Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [73]
The restaurant I chose was one of Liz’s favorites, a Japanese barbecue place right near the Wish Trees, a temporary art installation in Pasadena. It seemed as good a day as any to make a wish, even though I believed that wishes didn’t come true and that they certainly were not retroactive. The courtyard was full of these trees, each with hundreds of white tags hanging from the branches—individual wishes. We sat down and I wrote out one wish for Madeline and one for me, and then tied them carefully on a branch. As I watched our wishes dance and spin in the breeze, I looked across the courtyard to the jewelry store where I had purchased Liz’s wedding gift—a beautiful blue sapphire necklace, the stone surrounded by diamonds. When I had first seen that necklace, all I could think of were Liz’s shining blue eyes, and I knew it had to be hers.
Now I was thinking about how thankful I was that she had been wearing it the night our house was burglarized. I decided right then to make good on my promise to replace Liz’s stolen jewelry. We went across the street to Tiffany’s and bought a necklace for Madeline. It was a silver necklace with a bean-shaped pendant—it had been Liz’s favorite piece of jewelry—and with the blue bag hanging from my wrist and my daughter strapped to my chest, we walked to the restaurant and settled in at a table.
We shot the shit while we waited for our food, catching up on what we’d missed since we had last seen each other. Then something occurred to me. “Anya,” I said, “where were you guys last year? What did you do?” Like with our last anniversary, I could not remember what she and Liz had done to celebrate while I was away in India. My mind was a big, swirling blank, and I felt a feverish need to recapture the lost details.
She looked at me. “Here,” she said. “We were here.”
The food came, plates piled high with food covered in miso sauce, and I stared at the strips of thinly sliced beef, at the walls, down at my baby—anywhere but at Anya. I was breathing heavily, doing everything I could to slow my heart rate down. I felt like I was going to vomit and I swallowed hard to keep it from coming up. How in holy hell did I end up at the very place Liz spent her last birthday? It was a good thing I didn’t believe in signs, because if I did, I’d have been scared shitless.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I think so,” I said. “I should feed Maddy.”
Our dinners sat untouched as we focused our attention on Madeline. Anya passed me her bottle, and I settled Madeline in the crook of my arm, holding it for her to drink.
I looked at Anya. “Eat,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”
She picked up her fork. “You eat,” she said.
“When she’s done.”
A few minutes later, Maddy picked up her little hands and grasped the bottle. I let go, lightly, waiting to see what would happen. She had been attempting this trick for weeks, but now the bottle stayed aloft. My daughter was feeding herself. I suddenly imagined the freedom I would have, all of the exciting things I would get to do while she fed herself her lunch, like brush my teeth. Or do the dishes. Or fold some laundry.
“Wow,” said Anya. “Liz would have loved this.”
I nodded. We held up our drinks.
“Happy birthday, Liz,” I said.
“Happy birthday, Liz.”
A few days after Liz’s actual birthday, there was to be a 5K walk/run in Minnesota. Actually, it would be all over the world. I wanted to honor her in a larger way, so through the blog, we’d asked people to start walking or running at 1:00 p.m. in their respective time zones on September 20. The idea was that we’d collectively be running for twenty-four hours straight.
The event had been organized in conjunction with the Creeps, a group of women who had been following my blog from the beginning—my original