“Is the bread done?” Aunt Shelley asks when she steps back in to the kitchen.
When I look at her, I can tell she’s been crying. Her blue eyes are glossy, and her face is puffy.
“Are you okay?” I ask concerned.
She gives me a sad smile. “I am. I just haven’t seen my friend in a long time. He’s very dear to me.”
I frown. “Why hasn’t he come before?”
“He has, but work keeps him away sometimes.”
I nod even though I don’t understand.
The rest of the night is spent with the Bingonians cackling away at memories they have together. Aunt Shelley laughs along, and it makes me smile. She doesn’t smile too often. Well, she does, but it’s usually a sad smile as if she’s missing something-or someone. None of her friends bring up any family Aunt Shelley may have had. She doesn’t have any photos around her house—other than the ones of me and some of her when she was younger.
I ask her if she’d ever been in love and she smiles brightly and says that she had been.
“What happened?” I ask.
She gives me a small smile and caresses my cheek. “Sometimes you need to do things that hurt in order to protect the ones you love.” I frown and ponder her answer, but don’t question her about it, even though it doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’ve never asked if she had kids. Surely, if she did, I would have met them in the almost ten years I’d been living here. As the weeks pass, Aunt Shelley becomes weaker. Every day, she rambles on about things that don’t make much sense. She tells me that one day I’ll understand my life. She tells me that if I ever find a good man that puts others before himself, I should hold on to him.
“Find a man that will watch over you. Don’t settle for men who only have one thing in mind. If he doesn’t like to eat, something is wrong with him,” she says, which makes me laugh. “He needs to put you before himself—always,” she would tell me. “He needs to love you more than you love him.” That one confuses me a bit, but I don’t ask.
The rambling goes on for a week before the live-in nurse we had tells me that the medication is making her a little spacey. One night Aunt Shelley asks me to lie in bed with her. With tired, shaky hands, she strokes my long hair and caresses my face.
“You mustn’t be afraid of love, Blake. No matter what you go through in life, don’t be afraid to love. Loving is the only thing that keeps us sane. If it weren’t for love, the suffering we experience wouldn’t be worth it. If it weren’t for the suffering, we wouldn’t cherish the good things life gives us. Sometimes it’ll seem as though life only knocks you down, but you have to learn to pick yourself up and fight back. I love you, Blake. I will always love you even when I’m no longer here to tell you,” Aunt Shelley breaths weakly.
“I love you, too, Aunt Shelley,” I whisper as tears run down my face.
Her hand stills in my hair, and I look up to see her smiling at me. A happy smile. I sleep in her bed that night. The next morning I get up to shower, careful not to wake her, and when I get back to her room after drying my hair and changing, the nurse tells me that Shelley is gone.
Phoebe comes over within ten minutes. I lock myself in my room for a couple of hours before Phoebe tells me that I have to go stay with her for a couple of days. Aunt Shelley has left preparations for her funeral and burial. I don’t remember any of it. Those days are a blur to me. I feel dozens of hands on my shoulders. I hear hundreds of “I’m sorry for your loss” sentiments. The only thing I remember is the empty feeling in my heart and thinking that I was alone, again.
When Phoebe asks me to pack up because she’s going to drive me to Mrs. Parker’s house, I am still empty. When I get to Mrs. Parker’s house and meet the other kids, I feel at home and my heart starts to refuel with love—little by little.
I’m thankful to Shelley for the advice she gave me that week and I’m thankful that I still remember it. Thinking of her happy smile that night still makes me smile even though it was bittersweet. In retrospect, I wish I would have been more aware during the funeral and burial. I wish I could remember the faces of those who went. I wonder if that man that called her “Ma” was there. I wonder if Mark was there. I think back to the letter she left me—the one I decided to burn. She wrote that she was not my aunt. I figure that to be my aunt she would have had to be younger—but you never know. I don’t know who she could have been. Unless—