fundamentals of love ; james sirius potter

22. dad's never break their promises

Collette tries to contact me a dozen times, Teddy sends too many letters, but I don't respond to them while wondering if I'll get sued for this. But, if James is feeling the same way then we must be off the hook. The gossip columns are going crazy with this little story and the fact we haven't been spotted in nearly two weeks and how James has been even more aggressive on the field.

To quote a magazine I read while drinking some chai, "One can only assume that their summer romance has officially ended. There's a lack of inside sources with these two, everyone has their lips sealed for the private couple." It made me laugh, everyone had their lips sealed because nobody really knew what was going on. 

I'm at the farmer's market like I usually am on a Sunday. But I've stayed nearly the whole day, sitting on a crate and catching up with Fran but also trading stories. This is her last day and I'm trying to make the most of the last few moments we have together. I'd have brought my dad along as well, but he was off on some mission with his team. There was also a pit of worry in my stomach but eating strawberries with Fran always made the worry go away little, or at least it distracted me enough that I didn't even notice it.

"Where'd you get that ring," I ask, staring at the square emerald on the gold band. I've been in love with the piece of jewelry since I met her three summers ago. "I've always been meaning to ask, but I never seem to get to it."

She almost holds her hand in a protective way, cradling it as a mother does with her child. "It's my wedding ring," she says. "My husband had green eyes, I used to tell him they were the most beautiful shade I'd ever seen. The colour is like our inside joke."

Of course, I'd known Fran had been married before, but I always thought it ended a long time ago. I'm glad it is amicable but I'm still lost on why she wears the ring. 

"He passed away."

I drop the strawberry in my hand.

Fran, gives me a tight smile as she continues. "We'd been together since we were fourteen, he walked into my English class one day and I just knew that he was the guy," she puts an emphasis on those two words, and I understand what she's saying. "I got to love him for about twenty years. We got married, built a house, did all the things you want to do with a lover."

"You guys never had kids," I ask, watching how Fran doesn't seem like herself anymore.

She shakes her head. "He really wanted kids but I'd felt like I never wanted to be a mother," her voice is filled with so much regret. "Der had cystic fibrosis, we were in and out of the hospital a lot. For the last year, he stayed in the hospital and I basically lived there with him," Fran manages to laugh with tears in her eyes. "Derek passed away five years ago, it was about a week after I had started to create a nursery in our house. I remember coming home the day after and sitting in the rocking chair while going through old pictures."

"How do you stay in that house? I feel like I'd be too sad to ever live in it."

"It's the house he built for me," she says, simply. "Sometimes I feel like he haunts the halls to keep me company."

"Does the missing ever go away?"

"No, it's just a painful ache that you learn to live with."

Her words remind me of the fact my nonna lives in a house where her whole family died in. How she could never bear to give it away because she feels as if it's the last part of them that she has left. I think love and grief are funny because sometimes I can't tell them apart.

A customer comes over and Fran gets up.

I watch her put on a smile as she tells them that this is the last batch of the season. The dark-skinned woman just laughs, then pulls out her wallet and begins to buy all the remaining fruits of Fran's labour. When she's packaging everything up, all the last pieces, I see the sadness in her. She's finally finished at the market for the season and she'll be disappearing for a few months now.