Part 27
“What about the letter,” Lola hissed.
“It’s fine, I have it,” he smiled. “And I will show it to you, but your mom thinks I‘m trying to take you on date. She keeps looking at me like she did when I was sixteen. It’s freaking me out. If Tom comes then she’ll know that it’s not, and she won’t question why we’re together so much.” Lola looked at him a little confused.
“Well, I think it might take more than one day to figure out what’s going on.”
She hadn’t considered this before, not really. She looked at Mark again and speculated on what her mom had told her earlier. She couldn’t tell, but she decided it didn’t matter. She couldn’t solve this on her own, and she was tired of feeling alone.
Part 28
Mark idly flipped through the radio station as they drove silently through town. Tommy sat in the back, a faint glow from his phone illuminating his face, while Lola stared at her reflection in the side mirror.
She looked older now. The glow of twenty-four hidden behind the features of a grieving widow. The onslaught of puffiness in her cheeks from water gain had already begun to show. She looked away.
“So,” she tried to say casually. Mark raised his eyebrows in response. “I haven’t been to Luigi’s in forever.”
“You think you’ll be able to handle a whole main course?” he glanced down at her belly.
“Well, I’ve managed to make it all day so far.” she said brightly.
“No way!” Tommy called from the backseat. “Maybe your vomiting won’t wake me up in the morning.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “I doubt anything actually wakes you up anymore. All I hear is snoring.”
“How is it? Staying at your parents?” Mark asked pulling into the parking lot.
“Eh, it’s gotten easier.”
They found a space close to the front and parked. Mark led the way through the double wooden doors where the hostess immediately greeted them, and led them past the standing crowd and to a table.
“I made a call,” Mark whispered back to Lola. “It pays to know the chef.” he said with a wink.
Their meal was more elegant than she remembered in the past, but it had been so long since she had enjoyed anything like this. It felt like a lifetime ago. They didn’t waste a lot of time, and as soon as the bill came, they quickly left the table. Lola was relieved, although she had tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about the letter hidden somewhere close to Mark. Another sign that her husband was still trying to communicate with them.
Once they pulled into the driveway, Tommy excused himself, and headed back in the house, leaving Mark and Lola sitting in a quiet car.
“So,” Lola started, feeling like she was hanging by a wire.
“I know you want to see it,” Mark said laughing. “Hold on it’s in the glove compartment.” He reached over unclipping the latch, grazing the back of his hand on her knee. Lola kept still trying to keep her mother’s words out of her head.
He took a deep breath and handed her the envelope. The paper was soft and worn, as if it had been opened and closed many times. On the outside Mark was scrawled in the same messy handwriting hers had been.
She licked her lips, and slid the letter out. It too was worn.
And there it was. Her husband’s writing.
Mark,
There was a time long ago, when we shared what we knew. When the leaves turned to brown, and the trees turned few. We knew what we needed, and we saw what we saw. I never took for granted, although I had all. Please take what I have if there’s a ever a spur, and please just in case, keep an eye on her.
Lola stared at his writing, a small tear she couldn’t blink away crept down her cheek. She knew what this letter meant.
“He knew something was going to happen,” she whispered.
“I thought you’d be able to put it together pretty quickly,” he said. “And I should ask for forgiveness again…after the apology dinner.” he shook his head embarrassed. The redness in his cheeks looked foreign on his face. “I invited Tommy along to put off showing you that.”
Lola understood immediately. Kyle had been referencing her throughout the whole poem. A time long ago when they shared what they knew referenced his time with Mark in college, shortly before Kyle had met her. The leaves represented the fall, when Lola had broken things off with Mark, and had started her relationship with Kyle. But he wanted Mark to know he never took it for granted, and if it there was a spur…or meaning if there was a sudden action…that he wanted Mark to take care of her.
“But all of this is open,” Lola said. “We worked through all of this, you became a friend to me just like you were a friend to Kyle. You even told me the night we broke up that you had already moved on. You said you were relieved.”
“Did I?” he asked. “I can’t even remember what I said that night.” He looked at Lola, that same expression he had in her room earlier. There was an ache in his eyes. He slid his warm hand onto her cheek and smoothed away the stray tear that lingered with his thumb. She tried to look away, but she couldn’t break his gaze. Her breath grew more rapid as her brain tried to keep up. She needed to move, to get out of the car, but she couldn’t.
Mark looked at her from one eye to the other.
“You should go,” he finally whispered, and lowered his hand to his lap.
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