Chapter 9

Alex sent Lily a Christmas card which arrived seven months to the day after their last phone call. On the front were two women in fake fur white coats and hats, holding hands, with the caption, “BRRRR, I’d be out in the cold without a friend like you”. Inside Alex had written, “Don’t forget me Lily. I’d love to hear from you”.

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Lily had put the card in her sock and underwear drawer, safe from harm and out of sight, accessible for the still-pathetic moments when she would pull it out, trace her finger along the envelope fold, or put the card to face, craving Alex’ familiar scent.
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Sandwiched in between that call and that card, Lily had reluctantly taken six weeks of disability leave from her teaching position at Amherst College. She saw a therapist twice a week, joined a new book club, took her graduate students on a ski trip to Switzerland, adopted another dog, and lost 30 pounds--her already slim 5 foot 6 inch frame rejecting most of her now ill fitting clothes. She also began writing again, arranged playtimes with her 3 year old niece Amanda, and remodeled the back porch of her sweet one level six room ranch house on Tupelo Road. Several times a week, for 29 weeks, she forced herself to the gym and gratefully accepted the invitations and protection that her friends and colleagues regularly provided.

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Lily did all this earnestly and compulsively, some mornings dragging herself from bed without a thought to what would come, and others relying on Zoloft to propel her to campus where she would teach her English Lit and Advance Placement classes, fervishly hoping she could maintain the Coolest Instructor award the kids had ceremoneously given her one year.
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But nothing she did changed the haunting fact that first thing every morning, and last thing every night, there stood Alex-the-ghost—that cocky grin familiarly taking hold of her mind, Alex standing at the foot of her bed, her arms crossed in that ridiculous Ms.Yogi pose of hers, leaning on her right foot, reaching for Lily’s right breast and cupping both hands to her mouth, shouting with fanfare, “Ladies and Gentleman”, she would say, “Announcing the Grand winner of the Florida Melon Contest—My friend Lily!”.

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In these moments, Lily could barely push herself back to the present. She wondered how she was capable of becoming so pitiful. This soggy mess of a woman was not who she had ever been. It's not like she hadn't loved before. She had broken a heart and mended her own. But this: this was altogether different. This was agony.
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There were some moments when the thought of Alex simply wrapped itself around Lily’s legs and held her captive, her whole body firmly implanted on a ground of mush and misery. She was given no warning when that would happen: one time she had been at Wendy’s place with a group of friends, having burgers on the grill, another alone in her office grading papers, another walking Louie around the park. Th trigger, as she came to call it--could be a sound, a song, the movement of someone’s hands, the flicker of the light bulb, it could be anything for god sakes, and it would surge her back to her life with Alex.
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But what Lily hated most of all was the ever-present hole in her stomach. It never lessened. At first she thought it was an ulcer, or a tumor, perhaps some weird stomach disorder. When it persisted even after her annual physical confirming she was healthy—she came to understand that this was the scarlet letter of a broken heart.

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“Oh God”, her friend Wendy said, “It took me three years to lose that feeling after Doug left me. You can’t really eat when your stomach feels that way”.

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“Three years?” Lily had said. “Three years?”

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“Sometimes”, Wendy’s voice dropped just above a whisper. “Lily, you’ll survive. You’ll love again. I know you will. This woman really did a number on you”.

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“It’s ridiculous,”,Lily responded. “I’m mourning what I hoped for, not even what I ever really had, for Chrisssakes,.I can’t seem to keep my footing, Wendy, no matter what I do or don’t do. If this is love…”

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Lily’s eyes filled and glissened like glass.

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“I know”, Wendy said, “I know”.