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No matter how many times Abby looked at the table, she had a hard time understanding how she was supposed to do anything in her dining room, even just stand there, without envisioning her mother lying in a hospital bed, her condition deteriorating as she relied on Abby and Carla to take care of her.
Maybe she had put it back together too soon. She felt guilty, wondering if that meant she was in too much of a hurry to get back to normal. Was it selfish? Was she having a reasonable reaction?
At the same time, there was no purpose to leaving the room empty now that the hospital bed and medical supplies had been cleared away. What would that really do? Maybe she didn’t need any reminders of how hard it was to watch Patricia suffer and not even recognize her.
Buck was still around and had offered to pick up some Thai food so they could eat dinner together. He thought it might help her to share a meal at the dining room table to give her a sense of normalcy again, even if it wasn’t anything fancy. Although she had plenty of food in the house thanks to her friends and neighbors, she decided to take him up on the offer. Before he left, he set the table to make her feel like it would be a normal night at home. But she still wasn’t so sure.
“You’re still hungry, right?” he asked when he came back holding a bag of food. “I have your chicken and rice stir fry right here.”
“It smells amazing from here.” She reached into the bag and took out the container, and then walked over to the table to sit down. He grabbed his meal, a red curry, and sat across from her.
“I just thought you might like something different than casseroles or vegetable trays, or meat and cheese trays. Or lasagna.” He smiled. “You know, I always wondered what it was about somebody dying that causes people to think there’s only three or four kinds of food in the world. I mean, you still like the same things you liked before you started grieving.
“Sorry,” he said, noticing Abby wasn’t responsive or even smiling back. “That was kind of insensitive, as if I expect that your mother’s death isn’t going to change you.”
“No, actually, I see what you’re saying,” she replied. “I don’t want to lose my sense of self in all of this. There were a few times when Mom was having a bad day where I thought about not going to work. But it’s not like that would have stopped her from eventually getting worse, and oddly enough, focusing on other people’s emergencies or problems was kind of an escape for me. It meant I could block out what was going on at home.”
“You have to be in the here and now in our line of work. There’s no focusing on the scene I was called to yesterday or what might happen tomorrow when I answer the alarm that’s sounding right this minute. Not to mention, every call gives me a new chance to save a life.”
“Honestly? Your being here is saving mine right now. Not that I’m in any trouble. And besides, I saved yours on our first date. It’s almost as if we’re coming full circle, except you’re hopefully not going to have to do a tracheotomy on me if I choke on a vegetable. But you’re sparing me from having to go through this alone. If I did, I’d feel like I was dying too, at least on the inside.”
“Well, food tends to solve a lot of problems. There’s something almost therapeutic about finding something good to eat and having conversation with someone you love, or even just sitting on the couch with a favorite snack watching TV at the end of a long workday.”
“Or sitting with them at the dining room table they just put back,” she added. “And being there for them after one of the most painful losses of their life, making sure they eat.” Then, she felt a smile coming across her face.
“You’re right,” she told him. “This is better than grief food. Thank you.”
“I think this table can use some decoration too,” Buck said. “Why don’t we go out tomorrow or later this week and pick out some flowers, or another kind of centerpiece? Now, not that I’d have many helpful suggestions, but you can do all the talking and browsing, and I’ll go along with whatever you think looks nice.”
“You will?”
“Sure. I know it’s still weird to see the house put back together and you’re trying to figure out how to move on, but this is your home. You should still feel like you belong here. I know it still stings, but over time, you’ll be able to relax again. Our meals will feel more comfortable, and we’ll have more natural conversation.”
“That sounds like something to look forward to.”
Abby continued to eat her stir fry. She was pretty sure that after dinner, she’d feel full, both in terms of having enough to eat and taking one step closer to healing.