It might be the first day in my memory when I do nothing. I eat again, when my stomach is empty, because the grieving book said taking care of exercise and nutrition helps with the process, reinforces the body's ability to live through it. The rest of the day I lie on various surfaces of my house, as I catalog the ten years I've spent with Tall in my life. 

The leather couch is soft but springy and the skin of my arms gets stuck to it, after a while. The tile floor in the kitchen is cool, hard and probably my favorite place, but I can't spread my arms and legs much. The rug in the living room is my least favorite. It's itchy and doesn't soften the hardness of the wood floor, it also has a faint smell of a wet animal I've never noticed before. 

The wood floor is not as cool as the tile, it's sleeker and I make snow angels on it by moving my arms and legs at the same time, dragging my limbs across it and feeling the bumps of each board run across my skin. The shag carpet upstairs is the worst. It reaches out and touches my skin with a million of tiny tentacles, the imaginary tiny spiders crawls from it and onto me. I flick them off and they immediately come back. They are not real and I know it, but I keep flicking. 

I get back into bed and sleep and wake and sleep again, hoping I'll feel something that fits the grief template of the outside world, hoping I can be the man Tall so emphatically told me I am. That caring, kind person he saw might've been only a reflection of him. Without Tall I've lost my resource library of typical human behavior.

My phone rings when I'm in the kitchen making myself a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich for what could be dinner or supper, it's late enough. It's Amelie's ringtone and I want to hear her voice.

"Hello, this is Ben." I know she knows it's me, she's calling my number, but the reply comes automatically. I wait for her "hi" or "how are you" and hear nothing.

"Are you there? Can you hear me?" Getting a call from Amelie with silence on the other end brings back the spidery feeling of the carpet, even though I'm standing on the tile floor of the kitchen.

"I'm here. It's nice to hear your voice." It's so fucking nice to hear hers, but it barely recognizable as Amelie. A nasal quality aggravates the scratchy sick tone of someone with a cold.

"You don't sound like yourself," I say.

"Overuse. I'll have to avoid talking this weekend."

This weekend is in a day and in all my lying on the floor doing nothing my mind was working and I made plans, lots of plans, many tasks and activities that are on several lists on my phone. Next ten days of my life have a schedule for every hour and a supplementary activities in case I finish the ones on the list faster. "I'll be packing up Tall's apartment then. Linda will need to choose the books she's taking to the library. Are you coming?"

"I don't know." After a pause she follow up with, "I'd rather not if you don't need me. You've seen the will then as well?"

I haven't seen it, but don't need to read it, because I've been there with Tall when he added the latest amendment. "My copy was waiting for me here when I got back from New York last night. Sounds like you've read it?"

"I did, and what is a homestead? My name is next to it. Does he have some land somewhere that he owned and I didn't know about?"

"No, it's his apartment. The only property Tall had. It's yours."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." The lawyer came to the rehab facility, and I was the witness. Tall didn't want Amelie to know, didn't want to freak her out. Didn't want her to think she needed to do anything special for him because of his bequest. "It's clearly stated. There are documents that need to be processed and it will take some time, but it's yours. Will be officially yours. Are you going to keep it or sell?" She doesn't reply. She might save money if she moves back in, in case she thinks she has to wait for the official papers to process. "If you plan to move in here, you don't have to wait until the official papers are done, you can do it once we have figured out what to do with his stuff, and you can keep whatever furniture you want. It's technically mine, but I'm not planning to take anything but the humidors for the books that I'm moving to the spare room at my place."

"I don't know. I need to absorb it, I don't' think I have space in my head to go over this." I hear a beep come from her end. "I'm running out of battery," she says, "in case we get disconnected, I'll call you tomorrow."

"I understand, let's talk tomorrow." Her line drops and I'm alone in the kitchen again.

***

Tall's apartment without Tall is not something I've never experienced before. I've been here to fetch things for him, check on the books, and water the plants, the couple of years he tried to have plants and before they died, because neither of us could figure out a good place for them or the amount of water they needed. Angie and Amelie sorted through stuff in the kitchen and bedroom, which I'm grateful for, but the biggest change happens today, when we strip the bookshelves off of their occupants, sort them into "library", "donate", "keep" boxes and transport them to their new homes. Tall never had children after his only son died, he never had animals, he never gardened, but he gave all his love and attention to the books. The mending and restoration of them when he was younger, the curating of his collection, and helping others with theirs.

