Chapter 6
Six
Lexi
Tom has planned a romantic day for us that began with breakfast at our favorite diner, followed by a long, leisurely drive into the mountains for a hike at Skyline Drive, which was one of my favorite places to go with my late husband, Jim.
Tom knows that and has helped me to reclaim a spot I used to love by going there together to make new memories.
He’s thoughtful that way, incorporating Jim into the life we’re building together because he understands that Jim will always be part of us. That makes him the perfect partner for me, despite my lingering concerns about his heart condition.
I still can’t think about the evening I returned to the home we shared, at that time as platonic roommates in deep flirtation, to find him passed out on the floor of the living room in cardiac arrest, without wanting to run screaming from him.
But… since the incident, he’s changed everything, from his diet to his exercise program. He’s all but stopped drinking alcohol and is fanatical about watching his cholesterol and other risk factors.
There’s nothing he could do that he’s not doing, which gives me comfort despite the anxiety that lingers long after something like that happens—especially after losing my first husband to ALS.
We’ve scored a beautiful late autumn day and other than some traffic due to others having the same idea Tom had, we have an enjoyable ride through still-colorful foliage. We’ve had an unusually chilly autumn this year, which has kept the leaves colorful longer than usual.
He has his music app set to a classic rock playlist and sings along to Foreigner as we get closer to the parking area for the hiking trail.
The first few times we came here together, I experienced memories of Jim that left me feeling triggered for a few days afterward.
Tom encouraged me to talk about it rather than trying to bury the pain, and I was surprised to find that it helped to share my grief with him.
It was as if he relieved some of the burden simply by listening to me talk about the things I remembered and how I still ache for Jim.
I appreciate that Tom is never threatened by the fact that I’m still in love with the man I lost so tragically.
After we park, we don waistbands that hold water bottles and basic first aid supplies. We sun-screened before we left the house and have more with us to reapply later.
Tom tugs my Capitals ballcap down to shade my eyes. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.”
He takes my hand to lead the way to the trailhead and holds on most of the way up, except for when we pass others on the trail and drop to single file, after which he immediately reaches for my hand again.
His love, and that of my close friends and family, has made me happy to be alive again, which wasn’t the case after I first lost Jim.
For a long time, I didn’t think I’d be able to go on.
The ordeal of his illness, followed by the trauma of his death, sucked the life out of me.
When I look back at that time now, it exists in this odd, cloudy place in my mind.
I can’t quite make out the details, but I vividly remember the raw, unrelenting pain that came with thinking my life was over because his ended.
In many ways, Tom is the best thing to ever happen to me because he’s shown me that’s simply not true, as much as it might’ve once seemed like it.
As the trail gets steeper, we double down on making the climb to the summit, where the spectacular view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley makes it worth the effort.
“Ah, look at that. So, so beautiful.”
Tom kisses me. “Yes, you are.”
“Sure I am, in all my sweaty, red-faced glory.”
“If I say you’re beautiful, you aren’t allowed to argue with me.”
“Is that another new rule?”
He’s always making funny rules for us, such as never go to bed without kissing him three times—at least—and morning sex before coffee on the weekends.
“I believe I’ll be adding that one to the list.”
I’m gazing at the gorgeous scenery, and when I glance at him, my witty retort dies on my lips when I see that he’s dropped to one knee. What is happening?
He takes my hand and gazes up at me with all the love he’s shown me every day since we first reconnected, years after high school, where we first became aware of each other.
My eyes are full of tears as I notice we’ve attracted a crowd of other hikers who are watching us. “Tom…”
“My sweet Lexi, I love you so much, and I love the life we’ve created for ourselves. You saved me in every possible way, and I want to spend the rest of my days with you. Will you marry me?”
After Jim died, I said I’d never get married again, but Tom has changed my mind about a lot of things, including remarriage.
“Yes,” I say in a whisper as I fall to my knees to kiss him. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
A cheer goes up from the onlookers.
“I got it on video for ya,” one of them says.
