Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
When Erika returned to work Tuesday, Callie eyed her all day. She had to hit the ground running due to an outbreak of head colds, so the office was too swamped for her friend to approach her with any sort of lengthy or in-depth conversations. Erika felt thankful for this. Staying busy kept her in active mode rather than fretting about where her life might be going.
Or not going.
She didn’t suspect that Callie would have something up her sleeve, but she probably should have. Still, when her friend made a point of telling Tim and Julie that she would close up shop, she wound up holding Erika back with her.
“All right, spill it. What’s going on? And don’t act like you don’t know what I mean.”
The jig was up. Erika might not have been sick for the past couple of days, but she felt as if she’d been wrung out from head to toe. Her body even ached as if she’d had some stubborn form of the flu. But then she knew from both her studies and her experience that emotional distress could wreak just as much havoc as physical distress.
“Bad weekend.”
“Go on,” Callie pressed, and Erika sighed.
She started to say that she’d missed Blake, because it was true. She did realize that she’d held on to his memory too tightly sometimes making it hard to get on with her life. She knew he’d never want that for her. For some reason, there were times she couldn’t let go. But right now, she was pretty sure that her problem was more multi-faceted than that. Trust her to turn a simple issue into a complicated one.
“Messing things up with Cody was a mistake,” she confessed. “And it made me reevaluate a lot of the choices I’ve been making.” She fell silent, and Callie waited, not pushing her, which Erika appreciated. “Did you know that I’ve been going over to the Cantrells—my in-laws—for dinner on Fridays?”
“Like last Friday?”
“Last Friday and each one before that.”
Callie blinked. “You have?”
“Always.” Erika nodded. “For sixteen years now.” Something she’d been doing these past few days had been to evaluate her decisions, and rather than resent other people’s perspectives on her situation, she’d started to realize how her life must look from the outside in. And maybe that look wasn’t the healthiest from a mental standpoint. “I needed stability at first. Then those Friday nights just never stopped.”
“Understandable.”
“But I recently discovered that… Well, I think I’ve been using them as a crutch. Maintaining that routine with them has been a method of holding on to Blake and…” She became misty-eyed, unable to go on.
Callie offered a supportive stroke up and down her back. “And what?” Her friend gently nudged her when she didn’t continue. “You can tell me anything, Erika. I’ll never judge you.”
Erika huffed out a watery laugh even though there was nothing humorous about this. “I pushed Cody away because I’m afraid of losing my memories of Blake. I know that sounds crazy.”
“There’s nothing about grief that’s crazy. It has its own timeline and its own currents.”
“Yeah? I feel as if I’ve been taken under by a riptide.”
Callie let loose a snort that had her covering her mouth, but Erika didn’t mind. She even smiled at her.
“Erika, you should know that everyone finds new stuff scary sometimes. Not everyone jumps into new adventures with both feet. You’re not alone in that.”
“I’m pretty alone when it comes to how long I’ve been putting off taking any next steps in the romance direction.”
“Maybe,” Callie conceded. “But only you can take the next step in your own journey. That means only you get to decide when and how that might look. People can offer you all the advice in the world, but all of it’s up to you. Only you.”
Her friend might not be telling her anything new, but how she put it rang in a different way for Erika than it ever had before. So many of her loved ones had encouraged her to let Blake go, but they weren’t the ones who actually had to do it. She was. That had made the task feel insurmountable to Erika, but now, while difficult, it no longer seemed impossible.
She gazed at Callie, so grateful the woman had come to work in her brother’s office. That didn’t mean, however, that Erika was ready to drop the bomb of leaving the RN position on her friend. Not now. Not yet.
“You think Cody will talk to me if I call? Or maybe I should text?”
“You know him better than I do,” Callie pointed out. “But he doesn’t strike me as the type to hold a grudge.”
He wasn’t. Or at least, he hadn’t been. Who knew how the man would react after how she’d been dangling the fishing line in front of him only to snatch it away at the last minute? Not that she’d intentionally treated him like that, but she couldn’t deny that it was an accurate description.
“You’re extremely talented when it comes to cheering people up,” Erika complimented her friend. “Do you know that?”
