Find all the parts of this story here.
Goodbye
“Gary?” Cecilia called tentatively into the barn door opening. It was dark inside, and she’d never stepped foot there. Glancing down, she decided staying outside was probably best, given her choice of cheap rubber flip-flops for footwear.
“Here!” called Gary’s gruff voice from somewhere in the bowels of the darkened barn.
“Um… I have sandals on, and I-” Cecilia’s speech cut off abruptly as a cow bellowed her displeasure with Cecilia’s shoe choice.
“Gimme a minute!” Gary yelled back.
Satisfied with that, Cecilia stepped away from the barn and perched on the split rail fence next to it. At least that was safe to do in flip-flops. Unless she got a splinter…
Gary came tromping out of the barn moments later, spotted her, and changed course to stop a few feet away.
“Well?” he prompted somewhat abruptly. His hands were covered in their usual layer of dirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
Cecilia swallowed away her unease.
“I’m not going to be in town on Friday. I’ve got the day off from the spa and planned to go to Madison. Could I make dinner on Saturday this week instead, please?” She hoped the please would pave the way to Gary not minding her slight upheaval of his schedule. Two months of dinners had taught her that he liked routine.
“Hmmf,” was all he said at first. He said that a lot, and she was never sure if it was good or bad. So she waited.
“Sure ‘nuf,” he answered with a curt nod. “You all right?”
The concern took her aback for a moment. It wasn’t that she believed Gary didn’t care about her. It was more accurate to say Gary didn’t use words to show care. He gave young people jobs and often overpaid her for the groceries. He always made sure she had enough to eat, and most nights sent Ephraim with leftovers. That was how Gary cared. Cecilia wasn’t sure how to respond, and evidently didn’t do so quickly enough.
“Yer not sick, are ya?”
“No! Oh, no, sorry. I’m, uh, just fine,” Cecilia rushed to reassure him.
“Hmmf,” came the eternally Gary-like reply.
Cecilia smiled a little bit. Feeling unusually soft, she offered up, “family stuff,” as an explanation. “I’ll go finish dinner now,” she said quickly, then hurried toward the house.
Gary had apparently waited until they were all seated around the beloved kitchen table, dishing up crispy baked chicken and fresh potato salad, to share with Ephraim the change in plans.
“Dinner’ll be Saturday this week,” he spoke in his usual growling voice, not looking up from the spoon he used to dig into the fruit salad. “Celia’s gone,” he explained further.
Celia? When had that happened? She thought she might like it, just a little bit…
“Gone?” Ephraim looked at her, fork hovering mid-air with a full load of potato and hard-boiled egg. The man had a large mouth and an appetite to match.
“Just a quick trip to Madison,” Cecilia replied. She glanced at Gary, then gave the same two-word explanation as earlier to Ephraim. Of course, he would push the subject.
“I didn’t know you had family in Madison. Is that where Caleb was from?”
Nosy, nosy man. Cecilia was not entirely happy with this subject.
“No,” she replied, as clipped and final as Gary would be. End of discussion, she thought. Ephraim disagreed.
“Your mom? I didn’t think you got along,” he pushed.
“No,” Cecilia stuck to her guns. Ephraim finally got the memo.
“Well, in any case, I hope you have safe travels. You’ll be back Saturday?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. I guess we’ll see you then,” he finished, with a weird glance at Cecilia. She chose to ignore it and enjoy her dinner.
No, Cecilia wasn’t going to see any remaining family. Friday morning she packed a small cooler with drinks and enough snacks to get her through the drive and most of the day. She put on her softest, worn out jeans and the pretty blue shirt Caleb had told her brought out her eyes. Sneakers completed the outfit, and then she was on the road.
She had planned to go straight to the cemetery, but once she drew closer to the city, something in her needed to see their old church first. She changed course, pulling up outside the big, industrial building. She got out of her car and stood beside it.
With eyes now trained to see the beauty in Bethel Lutheran, Cecilia looked on her old church with a strange mixture of loss and distance. Sure, it had once felt like home, but the more she considered it, the more she realized she had never once gone there without Caleb. It had been Caleb’s church first, then theirs. Maybe it would have been different if he’d lived. Maybe she would have made friends with other young women, joined some of the different groups, seen some of them at her work. Maybe she and Caleb would have had more people over for dinner.
That wasn’t the way their story had gone, however. Now Cecilia looked on the honestly ugly building and couldn’t help but compare it to Bethel. Bethel was, hands down, so much prettier. While old, it had charm and a certain sense of being lived-in, like an old house where people had been happy, a place where families were made and grew. Cecilia found herself missing that tall, white building. As she stared at her old church, she decided it was high time she made a promise to herself and then keep it.