Tom gathers me into a tight hug. “Thanks for saying yes.”
I laugh even as tears spill down my cheeks. “Thanks for asking.”
“I wasn’t sure if I should, but I figured it was worth a shot.”
“It was perfect and thank you for doing it here.”
“I had a little talk with Jim before I asked you. I told him I’d try to take care of you like he did, and I’d love you enough for both of us.”
This man… This dear, sweet, sexy, funny, adorable man.
“Thank you for that. For getting it. For making him part of this and us and, well, all of it.”
“He’s always with us, Lex. I never forget that you had to lose him to get to me, and I promise I never will.”
We hold each other for a long time, until the guy who took the video runs out of patience waiting for us.
“You want the video or what?”
I wipe my face and laugh. “We want it. We definitely want it.”
Angela
Saturdays are different now that Spencer is gone. What used to be family time is now just another survival day for me, with my eldest out of school, my middle one out of sorts and a baby getting molars who can’t be pacified no matter what I do for him.
Being stuck at home with two kids who desperately miss their dad, the “fun” parent, and a seventeen-month-old who refuses to nap is my idea of hell. And yes, I love my children with my whole heart, the way I did before their dad died suddenly from an accidental fentanyl overdose.
But like everything since Spence died, I feel differently toward them—and everything—than I did before.
The weight of being fully responsible for three small beings sits on my shoulders like a thousand-pound boulder that I won’t get out from under for almost twenty years, if then.
That thought keeps me awake at night, even when the baby is finally sleeping and giving me an opportunity to do the same.
I’m attempting to feed Joshua when I get a text from my friend Brad Albright, who lost his wife, Mary Alice, to the same toxic fentanyl that killed Spencer.
After being introduced by my sister Sam at one of the court hearings for the perpetrators, we’ve bonded over our common loss and become buddies as we adjust to single parenthood with five children between us.
My kids are driving me batshit crazy. You want to meet at the park?
I juggle my phone around feeding the baby to reply, God yes. We’ll be there. What time?
Two?
See you then.
This’ll be the third time in recent weeks that we’ve met Brad and his kids at the park. Last weekend, we took the kids for pizza afterward, which sparked a lot of questions from my intelligent, intuitive son Jack, who’s eight and still grieving his father hard.
“Is Mr. Brad your new boyfriend?”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“Will he be our new daddy?”
I answered no to each of his questions. “Mr. Brad lost his wife the same way we lost Daddy, and he’s become a friend who understands what we’re going through. That’s all it is.”
“Are you going to get married again?”
“I’m in no way ready to even think about something like that. Right now, I’m focused on you and Ella and baby Josh and working on the foundation we started to help other people who struggle with opioid addiction like Daddy did. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
“If you get a boyfriend, will you tell me?”
“When the time is right, I’d tell you, but that’s not going to happen any time soon, if ever.”
“You shouldn’t be alone forever. Daddy wouldn’t want that.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me.”
“What? When?”
“When we went fishing last summer, or I guess it was the summer before last now. He said if anything ever happened to him, he hoped that we’d be happy.”
I’ve been thinking about that for days now as I become more furious with my late husband with every day that goes by without him.
That he could’ve burdened Jack with such a thing, as well as giving him reason to worry that something might happen to his father long before it actually did…
It’s unbelievable and further proof that Spencer hadn’t been in his right mind for quite some time before his death.
All because of a back injury sustained during a football game with his college friends that I told him not to participate in, fearing he’d get hurt.
I never could’ve imagined the chain of events that would result from that decision to revisit his misspent youth.
If only he’d listened to me… He’d still be here with us and would’ve had no reason to tell Jack what he wanted for his family if he died.
The revelation from Jack has been so shocking that I haven’t told anyone about it yet. Rather, I’ve sat on it for days, processing the many implications. I’ll make sure Jack’s therapist knows about it before they meet next week.
Intense anger at the man I loved more than life makes everything else more difficult.