They hugged, and Callie snickered. “I try. And don’t think I can’t grasp what it’s like to be in a relationship that’s rocky. When I almost lost Zeke, then he had amnesia, it was just…” Her friend stared into space as she took a deep breath. Then, she shrugged. “Before that, he’d shut me out of his life because I brought up Essie and his late wife. He couldn’t bear to discuss it, and he didn’t get past it until after he woke in the hospital.”
“I’m the one who mentioned that to you,” Erika remembered.
“Yeah, and well, I suppose he considered it more of a secret than the rest of the town. He acted angry that I dared to bring it up. Ironically, if Zeke hadn’t gone through his accident—and his recovery—I’m not sure what would’ve happened with us.”
“I apologize if I complicated stuff between you two. I never meant to do that.”
Callie shook her head. “I complicated stuff just fine on my own. But one thing I learned the hard way is that grief and mourning is different for every individual person. When Zeke let himself experience the sorrow he’d been burying for years, it improved his outlook for himself and ultimately, for us as a couple. It was necessary in the overall scheme of things. It was tough, but I believe in concentrating on the silver linings.”
That was certainly true. Somehow, her friend could perceive the identical circumstances as everyone else and always choose the most optimistic viewpoint. Erika loved that about her. She’d needed someone like that, and even though she wouldn’t be working with Callie much longer, she planned to make sure that they maintained their friendship no matter what.
Erika realized that she and Zeke had something in common. Would it take suffering some horrible medical emergency for her to get her head on straight? She hoped not. She loved her late husband and always would. Erika would never stop recalling her time with him, her marriage to him, and not think of it fondly.
But she’d been keeping herself stunted and stifled. Ever since her breakdown in her car, Erika had been trying to dream up some strategy that would enable her to make a decision, even though no epiphany had come.
It occurred to her that she could simply go directly to the source. Why not?
So, as she and Callie parted ways, Erika didn’t head home or to run errands. She didn’t aim toward her parents’ house and certainly not to the Cantrells. No. She instead drove through town to another location she was exceptionally familiar with.
The Rocky Ridge Cemetery.
On the way, she saw some wildflowers growing along the side of the road and collected the bunch of white yarrow that was so plentiful in this region. She carried it to the vase she kept on his grave. This wasn’t the first time she spoke out loud to Blake, nor would it be her last. But it was the first time she’d broached this particular subject.
“Hey, babe,” Erika said as soon as she could make out the simple cut of the smooth pale gray limestone. She positioned the bunch of yarrow so that it laid right next to the vase that held the silk flowers Nikki and Bruce brought, then traced the words chiseled into the stone.
Blake William Cantrell
Beloved Husband and Son
He had been beloved. He would always be beloved.
“Say hi to everyone up in Heaven for me.” This was part of her script, as well. Yet the next part wasn’t. “I’ve met someone.” Why it was so hard to say that handful of words, she had no clue. “And the thing is that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make it work if I can’t recover from losing you. I’ll never ever stop loving you, but I know it’s time for me to move forward. I need that.”
Her vision became blurry as tears filled her eyes. Great. She’d somehow morphed into a living fountain lately, which wasn’t like her.
“You know you were my first love.” More tears flowed because she knew that she wouldn’t say the next part of the declaration she always said. You’ll always be my only love. This was a significant change. Powerful. Very difficult. “I needed to be here in this place to say this part out loud. I do know you’d never expect me to live the rest of my life alone. You would never want that for me. So I’m going to take the step I’m scared to death of.”
Her voice cracked on the last two words, yet the second she’d spoken them, she caught a whiff of Blake’s rain fresh scent on the breeze despite there not being a cloud in the sky. God was giving her a sign that everything was going to be okay.
A soft breeze kicked up, making the blooms she’d placed stir ever so slightly, and a sense of peace filled her that she couldn’t logically explain. She knew what it meant. As she slumped over onto her knees, with her forehead pressed against Blake’s name on his headstone, her crying continued. She was letting go, but it felt right. She’d always love Blake, there was no doubt about that. But she wouldn’t feel guilty about living her life. Not any more.