Chapter 13
Thirteen
Brielle
With my son, Charlie, asleep, I settle on the sofa with a glass of wine, my phone and the dating app I recently joined.
I can’t get over the flood of messages that’ve poured in since I posted my profile four days ago.
Every message is full of bullshit, platitudes, nonsense.
I can’t imagine how I’ll ever sift through the swamp full of crap to find someone I might want to get to know.
I text my widow friend Naomi, who helped me set up the profile after months of pleading with me to give it a whirl. This app is ridiculous!
She responds with laughing emojis. You gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.
Ew. I’m not in the right frame of mind for this tonight.
I get that. I’ve been a mess all day, and I barely know her—or him.
I keep thinking about poor Lexi hearing this news, which she will eventually.
I know. Me, too. I’m glad she got to have today, though. No one deserves a happily ever after more than she does.
True.
Lexi took care of her husband, Jim, who had ALS, and was left with crushing medical debt that was finally alleviated thanks to our friend Joy, who found a grant program for family members burdened with medical debt. What a miracle that was for Lexi—and what a miracle Joy is for all of us.
Seeing Lexi happily in love and now engaged to Tom Terrific was just what the rest of us needed today while dealing with the awful news about Will.
Naomi calls me. “So there’s not one dude who sparks the slightest interest?”
“There’s so much crap, I don’t even know what to look for. I’m not sure that this is the right thing for me.”
“Brielle… You’re a single mom who can’t go out and meet new people the way most singles do. Without the apps, you’re going to turn to moldy cheese while your son is growing up.”
I nearly choke on the sip of wine I was taking. “Moldy cheese? Seriously?”
“I read that hymens can grow back if there’s not enough traffic.”
“That is not true! Shut up.”
She cackles with laughter.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Am I wrong? Are you or are you not collecting dust at home while life marches forward with terrifying speed?”
She’s not wrong. Charlie will soon be four, which is impossible to believe, as is the fact that his dad, Mark, has been dead four years already, too, killed in a skiing accident while at his brother’s bachelor party weekend.
I was left to deliver and raise our son on my own, which has been my sole focus for all this time.
Lately, though, the loneliness has become harder to handle. I confided that to Naomi, thus the dating app.
“I’m collecting dust. You’re right. I can’t believe it’s been four years already. How is that even possible?”
“I know. It’s crazy. It’ll be three years for David soon, which is so hard to believe.
I didn’t think I’d survive a day without him, let alone years.
” Her fiancé died of lymphoma, and because they never got the chance to be married, she jokingly refers to herself as a widow wannabe.
Not that anyone would want to be, but we tell her she’s as much a widow as the rest of us.
“You’re doing great, Nai.”
“Eh, I guess. In many ways, I’m still on the starting blocks in the aftermath.”
“At least you’re out there meeting people and having some fun.”
“It’s not as much fun as I make it out to be.”
“Really?”
“Nah. It’s the same bullshit you’re seeing on the apps, only in person. In some ways, that makes it worse because they’re lying right to your face, hoping to get laid.”
She’s slept with a couple of them, but still hasn’t felt a connection with anyone, so she keeps looking and hoping.
“Was it like this when we were dating before?” I ask her.
“Not like this. It’s gotten kinda feral out there. My single friends say the same thing. Guys aren’t interested in relationships. They want one thing and one thing only—and will say and do whatever it takes to get it.”
“That’s profoundly depressing.”
“Yep.”
“So what’s the point of even bothering if that’s the playing field?”
“What else should we do? Curl up in a ball and give up?”
“That’s actually sounding pretty good to me right about now.”
“Today was a shit day. I’ll give you that. But we can’t give up.”
“Why not?”
“Because! You’re in your early thirties, Brielle. You’ve got decades left to live, and you can’t exist solely for your child, who’ll grow up and leave you eventually.”
“My Charlie will never leave me.”
“Whatever you say. Come on. Try, will ya?”
“If I must.”
“You must. And remember, a lot of people have met their one through the apps. It just takes time and patience.”
“I’ve got the time. It’s the patience that’s the problem.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“Are you reading self-help books again?”
Naomi laughs. “Always, but that’s the truth, and you know it.”
“All right already. I’ll keep looking.”
“There’s got to be one diamond in the rough.”