I moved the humidors to my place yesterday. Friday was a workday for everyone but me and Mom, but Mom couldn't stomach coming to Tall's. I collected everything I wanted to keep from the rest of the apartment and found places for Tall's armchair in my office. It's antique lines clashed with my modern chrome and leather, but it was the right place for it. A way for me to remember Tall every time I sat down and read a book in it.

Linda rushes in through the open door of the apartment when I have three boxes of "to keep" books packed and taped. Those are some that Tall lent me to read, or I helped him track and purchase, but it's a drop in the bucket of the other volumes that we have to go through. Boxes cover the floor and a stack of them I need to get through sits in the doorway to the kitchen.

"It's good I've worked in a library all my life, or these piles might intimidate me." Her smile is painted on, but her eyes are puffy and they glisten. I though she might feel better here, surrounded by books, that's as close to Linda's happy place as I can imagine. I was wrong.

"You don't have to be cheerful for my sake," I say. "Thank you for coming to help."

"Well, it's not like I'm going to leave empty-handed. This donation alone is going to get me to my fundraising goal for the year and if there are volumes in his poetry collection, you are not taking and the library already has, I might get even more than my fare share. You don't mind, do you?"

"I'm not taking any poetry home. It's all yours." She looses her smile, the glistening changes into tears and the last person I haven't seen or known to cry about Tall cries about Tall in front of me. She sniffles, wipes at her eyes, puts the smile back on.

"Amelie's supposed to meet us for dinner after she's done at work, I insisted I take you two out, and then I'll let you love bird spend the rest of the night."

Amelie tried to come over yesterday, but I gave her an excuse of dealing with Tall's apartment all day and having to be here in the morning. They were both true but I'm not sure why seeing Linda stirs nothing in me, while a thought of seeing Amelie again drives me to stim, run or punch my pillow. Linda and I work side by side. Keep. Library. Donate.

"Thank you for introducing me to Martha, for going to New York with me. It couldn't have been easy for you."

"It wasn't easy, but it was beneficial. Philip and I . . . We met. Martha tricked us into a dinner she invited both of us to and she didn't let us leave until we talked. More than talked, actually." I look at her, but she faces the shelves, her back to me. "And there is no baby. It was another ploy my sister came up with. Philip says Brenda envies everything I have, which is ridiculous. She's the one with the looks, the fame, the money, and I'm the disappointment."

"You are not a disappointment. You have a career, a full life, friends."

"He said that too. And he's right, you're right. I'm not going to deny it. I love my life, most of the time, but she stole the one thing that I've been after for many years. She stole the only man I've ever loved and Philip let it happen to us."

"What did he do? What's his side of the story?"

"He claims he doesn't remember. He was drunk, he woke up with Brenda in his bed and both of them naked. She said they slept together. He was ashamed, and he was going to tell me, but she beat him to it and when I asked for divorce, he felt so shitty about what he'd done it felt like the best option. He said he couldn't look me in the eye because He didn't think he deserved me."

"So he thought he deserved Brenda? Or why marry her? It's not like pre-marital sex is a problem in your family."

"It is not, but Dad apparently had a conversation with Philip. Deals were on the line, promises were made, and Dad can not say no to Brenda. Brenda wanted Philip and Dad delivered. The whole pregnancy thing happened when Brenda wanted to get married and Philip refused. I should've known, but I was so angry and Philip, I couldn't think of anything else. The guy I married and the guy who cheated on me with my sister. My sister! They could not be the same person. I refused to talk to him, and then I became Brenda. I slept with my sister's fiancee the night before their wedding and I enjoyed it. I left before he could stop me or tell me any of what I thought were his lies."

"That was the night you showed up in the morning, the night Brenda tried to have sex with me?"

"It was my fault, her behavior. I sent her a picture of Philip and I. I wanted to piss her off. I wanted her to know. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt me. And she went after you. I'm sorry. I should've predicted something like that."

"I'm not sure you or anyone else can predict Brenda's behavior. Are you and Philip back together?"

"I don't know." There's a lot of this answer going around recently. "They slept together when he wasn't drunk. We were getting a divorce, but he didn't drop her, he didn't only pretend to be with her, they were a couple for several months, they slept in the same bed and had meals together and he says he was thinking of me, still loved me, still loves me. How can that be?"

