This Was Goodbye

When we left Chicago five hours earlier, there were four of us. Now, there were only three.

“Such a beautiful campus,” Mary Ann said. “I told him! I said to him, Natey, this is where you belong!”

She waved her pointer finger near the window to her right with surety. Mary Ann always said everything with surety.

Pat was driving. He lifted his finger to scratch his coarse, peppery sideburn. They ran down the sides of his face and joined to create one full and spectacular beard. He squeezed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and flicked his eye droplets onto the leather dash.

Mary Ann reached over and used her thumb to make circles on his shirt. “You okay, Patty? A hard day, I know.”

He cleared his throat and nodded.

Nate’s Michigan school was smaller than the design I built in my head, even after thumbing through all the brochures. The buildings looked like large, elegant homes. It was quaint, with its cobblestone pathways joining the buildings and monumental trees that probably wore a myriad of bright colors once fall hit.

When we arrived at Nate’s dorm, his roommate was already there. The room smelled like chicken noodle soup. It reminded me of being home from school, sick on the couch watching The Price is Right, while the familiarity of school and friends and inside jokes continued on without me for the day.

The roommate walked over to us, bony and barefoot. “I’m Lance,” he said.

“Nate.” He extended his hand while balancing a box under his opposite arm.

“This is my mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey.” Lance reached out and shook their hands.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

“And my girlfriend, Heather.” Lance didn’t reach out for a handshake when he introduced me. He only squinted his eyes, avowed an annoyance, as if to say I hope you don’t plan on visiting much.

“I’ll let you folks get situated.” Lance slipped his feet into a pair of slides near his bed and left the room.

“Let’s get some fresh air in here!” Mary Ann set her Diet Coke down on the window ledge and used her mom-strength to release the window from its painted seal at the edge.

Pat and Nate made trips back and forth from the car while Mary Ann and I assembled his room. She made his bed and hugged the pillows, fluffing them like dough. I unpacked boxes near his desk. Bundles of tangled wires and power cords, shower shoes, a caddy with body soap and a lifetime supply of toothbrushes.

And while I sat at his desk attempting to untangle a coil of wires that would most likely never separate, I heard Mary Ann’s lipstick-caked mouth open and close a number of times, as though her mouth was alive, lips fighting to suppress her words. Then, she finally spoke.

“Hopefully this will get you excited for college, Heather.” I turned around and she swept her arm over the fitted sheet, flattening it. “Not this college of course, but a college.”

She walked to the window and picked her Diet Coke up off the ledge, bending the raspberry-tinged straw tip between her lips.

I shrugged. “Maybe one day.”

I could never really get comfortable around her. She allowed me into her house, but never really invited me in. When Nate introduced us for the first time, she smiled as she sized me up. It wasn’t until he told her where I lived, where I was from, that her face downturned with disapproval. My 900 square foot house could have fit in their kitchen.

Her eyes entered me, reaching down inside, probing my intentions with her son. Suspicious. Speculating. Would it be an unplanned pregnancy? Or was I simply after the Dempsey's old money?

She never extended an invitation for Sunday dinners. While the older Dempsey brothers were seated next to their wives and girlfriends, Nate sat alone. At prom, Mary Ann didn’t take photos of us as a couple, she merely asked Nate to stand in front of a flowering bush and took pictures of him in his tuxedo. Nate going to college meant the end of us, the end of me. Here, he would find a proper wife. One with a family and an education to show for.

And when the work in the dorm was done, and the room was set up, we stood awkwardly, as if hoping to freeze time, avoiding the inevitable goodbye that crowded the space more than the empty boxes.

We walked outside. Nate leaned in to hug his mother. And though he towered over her, she dominated the embrace, tucking her arms under his armpits as if to lift him. She kissed her finger and raised it to his cheek. He jerked back but stopped himself and allowed her to flatten her finger into his skin. Pat shook Nate’s hand and pulled him in for a hug. I waited like a by-stander, hands crossed in front of me, waiting for my turn to say good-bye.

***

Earlier that year, while Nate was busy, Mary Ann approached me in their kitchen.

“I thought you’d like to be the first to congratulate him.” She held it out, and I saw the school logo in the corner, the Mary Ann Dempsey invisible watermark that said your time here is done on the paper. I took it from her hand and read the letter. Words jumped out at me and implanted themselves into my dizzied brain. CONGRATULATIONS. DEPOSIT. HOUSING. He got in.

While I read, she watched me with an intense gape of satisfaction. A smile developed in the crook of her mouth. I could feel the skin of my neck ignite with warmth and ribbons of heat drew a deep reddened color in my face, tears in my eyes. I blinked wildly to attempt to hold them in. I couldn’t allow myself to cry in her presence.

I looked up at her. “I’m so happy for him.”

“Yes, we are too. I think he’s ready to leave all this behind and start his life. Don’t you agree?”

And my breath, my rage, my sadness, and yes, a tinge of happiness for him, swelled into a balloon and quickly released, deflating and releasing tears that fell heavy down my cheeks.

Mary Ann lifted her finger to my face and caught one on the tip of her finger. “Happy tears.”

Later that night, while the Dempseys slept, I turned up the volume on their television and straddled Nate on Mary Ann’s green leather loveseat. After he finished, I moved to the cushion next to him and sat pants-less, allowing him to seep onto the fabric. I smiled as I imagined her, scratching at the stain with her French manicured tip, racking her brain about what could have spilled there as she removed it.

***

They watched from the car as I said goodbye to Nate. I didn’t tell him to call me later. We didn’t promise a visit on a weekend in the near future. He leaned in to kiss me, and I offered my cheek to him. He didn’t try to stop me as I turned and walked to the car.

Once I buckled in the back seat, I rested my temple on the window. Mary Ann lowered the visor and poked at her eyes with her pinky nail, fixing her mascara that collected under her eyes.

“Mrs. Dempsey, I don’t believe you ever told me where you went to college.”

For the first time during the trip, Pat opened his mouth to speak.

“I actually went to school here. I graduated, let’s see…” his eyes rolled up to meet his forehead. “Wow, it has to be over thirty years ago.”

“Is this where you met?” I locked eyes with Mary Ann through the visor mirror. I didn’t invite a smile on my face, it merely appeared.

Where were you, Mary Ann? And what did you do, thirty years ago, to catch a man who belonged to this place?

Mary Ann slammed the visor shut and pressed her temple against the window. Five hours to freedom, we thought.