6. Willow
— ? —
Willow
Glenn is waiting for me at our usual table, the one in the back corner where nobody can see us, where we can talk without worrying about anyone from the org wandering by and wondering why the executive director looks like he hasn’t slept in a month.
He looks terrible. Worse than yesterday, which I didn’t think was possible.
The circles under his eyes have deepened into purple bruises, and he’s lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose, his clothes hanging off his frame like they belong to someone larger.
Grief is dismantling him piece by piece, one sleepless night at a time, and he can’t even fall apart properly because nobody knows what he lost.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the chair across from him. “How are you holding up?”
He laughs, but there’s nothing funny in the sound, nothing remotely close to humor. “How do you think?”
“That bad?”
“The house is so quiet.” He’s shredding his napkin into little strips, not looking at me, his hands moving with the restless energy of someone who can’t stand to be still.
“I keep expecting to hear him. His voice calling from the other room. His footsteps on the stairs. The way he used to sing in the shower when he thought I couldn’t hear, these ridiculous show tunes he learned from his mother.
And then I remember, and it’s like losing him all over again.
Every single time. This endless loop of forgetting and remembering and having my heart broken fresh. ”
I reach across the table and cover his hands with mine, stilling the nervous movement. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know you are.” He finally meets my eyes, and the pain there makes my chest ache with sympathy. “You’re the only one who really knew what he was to me. Everyone else just thinks I lost a roommate. A buddy. A pal.”
“Glenn…”
“Do you know what his sister said at the funeral?” His voice is bitter, cracked at the edges. “She thanked me for being such a good friend to him. A good friend. Eight years together, three years married, and I’m a good fucking friend. Like we were college roommates who happened to stay in touch.”
“She doesn’t know. She can’t understand what she doesn’t know.”
“Because I never told her. Because I was too scared of what people would think, what the donors would do, how it would affect the org if the executive director came out as gay and married to a man.” He pulls his hands away from mine, scrubbing them over his face.
“I spent so much time hiding, Willow. So much energy making sure nobody found out about us. And now he’s gone and I can’t even grieve him properly.
I have to pretend I lost a friend when I lost my entire world. ”
“You don’t have to pretend with me. You never have to pretend with me.”
“I know. That’s why I keep dragging you to these dinners.
Why I keep asking you to sit with me while I fall apart.
” He drops his hands, looks at me with red-rimmed eyes that seem too old for his face.
“You’re the only person who lets me talk about him like he was real.
Like we were real. Like what we had mattered. ”
“You were real. The most real thing I’ve ever seen. And what you had mattered more than I can say.”
He’s quiet for a moment, staring at the menu he won’t order from because he can barely eat anymore.
We go through this ritual every time: he picks at bread, drinks too much wine, talks about John until he runs out of words.
I listen, hold his hand when he needs it, try to be the witness he needs when the rest of the world refuses to see him.
“I wasn’t there when he died,” Glenn says suddenly, the words dropping into the silence. “Did I ever tell you that?”
“No. You didn’t.”
“I was getting coffee.” His voice goes flat, distant, the recitation of a scene he’s replayed in his mind a thousand times.
“The hospital coffee was terrible, this bitter sludge that tasted like punishment, and John kept joking about it. Kept saying someone should start a gourmet coffee cart in the cardiac wing and make a fortune off desperate family members. So I went to that place across the street, the one with the good espresso and the pastries he liked. I was going to bring him a croissant. He loved their croissants.”
“Glenn…”
“I was gone for fifteen minutes, Willow. Fifteen fucking minutes. And when I got back, the machines were silent. His eyes were closed. The nurses were already there, doing their notes, recording the time. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I didn’t get to hold his hand at the end.
I missed the most important moment of his life because I wanted to bring him decent coffee. ”
“You couldn’t have known. There was no way to know it would happen right then.”
“I should have been there. I should have been holding his hand when his heart stopped. He shouldn’t have had to die alone in a hospital room while I was standing in line arguing about whether they had oat milk.
” His voice breaks, splinters, reforms itself through sheer force of will.
“The worst part is the hospital wouldn’t let me make decisions.
About his care, about his treatment, about anything.
Because we weren’t legally married as far as they knew.
Because I never disclosed it, never filled out the paperwork, never did any of the things that would have made it official.
His parents made all the choices at the end, and they didn’t even ask me what he would have wanted.
They just decided. And I stood there in the hallway like a stranger while they talked about his final hours. ”
I move around the table to the chair beside him. I put my arm around his shoulders and let him lean into me, his body shaking with the sobs he’s been holding back all day. Maybe all week.
“He knew you loved him,” I say into his hair. “He knew, Glenn. Every single day, he knew. That’s what matters. Not the fifteen minutes at the end. All the years before it.”
“I should have been there. He shouldn’t have had to die alone.”
“You couldn’t have known. Nobody could have known.”
I hold him while he cries, this man who has been so strong for so long, finally breaking apart in the corner of a restaurant where nobody can see.
