Leave It.
The Meeting Place. TWENTY-SIX.
“I can’t believe I threw out the salt. Himalayan. And the coconut oil and everything in a can. Tomatoes, garbanzos, black beans. I couldn’t even get it together to donate the good stuff to a food bank. Into one of the “eternally bad for the environment” bags it all went. I keep thinking about what I wasted.”
Val looked at Phoebe with a softness that said I’m listening. Keep talking. She was so damn good at that, Phoebe thought before she spoke again. “I keep telling myself I did the best I could. Nobody was going to step in and save the day. Every stinkin’ task that would get me out of that house by the next morning was on me.”
Val stood up from her crossed-legged position on a stack of pillows against the apple tree and walked behind the Adirondack where Phoebe was leaned forward, clutching herself in a low hug. Val’s palms pressed into Phoebe’s shoulders, her fingers kneading the taut undercurrent of tension. Phoebe’s head lolled forward, and she groaned. Val knew there was nothing to say, no comforting words would lighten the judgments that Phoebe was holding about herself. Val could tell her it was natural to feel the way she did. That transitions take so much out of us. That Phoebe had done what she needed to do. Look, she was here now! But none of that would unwind the twist in Phoebe’s muscles and the strain in her voice.
Val knew that time was the best healer when it came down to where the sandals met the dirt. Wordless relief in the urgent mess of the present was all she could offer to Phoebe today.
“How about a full body massage, my friend?” Val asked as she chopped at the shoulders.
“Oh. my. god.” Phoebe answered, her arms uncurling to reach for Val, who now stood before her, her freckled, chubby arms extended in the first real welcome Phoebe had felt in a good long while.
“Let’s make a deal,” Val said as she unfolded the massage table in the center of the cabin’s one room. “No looking back.”
Phoebe had just taken a gulp of tea that was too hot for her tongue. She spewed into her bare elbow, “Ouch!”
Val turned on the bed warmer and tucked in the sheets, pacing herself before she said the next thing. “If we can let go of our pasts, we can let go of anything.”
With an eye roll, Phoebe’s overalls dropped to the floor. “Deal.”
The Meeting Place is a jigsaw of fictional vignettes hosting several female characters destined to cross paths. The series began with The Meeting Place. ONE. (May 12, 2022).
