Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan Page B

apparently feeling the same way.
    But here I am. Fifty-one years old. I’ve been out here on this raft of love and the love boat so many times it’s not even funny. This time is different. Isaac is my husband, not my boyfriend. I don’t have a Plan B because I never thought I’d be needing one. Based on the urgency and strength of our love in the beginning, I thought we were going to keep blooming. But here we are, like two dead roses.
    It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re thrown overboard or you jump ship. Both lead to sorrow. I think it might weigh more now than it did at thirty-six. So many people think because we’re older we should be used to failed relationships and bad marriages, but especially disappointment. How do you get used to it? This is the complete opposite of what I was led to believe I could expect when I grew up and became a woman. Back in the ’70s I wasn’t preparing for the worst that could happen. I was preoccupied with the best that could happen. I didn’t know some men could be such big liars and such good liars because neither I nor my girlfriends saw anything redeeming about lying. We were honest. About most things, but definitely our feelings. We didn’t cheat on our boyfriends, especially if we loved them. We never thought some guy would deliberately fill our hearts with brown sugar and then pour hot water over it. We thought boys would grow up to become decent men who would love us as hard as we loved them.
    I push my shoulder blades against the grooves in the door. I’m going down in an elevator that’s not going to stop. But then it does. The doors open and here comes heartache. I feel it right now. That thud. These acid tears. The tear inside my chest. My elbows are getting heavy. I can’t stop myself from keeling over, so I go ahead and roll into a knot but find myself unable to stop rocking. I want to sit back up, but I just can’t. Even when I suddenly feel like I’m freezing, I can’t get up. All I can do is look around the room and hear how loud the silence is already. My marriage is over. I live alone now. This is not the way I dreamed it. This is not what I had hoped for, what I asked for. I want to skip this part. I want to push the fast-forward button until I get back to happy. In fact, I wish Isaac would walk back inside this house and wrap his arms around me and hold me close, the way he used to, because even though I know he’s the source of this brand-new pain, he’s really the only one who can stop it.

If I Sit Still Long Enough
    What Gloria remembered about that day was falling. First to the floor. Then being picked up by her son. And then falling into his chest. She remembered him saying something about Marvin being shot. With bullets. Stray bullets. Aimed at someone else. Aimed at another gang-banger. That he was caught in crossfire. She melted. Then her body stiffened and froze. Her teeth would not stop chattering. She bit her tongue trying to silence them. And she went looking for her car keys anyway, because she figured Marvin would need a ride home.
    “Where on earth did I put those damn keys?” she asked Tarik as she walked from one room to the next, looking for them. They were, of course, in the same spot they always were: hanging on a hook by the door that led to the carport. Her grandkids wanted to help Gloria locate them. Nickida just shook her head back and forth in disbelief and grabbed Gloria by the wrists, then wrapped her arms around her mother-in-law as tight as she could.
    “Ma,” Tarik said, bending over and pulling her close and with a firmness that made it hard for her to move. “You don’t need your keys.”
    “But I have to go get Marvin,” she said, wiggling her way out of his grip. “It’s our anniversary and he’s going to want to eat his oxtails before he goes anywhere. That much I do know.”
    “Ma, you’ve gotta calm down.”
    Gloria looked at him as if he were crazy. “Can you give me a ride, baby? I think he’s