Goodbye to the Love I Lost Eight Years Ago novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Favor
Judith asks Annie again to stay away from Elliot, Annie refuses to promise, and Elliot's text invites her to lunch with his fiancée.
Judith Rhodes came to my house the night I got home from my last surgery.
Mom had just tucked a blanket over my legs and set the walker where I could reach it.
I still wore the hospital bracelet on my wrist.
Mom's phone leaned against the lamp on the dresser with its red dot lit.
She recorded everything now: doctors, bills, insurance calls.
I had stopped noticing.
Judith stood in my bedroom doorway with a covered casserole dish in both hands.
She did not come in.
"Annie," she said. "I know I have no right to ask you for anything."
Her face was red up to her hairline.
I knew what was coming before she said it.
Eight years ago she had stood in a hospital doorway with the same red face.
I was twenty-one, and a doctor had told me I had cancer two hours before.
I was still crying when Judith came in and got down on her knees on the linoleum.
"Elliot just got into a doctoral program in London," she had said. "If he finds out you're sick, he'll never get on that plane."
"You two have loved each other since you were six. If you love him, let him go."
She had it all arranged.
She had paid a boy named Dale Ferris five hundred dollars.
All I had to do was kiss Dale in the parking lot while Elliot watched from his car.
Then I was supposed to tell Elliot I was done.
I did it.
I kissed a boy I had met that morning, and I watched Elliot's face change through a windshield.
Then I told him I had never loved him.
He left for London nine days later and never called me once.
Now Judith set the casserole on my dresser and straightened up.
"Elliot is moving home for good," she said. "He's bringing his fiancée."
"Her name is Courtney Stahl. She was in his program the whole eight years."
"She's five months pregnant, and they're getting married in two weeks."
I looked at the white roses on my nightstand.
The card in them said: Welcome home, Annie! Can't wait to meet you! Courtney.
Only Judith had known which day I would be discharged.
I figured she had told Courtney.
"Courtney is a lovely girl," Judith said. "She picked those out herself."
"I'm glad she did."
"Elliot is so happy, Annie."
"I won't have anything spoil it. You've always been a sensible girl."
I said nothing.
"If he sees you like this, he'll ask questions," she said. "About then. About you."
Her eyes moved over the walker, the wheelchair folded in the corner, the box of adult underwear on the shelf.
"So could you stay away from him for a while?" she said.
"You don't have much time left anyway, do you?"
"In your condition, you shouldn't be going out at all."
Mom, who had been standing at the foot of the bed with her arms crossed, took one step forward.
I caught her sleeve.
"Mom. Let me."
It took her several seconds to let her hands drop.
I looked back at Judith.
"I never told Elliot why I left," I said. "I won't tell him now."
Judith's shoulders came down.
"But I'm not promising to stay away from him."
Her shoulders went up again.
"Annie. He is getting married in two weeks."
"Then he'll be married in two weeks."
"I begged you once," she said. "I'm not going to do it twice."
"You didn't have to kneel the first time," I said.
"I would have said yes standing up."
She flinched.
I had spent eight years in hospital beds missing her son.
She wanted a promise I could not make.
I did not tell her what the surgeon had said on Friday.
If she wanted to believe I was dying, she could.
Judith picked up her purse.
"Eat something, dear," she said at the door. "You look so thin."
She left.
We listened to her heels go down the hall and the front door close.
Mom reached over and tapped her phone.
The red dot went out.
She slid it into her apron pocket and said nothing.
Then my own phone buzzed on the blanket.
It was a number I had never deleted.
Elliot: Mom says you're home. I'd like to see you. Lunch Saturday at one? Courtney wants to meet you.
I read it three times.
Mom was watching me.
"You can't be serious," she said.
I thought about Judith's face when I said "then he'll be married."
I thought about a boy at a windshield eight years ago who had believed every word I told him.
I typed: I'll be there.
Then I put the phone face down on the blanket and pressed my palm over it.
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