . . . get away for a while? Out of the office? Or gym? Or wherever it is physical therapists do their thing?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to, really. I’ll just, you know, go home and open up a can of cold chicken noodle soup, maybe watch a couple of Jeopardy reruns . . .”

  “Hate to tell you, sport, but Jeopardy’s still prime time.”

  Now where did that flash of native wit come from?

  “Oh. Well, maybe just the cold chicken noodle then.”

  “Now that I think about it, I could probably use some time away from here. You want to meet somewhere?”

  “Oh, I can just pick you up at work.”

  “Don’t be a doofus, Brock. I’m all the way across town from your office, remember?”

  “Well, I had a client meeting over this way. I’m in the front lobby of your building, actually.”

  They went to a burger place a couple of blocks away from the hospital. Brock took bites from his double-decker with the works and Julie nibbled around the edges of her kid’s burger with cheese, a very plain and dry selection. They chatted for a couple of minutes about various harmless topics. Then Brock said, without looking at her, “Um, what do you miss most about him?”

  Julie was surprised. Most of the people she came in contact with on a daily basis treated the topic of her dead son as if it were contaminated. Her desk was covered with cards on the day she came back to work, of course, and her supervisor made sure she knew she could take a very relaxed approach to regular hours and the leave policy, but other than that, it was as if they were afraid of her somehow, afraid she might dissolve into weeping if they said the wrong thing. So mostly, they said nothing.

  But here was somebody actually inviting her to talk about Bryson, about how flat and empty her world felt without him, about how she’d trade every single thing she owned or would ever own for five more minutes to talk to him and hear him talk back.

  “Weekends are kind of hard,” she said finally. “That’s when his meets were, and we had some really good talks sometimes, in the car on the way there and back.”

  Brock nodded, wiping a spot of ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. My biggest regret is that I never got to see him swim. Dave said it was an amazing thing to watch.”

  Julie studied her interior landscape, watching for any fugitive signs of emotional weirdness that might have been flushed out by the mention of Dave’s name. But . . . nope. That was a good thing, probably.

  “Yeah, it was amazing. Bryson always said he was never nervous before a meet . . .”

  She talked on and on, about Bryson’s sloppy penmanship, about how he always wrote “to” when he meant “too,” about all the gold-painted crumbs of elbow macaroni she had in the bottom of the Christmas decoration carton from the year his elementary school made their own ornaments. She just kept talking, and it occurred to her that it might not even matter to her if Brock was really listening; just having someone else there as an excuse to say out loud the million things circling in her mind and heart, whether important or mundane, that added up to “Bryson”—it was freeing. It felt like taking off shoes that were too tight, or finally getting out of a traf
fic jam. At one point, she realized tears were running down her cheeks, but she just kept talking.

  And Brock really was listening—or so it seemed to Julie. His eyes were locked on hers, as if he were trying to understand her words before she even said them.

  “I remember that time he came to baseball practice,” Brock said, once Julie finally stopped long enough to take a breath. “I couldn’t believe he had the guts to stand at the plate and take batting practice in front of all these mean little kids from the hood he’d never even seen before. But he did. And he kept with it until he started getting the bat on the ball. I’ll bet if he’d gotten interested in baseball instead of swimming, he’d have been amazing at that, too.”

  Julie smiled. “That’s a nice thing to hear. And you might be right.” She looked at him. “I really appreciate you letting me talk about him.”

  Brock shrugged. “Why not? I just wish I could’ve known him better, you know? You gonna eat those fries?”

  Brock took her back to work, and as Julie got out of his car, she suddenly realized she’d had a nice time. The notion was so surprising and unexpected that she stood there for a few seconds on the sidewalk and turned it over in her mind. Brock started to pull away from the curb, then stopped. The window on her side rolled down.

  “You forget something?” he said, leaning toward her.

  She shook her head and waved him off. “No, that’s okay. See you around, okay?”

  He nodded and drove off.

  It was true though, she thought, as she walked back toward the clinic. She hadn’t forgotten anything—actually, she’d remembered something. A thing called life.

  Dave got out of the Accord and went around to open Clarice’s door. He looked at his watch; they were about to be late. He didn’t like to think what Clarice might say to him if they were late. She got out and he closed her door, then took her elbow and walked her as quickly as he could, without pulling her, toward the glass doors of the office building.

  Inside, he punched the up button on the elevator and waited. The main floor of the building was a bank. The building was one of the older ones downtown, and the bank had remodeled in a classic style: marble floors and counters, lots of brass everywhere, lots of oriental rugs on the floors. Dave wondered who had the janitorial contract on this place.

  The elevator doors opened and they went inside. Clarice pressed the five and the doors closed. Dave felt the pressure on his feet as the compartment started to rise.

  Clarice looked at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been fidgeting since we got out of the car. You’re jingling the change in your pockets and even moving your feet around. Are you nervous?”

  “Maybe a little,” he said.

  It was their first appointment with Carmen since Clarice came back to the house. Ever since he’d gotten up this morning, he’d had a growing sense of apprehension. He was trying not to think about all the ways the session could go wrong, but he wasn’t having too much luck.

  “Just be honest. That’s all Carmen will ask you to do.”

  He nodded his head and stared at the floor indicator. When it got to five, the bell rang and the doors slid open. They started “the long walk,” as Dave was coming to think of it.

  The receptionist waved them right in. “Dr. McAtee’s ready for you,” she said.

  How come my MD always makes me wait?

