Chapter 44

Chapter 44 of 56 · 10-minute read

Mid-October

Monday – Full Moon in Aries

“Hey, baby.”

“Dixxie!” I throw my arms around his neck as I descend the steps from the behavioral ward. He’s warm in his leather jacket, and I’m cold from a sudden blast of October air. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

I haven’t seen him in a week, not since the night he rushed home from Tallahassee to find me at the ICU waiting room and helped us get Mama into her temporary room just ahead of Everett’s intervention. Dix and I have talked several times a day, but less each day. Something is definitely different between us.

I learned my lesson a few years ago with my beloved Jesse: if a man has all his focus on you and suddenly that pattern of intense focus changes, it’s on something or someone else now. Energy doesn’t divert that quickly in the normal course of a relationship. Instead, it ebbs and flows and maybe ebbs completely over time. I can read energy well enough to notice the swirl away from me this week.

The old me would’ve wondered what I’d done wrong. The Lauren who was married to Quentin would’ve been a basket case trying to figure out how I’d screwed up. My head would just normally go there, there to that place of me doing something wrong. I understand why now, and how that started in my abusive childhood and was always reinforced by my dad because someone had to take the blame for angering or disappointing him and my mom couldn’t stand up for herself, let alone for me.

I admit, I haven’t been as good a girlfriend as I might have wanted to be under normal circumstances, but my attention has been primarily on taking care of my mom, and he’s understood that. He’s done his best to distract me from the heaviness of my mom’s decline and lighten my burden. We’ve never progressed to a sexual relationship, but it’s been sweet enough between us. We’ve both been trying to figure out how a romantic relationship looks over fifty when our greatest commonality is that we were lustful for each other when our hormones were fresh and raging, and neither of us has a great model for that. He’s not Mr. Right, but he’s been Mr. Right-Now when I needed the extra support. I don’t want to lose him as a friend, but if our relationship doesn’t grow, I’m not sure if it has anywhere to go.

Dixon’s been good to me in a lot of ways, and I’ve been supportive of his financial dreams and hosted him for a home-cooked dinner more times than I can count, even with Mama enjoying British dramas in the next room. We’ve sat on the porch and watched dragonflies in the afternoon and fireflies in the evening while talking mostly about our high school days and all the unmarred youthful idealism that adult life has a way of crushing. I wish we had more in common, and that I favored him as much as he does me. I have no idea where our relationship is going, and I’ve waited to see him again to ask, but I treasure my friendship with him and with his little brother, though in different ways: Dixon has always pushed to be my boyfriend or more, and Virgil has always pushed to be the best friend I can imagine.

“Wow, baby, that’s quite the hug!” Dixon grins down at me and then kisses my neck and pecks my cheek. “How’s your mama?”

I pull away, my heels touching the ground again. I immediately feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. “No better. I’ve been here at every visitation this week to wave at her through the picture window while she held the phone and asked who I was. Yesterday and today, she stayed in her room, so I couldn’t wave to her. I call and someone on staff puts the phone on speaker so we can talk, but she just mumbles while I try to be bright and cheery. They told me just now not to come back to the window unless they call to tell me she’s up for it.”

Priyanka says my mom seemed to make a little progress early in the week, then started refusing food or even to try to walk. She’s concerned that Mama has given up and might need to be moved sooner rather than later to full-time hospice care, but other than a slightly weaker pulse, Mama’s vitals aren’t showing enough signs yet that she’s “actively dying.”

Sheesh, I’ve come to hate that term.

Dix pulls me close and kisses the top of my head. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know there’s not much I can do for you, but if there’s anything, just say so.”

I promise I will, but it’s not in my nature to make demands.

Wrapping my arms around him inside his warm jacket, I sink into his arms. Dix has been great! A week ago, after I checked my mom into the behavioral ward, Dix took me back to my mom’s house and, for the first time, we cuddled all night. I told him how much he’d meant to me and that maybe I was ready to take the next step in our relationship. I told him I had feelings, but I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t tell him I was in love with him because I’m not. But I do appreciate him, and I’ve become incredibly fond of him. He didn’t tell me he was in love with me either, and I know he appreciates me and is fond of me. He’s pursued me since May, but instead of seeming delighted, he made little noises of hmmm and mmmm.

I slept in his arms that night, the first time since I’ve been back home. I thanked the Old Gods for everything they’d given me, for the lucid conversation with my mom, and for sending Dix to hold me when I needed it. Then something happened that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Or rather, didn’t happen. I’d thought that after my revelation of feelings for Dix that we might end up making love, or at least exploring our affection beyond deep kisses. He’d been pressing gently for some kind of commitment from me, but I’d been “taking it slow,” and he’d honored my boundaries.

Sometime before dawn, I woke from another vision intruding on my dreams. Finding Dix awake, I’d snuggled against him, half-expecting to find an erection hard against my back, but nothing. I’d chalked it up to both of us being so tired, but he’d been content to be quiet with his own thoughts, and that itself was unusual. I’d told him then how important he’d become in my life, and how wonderful I thought he was. He feigned sleep, but I could tell by the measure of his breaths that he was wide awake.

“I haven’t seen you in a week,” I say as I release Dix’s waist and step back to look up at him. I hate how needy my voice sounds. It’s not really so much a tone of need as it is confusion and concern for him. “Is everything good with your real estate deal? Did something happen? Are you okay?”

