Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
I put my hand flat on the desk. The booth has gone very quiet, quiet enough that I can hear the board hum. Behind the glass Bex has gone still. Behind the camera my daughter has stepped to the side and is just looking at me. The red light’s still on. I leave it on.
“You’re not the lowest man alive,” I say, and my voice doesn’t come out level, and I quit trying to make it. “You’re the opposite. And I need you to actually hear me, not just be polite while I say it.” I take a breath. “Love doesn’t end when she stops knowing your name. It just gets harder, and you keep doing it anyway. The feeding, the reading to a woman who can’t follow the story, that’s not less than the love you started with. It might be more, because there’s nothing in it for you now and you show up regardless. That’s the worst part you promised her once. You’re in it, and you didn’t run.”
Nothing on the line but breathing.
“And the wanting,” I say. “Somebody who answers back. A hand that holds yours. That’s not a betrayal of her. That’s a man still alive in the middle of the worst thing that ever happened to him. You’re allowed to be lonely inside a love this big. It doesn’t mean you love her any less. It means you’re a person doing something brutally hard, mostly on your own. So find some people. A friend you can be honest with. There are rooms full of folks carrying this same thing. They meet in church basements all over the country, and not one of them will judge you for a word of what you just said. You are not the only one. It only feels that way when the house is quiet and she’s finally asleep.”
“Thank you,” the man says, wrecked and grateful, and the line goes soft and then gone.
I sit there a second. I drag the back of my hand across my eyes, once, and I don’t care that the camera gets it. Paige is wiping her own face with her sleeve and trying to do it where I can’t see.
I should bring the segment in. Cut the light, go back to the safe dark for the last few minutes. Instead, I keep talking.
“I’m going to tell you something I don’t put on the air,” I say. “Since we’re all looking at each other tonight.”
Paige looks at me.
“I had a grandmother, Betty. I met her when I was in college. I was playing a gig and she was there. She took a chance, a leap really, when she introduced herself to me. I never knew she existed until then. I never knew anything about my mom’s family.
“My grandmother was an actress, a long time ago, the old Hollywood kind. My grandfather was a musician. His name was Charlie Page, and he was a jazz musician.” I laugh. “Imagine that. Anyway, he wasn’t a great guy and had died long before I ever met my grandma.
“I followed my grandma back to Los Angeles, to her big white house overlooking the Hollywood Hills. She encouraged me in every way possible. Her words to me were, follow only your dreams. Not the dreams of my father or anyone else. Mine.
“So, I did. I gave up football, my girlfriend, who thankfully took my sorry ass back and became my wife, and my friends. I built a new life and one that I’m proud of. It’s why you’re listening tonight.
“Not long after I moved to California, my grandma died. It was horrible and the first time I had dealt with death. The person who had opened my eyes to a whole other world, was gone, and I was now the owner of this big white house, with all its Hollywood memorabilia. You see, my grandma was the forgiving kind and when Charlie got sick, she let him move back into their home. He’d been divorced from my grandma since my mom was five, but my grandma never stopped loving him. And from all accounts, he always loved my grandma.”
I turn my water glass a slow quarter turn on the desk.
“Here’s the part that matters. In the little time that I knew her, she taught me to pick my own life. Just as she had. All she wanted was her daughter back in her life and to know her grandson. When she couldn’t have the former because of my father, she sought the latter once I was away from him. I will always be thankful that she did. You see, my father had a different life picked out for me before I could even walk. What sports I’d play, which one I’d excel at, the man I’d be, who I’d date. I almost stayed in it because it was all part of the all-American dream. Growing up, I was the golden boy, the kid people flocked to see. I loved it, until I didn’t.” I look, for a second, right into the camera on top of Paige’s phone. “The reason I became Liam Page is because my grandma took a chance, she followed her heart, her dreams and set out to meet her only grandson. She told me the life my father built wasn’t mine, and to go find my own. So, I did. It cost me people. It cost me years. The thing is, I’d do it again tomorrow. There are things I’d change for sure, but I wouldn’t give up the life I created and the friends I met along the way.