Coming Home To You - Liesel Schmidt

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the pathetic woman in the mirror.

      “Yes?” I asked into the little white intercom box by my front door.

      “It’s Kate,” it crackled back at me.

      Two seconds later, she was at my door, crushing my bones as she hugged me.

      “Let me look at you,” she said, taking my hands in hers and stepping back. “You look terrible, Zoë,” she clucked, shaking her head.

      It was an understatement, to say the least.

      “You wouldn’t exactly win any beauty contests, either,” I shot back, taking in her disheveled appearance.

      And she wouldn’t have. Her blonde hair carried several days’ worth of wear and tear, pulled into a messy ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her normally bright, lively blue eyes were dulled by exhaustion, rimmed with dark smudges of mascara.

      “Darn,” she laughed back, “and I even went to the trouble of buying mascara at the airport so I could look all gorgeous for my grand entrance. Girl, don’t get me started on how much they charge for a tube of Great Lash.”

      “Next time, get the waterproof kind,” I advised soberly as I reached into one of the large red ceramic vases flanking the doorway and retrieved a fistful of Kleenex.

      “Wow,” Kate laughed as she took a proffered tissue from me. “What else do you have in there?”

      “Oh, you know, just the usual. Tissues, chocolate. Tequila.”

      Her eyes widened. “Really?”

      “No!” I burbled, wiping my nose.

      I realized it was the first time I’d been able to laugh since Paul died. It felt good, though somehow strange after all these months without it.

      But I felt guilty, too.

      “Just tissues. I have them all over the place in case I need them. And I seem to need them a lot,” I said, my eyes welling up again.

      Kate smiled sadly at me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

      Two words that meant so many things.

      I nodded back, feeling my face start to crumple into a full-blown sob. I didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to cry any more over it. But here she was, finally—my best friend, my confidante, my sister from another mister.

      “Can I tell you something, Zoë?” Kate asked.

      We sat in the living room, me in my pajamas, a freshly showered Kate wrapped in one of my spare bathrobes. Having each devoured a large bowl of cereal, we were now drinking coffee in what seemed to be a futile effort to inject a little more energy into our tired bodies.

      I took a long sip of coffee, eyeing her speculatively.

      “Anything, Kate. You know that.”

      She bit her lip and looked deep into her coffee cup, hesitant and trying to piece her words together carefully.

      Even my best friend was tiptoeing around me now.

      “Kate,” I said quietly. “Please don’t humor me. You’re the last person on earth who’s supposed to humor me. Don’t treat me like a damaged girl who has to be handled as though she’s made of glass. I’m so sick of that.”

      She nodded, looking squarely at me.

      “I think you need to move,” she said finally.

      It hung in the air, heavy and dense like a fog, so quiet was the room when she spoke.

      It was the last thing I had expected her to say.

      I blinked at her.

      “What?” I asked.

      “I think you need to move,” she said again, reaching out to put her half-empty cup of coffee on the table next to her.

      “Why?” I was still so surprised that I was only able to form one-word questions.

      Why on earth would she think I needed to lose anything else?

      “This apartment may be in your name, Zoë, but it was practically yours and Paul’s. This is the building you both lived in, this is the apartment where the two of you spent most of your time. And now, Paul is gone, and you just exist here. You need to find a new place to claim as yours, Zoë. Paul would want that.” She was looking at me now with pleading eyes, concern etched on her face as plainly as if it had been written there in ink.

      I didn’t know what to say or even what to feel. Part of me thought she might be right, but the larger part of me wanted to lash out at her for wanting to take more away from me than what I’d already lost.

      This was the last thing I had, one of the last ways I felt connected to Paul.

      Was I really supposed to give that up?

      And did she really think it was that simple? Could she really be so naïve as to think it was that easily solved? Was it possible that she could be that callous?

      I just stared at her dumbly, thousands of things shooting though my mind, thousands of feelings running through me. It was almost like being electrocuted.

      One of those rapid-fire feelings must have stopped long enough to take hold, because I was shaking my head wildly before I’d even registered that I was doing it.

      I shot up from my place on the couch, moving as though it was on fire.

      I felt as though it was on fire.

      “Zoë,” Kate started, looking up at me as I stood there, motionless in front of the couch.

      “No,” I protested. “No, Kate.” I shook my head. “Don’t tell me what Paul would have wanted.” I felt almost angry now.

      She was my best friend, so how could she say something so thoughtless? She had no idea what Paul would or wouldn’t have wanted.

      No one did. And no one would. How dare she try to tell me something and use Paul as a mechanizing method? He wasn’t something to be used as leverage.

      Why the hell would she say something like that?

      “Don’t be angry with me for saying it, Zoë. I know it’s not something that’s easy to hear, but I think this place might be keeping you trapped in your grief. You need to get out of here so that you can start to move on, start a healing process. It would be healthier for you.” She was speaking very quietly, no longer looking at me.

      I felt my eyes widen.

      “Don’t you dare come back here after a year away and spout psychological mumbo-jumbo at me, Kate. Don’t you dare. You can’t do that. You can’t just waltz back in and act like nothing’s changed, like you have all the answers to solve everyone’s problems. I know Paul’s gone, and I’m supposed to get on with my life. Has it crossed your mind at all that maybe it’s not quite so simple?” The pitch of my voice was increasing as I spoke, and I was on the verge of angry tears.

      It was quite a change.

      Angry tears felt very different from grief tears. They felt hot and good and…cleansing.

      “I knew it. I knew you would be angry at me,” she said. “Admit it—you’re angry at me for not being here for you.”

      She waited a beat for me to do something, to respond somehow.

      “Come on, Zoë. I know you are. You have to be, and you have every right to be. I wasn’t here for you when you needed someone the most, and now I’m coming back and telling you to uproot yourself from the last place you feel somewhat stable. But this,” she spread her arms to gesture at the room, “this is not stable.”

      She got up from the couch and moved toward me. She took my face in her hands and locked her eyes with mine.

      “You lost something

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