He glances into the distance at a bench at the edge of one of the hospital parks. “Um, yeah, it’s fine. Just, um, been busy.”

I nod. His energy feels withdrawn to me, like he’s holding it inside a shield around him. Jesse used to do that near the end of our marriage when he was ashamed of something he’d done.

That’s it. That’s the energy I feel from Dix: shame.

Dixon tilts his head toward the bench. “Can we sit down? We need to talk.”

Every nerve ending in my body lights with fire. Talk about triggers! I divorced Quent a decade ago, and yet that one phrase can still send me into a panic, regardless of who says it or why. My face is hot.

Shivering, I follow him to the bench. He sheds his jacket and drapes it across my shoulders to keep me warm. From here I can smell a fish fry on the other side of the park where a local business club is raising money for a scholarship. I’ve lived over half a century, yet I feel like the same shy, awkward teen who adored Dixon—the popular school senior, quarterback, and homecoming king.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and studies the fallen sycamore leaves at his feet. “I don’t know how to say this.”

We’re done. He doesn’t have to say it. It’s all over his energy.

He slides his fingers through mine and kisses the back of my hand. “When you came back to this little town, I thought maybe you were the one I’d always been waiting for. I thought that up until this week. I, uh, I had to call my ex-wife about some property we co-owned. When we split up, we decided to wait for the market to improve before selling it, and, well, the market for this piece of property is hot-hot-hot right now. Anyway, we got to talking. We’ve been talking every day this week. For hours every time. And we agreed to give it a try again. I’m flying up to Atlanta to see her this afternoon. I’m, uh, already packed. But I wanted to check on you first.”

So this is how we do it. This is how we be grownups. This is how, at mid-life rather than in our younger years, we decide that things either aren’t working or aren’t working well enough. This is how we date for almost half a year and still neither of us ever become as invested as we’d like.

I stare into the distance at a line of spindly Bradford pear trees, the leaves still green but ready to turn bright red at the first frost.

My time with Dixon Caine has not been a waste. I’ve enjoyed his company, even if I can’t imagine ever having much more of a relationship than we’ve had throughout the summer. The last man I dated after losing Jessie had been for only a few weeks, and it had ended badly, with me angry at the attempts at manipulation. Dixon has never been like that. In fact, kudos to him for actually having this talk instead of just ghosting me. For being a grown-up. Just not a grown-up I have a lot in common with.

I take a few steady breaths and check myself. I wait for the sting, but there really isn’t one. Maybe if my mind weren’t on my mom so much, but there’s no sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and no urge to run throw up on the nearest tree. Any sting I feel has nothing to do with Dixon or the way he’s treated me which has, for the most part, been extraordinarily well, with the exception of a rocky first date. There’s an echo in it of past break-ups, both with the relationships that meant the world to me and ones that are barely memorable. If I can step outside of this moment of mutual rejection of each other, then⁠—

“Are you okay, baby?”

Slowly, I nod and turn to smile at him. “Yeah. Yeah, actually, I’m fine.”

He chuckles. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly doesn’t help my ego. Laurie, listen. This has nothing to do with you. I swear it.”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” I laugh. I can’t help it.

“More than you will ever know!” Relaxing, he twists to look at me on the bench. “I really do care for you, Laurie. I don’t want to lose what we have had.”

“Me either, Dix. I’m glad we found each other again, even for a short time.”

“Me, too. I know people say this all the time, but I do hope we can still be friends. I’ll call and check in on you when I can.”

“I don’t wanna lose your friendship either, Dix. But I do have a favor to ask of you.”

“Anything.”

“Please don’t delete my phone number⁠—”

“Of course not!”

“But please do delete all the text messages we’ve exchanged. We can start over with new ones, if you’d like, but I don’t want some other woman getting jealous and going through your phone, and then some screenshots of our highly inappropriate conversations get blasted all over social media.”

Dix frowns at me. “Oh, she’d never do that⁠—”

Rather than say anything, I simply roll my eyes.

He stares at me for a moment as if thinking through possible scenarios and then laughs loudly. “Yep. Yep, you’re absolutely right. I’ll delete our texts before I hit the city limits, okay?”

“Deal.”

“Friends forever, though, okay?” He gives me a tight hug. He holds me a little too long. I sense both the affection in him and the relief. In that way, I suppose we’re both matched.

I release his hug and shrug out of his leather jacket. Regardless of how much we might both want to remain friends, I can’t imagine it. Whatever ex he reunites with is not going to want him to remain my friend and share quiet confidences or dirty jokes.

And that’s the part that makes me sad.

I wait alone in the park as I watch Dixon leave. He rolls down the driver’s side window as he circles the parking lot, waves widely to me, and then blows me a kiss.

At the edge of the park, along the walkway between the building that houses the behavioral ward and the much wider, flat building that comprises the nursing home and the assisted living facility, as well as Virgil’s office, Virgil stands stock-still, observing me from a distance. His legs are wide, his back straight, his stag-headed cane in front of him at arm’s length, both hands kept over the stag’s antlers. His legs and the cane look like a tripod under his torso. As soon as he notices me noticing him, he begins to make his way toward me.

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