I dig toward the bottom, my fingers feeling for the tin. I start tossing everything out: an envelope full of movie ticket stubs, a foam finger from our first Dodgers game, a program from The Lion King. The tears start to fall harder now. The dam has been broken.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Beth crouches down beside me as I sob.
“It’s not here.”
“What?”
“Our letters. Our words. His words.”
“Are you sure? Let me look.” She leans over the box.
“I already did. It’s not there, Beth.”
Beth searches for a moment and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t see it either. But I’m sure it will turn up. Maybe you moved it? Remember what a haze you were in after everything happened? Is it possible you took it out and didn’t put it back?”
I don’t remember taking it out. But Beth is right: the weeks after James’s death were surreal, and many of my memories of that time are cloudy. Unfortunately, save for the pictures Beth boxed up right after James died and my favorite sweatshirt of his, this tin is the only thing I believe I can’t live without.
Beth hugs me, and I cry until I can’t anymore, amazed by how many tears I have inside me. That I keep believing they will eventually dry up.
“This sucks,” I say into her shoulder.
“I know.” Beth squeezes me.
The doorbell rings. I pull away and wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweater. “Shit. That must be Isabella. How do I look?” I say as I stand up.
“Like you’ve been bawling for hours,” Beth says gently.
“It’s fine. She’s seen me looking even worse than this, I’m sure.” But I wipe under my eyes and run a finger through my hair anyway.
I walk to the door, my heartbeat speeding up slightly. I haven’t seen her since the memorial. Isabella had been somewhat stoic, thanks to the two Xanax I saw her sister slip her that morning. I suck in a long breath and open the door.
Nick grins and pulls a bouquet of red roses from behind his back.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, surprised to see him. He told me he was going to a new beer tasting room in Long Beach.
“Well, hello to you too.”
“Sorry, I just thought—” I start, then stop. “These for me?”
“No, they’re for Beth.” He smiles, and I feel my chest warm.
“Thank you,” I say, and cover his mouth with mine, trying to forget about the heart-shaped tin.
“Jacks?” I jerk back from Nick and drop the roses at the sound of my mother-in-law’s voice.
I had planned to tell Isabella everything, eventually. But each time I thought about calling her and asking her to coffee, I’d imagine her face as I destroyed the version of her son that she’d thought she’d known. It’s the same reason my mother still believes James had been in Maui for work. I know how it feels to question every memory you have of someone you love—I just wasn’t ready to do it to someone else. And now, I’m forced to face Isabella, my heart banging inside my chest, a flush coloring my cheeks. I feel caught, even though technically I’ve done nothing wrong. But still, her eyes are full of questions I’m not sure I can answer. At least not with explanations she’ll want to hear. I meet Nick’s gaze briefly, and I can’t quite read his expression—if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think he were enjoying this. The drama.
I force myself to make eye contact with Isabella, who’s standing there in her loose-fitting floral blouse and capri pants, a large tote slung over her shoulder. She looks out of place, like she meant to arrive at a farmers’ market. And maybe it’s that simple, that she no longer fits in here—into my life.
“Nick, this is my mother-in-law, Isabella. Isabella, this is . . .” I pause, not sure I can say the word. Not 100 percent sure what that word is.
“I’m Nick. Her boyfriend.” Nick extends his hand, but Isabella steps back abruptly, as if he had a disease she didn’t want to catch.
Boyfriend. It sounds so juvenile. But then again, what else is he? For a brief moment I see James leaning against the counter in my tiny kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of crisp white boxers. It’s just two weeks after I’d met him, and he’s grinning at me. And then I’m laughing and kissing him like I might never stop because he’s just asked me not to sleep with anyone else ever again. “Because we’re officially going steady. I’m your boyfriend now.”
I give Nick a look, wishing he’d have let me handle it, and he mouths to me that he’s sorry.
The three of us stand there in awkward silence, somehow all understanding it will be Isabella who speaks next.
“Jacqueline, please tell me this man is not really your boyfriend. That you haven’t moved on. So soon,” Isabella says shrilly, her brilliant-green eyes squinting just like James’s when he was angry.
When I don’t answer, her face registers understanding. He is exactly who he says he is. She shakes her head as if trying to toss away the information. She opens her mouth to say something, but quickly closes it. She stares at the ground, deep in thought. Finally she looks up at me. “Where are his things?” she asks. “I want them right now, and then I will leave,” she says, every word slow and measured. I move to the side so she can get into the house.
Beth appears and gives me a questioning look as Isabella brushes past her toward the master bedroom.
“Can you go? I need to talk to Isabella alone. And tell Nick he needs to go home too. That I’ll talk to him later—please,” I whisper to Beth as I pass her.
I find Isabella sobbing in our closet, breathing in James’s gray cashmere sweater. I start crying at the sight of her. At the grief I know she must feel but that I will never understand. The loss of a child.
“I’m so sorry, Isabella. I was going to tell you everything. I just—”
“You just what?” Isabella cuts me off. “Forgot to tell me you’d moved on?”
“No, it’s not that. If I told you, then I’d need to explain who Nick is. How I met him. And that would hurt you.”
“More than I’m hurt right now?” She continues to cry as she cradles his sweater.
“No. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. I’m so sorry,” I choke through my tears.
“It’s bad enough you never gave me a grandchild. How could you? Did you even love him?”
Yes. I loved him more than anything. But I’m not sure that was enough.
The words bubble up inside of me, but I don’t speak. I didn’t want it to be like this—I had imagined this conversation going very differently, and certainly not starting off with her witnessing me kissing Nick.
But no matter how it started, it’s time to tell her. Not to defend that I’ve begun to have some good days where James doesn’t infiltrate my thoughts, but because she deserves to know the truth about how her son died.
“Isabella, I think you should come sit down. There are things you need to know.”
“What could I possibly still need to know? After I’ve seen my son’s widow making out with some guy in a motorcycle jacket just six months after his death?”
“James wasn’t who I thought he was.”
Isabella frowns. “What are you saying? Don’t you dare slander him just so you can feel better about what you’re doing here. My son loved you. No matter what I said, he always defended the things you did,” she says, her voice rising. “James gave you everything, and you—”
I put my hand on her arm to interrupt her. “I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll be blunt. James was having an affair. That’s why he was in Maui. He’d been seeing her for months. And she was pregnant with his child. Yes, you’re right, he may have loved me. But I think he loved her too.”
Isabella lets out a cry, and I put my arms around her shoulders and hug her as tightly as I can. We stand like that for several seconds until Isabella pulls back, her mascara running down her cheeks. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. I promise I’ll explain everything.”
She walks over to her tote and pulls out a package of tissues, removing one and dabbing each eye delicately. “I’m ready now.”
I sit down on the bed and pat the place next to me. “Okay,” I say. And because there’s no room for lies in this version of my life, I start from the beginning and don’t stop until every drop of truth is revealed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
JACKS—AFTER