Blessed Are the Wholly Broken Read Free

grief. “Tell me what happened.”
    Brian had been my friend for a quarter of a century and Anna’s for nearly as long. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell Brian what had happened, but that words literally failed me; I didn’t know where to begin. Where is the beginning of any story? How does one point to any specific event and say, “There! That’s where it all began.”
    Brian wanted to know what had happened that day. How had Anna and I gone from a loving couple on the eve of our twenty-third anniversary, to this? But it didn’t begin on that day. I supposed it all began on that rainy day in 1989 when Anna came sliding into the cafeteria of Richardson Towers, bowling over not only a table and chairs, but me—and Brian—as well. So that’s where I began.

Chapter 3:  February, 1989
     
    She was a senior, Anna was, on the day that was later determined to be Memphis’ rainiest day in 1989. She was also skipping class, after having had her umbrella blown inside-out by the cold winter wind. Once we’d picked her up and helped her gather her books and papers, we’d managed to talk her into joining us for breakfast despite her embarrassment.
    “What I really wanted to do was run to my room and cry,” she told me later, “but you guys wouldn’t let me escape.”
    She was right; both of us had urged her to join us. I was immediately smitten, in my awkward way, nearly too shy to speak, while Brian was as smooth as ever, bringing her coffee and wiping crumbs from her chair before she sat. Though he would later argue with this, I suspect he initially viewed Anna as he viewed all women:  as a potential conquest.
    Anna accused him of this many years later, on one of our frequent camping trips into the Smokies. “Not true,” Brian said, as we sat around a bonfire in the mountains outside of Gatlinburg, drinking beer and tossing logs onto the fire. “I love all women, but Anna, I especially loved you. Still do.” He tipped the neck of his beer bottle towards her in a silent toast.
    From across the fire Anna had smiled at him, I remember, as she always smiled when he made those pronouncements, but her eyes had shone with a hint of sadness in the flickering light of the flames. In the rare cases in which Brian was unable to coax a woman to fall in love with him, he was still able to trigger some sort of maternal response. Anna loved Brian, too, but Anna was in love with me. This, I never doubted, at least not back then. Nonetheless, he called forth within her some sort of protective instinct. Anna saw a measure of loneliness in Brian that tugged at her heartstrings, more so as the years passed by.
    “All the women,” she had once told me shortly after our wedding, “are just a cover.” She unclipped her hair and shook it over her shoulders before climbing in and settling herself against the pillows of our first bed, rubbing lotion between her palms to warm it before smoothing it vigorously along her legs. I watched her, as captivated as always, and leaned over to plant a kiss on her bare shoulder. The softness of her skin never failed to amaze me.
    “Think about it, Phillip,” she continued, oblivious to my advances. “He came from a troubled family with a drug-addicted mother. He’s still searching for her. Emotionally, I mean.” I watched as she smoothed the lotion into her calf in quick, circular motions, loving the sound of her voice while simultaneously wanting her to hush.
    “It’s why he goes from woman to woman but never stays with any of them. He loves women,” she said, screwing the cap back on the lotion and massaging the last traces into her hands. “I really believe he means it when he says that. But he never trusts that they love him back. It’s sad, isn’t it?”
    “Who cares?” I had answered, tugging her against me, impatient with her analysis. “Enough about Brian. What about me? I’m searching for love, too.” She had laughed then, and I feel confident in saying neither of us