Chapter 2
In all the ways that the funeral was too loud, Bonnie’s house was too quiet.
The heavy click of the front door closing behind her bounced off the walls in the foyer. She never realized her house could echo. Normally, there was too much going on for any reverberations to break through to her consciousness.
Peter liked to listen to sports radio in his den and often forgot to turn off the stereo. Bonnie was forever coming home to hear the crack of a baseball bat and an announcer’s excited yell, only to discover Peter was out in the yard, not anywhere near his den. Then there were the business calls he’d take, wandering the house with his cell phone pressed to his ear. Peter was a fountain of noise.
Bonnie wasn’t normally silent, either. She sang along to her own radio stations, and the kitchen was always filled with the sounds of cooking. The sizzle of garlic and onions on the stove, the tinkering of pots and pans in the sink, or the sharp, hollow thud of a knife hitting the cutting board after slicing through various vegetables.
Up until the morning Peter died, there had been plenty going on in the house to make noise.
But now, the radio was silent. The parade of well-wishers and fellow mourners had ended, and Bonnie was alone in a house that was much too big for only her. Peter’s keys were sitting on the kitchen table, where he’d dropped them the night before he died. His favorite pair of loafers sat by the door, alongside his worn house slippers. He never liked having his bare feet on the floor.
Bonnie wandered through the house, staring blankly at all the reminders of her husband—sweaters draped over chairs, pieces of mail on the side table, spare phone chargers in random places. She would have ended up picking up half of it for him anyway. The other half she would have nagged him to take care of until he did. Now, everything in the house would stay exactly as it was unless she did something about it.
That was an unexpected, unsettling thought.
Rather than dwell on what her future would now look like, she shook it off and walked into the kitchen. Dinner was something she could handle. For years, she’d managed to feed her whole family, three times a day. Feeding herself couldn’t be any harder than getting a meal ready for a family of four.
The trouble was, when she opened the refrigerator, all her motivation drained right out of her and slithered away to some dark corner of the house. She stared at the contents of the fridge, waiting for something inside of it to make sense. It was stuffed to the brim, and not just with all the dishes people had dropped off as part of the bereavement ritual. Among borrowed casserole dishes and dutch ovens were the ingredients she’d purchased that week to cook meals for herself and Peter.
Flank steak sat in his favorite marinade, waiting for someone to come and grill it. Lettuce wilted in the crisper drawer next to an assortment of peppers and peas. Celery, carrots, and onions were all portioned into containers, diced and ready for an abundance of recipes she knew like the back of her hand. There were tomatoes on the counter, apples in the fruit basket, fresh loaves of bread in the bread box, and a whole chicken buried somewhere in the back of the fridge, waiting to be spatchcocked.
Bonnie couldn’t do any of it. She suddenly felt so tired, all the way down to her bones, that she didn’t think she could stand to cook anything. The idea of hovering over the stove or even shoving a plate of one of the many casseroles into the microwave was too overwhelming.
There was no way she could eat all this food before it went bad. If Jackie and James were there, they might have made a decent dent in it altogether. But all by herself? Bonnie knew half of it would go bad before she even figured out what it was or what to do with it.
The smart thing to do would be to clean it all out. She could bring things by the neighbors’ houses and spread the wealth around. There were people in the neighborhood with teenagers; they could make short work of all this. But the task was daunting. After everything Bonnie had managed this week—casket choices, which hymns to play at the service, headstone size and shape and color and carving font, wake or reception, morning or afternoon service, programs, where to print the obituary, who should give the eulogy—she simply couldn’t manage one more task.
She couldn’t face the food in the fridge, or Peter’s pajamas folded neatly at the foot of their bed, or his dress shirts hung up in their closet. She could barely look at his toothbrush in the cup by the sink next to hers, or his towel on the rack by the shower.
Instead, she pulled a bottle of white wine out of the fridge and opened it. The act of pouring the canary-colored liquid into a glass was as complicated a task as Bonnie was up for tonight. She carried the bottle and the glass into the living room and sank into her favorite chair to sip it. From there, she could see into the yard or gaze into the fireplace.
She kicked off her sensible black pumps and tucked her legs beneath her on the oversized, plush seat, resting her head on the plump, cushioned back of the chair.
Now that she didn’t have to deal with anyone demanding things of her, her mind finally had a chance to quiet and settle. There were no thank-yous to offer, stories to tell, or decisions to make tonight. No one was waiting for a phone call or a confirmation. The endless amount of tasks that had felt last-minute because Peter left too soon were all checked off.
