The Leftovers

rusty croak in the darkness.
    “Okay, I guess,” Meg replied.
    “Just okay?”
    “I don’t know. It’s hard to just walk away from everything. I still can’t believe I did it.”
    “You seemed a little nervous at the Safeway.”
    “I was afraid I was gonna see somebody I knew.”
    “Your fiancé?”
    “Yeah, but not just Gary. Any of my friends.” Her voice was a bit wobbly, like she was trying hard to be brave. “I was supposed to get married this weekend.”
    “I know.” Laurie had read Meg’s file and understood that she was going to require some special attention. “That must’ve been hard.”
    Meg made a funny sound, something between a chuckle and a groan.
    “I feel like I’m dreaming,” she said. “I keep waiting to wake up.”
    “I know what that’s like,” Laurie assured her. “I still feel like that sometimes. Tell me a little about Gary. What’s he like?”
    “Great,” Meg said. “Really cute. Broad shoulders. Sandy hair. This sweet little cleft in his chin. I used to kiss him there all the time.”
    “What’s he do?”
    “He’s a securities analyst. Just got his MBA last spring.”
    “Wow. He sounds impressive.”
    “He is.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if there weren’t any room for debate. “He’s a great guy. Smart, good-looking, lots of fun. Loves to travel, goes to the gym every day. My friends call him Mr. Perfect.”
    “Where’d you meet?”
    “In high school. He was a basketball player. My brother was on the team, so I went to a lot of games. Gary was a senior and I was a sophomore. I didn’t think he even knew I was alive. And then, one day, he just walked up to me and said, Hey, Chris’s sister. You want to go to a movie? Can you believe that? He didn’t even know my name and he asked me on a date.”
    “And you said yes.”
    “Are you kidding? I felt like I won the lottery.”
    “You hit it off right away?”
    “God, yeah. The first time he kissed me, I thought, This is the boy I’m gonna marry .”
    “It took you long enough. That must’ve been what, eight or nine years ago?”
    “We were in school,” Meg explained. “We got engaged right after I graduated, but then we had to postpone the wedding. Because of what happened.”
    “You lost your mother.”
    “It wasn’t just her. One of Gary’s cousins, he also … two girls I knew in college, my father’s boss, a guy Gary used to work out with. A whole bunch of people. You remember what it was like.”
    “I do.”
    “It just didn’t feel right, getting married without my mother. We were really close, and she was so excited when I showed her the ring. I was gonna wear her wedding dress and everything.”
    “And Gary was okay with the postponement?”
    “Totally. Like I said, he’s a really nice guy.”
    “So you rescheduled the wedding?”
    “Not right away. We didn’t even talk about it for two years. And then we just decided to go for it.”
    “And you felt ready this time?”
    “I don’t know. I guess I just finally accepted the fact that my mother wasn’t coming back. Nobody was. And Gary was starting to get impatient. He kept telling me that he was tired of being sad all the time. He said my mom would have wanted us to get married, to start a family. He said she would’ve wanted us to be happy.”
    “What did you think?”
    “That he was right. And I was tired of being sad all the time, too.”
    “So what happened?”
    Meg didn’t speak for a few seconds. It was almost like Laurie could hear her thinking in the dark, trying to formulate her answer as clearly as she could, as if a lot depended on it.
    “We made all the arrangements, you know? We rented a hall, picked out a DJ, interviewed caterers. I should’ve been happy, right?” She laughed softly. “It felt like I wasn’t even there, like it was all happening to someone else, someone I didn’t even know. Look at her, designing the invitations. Look at her, trying on the dress.”
    “I remember that feeling,” Laurie said. “It’s like you’re dead and you don’t even know it.”
    “Gary got mad. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t more excited.”
    “So when did you decide to bail out?”
    “It was on my mind for a while. But I kept waiting, you know, hoping it would get better. I went to a therapist, got medication, did a lot of yoga. But nothing worked. Last week I told Gary that I needed another postponement, but he didn’t want to hear it. He said we could get married or we could