“So?” he asked. “Do you want to go?”
The negative voice in her mind screamed, You can’t do this! No way. You’d have nothing to talk about. You’ll just be nervous, scared. He’ll only reject you. Of course he will.
“I’d love to . . .” The negative thoughts raced through her head, magnifying her fear. “. . . but I can’t,” she said in a rush.
“Oh.”
“I have to get sketches turned in and—and I’m behind schedule. I don’t dare take time off.”
“You’ve got to eat,” he argued with a convincing smile. “I’ll bring you right back. Promise.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t look at him.
“How about tomorrow night?”
She took a deep breath, afraid she’d burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, then,” he said in a different tone. Almost a monotone. “Well . . . I best be off.”
Heather glanced at him. Bo’s face was pinched and his eyes narrowed; he was clearly disappointed, perhaps even hurt. She moved to open the door and stood aside to let him pass. She tried to smile, but he wasn’t looking.
“Thanks again for the flowers.”
Bo didn’t reply. She watched as he walked down the stairs, counting each one as she felt the thuds reverberating in her heart.
CARA LEFT THE lights on throughout the night. She couldn’t face the darkness. When she’d awakened in the middle of the night, her arm was stretched out on Brett’s side of the bed. For those first few seconds of wakefulness she wondered where he was. For those brief, stolen seconds he was still alive in her mind. She tried to hang on to the moment between sleep and wakefulness, clinging to it with desperation, especially emerging from a dream in which he’d been so alive she could feel him, touch him, smell him. Yet the longer she waited, the more heartbreaking it was to face the truth. He is gone.
So she kept the lights on. She found if she woke quickly and could see the empty bed, the pain was more a dull ache when she realized, He is gone.
Each morning when the sun was bright in the sky, Cara rose. As she’d promised Emmi and Flo, Cara showered, brushed her teeth, her hair. It was all very mechanical. She didn’t think about what she put on. Pants, a bra, top, flip-flops. Nothing seemed to fit anymore. Her clothes hung shapelessly from her frame.
It seemed to take more effort to do the smallest things. Everything made her so very tired. Her mind drifted; she’d walk into a room and find herself standing there, staring into space, having forgotten what she’d come for. She was never hungry. She ate mostly because she’d promised Emmi that she would. She went to the fridge and found it jam-packed with Tupperware and foil-covered dishes. She opened one marked CHICKEN KIEV on the foil cover and, looking in, gagged. It had gone bad. She tossed the entire dish into the trash. She went through a few more, sniffing suspiciously, and, when in doubt, tossed those, too. She reached for a white baker’s box. Inside she found a mother lode of pastries and cookies. She pulled out a thick, chocolaty oatmeal square and began eating it mindlessly as she tossed one of the tiny cups into the coffee machine. Chocolate was one flavor that reminded her she was still alive.
She licked her fingers, tasting the dark chocolate sweetness, smelling the coffee brewing, then reached for another bar, feeling a sudden insatiable hunger. Outside, the fronds of the palm trees waved gently in the breeze. White clouds floated in a blue sky and boaters were racing along Hamlin Creek. She could hear their whoops of excitement. It was a sunny summer day. Brett would have a lot of tourists out on the boat, she thought.
She stopped herself and put fingers to her forehead. “Must stop doing that,” she said aloud. It was a month since he’d died. Thirty days today. She had to stop thinking he was coming back.
She’d read so much about the grieving process over the past month. Devoured articles on the Internet, ordered books. All of them were clear that there was no timeline for grief. They were specific about symptoms of grief—the sensations of choking, shortness of breath, feelings of emptiness, endless crying. But nothing warned her that when she wasn’t experiencing those symptoms of anguish, all that was left was a sense of meaninglessness. A great, vast gray space of nothingness. Limbo.
She tried to rally, pulling together her power of cognitive thought. She’d promised her lawyer and accountant that she would gather the important papers they needed by tomorrow. She ran her hand through her hair. She’d always done the bills and financial planning, so she knew where those papers were. But where did Brett keep his personal papers? He’d always been creative in his filing. When she’d first met him years ago, he’d taken money from his customers for the tour-boat ride and simply put it into an old, dented metal box. No record, no receipt. Why hadn’t they shared with one another where they kept their important papers?
She set aside the coffee and cookies and began prowling through the house, considering likely places Brett might put his papers. His closet was a good start. She opened the door and was met with an overwhelming surge of scents—sandalwood and cologne with a hint of the salt water Brett had perpetually carried on his person from his time spent out at sea. It sent her reeling and tears burst from her eyes. She brought her palms to her face. After she collected herself, she pulled back the hair that had fallen into her face. It was damp with her tears.
It was painful to go through his closet, but she soldiered on, she had to, or she’d curl up in his bathrobe and sleep. On the top shelf she found an old Nike shoebox. She stepped off the stool and opening it, she couldn’t believe what was in it. There was the deed to the house, along with an old Nikon camera, a collection of keys, some coins, and a picture of a young blond woman with a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle.
“In the shoebox,” she said with disbelief. She had to laugh.