“I guess we’ll see. Are we still meeting on Wednesday?”
“Iris said it’s still on,” Naomi says, “and she’d let us know if anything changes.”
“I’m sure she’s been with Taylor nonstop. I worry about the toll it takes on her.”
“She’s always there for everyone.”
“That’s what worries me. When does it become too much, you know?”
“I’m sure she’d say so if that happened.”
“Would she, though?” I ask. “I think she’d soldier on, even if she was buckling under the weight of it.”
“Maybe we should talk to her about that at some point.”
“We may get the chance at Wednesday’s meeting. I’m sure Taylor’s loss will be first on the agenda.”
“Definitely. Do you think she’ll come back to the group?”
“I don’t know her well enough to say what she might do. I hope she does if she thinks it would help.”
“I do, too. Well, I’d better get to bed. Gotta work in the morning.”
“Thanks for calling and for giving me a push.”
“You got it. Text me any updates.”
“Will do.”
I’m so thankful for friends like Naomi who understand the struggle to move on and give me a push when I need it.
Mark would be pissed with me for standing in place for so long after he died, even if I’ve had my hands full raising the son he never got to meet.
My love was a get-things-done kind of guy, and sitting still was never his thing.
I wonder sometimes if he’d already be remarried if I’d been the one who died.
He sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here years later, alone and lonely, trying to take the first step toward a new life.
Or maybe he would. Who knows? Grief makes a mockery of even the most confident people.
Mark loved me passionately, so maybe my death would’ve wrecked him the same way his did me.
He was so larger than life that after all this time, I still can’t believe he actually died.
If you’d asked me before the skiing accident that took him from us if he would die young, I would’ve laughed.
I would’ve said, “No chance. He’s invincible. ”
Of course, no one is invincible, and we learned that the hard way.
His poor brother… Mark died at his brother’s bachelor party, and though he and his fiancée were eventually married in a smaller, scaled-back wedding, the marriage didn’t last. It was doomed from the start by grief and guilt.
I’m still in touch with my ex-sister-in-law, who’s suffered almost as much as I did over losing the man she loved to the same tragedy that took my husband.
Eh, enough of this morbid shit. Time to get serious about finding my chapter two. With that in mind, I get back on my phone to read the flood of messages I’ve received, hoping to find that diamond Naomi promised me.
Kinsley
I’ve debated this endlessly, to the point of madness, really. Lately, all I’ve thought about is reaching out to Luke, one of the newer members of the Wild Widows. He lost his wife and the mother of his four children to colon cancer.
My husband, Rory, died of pancreatic cancer, so I have an idea of what Luke endured. I want to tell him I get it, that I understand some of what he went through and offer any help I can.
Today of all days, with the news from Taylor heavy on my heart, I should be worried about my own little family and not thinking about Luke and his kids. But the desire to reach out gets stronger by the day and hasn’t been dampened in the least by today’s tragic news.
One thing is keeping me from going for it.
Well, two things.
The first is that he has four children. The oldest is eight, and the youngest is three and a half. Christian, my eldest child, is eight, and my Maisy is six. That’s a lot of little kids underfoot.
Second thing… is the spark of instant attraction I felt when I first met him at Iris’s house the summer before last. That hasn’t happened since Rory died. I haven’t had so much as an ember of interest in any other man, so to have a full-blown spark is unsettling, to say the least.
Luke is gorgeous, with light brown hair that always looks like he’s been running his fingers through it, golden-brown eyes and a smile that belongs in toothpaste commercials.
Not to mention the rippling muscles that were visible through the button-down shirt he wore to Iris’s gathering.
When Lexi’s boyfriend, Tom, fainted at Iris’s house that night, Luke jumped into action to help Tom.
While everyone was naturally focused on Tom—who was thankfully okay—I watched Luke and was impressed by his quiet competence and obvious skill as a doctor.
He’s been to a few meetings since then, but I’ve thought about him every day since the first time I met him, wondering how he’s holding it together with four young kids and a busy job that must keep him away from home for long hours.
I want to know about his wife, Isabella—he called her Bella—and what she was like.
He said she was diagnosed when expecting their youngest child, Phoebe, and postponed treatment to safely deliver her daughter.
She died when Phoebe was eighteen months old.