And now she had to stare down the rest of her life without him.
A thousand emotions churned in her gut, but the clearest one was dread. It took up the most space, climbing its way out of her stomach to wrap around her spine and press against her heart and lungs. All those empty days ahead loomed over her menacingly like a threatening storm cloud. Without Peter, and no kids to raise, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with herself.
For years, she’d devoted herself to James and Jackie. She’d been a supermom, always ferrying them to playdates and extracurricular activities. At night, she sat with them at the kitchen table to help with homework or offer advice on friendships and dating woes. Their dreams had been her dreams, and their futures were her focus.
Then they grew up, and all of a sudden, Bonnie was thrust into a new chapter of her life with Peter. His life didn’t experience the same seismic shift as hers when the kids moved out to head to college. The fabric of his days was the same as it ever was—busy with meetings and clients and deals.
Peter had been an entrepreneur. He ran a handful of businesses, none of which Bonnie understood particularly well. There hadn’t been time or energy to figure out his work when she was dealing with the kids. Once they didn’t need her so much anymore, she shifted her focus to caring for her husband. She ran the household and kept him fed and clothed so he could keep working hard to support them. It had worked well for them, and Bonnie had been content with her life.
Without Peter or the kids to care for, though, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with all this spare time. It was another part of grief she hadn’t expected. She grieved the person she lost when Peter died, but also the life they had together. Her whole way of living was gone in the blink of an eye, along with the person she’d relied on for decades to give her life shape and purpose.
She took a long sip of wine, letting the Chardonnay melt against her taste buds before she swallowed. There were, of course, things she wanted from life. She wanted to travel more and do some volunteer work. A few times, she’d looked up logistics for around-the-world cruises, guided hiking tours, and bike trips through foreign countries. She wanted to taste pasta in Italy, see Machu Picchu, and maybe even see a wild elephant on a safari trip. Sometimes, especially in the dark, cold New York winters, she’d dreamt of white-sand beaches and fancy cocktails under a wide blue Caribbean sky.
Peter hadn’t discouraged her dreams; he wasn’t opposed to travel. But there never seemed to be time. Over and over, he told Bonnie they’d see the whole world together someday, once he retired. He’d been so convinced they had plenty of time. Bonnie hadn’t disagreed, exactly, but she’d been more eager for his retirement than he had.
As far as she could tell, Peter had liked working. Now that he was gone, she wished she’d asked him more questions about his job. She wanted to know what had been so appealing about the work, and what exactly it was he’d done all day. The big picture was all she had: Peter had run a series of businesses, somehow related to finance. There were other people involved in his dealings, but Bonnie was never sure if they were business partners or employees.
As she polished off her second glass of wine, it occurred to her that she didn’t know what would happen to the businesses now. She didn’t know if he had managers or an assistant. She had no idea if everything would keep humming along, business as usual, or if she would need to step in and intervene somehow.
It was an overwhelming thought.
Now that the funeral was over, Bonnie realized the hardest choices were still ahead of her. Which casket she buried in the ground didn’t matter at all now that it was done, but she did need to figure out her family’s finances. As much as Peter had depended on her for practical day-to-day living, she’d relied on him, too. She’d written the checks to pay the mortgage, but she wasn’t the one who earned the money.
She put the wine down and took a deep breath. Tomorrow, she’d go to Peter’s office to see what was what. Someone there would be able to tell her what was going on and how they’d managed since Peter’s death. Surely, there would be paperwork, and someone to explain how everything worked and what the businesses actually did. Just because she’d never asked about it didn’t mean she couldn’t figure it out.
Bonnie might not have ever had a career of her own, but it wasn’t for lack of skill. She went to the same college as Peter—it was how they met. She’d majored in anthropology and graduated quite highly ranked in their class with a whole host of honors. Peter had swept her off her feet during their junior year, their wedding was only a few weeks after graduation, and the rest was history.
Peter had always been successful. He’d taken such pride in being a good provider for their family. They’d had trouble getting pregnant at first, and Bonnie had wondered if she ought to take a break and work for a few years before trying again. But Peter had insisted that she rest and focus on her health while he handled their finances. She had thrown her energy into preparing for motherhood as best she could, and then when James finally arrived, she’d devoted herself to him, and then to Jackie two years later.
Bonnie thrived when she had a project. Now that she’d identified her next project, she felt a bit more hopeful. Her life was different now, and forever would be, but it wasn’t as if her life had changed before. She could do this, no matter how frightening it was to do it alone.