“Oh, Cara,” Emmi said in a broken voice.
“I’m not asking you to get rid of his things,” Flo said. “But we are going to help you take a nice bath. Wash your hair. Tidy up some in here. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better. I don’t deserve to feel better,” Cara said brokenly.
“Now, why would you say such a thing?” Flo asked.
Cara squeezed her eyes shut in agony, remembering again, as she had been remembering over and over since Brett’s death. “We fought,” she began haltingly. “On the day he died. We fought.”
Flo exchanged glances with Emmi. After a pause, she asked Cara, “Do you want to tell us about it?”
Cara did. “I came home from the bank and he was already home. He’d come home early from work. He said something about feeling strange. I wish I could remember his words,” she said, rubbing her forehead with her fist. “Why didn’t he go to the doctor then?” She shifted her head on the pillow to look at Flo beseechingly. “Why didn’t I listen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because we all say things like that from time to time. No one pays it much mind.”
Cara heard the words, let them digest. “There was a problem with the loan for the boat. The bank . . . well . . .” She stopped with a defeated sigh. She didn’t want to talk about the boat or the loan. That all meant nothing, less than nothing, to her now. “We argued,” she continued, piecing the memory together. “I told him that it was his fault we were in trouble with the bank. Because of his buying the boat and all. One thing led to another.” She paused. “I told him I wasn’t happy.” She swallowed hard, wishing she could take back those words. She felt the air suck out from her lungs.
“Cara?” Emmi said.
“I was a fool. I had him!” Cara cried. “All I needed for happiness. Why did I say that?”
“Because you’re human,” Flo said in a weary tone. “Because you didn’t know it was the last you’d see of him. You thought you had time.”
Her face crumpled. “I did.” After a few moments, she wiped her face and sniffed. “But we patched it up at the end,” she said, more to herself. Hearing herself tell the story aloud helped her to think it through clearly. “He said we’d make it work out. How we always made it work.”
“That’s good,” Emmi said encouragingly. “See? That’s not fighting.”
Cara shook her head. “But I was still mad at him. I held it inside, like I always do,” she added with a heavy dose of self-recrimination. She could see Brett again in her mind, his gray T-shirt and jogging pants. He’d caught her gaze before he left and smiled. She saw again his eyes, so blue and hopeful . . . trusting . . . confirming that all was well between them. But she hadn’t smiled back. She was still annoyed.
“He went out for a run. I heard the door close and . . .” She slammed her hand to her mouth as tears sprang to her eyes. “I didn’t say good-bye,” she burst out on a sob, covering her face with her hands.
Cara completely broke down. She had named her greatest grief. If she could go back in time and change one thing, she’d go to that single moment. She’d run into his arms and tell him, “Yes, I believe all will be well because we’re together. I love you.”
But that moment had passed. She’d not said good-bye, and the guilt of having withheld her farewell would curse her forever. Cara wailed openmouthed, howling, and feeling no need to hide her emotions with her dearest friends. Flo and Emmi put their arms around her as she wept, keeping her safe as she released a torrent of feelings—fear, guilt, unspeakable sorrow.
She didn’t know how long she cried, but in time the heaving sobs dissipated to a tremulous sighing. Her face was wet with tears that she wiped away on the bedsheets. But she felt spent, willing to do as her friends asked. Emmi quietly rose and went to the bath. Soon Cara heard the water running full force. Together Emmi and Flo guided Cara to the bathroom and helped her remove her pajamas, unbuttoning her top, guiding her feet from the pants—left foot, right foot. She felt tended to like a child, and it was surreal and soothing. The scent of lavender wafted through the room, otherworldly and calming. Next she stepped into the tub—left foot, right foot. It was hot but not scalding. She slowly eased into the steaming, scented water. While Flo changed her bedsheets, Emmi washed her hair, chattering about something of little importance. Cara closed her eyes and relished the feeling of Emmi’s strong fingers massaging her head. It felt like she was slowly awakening from a long, heavy sleep. She stepped into a thirsty towel, and let Emmi dry and comb her hair. Then Cara brushed her teeth and slipped into clean clothes.
They gathered again on the sofa in the living room with cups of hot tea. Emmi put out a plate of cookies that no one touched, but it seemed proper to have them there, just in case.
Cara sat with her fingers wrapped around the warm mug and looked around the room. Her house was clean and tidy, thanks to Emmi. Her eyes searched out every corner. Everything was just as it had been the day Brett left the house. His bicycle was still parked by the front door. His gym jacket hung on a hook by the door, his wallet and keys in the sweetgrass basket on the front table. It was all unchanged. Normal.
“I expect to see him walk into the house any minute,” Cara said quietly, feeling another wave of anguish.
“You’ll feel that for some time,” Flo said.
“How long?”
“It’s different for everyone.”
“I can’t go on feeling like this much longer.”
“Like how?” asked Emmi.
“Like I’m going crazy. Sometimes I lie in bed and wonder if all this is really the dream and if I wake up he’ll still be here.” She paused. “How was the funeral?” she asked them, feeling in a daze. “I barely remember it.”
“It was just beautiful,” Emmi assured her. “Everyone came.”
“And his ashes? Where . . . ?” The one thing Cara and Brett had spoken of once over too many bottles of red wine was that he wanted to be cremated. “Ashes to ashes,” he’d pronounced, clinking his glass against Cara’s when she’d agreed she wanted cremation as well.
Flo patted her hand. “They’re waiting for you to decide what you want to do.”
Cara licked her lips. “What I want to do,” she repeated softly. “You know, one of the things we talked about that—that last day was how I didn’t know what I wanted to do. For a job. Seems so silly now.” She laughed shortly. “Now I don’t have any idea of what to do for anything. For my life. I don’t know what to do with myself. All I can seem to manage is to lie in bed.”
“What do you want to do?” asked Flo.
She chuckled without humor. “That was what Brett asked me. I didn’t have a clue then, and I have even less of one today.”
“You’re grieving, Cara,” Flo told her. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Grief can make you question your goals and purpose. How you want to spend your life.”
“A life without Brett . . .”
“Well, you could make an appearance at the office,” Emmi suggested.