Tiger Lillie by Lisa Samson

reason she couldn’t even put her finger on, she didn’t trust Rawlins. I told her to shut her mouth. And there we’d been, sitting in her car in front of High’s, eating ice-cream cones, everything so nice. She said it was okay I reacted like that, that she figured she would upset me, but sometimes a sister positively has to say something.
    When we got home, she walked up to her bedroom, shut the door, and put on her rock-‘n’-roll and worshiped at the Teddy shrine.
    I called Rawlins and he told me to not worry about it, but I shouldn’t ever confide in my sister again because she obviously couldn’t be depended upon to see things as they are.
    Boy, did I agree.
    Boy, was I fooled.
    Lillie
    Does anyone get over the love of their life when the next best thing comes along? Does anyone forget the person who stood up for them when no one else would? Does anyone simply refuse to be forever numbered among the lonely and plan accordingly? Move purposefully forward, scientifically, without wavering?
    I guess that’s what scares me the most about my future. After Teddy, everything else is merely settling for the inevitable. Or at least, that’s what it’s seemed like so far. How many more dates can I stand? And you know, they only ask at first because of my ample chest. That’s humiliating. And the fact that I’m never the prettiest girl in the group, and never the slimmest or even just plain slim, they think they’re doing me a favor. But the thought of going through the rest of my life alone frightens me. I see a lone casket and one priest. And before that, days consisting of sandwich meals and reruns of The Golden Girls. I see lots of volunteering to be done, only to let myself into Grandma Erszèbet’s house for…a sandwich and, yep, reruns. Maybe I’ll call Tacy’s kids, but they’ll rarely call me, and after a while, perhaps I’ll fear I’m bothering them and their new families. My bones will ache and no eardrum will register my complaints. I’ll shine my furniture for no one but me. Keep the guest bedroom at the ready for no visitors.
    Nonsense! Daddy would tell me. You’ll see the world! Chat with interesting people and learn of their lives, and they’ll feel validated because you chose to actually listen, Lillie.
    But why? What would that mean in the long run? We are born, we die. In between, the only thing that matters is having loved with a strange and glorious devotion.
    This is why Tacy and Rawlins bug me so much. Or really, Tacy. We all could see the handwriting on the wall as clearly as Belshazzar could all those years ago in Babylon. I tried to talk to her about being too young to settle when she was still in high school, but she informed me I was just jealous because I’d never again have a relationship like that.
    Rawlins inserted a spite inside her that hadn’t been there before. He just as quickly dispatched of it not long after their marriage, and so even the most cursory observation reveals her as the automaton he’s engineered. Where went her say-so?
    Of course, she was sorry after the argument, because I swear this is true: She shed almost as many tears over Teddy as I did. And the night he disappeared, though she was only twelve, she stayed awake with me there on the patio behind the rectory. And when the sun rose, she hadn’t slept a wink either.
    I want that Tacy back again.
    I’ve tried to move on. If Teddy’s alive, he’s felt no compunction to return to me, so it’s over. If he’s dead, it’s over, over. I’m done holding aloft this romantic flame that says, “I will wait for you forever.”
    First of all, I don’t know a real person who’s done that sort of thing.
    Second of all, I want to love somebody again.
    Third of all, and maybe most important, if Teddy came back and found me in love and happy, he’d be glad. He wouldn’t want me to pine my life away. No way.
    It’s amazing the kind of thoughts that whisper about while you’re waiting for paramedics to