pack of cigarettes and a new Bic lighter. He whistled as he waited for Annie to come from wherever she was. Even though he figured she was in the laundry room or something, he decided to leave her a note, just to be on the safe side. Already running late because the game went into extra innings, he reached for the stack of yellow Post-it notes and a pen. There, right on top, still on the stack, was a note with Annie’s handwriting on it. He shook his head in amused frustration as he tore it off and slapped it on the spotless counter. How many times had he told her not to leave the grocery list or other reminder notes on the Post-it note tablet? He tore off another note and began to write on it, when his eyes fell upon the words that Annie had written:
Eric ~
Be back soon.
Annie
Annie had gone to the place where she found the most relief and comfort -- the cemetery. She’d stopped at the grocery store on the way and bought the usual bouquet of blue daisies. At least she could talk to Dillon and tell him what a jerk his dad was being without doing any permanent damage to anything or anyone. She had to tell someone or she’d go crazy. It seemed wrong to complain about Eric to any of her friends, because they were all his friends too. They’d probably think she was a monster for being so demanding of him at such a difficult time.
So, she’d tell Dillon. Her secrets would be safe with him. As she recounted the incidents of the boat trip and the dishes, she felt a little guilty, because everyone always said it was wrong to bad-mouth the other parent to your child. Maybe I am a monster after all, she thought as she sat by Dillon’s grave, arranging the daisies in the cone-shaped cemetery vase. Her eyes traced the outline of the new piece of sod which had been recently placed over the hole that had been there. It wasn’t very big, maybe only 2’x 3’ – the size of the throw rug by her front door. She found herself smiling at the comparison. Good. Now whenever I look at that rug, I’ll think of Dillon. It suddenly occurred to her how absurd that thought was – not because a rug in her front hall would remind her of her baby’s grave, but because of the idea that she’d need to be reminded of him at all. He was on her mind every minute of every day and she couldn’t imagine it being any other way.
Annie moved from the outside edge of the sod rectangle into the middle of it, and gently smoothed the lush, fresh greenness of the new grass. It hadn’t rained much lately, and the shorter lawn surrounding it was becoming peppered with light brown and yellow sprouts. She hoped that the cemetery crew would take special care of Dillon’s new sod and not let it die. Certainly they must have special guidelines for watering new sod. She didn’t think she could bear to come and find a blanket of dead brown grass beneath her baby’s name carved in blue-gray granite. I’ll just have to water it myself, she vowed silently. I’ll be taking care of him. Immediately she began to devise a plan for watering Dillon’s sod. It felt good to use her brain to problem-solve. She’d been in such a heavy fog of grief for so many days, her thoughts revolved mostly around how much she missed her baby. This was still about him, but at least she was planning to do something, rather than just be. It felt like progress.
As close as Annie felt to Dillon, she had an urge to feel even closer to him. Looking around to see if anyone was watching her, she laid down on the new sod, letting the tall, green blades envelope her body in a gentle hug. She put her hand on the granite marker and felt its cool firmness against her palm. It soothed her in a way that nothing else had been able to and she closed her eyes and let out a long, deep sigh. Exhausted from the tension and events of the past couple of days, Annie’s breathing soon became relaxed and rhythmic and before long, she was sound asleep.
While darkness fell over the rolling hills and curving roads of the cemetery, the air cooled and dew formed on the ground, covering the grass and granite with a thin sheet of glistening moisture. Overcome with fatigue, Annie hadn’t been aware of the setting sun or the dropping temperature. Just as she did every night, like clockwork, she woke with a start. It was 1:30 in the morning. She opened her eyes and laid there, motionless. At first she thought she was dreaming that she’d fallen asleep on Dillon’s grave and told herself to go back to sleep. As the dampness of the night dew soaked into the back of her shirt, her mind kept racing and she realized that she wasn’t dreaming after all.
The Broken Heart
A solitary tear ran down Annie’s cheek and splashed onto the divorce papers on the counter in front of her. The notary’s stamp was a blurry smudge, looming large. She remembered the last time they’d broken up with disturbing clarity. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought it was yesterday. The distance between then and now had disappeared and all she felt was the pain. The pain had always been there – it had never gone away. If only she had known, so many years ago, that love didn’t have to hurt to be real. If only someone had told her that there could be more happiness than hurt.
The red flags had always been there, but she had managed to ignore, deny, repress them, until the day that Dillon died. Looking back she realized this, but while she was in the moment, it had been much more difficult to see. She had loved Eric with all of her heart and soul. He had been everything to her and she had tried so hard to be everything to him as well, but it hadn’t worked. She had always felt that something was missing -- that she didn’t quite measure up. She never felt that Eric found her beautiful or sexy, even though sex was something they had plenty of in the early years. Feminists would have scoffed at her willingness to please him, but it was really all she wanted to do. Making him happy made her happy.
Of course, in all the wisdom and experience of twenty-three years, she thought she loved him. She did love him. However she soon found that love alone wasn’t enough -- at least the kind of love that they had or the kind of love they could give each other. Because while she loved Eric, there was always an undercurrent of doubt whether he loved her. He said he did, but his actions told a different story. Annie always berated herself for doubting him; how could she be so disloyal? So she ignored the pain she felt when he’d stay out until the wee hours of the morning with his buddies or when he forgot the color of her eyes.
Once before they were married, Eric had wanted to go fishing. They were driving down a dusty, country road on the way to the lake, looking for a place to buy bait and a fishing license. Annie had planned on doing more reading and tanning than fishing and had assured him that she didn’t need a license. They finally saw a run down building on the side of the road with a make shift sign that said “BAIT SHOP.” It was connected to a liquor store that had a flashing Grain Belt sign that had half of the neon burnt out. Eric pulled his black Grand Prix into the parking lot.
“This is great!” he exclaimed. “We can get a fishing license and some beer. One stop shopping -- you’ve gotta like that.” He turned off the ignition and turned to her. “Do you want to come with?”
“That’s okay -- I’ll wait here,” Annie replied, smiling back at him. “But will you get me a Tab?”
“Alright,” he said, and hurried into the store, extinguishing his cigarette before he went inside.
Twenty minutes later he emerged with a brown paper bag in his right hand, a carton of beer in his left and a white piece of paper between his teeth.
“Sorry I took so long,” he said, dropping the paper from his mouth before he spoke. “It took a while to get waited on.”
“No problem,” said Annie. “I took a little nap.”
“I got night crawlers and leeches for me, and worms for you,” he announced as he set the bag of bait on the floor of the back seat.
“But I’m not going to fish,” she reminded him, not that he couldn’t put the worms to good use.
“Oh yes, you are!” With a flourish, Eric waved the piece of paper in front of her face. She blinked at the commotion and put her hands up to stop him.
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.
“Well, I decided to get us a joint fishing license,” he explained proudly. “Then if you want to fish, you can. Besides, it was cheaper than two single ones would be.”
“But we’re