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As someone said, “Men don’t age better than women, they’re just allowed to age.”
She’s stunningly, staggeringly beautiful, as she always has been. There have been many times over the years that I envied the power that beauty commanded, but it never lingers. I’ve also seen the torture it has conjured in her life. People want to own beauty, make it their own, ruin it if they can’t possess it.
“I haven’t let myself feel so much in a long time. Like, what if it all falls apart and he breaks my heart and then I lose my friend as well as my lover and then I’m all alone again?” Tears fill my eyes, tears of wonder and fear and overwhelm. She loops her arm through my elbow. “Listen, I mean this in the best possible way, Phoebe.” I look at her. “So what? So what if it ends? What if he dies? What if the world ends? What if? Would you really trade having this . . . joy . . . right now for some awful thing that might not even happen?” “I know what you’re saying, but it’s not really that easy,
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And the one person I would have poured my heart out to had way bigger problems. A couple of times I tried to tell her how sad I was, and I could tell she thought I was an idiot. But just because you don’t have the worst problem in the world doesn’t mean it isn’t a real problem to you.
For a split second I wonder how to answer this in a way that’s not even more traumatizing. “They did. But you see she’s fine now.” “I don’t think she’s fine. I think she’s really sad in her heart.” Ben takes a sip of water and raises his eyebrows my direction as if to ask permission. I give a faint nod. “You’re a good observer, Jasmine,” he says. “I think she’s got a lot to think about, and sometimes you have to be a little bit unhappy to get to the next place in your life.”
As I walk the rows of the fallow fields, calling her, look in the greenhouses and behind shrubs, I can’t help thinking of all the things that could hurt her out here. Mountain lions, bears and elk, getting lost completely and having no idea how to find her way home. People. People are the most terrifying of all.
What should have been and what is are often two different things.
But I miss you so much it’s like someone has chopped off my left arm. I think I can manage okay without it, and then I need to drain the pasta, and it’s obvious that I really do need that arm. I miss you.
