She didn’t answer right away, putting the spinach in the frying pan. “I never pictured a life without him,” she said, not looking at me. “I know we had a...retro kind of relationship, but it really was all I ever wanted. So I guess I’d try to forgive him, sure. He’d deserve that after eleven years, right? I mean, what else would I do? It’s not like I love my job. I was never the career people you and Sean are.”
“You were so good at NBC,” I said.
“You mean covering for America’s most lying newsman?”
“You can’t take the blame on that. You didn’t know.”
She was quiet for a minute. “Eric exaggerated on his blog, too.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“You knew?”
I snorted. “Of course I did.”
“Do all men lie, do you think?” she asked.
“All people lie at one point or another.” I paused. “Dad lied to Mom for years.”
“Right.” She nudged the potatoes. “Did Nathan?”
I paused. “No. I don’t think so.”
“He was so nice.”
For a second, I imagined Nathan coming in here, wearing one of his beautiful suits, tossing his keys into the tasteful wooden bowl he had for the sole purpose of holding keys, and saying, Was? What do you mean, was? He’d kiss me and then go hug Ainsley and say something nice to her...and...and...
His face was growing blurry to me.
That horrible spike was back in my throat. I took another healthy sip of wine.
“What’s it like?” Ainsley asked, her pretty face kind. She still looked twelve to me.
I didn’t answer for a moment. It feels like someone peeled off my skin. Everything hurts or stings or bleeds. I don’t even feel like a person anymore, just a raw piece of meat that has to get out of bed.
Some things you just didn’t want to put into words. “It’s like being in a dream. Like I’ll wake up in my old apartment and think, ‘Wow, that felt so real!’”
“Does the group help?”
I’d gone twice now. “Yeah, it does, actually. Just knowing they’re alive. Leo’s really happy these days. Even LuAnn—you know, the one with the makeup and the Bronx accent? She’s heartbroken, but she’s still laughing. So. Maybe I’ll get there.”
“You will.”
The wine was giving me a nice buzz. “That photo shoot I did in Brooklyn the other day? That was a good day. I saw an old friend. It was fun.”
“You deserve some fun.”
“It was nice while I was there, like yeah, I lost my husband, but I could handle it. And then I got back home here, and I ended up sleeping on the couch, because our bed is just so big.”
I wasn’t used to this...heart-to-hearts with my sister, who’d always seemed so different from me, so much younger. Yet here she was, pretty much saving my life by living here, even if it wasn’t her choice. “I felt like I was cheating on him,” I went on. “Because I’d had a nice day. Had dinner with a friend, who’s a good-looking guy.”
“So no nice days for the widow. And you have to ditch all your good-looking friends. Got it.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You think Nathan would want you to be miserable? Don’t you think he feels guilty enough, dying and leaving you alone? Get real, Kate. If you have a good day, grab on to it. Now sit. Dinner’s ready.”
She chattered about work, about a coworker named Rachelle who’d gone out with a guy who owned seventeen ferrets he regarded as his children, but because he had a job and paid for dinner, Rachelle agreed to a second date. About how the magazine would be sponsoring a Thanksgiving pie contest, and all the ingredients had to be from within a fifty-mile radius.
She was gifted at charm. I never valued that in her before, but I felt like kissing her hand now. I should write to Eric and thank him for being a self-centered idiot.
I ate enough to get me to the next meal; food had lost its taste, though Ainsley was a great cook. Then I shooed her off to do her thing and cleaned up the kitchen. I still didn’t know where everything went, but cleaning was satisfying, making everything perfect again, the way Nathan had liked it. I oiled the soapstone and scrubbed the sink and looked for the switch that would turn on the undercounter lighting, because that was how my husband had liked it.
“Nathan?” I whispered. “Are you okay?”
There was no answer.
Maybe I’d call a medium, someone who’d know where Nathan was. She could tell me he felt no pain and that he loved me and I should live a happy life.
Except I already knew those things, mostly. The coroner said he died instantly.
I gave up on the light switch and went into the den (or study), found the switch on the first try and sat down. This was where Nathan had worked from home.
The room still smelled like him.
He’d been making a plan for his parents—a home expansion so they could live on the first floor. Their house was huge, but formal, and he’d had this idea of knocking out the back, redoing the kitchen and putting on a big bedroom with a huge, wheelchair-accessible bathroom, should that day ever come. It was going to be a surprise, these plans. Their gift for their fiftieth anniversary.
I had a sudden flash of inspiration. I’d have someone at Nathan’s firm finish the plans—Phoebe, was that the name of the nice woman? I could give the plans to the Coburns, and they’d have part of him, his beautiful work, in their home for the rest of their lives.
I clicked on his mighty Mac and waited. The desktop background was our wedding picture.
There he was. The little mole on his cheek, his reddish blond hair, the slash marks (not dimples) that showed when he smiled. Pathetically, I touched the screen, wanting to remember what his cheek felt like.
At the bottom of the screen, the little red number on his email icon went from three to seventy-four.
Shit. I should’ve checked this before. I’d have to close his account.
I clicked the icon and started scrolling through the new messages.
Three were from coworkers on April 6, before he...fell. The other seventy-one were junk mail about exciting investment opportunities and seminars and a few for cheap Viagra.
“He didn’t need it,” I said to the computer.
His email folders were neatly labeled: Wildwood, Jacob’s Field, Oak Park—all developments his firm was building. I wondered if I should forward these folders to the firm. I’d call Phoebe, if that was her name.
There was another folder called Travel, which contained details on a few upcoming business trips he wouldn’t go on. Another called Computer Info, which had warranty information and the like.
And there was a folder called Kate. Unable to resist, I clicked on it.
All the emails I’d ever sent him.
From the first one, sent not even a year ago, to the last—the day he died, I’d asked him to pick up (you guessed it) wine.
I’d signed it Love you, you big dork. I can’t remember why I’d called him that. I mean, he was a big dork, but... And he’d saved even that note. Something as mundane and ordinary as that, but he’d taken the time to file it away.
I felt the tears coming, felt my eyes moistening, and thank God. All this time, I hadn’t cried a single drop. Surely, this would make me feel better, more normal, would start the healing process. If I could have a good cry, maybe that spike in my throat would start to disappear.