Postscript

The drive across country was absolutely fantastic. I have lots of great memories of that trip, but my favorite image would have to be driving through the Arizona desert with the car top down, ElG sporting an American Flag bandana around his head, with both of us car-dancing to a blaring “I Will Survive.”

* * * * * *

My divorce was final on November 7. There were no fireworks. There was nothing, really. I got paperwork in the mail a few days later.

* * * * * *

I stopped hearing from Marcus sometime in August, I believe. Just stopped. I figured he’d met someone on his travels, which he had. We eventually resumed communicating, but it was not like it had been. I was in the middle of uprooting my entire existence when we’d “met” and he wanted or needed or treated it as something much lighter. I understand that, but it sucked at the time.

The first time I’d meet him would be the day before Thanksgiving, at a nice restaurant downtown. It was weird and uncomfortable. I told him he’d broken my heart at a time when I didn’t have heartbreaking to spare. He apologized, but he had no way of knowing what all I’d been going through.

Nothing ever came of it. He went on with his life; traveling, moving overseas, taking more and more important jobs. Me, here in SF, finding my way.

We email occasionally. Sometimes, he reads this blog. He still makes me laugh.

* * * * * *

ElG and I dated for three years. It was an open relationship the whole time, in part because I didn’t want to rush into anything too serious right away, and in part...

We were always great friends. We never should have dated.

There were lots of things about us that never meshed. We were good complements most of the time, but the rest of the time we just exhausted each other.

After three years – three years of changes and moves and jobs and new friends and new lovers and a million new experiences – we got to That Critical Point in our relationship. Something had to be done. We loved each other completely, and needed to make a decision about the rest of our lives.

We got engaged. That, we felt, would settle everything. And it did, just not the way we’d expected.

Because as these things go, the engagement did not make everything clearer and better; it made everything heavier and more tiring.

About four months later, calmly and rationally and tearfully, we agreed to just love each other as friends. We were both relieved.

Plus four cats is just too many.

* * * * * *

My mother was never well enough to receive chemo. She lived another year anyway.

* * * * * *

In the few months after I moved to San Francisco, Dave would email me a few times, strictly about business (tax filings, car registration, etc.) or to ask if the cats were okay. Not me or my family or my mother, but the cats.

And then he stopped emailing me altogether.

My youngest sister, Samantha (who I have left out of this story almost entirely but who was probably impacted more by our parents’ illnesses than anyone), confronted David. She would call him periodically, reminding him of promises he made to her after he left me.

She went to see his place once. The townhouse he’d bought.

She said it looked exactly like our house. He had a lot of our furniture, and had acquired new things that looked the same. He even had dried flowers (something I had been big into for a while) around the place.

It made me feel better, hearing this. It was evident he’d wanted nothing more than the life we’d had.

Sam also told me she saw a picture of his new girlfriend in his apartment. She told me, “She’s not as pretty as you. And she’s not thin.”

Ha.

Only once, 14 months after our last conversation, did I get drunk and look up his number and call him. I left a message saying that Healy and Brian were getting married the next day.

* * * * * *

I said a long time ago that I behaved badly but that I thought that, in the end, David behaved worse. And no, maybe it doesn’t matter now. But here is what I find – of all things, of all arguments – most unforgivable.

David never visited my mother. He never called her. He never said goodbye. He and I had lived in their house, under their roof, for over a year. He had been married to her daughter. He had been her son-in-law.

And when she died – it had been almost a year since I’d seen or spoken to him – he sent a paltry fruit basket with a card that read:

To John and Family,

Sorry for your loss.

David _____

* * * * * *

When Healy’s best friend was getting married, her engagement announcement appeared in the paper of our hometown. Directly above David’s wedding announcement.

Which is how I learned that Dave married the girl he started dating the week he left me.

Months later, on a whim, I went to The Knot to see if they’d posted anything about their wedding online. They had.

His wife described how he had proposed, and it was apparent (mostly by her wanton use of exclamation points) that she could not have been more thrilled.

I feel some closure in that.

* * * * * *

Many of you have asked if David reads this blog, and I can only assume the answer is no. It is my belief that he moved on as quickly as humanly possible, and exists now as though our whole life together never happened.

I don’t know where he lives or what he does or if he’s still married or if he has kids.

I don’t actually care that much, either. Except I sometimes wonder if he ever feels ashamed.

* * * * * *

My first apartment in San Francisco was expensive for someone only working part-time, but I didn’t care. It was mine, if only for a year, and I loved it. I loved everything about it.

I loved that I lived in an apartment. I loved the city sounds. I loved overlooking the street. I loved having an old elevator that was broken every other week. I loved having a garbage chute. I loved buying furniture for a single girl.

I know how much ya’ll love my Cheetah Print chair.

I was moved into my apartment by mid-November, with enough furniture that I could actually sleep there. My cats arrived stunned but thrilled to see their mommy.

And nothing was better than “unpacking.” Nate and ElG and I rescued my boxes from Nate's poor, overrun apartment (“Oh, wow! I had no idea I’d sent so many…”) and it was like Christmas opening them.

Oh, hey! Salt shakers! A cookbook! A...light bulb? What? How did underwear...?

* * * * * *

I would eventually do all the things I’d moved to San Francisco to try.

I mean, less than a week after I arrived in the city, I would attend Halloween in the Castro where I’d be kissed by a girl I thought was hitting on ElG. I am pretty sure that Halloween in the Castro is the opposite of Halloween in Fairfield, CT as Mrs. _____ with the nine-year-olds.

But on a grander scale, I would change my whole life. I would have different jobs and would, eventually, re-launch my career. I would take classes. I would try new cuisines and learn to love Indian food and vegetarian chili. I would live in a beautiful loft and throw awesome parties for dozens of people. I would know dozens of people! I would make friends I thought I’d never be able to make as an adult. I would start singing again, and even start an a cappella group.

I would date and find love and lose love and learn that relationships do not have to always be so black and white but that life is made up of our relationships and almost nothing else.

Oh, and I would finally, finally start writing.

* * * * * *

Four years after I would arrive in San Francisco, I would find myself getting ready for my umpteenth first date of the summer.

I would tidy up my fourth apartment in as many years and feed my seven-year-old cats. I would select an outfit as flattering as possible, given my Just-Walking-Around-With-It status, slap on some lipstick, and hope for the best.

I would walk past the cable car – ding! ding! – and head to a tavern in my neighborhood.

There, I would meet a funny man with a bruised smile.

He would apologize for his demeanor. He would humbly say that he’s a bit broken, and not great date material, because, see, he had only just moved to San Francisco from New York. That he was newly separated. That it was painful and complicated. Agonizing.

He would ask if I knew what that felt like.

I would want, immediately and without hesitation to throw myself across the table and hug him, to say I know, Oh God, I know and it will be awful but it will get better. I swear, I promise, there is light here in this city. There is hope and love in this city. There is something mystical about being here, and you will fix what you need to – even if it’s just yourself – and you will heal and find your way. That is what people come here to do. That is what I came here to do. That is what I did.

But I would not say any of that.

Instead, I would just say, “Yes. I know what that feels like,” and I would take another sip of my cocktail and I would smile a little.

“Maybe someday I will tell you about it.”