"You and I slept together and I only ever loved Amelie. It may be me, but there's more than a physical plane to love. I'll love Tall even though he's gone, and I'll love Amelie even though she doesn't love me back. It's not under my control. I can leave, I can stay, but the love is part of me, something I can not eject and throw out. It's not even a limb I can amputate. It's part of my cells and it will be with me as long as I live."

"And you say you don't like poetry. This is as poetic as it gets."

"There was no rhyme there."

"Have you learned nothing form me? Poetry is not about rhyming, it's about using the words to make others feel. And you made me feel. I don't want to agree with you. I think we are in control of who we love and I refuse to relinquish the control, but I also don't agree with you about Amelie. She loves you, it's clear to everyone around you two."

"Let's agree to disagree."

We go back to silence and boxes. Linda takes a break from removing the books off the shelves and goes to the stacks Amelie packed when she got the apartment ready for Tall's return. My hands appreciate the heaviness of the encyclopedia volumes. I dust the books before I put them away and discover notes Tall wrote on pieces of paper and used as bookmarks. I read them and hear his voice in my head narrating the commentary on the English translation of Jules Verne.

"Have you seen these?" I turn toward Linda, who's slumped against the wall, a stack of papers in her hands.

"You found some more of Tall's note? I have some too." I lift my hand up with the ones I finished reading.

"Not Tall's. These are Amelie's. Her letters to Tall. I had no idea they were pen pals all these years." Pen pals? Tall's never mentioned exchanging letters with Amelie. I know she called him sometimes, but letters?

"You shouldn't be reading those."

"I shouldn't but I started, kept reading, and I forgot those aren't mine. Amelie writes well. I can taste and smell what she wrote about. I want to go on vacation to France again, this made me so nostalgic."

"Put them away." I walk over and extend my hand to remove them.

"I will, but look here." She gives me one page and indicates a paragraph at the very bottom. 'I'll never forgive myself for leaving him without telling him the whole truth about my feelings first. I was a coward, and it's too late to come clean'. I lower the paper and look at Linda, her face back-lit by the window.

"What should I gather form it."

"She loved you, and she never told you. And you never told her. You're both scared to declare yourselves and you are wasting precious time."

"But she knows I love her."

"... because you've told her that?"

"Because I love her and I've never felt like that about another woman."

"And you told her that."

"Not in those words, but she must know what I feel."

"Yeah, with your affinity for telling the truth, you failed to tell Amelie you love her in words I bet she'd like to hear. I love you. Just those three words, and your side of the deal is clear."

"I wanted to propose to her after you and I officially broke up, before we even started dating again, but Tall told me to wait and to go through all the steps in the right order this time. I wanted to marry her five years ago before she left. I've loved her before I even talked to her in the store. It must be evident."

"Must or not, you never told her, and Tall's advice wasn't always correct. You have agency of your own and if you want to propose to Amelie, why the heck not. It's your life and I don't remember Tall having a great love life, or at least he had never told me about one. You are a grown man and you make decisions every day. If you want to marry the damn woman, go and marry her. And yes, I don't have a stellar track record in love as well, so it is up to you, but you have a choice. You can't bring Tall back, but you can tell Amelie you love her. You can propose to her. A marriage between you two? It's a definite possibility." Linda hands me the box with the letters.

A definite possibility. I'm a fucking idiot for not telling Amelie I love her. I'm not waiting any longer.

4.14.21

We are getting somewhere! But, dang, this was a long chapter.

Not sure the reverse side of Ben and Amelie's phone convo is needed. What d'you think?

Also.

Do you think Ben shouldn't have listened to Tall's advice?

Do you agree with Linda that loving one person and sleeping with another isn't possible?

Do you think Ben's going to propose??

This week and next week are intense, and I'm late in publishing the chapters, but I promise to publish the them and the epilogue. I need to re-read what I ended up with and at least fix the spelling issues. It's happening though. Thank you for your patience!

On a fun note, I opened an Instagram account for my pen name, and I have plans to put a bit more of my shennanigans on it.

You can follow me on Twitter, Tiktock and Instagram as galarussauthor

Drop me a comment or a DM if you are on any of those platforms and I'll follow you, or follow me and  on any of them and I'll folllow back.

Can't wait to read Love Graduate from beginning to end and see what can I make out of it on edits :)