From helping my kids to bathe, dress, eat, play, go to the bathroom, get to sleep or whatever it is they need, I’m dragging all that anger along with me.
It becomes harder all the time to keep it hidden from them.
Lately, I find myself talking to one person about the anger—the only person who truly understands what I’m going through.
Brad Albright.
He’s furious with his late spouse, too.
We’re aware that addiction is an illness and should be treated as such, but he didn’t even know his wife, Mary Alice, was addicted until it was too late.
In my case, we did everything we could to get help for Spencer, including mortgaging our home and our future to pay for multiple trips to rehab that didn’t work.
Because of my sister, the first lady, and brother-in-law, the president, I received millions in donations after Spencer died, which gives me financial security that many widows, like Brad, don’t have.
He won’t hear of me helping him financially, but I’ll keep offering until he lets me. I plan to use most of the money to fund the foundation I’ve started in Spencer’s memory to help people like Brad, whose lives have been ruined by opioid addiction.
Joshua Charles, whose middle name is in honor of my late father, has fallen asleep while feeding, so I put him down to nap while I feed Jack and Ella some lunch.
“Mr. Brad invited us to meet them at the park today,” I tell the kids as I cut PB&Js into squares and serve them with apple slices. “Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“I love the park,” Ella says.
“I don’t want to go,” Jack says. “Let’s just stay home.”
Before he suddenly lost his father, who was also his favorite person and playmate, Jack never would’ve turned down a trip to the park.
“It’ll be fun,” I tell him, “and it’ll get us out of the house for some fresh air.”
“I don’t want fresh air.”
He’s gearing up for a serious tantrum, so I do what his therapist suggested and disengage for now as I prepare to leave the house with two young children and a baby.
I pack one bag for the older kids and another for Josh.
I toss in drinks, snacks and changes of clothes in case the kids get wet or muddy, one of which happens just about every time we go anywhere.
When I’m ready to go, I load Josh into the baby car seat and help Ella into her jacket. “You don’t have to play at the park, Jack, but you do have to come so the rest of us can go.”
He doesn’t care for that news, but he grabs his sweatshirt and heads for the car.
He’s outraged by everything lately, not that I blame him.
He’s got good reason, and I’m trying to respect his feelings while walking the fine line of keeping our lives moving forward.
It’s a delicate balancing act on the best of days and a much more trying task on the weekends when his dad’s glaring absence is that much more pronounced.
I ache for all of us, but mostly for him.
While Ella is sad that her daddy has died, she’s almost too young at three and a half to fully process the implications of someone being gone forever. Jack, on the other hand, is all too aware of what forever means, and his little heart is shattered.
Brad and I have talked a lot about how difficult it’s been to parent our kids through this loss.
His seven-year-old daughter, Daphne, is unusually perceptive for such a young child and is having an awful time coping with her mother’s absence.
His four-year-old son, Drake, is sad and moody and having temper tantrums for the first time but doesn’t seem to fully grasp what happened to his mother.
He cries for her at bedtime every night, and Brad is left feeling helpless to mend their broken hearts while managing his own debilitating grief.
Nothing in either of our lives prepared us for these challenges, so we rely on each other as we navigate our way through them.
As I drive to the park, I glance in the mirror to check on Jack, who’s staring out the passenger side window, his expression unreadable.
“Mommy, let’s sing,” Ella says.
“No singing,” Jack says in the testy tone that’s new since disaster struck.
“Why no singing?” Ella asks.
I can almost hear her chin wobbling as she fights tears. She’s still not accustomed to Jack being mean to her when he never was before their father died. He used to dote on her and indulge her every whim. Now, he has no patience for her, which is another loss for my sweet baby girl.
“I vote for singing.” I put on Ella’s favorite soundtrack, Moana, and turn up the volume, delighting in the joyful sound of her voice. She sings at the top of her lungs, which used to make Jack laugh.
Not anymore.
The next time I look in the mirror, I notice that Jack’s face is red from the outrage of it all.
I wish I knew what to do for him.