  Carmen was wearing her trademark smile and clothing from the African import boutique. The three of them made a little chitchat for a few minutes.

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see the two of you here together today,” Carmen said.

  “Yeah, well . . . it didn’t look too good there for a day or two,” Dave said.

  “But we’re here,” Clarice said, looking at Dave, “and we’ve both got things to say.”

  “Why don’t we get started, then?” Carmen said. “Dave, how about you tell me what’s going on with you?”

  Does she always start with me?

  “Well, I, uh . . . I’ve just had a chance to do some thinking, you know, and . . . it seems to me like Reesie and I have a lot going for us. It’d be a shame to waste it.”

  “That’s interesting,” Carmen said. “I’d be curious what you think you two have going for you.”

  Clarice looked at him like she was pretty interested, too. How did he always manage to get himself into these situations?

  “Well, we’ve been through a lot together, first off. We’ve built a pretty comfortable life—good jobs, nice house, that kind of stuff—”

  “Is that what makes life good?” Carmen said.

  Dave gave her a surprised look. “Well . . . no, not entirely. I mean, we care for each other. We’ve got a lot of history.”

  The counselor nodded. Today she was wearing some major bling; the gold circlets hanging from her ears looked big enough to leave bruises. “So when you think about your shared history, is that what makes you want to make your marriage work?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Dave stared at the black Jesus painting on the wall above Carmen’s head. “I mean . . . Clarice is the only woman I ever really loved. The first time I saw her, I knew she was special.”

  “What about you?” Carmen said, turning toward Clarice. “What was it about Dave that first attracted you to him?”

  Clarice thought for so long that Dave started to worry she might not come up with anything. “Dreams,” she said finally.

  “Can you flesh that out a little for me?”

  “He had big dreams. He wanted to make a difference. I liked that.”

  Carmen nodded. “What often happens in a marriage is that somehow, in the midst of all the details we have to take care of just to do life from day to day, we lose focus on the things that brought us together in the first place. For example, Dave, how long has it been since you could look at Clarice and see those special qualities that made you fall in love with her?”

  “A while,” Dave said.

  “And Clarice, when was the last time Dave was able to share a dream with you, straight from the heart, and not worry about how you might respond?”

  “Too long,” she said after a few seconds. “It’s just—” She shook her head and fell silent.

  “It’s just what?” Carmen said.

  It took Clarice a while to speak, and when she did, she kept her face directed at the floor. Her hands twined in her lap.

  “I know David wants children. At first, I thought I did, too. But with my job and our ages, I’m just not so sure anymore.”

  “Do you feel Dave is pressuring you to have children?”

  She nodded. “Sometimes, yes.”

  “Dave, how do you feel about that?” Carmen said, shining the spotlight back on him.

  “I guess I always wanted to be a dad,” he said. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

  “And did you ever want to be a mom, Clarice?” Carmen asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure I had the thoughts every little girl has, playing dolls and house and so forth. But it was so hard for my mother when I was growing up. At some point, I remember putting my dolls up because I didn’t seem to have time for them anymore.”

  Dave stared at Clarice. Her voice was subdued and sad, almost like that of a child who’d just received a deep disappointment or some really bad news.

  “So your mom had to work pretty hard?” Carmen said.

  Clarice nodded. “Two, sometimes three jobs. She didn’t want help from anybody. I really admired her strength. I still do.”

  “What about her softness, her compassion? Did she ever read to you or tuck you in?”

  Clarice swung her face around to look out a window. Dave saw the tears glistening on her lower eyelids. “There wasn’t so much time for that,” Clarice said.

  Carmen pondered this for a while.

  “Reesie, I never remember you telling me you had dolls,” Dave said into the silence.

  She looked at h
im, then away. “Didn’t I? That’s funny. Oh, well . . .”

  “Dave, I wonder what you’re thinking right now about your wife,” Carmen said softly.

  “I’m wishing I knew more about her,” Dave said. “I thought I knew her, but just now, I heard something I’ve never heard before. That kind of makes me feel bad. It makes me wonder what else I might not know.”

  Carmen nodded. “Those are good thoughts. I’d recommend pursuing them sometime.” She looked at Clarice. “That is, if you’d be comfortable with that.”

  Clarice was wiping at her eyes with her fingertips. “I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things.”

  “But you remembered something just now, something that connects with the deeper parts of you,” Carmen said. “Do you trust your husband enough to let him see more? Are you willing to take the risk of that kind of intimacy?”

  She looked at her husband. “I think so.”

  “It’s an awesome responsibility for two people to accept that they must be truthful with each other about what’s deep inside. Sometimes we don’t even know what’s in there ourselves,” Carmen said. “Sometimes there are hidden clues, keys that open locks we didn’t even know existed. I happen to believe that when the timing’s right—some folks might even say when it’s God’s will—the keys go in the locks and things open up. And when that starts happening, understanding can grow. And when there’s understanding, well, lots of good things can happen.”

  Dave was still looking at Clarice, seeing her through different eyes, like they hadn’t been used in quite a while. He realized there was a little girl, once, named Clarice. And she had the same need for affection and feeling special that all little girls have. But something happened somewhere along the way. He wondered if that little girl could be coaxed out into the open again with patience and understanding. He wondered if she’d like to be held, cuddled, protected. He sensed, though, that she wouldn’t trust just anybody. No, it had to be somebody she could count on, somebody who wouldn’t try to rush her or put her in places she didn’t want to be. Somebody who would just be for her, always and forever. Could he be that somebody?