The other diners don’t look our way. The waitstaff gives us space.
We’re invisible here, two people drowning in grief, one of us allowed to show it and one who has to pretend.
After a while, he pulls back. Wipes his face with his ruined napkin. Tries on a smile that doesn’t fit.
“Sorry,” he says. “I keep dumping this on you. You don’t deserve to carry my grief on top of everything else you’re dealing with.”
“Don’t apologize. That’s what I’m here for. That’s what friends do.”
“You’re a good friend, Willow. A real friend. Not the bullshit kind his sister thinks I am.”
“I try. I’ll always try.”
He picks up his wine glass, takes a long swallow that drains half of it. Sets it down.
“Can I give you some advice?” he asks. “Since you’re being so patient with my mess, let me return the favor.”
“Always.”
“Stop waiting for Corey to change.” His voice is gentle, but the words are not.
They land with the weight of truth spoken by someone who’s learned it the hard way.
“Decide what you’re willing to accept and stick to it.
Don’t waste years hoping someone will wake up and see you, because sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes they don’t wake up until it’s too late, and by then you’ve lost chances you’ll never get back. ”
I think about last night. The candles, the confession, the way Corey held me like I was precious. Waking up at 3 a.m. to cold sheets and that sliver of light under his study door. The promise he made and broke within hours.
“I don’t know what I’m willing to accept anymore,” I admit. “The lines keep moving.”
“Then figure it out. Before you run out of time to decide. Before you wake up one day and realize you spent your whole life waiting for someone who was never going to show up.”
We sit there in silence for a moment, two people who don’t know how to take their own advice.
“Appreciate what you have while you have it,” Glenn says finally. “I keep telling you that, right?”
“Something like that.”
“I should have taken my own advice.” He finishes his wine in one long swallow.
“Every day I think about all the things I should have said to John. All the moments I wasted being careful instead of being present. All the times I chose to hide instead of choosing to live. And now I’d give anything for one more day.
One more hour. One more chance to tell him what he meant to me out loud, where everyone could hear. ”
“He knew, Glenn. I promise you, he knew.”
“Maybe. Or maybe knowing isn’t the same as hearing it. Maybe I should have said it more. Maybe we all should.”
After dinner, I drive Glenn home. He’s had too much wine to be behind the wheel, his movements loose and uncoordinated, and honestly I need the quiet of the drive. The space to think about everything he said.
I walk him to his door, make sure he gets inside, make sure he’s steady enough to get himself to bed without falling down the stairs.
“Thank you,” he says from the doorway, leaning against the frame for support. “For listening. For showing up. For being the one person who doesn’t make me pretend.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Real friends.”
“The only kind worth having.”
He smiles, just barely, a ghost of the grin I used to see before John got sick, and closes the door.
I stand on his porch for a moment, looking up at the stars, thinking about what he said. About not waiting. About appreciating what you have. About running out of time.
The drive home takes twenty minutes. I spend most of it doing math in my head, the math I’ve been avoiding for days because I’m not ready to face what it might mean.
When was my last period? Five weeks ago? Six? I’ve been so distracted lately, so focused on Glenn and Corey and the slow collapse of everything around me, that I lost track of the calendar. I used to be so careful about that, tracking every cycle in an app, knowing exactly when to expect what.
But the nausea. The exhaustion that sleep doesn’t touch. The way certain smells have started making me gag, coffee and perfume and the dish soap I’ve used for years without problems.
I pull into a pharmacy parking lot and sit there with the engine running, staring at the glowing sign.
It’s probably nothing. Stress does weird things to the body, and I’ve been under more stress than usual.
Between John’s death and Glenn’s grief and my marriage slowly falling apart, my hormones are probably just confused.
That’s all this is. Confusion and exhaustion and the toll of holding everyone else together while I fall apart inside.
But the math keeps nagging at me. The timing. The symptoms that add up to something I’m not ready to name.
I go inside. I find the aisle. I stand there for too long, staring at the rows of tests with their promises of accuracy and their pictures of smiling women, before I grab a box without letting myself think too hard about it.
The clerk is young, maybe nineteen, with a ponytail and a friendly smile that makes me feel ancient.
“Hope it’s good news!” she says as she rings me up.
My hands are shaking so badly I almost drop my credit card.
I make it back to the car. I sit there in the parking lot with the test in my lap, my heart pounding, my mind racing through possibilities I’m not ready to face.
If I’m pregnant.
If I’m actually pregnant, what does that mean? For me, for Corey, for the marriage I’ve been trying so hard to save? Would a baby fix things? Would it give us a reason to try, a center to build around, a purpose bigger than our problems?
Or would it just give us another thing to fail at?
I don’t take the test in the pharmacy bathroom. I can’t. I need to do this at home, in private, where I can fall apart without witnesses if the answer is what I think it is.
I drive home with the box hidden in my purse and my hands still trembling on the wheel.