Promise the Moon

Deleted Scene

Elizabeth Photo

Natalie Talks to Will About Marlie

(Took this out again to keep up the pace, but I really liked this scene...)

Natalie

Dad was home with Marlie when we returned from the beach, and I watched as they worked a crossword together, Dad in his recliner and Marlie perched on the chair’s arm.

“How ’bout flatter,” Marlie said.

“No, it’s six letters, see?” Dad’s voice was softly lilting, almost like he was talking to a child. I remembered him sitting just like this with Mom, how Mom would shout out some wholly inappropriate answer like, “Your cousin Florence!” and they’d both crack up.

Now Mom was watching them with her hands folded in her lap, smiling when my dad smiled but otherwise expressionless, and I wondered if she felt any sense of betrayal. Or if I was the only one who cared.

Marlie left soon after dinner, and after getting the kids into bed, I went down to the living room where Dad was sitting with Mom on the couch, watching TV. I sat in the chair opposite them and said, “So, I wanted to talk.”

Dad raised his eyebrows, then muted the TV. “About?”

I glanced at Mom, who was now sorting a jar of mixed nuts into separate bowls, one of the tasks he sometimes assigned to keep her busy and feeling useful. “Could we go into the kitchen? It’s about Marlie.”

Dad’s face slackened. He turned to Mom. “Yes,” he said, “okay,” and then he scooped the separated nuts into the jar, shook the jar and handed it back to Mom. “Okay,” he said again, then followed me into the kitchen where he immediately turned to face me. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said.

“Dad. Dad, look, let’s sit, okay?”

He slowly, warily, lowered himself into a chair. “Will I need a glass of cold water for this?”

“I don’t think so.” I sat across from him and tried to smile. “I guess I just wanted to say…” And then I stopped. What did I want to say? What I really wanted to say was that Mom was still alive, that she’d loved him with all her heart and deserved loyalty. But I knew I had no right. He’d stuck by her for a decade as she got progressively worse, never complained or showed frustration. So instead I said, “I wanted to say that I know how you feel about Marlie, and it’s okay.”

For a full minute he didn’t respond, but then he stood and said, “I do need some cold water after all.” He poured himself a glass from the sink and then sat back down and stared into it.

“You didn’t have to hide it from me, okay? I’m not twelve years old. And I have some idea what you’ve been going through.”

“We haven’t done anything, I want you to know that. She’s just been a good friend to me, a companion.”

With a shock I saw there were tears in his eyes. I gripped the edge of my chair seat. “That’s not my business, Dad.”

“Of course it’s your business. Your mother–” He shook his head. “I’ve been with Mom forty years, you know that? Do you understand how it is? You’re with someone forty years, and every real memory you have is with them. So when they start disappearing, you can’t think back on any part of your life without seeing it in terms of what you’ve lost. Because I adored her, Natalie.”

He raised his glass to take a quick gulp of his water, as if voicing his adoration had unnerved him. He brought the back of his hand to his mouth and said, “I always will adore her but I’ve lost my past, so all I can think of without feeling crazy is my present and my future. So now I want to make whatever years I have left worth something.”

I reached for his hand and he startled, but let me hold it. I thought of Seth gripping my hand on the beach that morning, and the feeling I’d had of being torn away from something integral to my survival, actually feeling the tearing and the ragged edges.

“Whatever happens, it doesn’t make the past any less important,” Dad said, and I squeezed his hand, then dropped it.

“I know,” I said. But that wasn’t true. It couldn’t possibly be true. How could you entertain the possibility of there being someone else unless you believed the love you’d lost could be replaceable? Like a pet. Or a pair of shoes.

Maybe Josh wasn’t here anymore, but I still loved him with all my heart. There was no room in me for anyone else.

Dad stood and walked back to the living room and I heard him say something to Mom, soft, maybe consoling. I stepped into the hallway.

“–and you were trying to teach me how to dance? Swing, waltz, rumba, you were so graceful and I had about the dexterity of a ham hock. So you take me to this shindig down in wine country, and you try and glide the ham hock around the floor, and I end up stepping on your foot. Remember that?”

Mom laughed, either because she understood or, more likely, just reacting to the tone of his voice.

“I know,” Dad said. “And so here you are, hobbling around but still trying to dance, and you never said a word about it. I saw you hobbling, and I was too embarrassed to say anything, even when I saw you take off your shoe, how blue your toe was. I must’ve broke something, and just because you didn’t want to make me feel bad, you went on like nothing happened, probably broke it worse. I think then’s when I decided I wanted to marry you.”

I leaned to rest my hand on the wall, and spread my fingers against it. Then turned away, back into the kitchen, so they wouldn’t hear me cry.