The Art of Starting Over

Chapter 44 - Laundry

Proud Mary started playing on the radio and the laundry basket almost slipped from my hands. All the hairs on my body stood on edge and my knees and fingers went weak. I half expected Millie's singing voice to creep into my ears, slightly off-pitch as usual. But of course, it didn't.

I took a few deep breaths, in and out. It usually worked. It was how I had survived my daily panic attacks over the past ten and a half weeks. But in that moment, as I leaned against the railing for support, I wasn't so sure deep breathing would be enough. I set down the basket and knelt on the floor beside it, trying to stop the balcony from spinning.

The smell of our freshly washed clothes reached my nostrils, a cruel reminder that they didn't smell as good as when she did the laundry. I used the same detergent, the exact same amount of softener. I left the machine running for the same amount of time, at the same temperature. I did everything the way she used to. But they just didn't smell the same.

I told myself maybe it was the machine, or maybe the air in the south had been different, but the truth was that I just didn't have her magic hands, or her grace, or her patience, or her wisdom.

The truth was that I was drowning.

I waved the unruly strands of hair out of my face as my breathing finally slowed down. Eventually, I picked up the laundry and hung it up to dry on the washing line. Then I went back inside and threw out the boxes from yesterday's takeaway dinner. I poured myself a glass of cheap wine and sat on the folding bed, still unmade even though it was two o'clock in the afternoon.

Oh, Millie, you'd have had a right fit if you'd walked in right then. 

I really should have cleaned up. The place was a safety hazard.

Hearing my phone vibrating somewhere behind me, I searched frantically through the sheets, spilling wine on them in the process. 

Great. Let's add that to the list of chores that won't get done today.

It was Keith. My heart pounded once, painfully, as apprehension settled in my stomach.

"Hey," I croaked into my phone.

"Hi. Are you okay?"

I set my glass on the nightstand, taking my time to reply. "Yes. I did the laundry."

Pause.

I held my breath.

"You have the late shift at the bar tonight, right?" he asked, his voice cold and hollow.

I asked myself once again, how could things have changed so much in such a short time? This man was happy. He made me happy. That's why we were together... because we made each other happy. And now? Now we couldn't remember what happiness even felt like.

"Yes."

"Okay. I don't think I'll be home by then. I have band practice and we'll probably head out for a few beers after that."

It would be the third time that week he didn't come home until very late at night.

"Okay," I said, trying to sound cool about it.

Another pause.

"Okay, then," he said finally.

"I love you," I blurted out, instantly cringing at how pathetic I sounded.

The silence that followed was thick and painful. I heard him holding his breath on the other end of the line.

"Do you?"

His words were a stab to the gut.

"Yes, Keith, of course I do!"

He hung up, twisting the dagger further into my wound. The phone dropped from my hand as I reached over to the nightstand for my wine.

It wasn't his fault. I destroyed Keith. I had hurt him. Every choice I had made broke him a little more and I hadn't seen it until it was too late. He had tried so hard. But it was never enough, and we both knew it.

After that night in the hospital, Jeremy had kept his word. He never left me again. He was always one step ahead of Keith and, not realising it was a competition, I chose him over and over.

Keith would call me from work while Jeremy was right there next to me, holding my hand, sitting closer than he should have been. Keith brought food for me from the bar every night, and every night I refused it, saying I wasn't hungry, the empty containers of Jeremy's home-cooked meals in plain sight on the windowsill. Keith brought blankets for me because Millie's room was cold at night, only to find me sleeping on the armchair with Jeremy's jacket over me.

He never said anything. He took all of it patiently and quietly.

But when he got to the hospital on the twentieth of December and found me crying ceaselessly into Jeremy's chest next to Nanna's empty bed, just minutes after they had carried her out of her room, I knew he had too much.

Jeremy let go of me as soon as he saw him walk in, his face mutinous. He raised his hands innocently as Keith yelled in his face. He tried to calm him down. He swore there was nothing going on behind his back, but Keith was seeing red. He thought I had called Jeremy and not him. 

Because I didn't call him. I had just lost the one person who meant everything to me, the only family I had left, my centre of gravity, and it hadn't even crossed my mind to call him.

I tried explaining that I didn't call Jeremy either. Jeremy was just there. Like he promised he would be. He came to the hospital to check on me when I didn't show up at the staff party. He caught me just before I collapsed on the floor in the waiting. 

But Keith didn't care anymore.

"Right! Because he's always at the right place, at the right time when it comes to you!" he shouted at me before the nurses ushered him out of the room.

I would never forget his snarling face. Keith, who was always so cool, so happy and mesmerising, suddenly frightened me. It became clear that he was not someone to be taken for granted. He might be patient, but he would not be made a fool of. And that was exactly what I had done. I made a fool of him and took him for granted because I was so focused on losing Millie that I forgot about keeping everyone else, including him. Especially him.

From then on, Keith was always there. Right there. All the time. He held me throughout the funeral service because I couldn't hold my own weight, all the while eyeing Jeremy, warning him to keep his place. And when I told him I had to find a new place to stay because the landlord doubled the rent on Millie's house, he wordlessly and without question packed my things and moved me into his studio apartment, making sure I wouldn't need to take up Jeremy's offer to buy the house himself.

Yes, he was there. Making sure I never needed anyone again.

But he was cold. He was angry. I lost his trust. He no longer believed he had nothing to worry about. He insisted I stay away from Jeremy. Jeremy! The man who paid for Millie's funeral because all the money we managed to save had gone into my lessons, course fees and her medical appointments. Jeremy, who fought tooth and nail with me and begged me with tears in his eyes, to let him help me so that I could keep Millie's house. Jeremy, the only person who understood how lost I was without her and who called every Friday night in secret, at eight p.m. on the dot, to check in on me.

That was our relationship now. A quick weekly phone call that was full of lies.

He heard the misery in my voice when I told him things were great. And I heard the loneliness in his when he said everything was fine. I yearned so much to hold him, to ease his pain and maybe let him ease some of mine. But that couldn't happen. Not without completely breaking Keith.

I tried talking to Sosa about it, but her own mess had swallowed her and she was barely keeping afloat. 

Her mother had finally fled with some divorcee she'd been having an affair with for the past five years. Her father was spending days on end without coming home and, when he did, he reeked of alcohol. Shaun was openly tired of being the other guy and the complexity of her position was finally catching up with her.

So yes, everything was a great big mess. Just like this room. I reminded myself of my promise to Millie for the fifth time that day. I'd be fine. I wouldn't dwell in darkness.

And deep down, I knew that things could be fine if I could just get the damn clothes to smell as fresh as when she did the laundry.