Cecilia was going to make her home at Bethel. She was going to stop dithering about the potluck signup she’d walked past for three weeks straight, then gone home to wonder and daydream about. She was going to put her name on that list. She’d, of course, have to promptly follow that up with a phone call to Sophie to find out what to expect and how much to bring, but she could do that. She would do that. She’d gotten over herself enough to ask Gary what a potluck was, after all.
No longer needing to go inside, Cecilia got back in her car and started a slow driving tour of Madison. She started with the house they had been hoping to buy. A few snacks disappeared while she wandered the park, finding the exact spot of their last selfie. Some tears were shed, too. Then she went to their old apartment complex, the restaurant where they had met, and each of their schools.
Exhausted, Cecilia debating saving the last stop on her driving tour until morning, but she knew now she wanted to leave Saturday morning for one specific task, and only that one. So she forced herself to drive up and down some neighborhood streets, building up her courage, until she pulled over near the intersection of Dayton and Brooks.
Dayton Street was pretty moderate in terms of Madison traffic, especially compared to Brooks, but what was most notable was that it had the ubiquitous Madison bike lanes. Caleb had loved riding his bike all over town, saying the exercise helped him clear his mind and see the city in a different way.
On the northwest corner of the intersection stood a towering power line pole. At the base of this pole were the remnants of Caleb’s memorial.
Some city bigwig had given permission for an artist on campus to turn Caleb’s mangled bicycle into a sculpture of a bird, taking flight from the debris of memories. Mixed with faded posters, pictures, and silk flowers were a few stuffed animals and some spent candles. Cecilia arranged herself cross-legged on the grass in front of the remnants of Caleb’s public life.
He had been so social, so outgoing and friendly. Cecilia had quickly lost track of all of his friends. He seemed to know everyone in the entire business school – an exaggeration in truth, but still a good comparison to Cecilia’s own non-existent social circle. It was no wonder there was a huge mound at this corner.
Cecilia cried, but not as much as she thought she would. She found herself wondering what all those friends were doing now. Did anyone else still remember Caleb? Think of him? She had tried to keep up on Caleb’s weekly emails home to his parents, but after a few months his mom had not-so-gently told her the effort wasn’t needed.
Mostly, she felt a sense of emptiness. Caleb was not here. Worn-down fragments of the love other people had for him were, but he was not. His soul was with the Jesus he loved so much, and his body was in the ground across town. She didn’t need this place right now. She’d probably come back someday again, but no more today.
Cecilia slept fitfully in her cheap hotel bed, then rose with the sun to dress and head out on her last leg of this journey. Thankfully there was very little traffic, and she was the only car in the cemetery that morning.
Caleb’s headstone sat short and squat amongst a sea of similar ones, differentiated only by their colors and occasionally by height. His parents had paid for it. They had been kind, talking to Cecilia about buying one plot versus two. In the end, everyone agreed it made more sense to buy one. Besides, Cecilia would have felt the need to pay for her own, and most certainly couldn’t on a waitress’s salary.
Cecilia walked down the sunny rows, greeted only by that weird, quiet stillness that permeated the home of the resting. The cemetery was huge, and all the trees had been cleared to utilize as much of the ground as possible. Therefore, no birds or squirrels joined her walk, but she did notice the odd bug here or there.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she greeted softly as she sat in the grass. She traced her fingertips over his name carved in the cool, gray stone. “I miss you.”
And so she spent several hours communing with her memories, her love, her grief, and finally, the God her dear Caleb had introduced her to. Somehow both Caleb and God felt more real in this place. She spoke aloud and she mused silently. She flopped on her belly, then rolled to her back to stare at the clouds. Most of all, she let her mind, heart, and body rest in the reality that Caleb was gone, but she was still here.
In the stillness of those truths came an even bigger one: God was still here. While some days it felt like God had left her right alongside Caleb, when she took stock of her life, she knew that wasn’t true. God was in the gruff patience of Gary, the smiles of Ephraim, the friendship of Sophie, and a million other little details of her life. God was at Bethel, even when it felt like He spoke a different language. God was at Gary’s dining room table, too.
She had a lot of learning to do, but sitting there in front of Caleb’s headstone, Cecilia came to believe that she was capable of learning. No matter how long it took, or how many foolish questions she had to ask, she would make a home with these people. She would make her Caleb proud.