Chapter 18
18
Lexi
My anxiety is through the roof all afternoon. I reach out to the therapist who helped me through Jim’s illness and the first year of widowhood. I went for as long as my insurance would pay for it and stopped only when it became too expensive.
However, Antonia, who goes by Toni, has continued to check in regularly with me since we stopped our regular appointments.
I send her a long text, updating her on recent events and how I made the huge mistake of looking into the widow-maker term.
She texts me back an hour later when I’m in my room getting dressed after a shower.
Can you talk?
Yes!
She calls.
“Hey. Thank you so much for calling.”
“Of course. Wow, I can’t believe what happened to your friend Tom. Is he doing okay now?”
“He is and expected to make a full recovery, which is a bit of a mind-bender for me after living with someone who would never recover.”
“I can imagine it takes a different mindset to approach Tom’s recovery.”
“I’m working on that.”
“What the heck were you thinking with the Google?”
I laugh at how she phrases that. “I know! I’m the one who tells others to stay off Google when they receive a diagnosis of any kind.” Jim and I found that the more information we had about his illness, the more terrified and anxious we became. We made a vow to limit the influx of info to only what was needed in that moment. It was a good policy and one I should’ve stuck to with Tom’s situation.
“Of all the things for it to be called, too. Ugh.”
“Right?”
“Lexi, you know that he’s not in any immediate risk of having that kind of heart attack again, right? The problem that caused the first one was corrected, and he’s being closely monitored and will continue to be going forward.”
“Yes, I know, and still, my anxiety is crazy.”
“It could be that what almost happened is fully sinking in now that the crisis has passed.”
“That’s possible. Things with him have gotten more involved since his heart attack. We’ve said and done some things that’re leading toward a relationship.”
“Are you feeling ready for that?”
“I want to be. I think it’s safe to say I’m in love with him, and vice versa.”
“That’s so wonderful to hear, Lexi. I’m thrilled for you.”
“I want to be thrilled for me, too.”
“Then you need to stay off the Google!”
I laugh. “I know. Trust me. Huge mistake.”
“If you ask me, you’re reacting to fully understanding how serious his heart attack was and how close you came to losing him. Before you did that search, his condition was more abstract. Sure, you know a heart attack is serious, but a widow-maker is a whole other level.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s what’s causing the anxiety.”
“Would you feel comfortable talking to him about this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You might feel better if you told him what you were thinking and feeling.”
“I’m trying to imagine starting that conversation when all he wants to do is move on from it.”
“Would he want you to be suffering from your worries over him?”
“Not at all.”
“You should talk it out with him. It’ll probably ease your mind.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever have normal reactions to anything again.”
“Do you define normal as how you would’ve reacted before Jim’s illness and death?”
“I guess so.”
“Then no, you won’t, because you can never go back to who you were before that happened. You’re a new version of yourself in this aftermath, so your reactions are normal for who you are now.”
“That’s an interesting perspective.”
“I see a lot of patients in my practice who are very eager to return to the life they had before their traumatic event. They want to go back to the simplicity of that time when they were still untouched by loss or grief. I have to gently bring them around to the simple fact that they can never go back to who and what they were before.”
Her profound words bring me to tears. “How do you always know what I need to hear?”
“That’s sweet of you to say. I’m sorry that my words apply to your situation.”
“This has helped me immensely. Thank you for being there for me.”
“I’m happy to talk any time you need it, Lex.”
“You have no idea how much that means to me.”
“Take good care of yourself and try to focus more on the new love and joy in your life than worries about how it might end.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you again, Toni.”
“Any time, my friend.”
I put down my phone and go into the bathroom to finish getting ready while picking over the conversation with Toni.
Tom would want to hear about my anxiety, even if he’s the cause. I just hate to add anything else to his plate when he’s probably dealing with his own fears following the near miss.
“Hello up there! I’m coming up! Are you decent? Please say no!”
And he makes me laugh like I haven’t laughed in many years. “Sorry to say I’m fully dressed.”
“Damn it.” He comes quickly up the stairs, not at all like a man recovering from a… Don’t say it, Lexi. Don’t even think it. “You look beautiful as always. I love your hair like that.”
It’s pulled back into a clip because I didn’t have an hour to straighten it. “It’s a mess.”
“Doesn’t look like a mess to me.” He tips his head and looks at me more intently. “What’s wrong?”
“Huh? Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lex. You’ve been wound tighter than a drum since I got home earlier. What’s going on?”
There’s been only one other person in my adult life who sees me the way Tom does. When I lost Jim, I wondered for a time if I’d ever have that again. Now that I do, the thought of losing it again is so overwhelming to me. “I did something earlier that I shouldn’t have done.”
He steps closer to me, running a hand over my bare arm and setting off a chain reaction that I feel everywhere. “What did you do, sweetheart?”
“I googled widow-maker heart attacks.”
He winces. “Why’d you do that?”
“I wanted to understand what it was. And then I looked at your discharge paperwork and saw that the description of your incident matched the definition.”
“And now you’re freaked out about it.”
“I don’t want to be, because I know the problem has been fixed, and you’ll be closely watched going forward…”
He puts his arms around me and draws me in close to him. “I’ll be very closely watched, and I’m willing to change everything about my life if it means staying healthy so I can be with you for so many years, you’ll wish I’d drop dead.”
“Tom! I’ll never wish for that.”
“Never say never.”
“I am saying never .”
“I’m so, so sorry to have done this to you. I wish I could take back every burger, french fry and pizza I ate that clogged my artery. I wish I’d paid closer attention to what happened to my dad, so I could’ve been more proactive with my own health. And more than anything, I wish it hadn’t been you who came home to find me in distress.”
“I’m so glad I was here to find you, even if it was traumatic.”
“I’d never want to be the source of more pain for you when you’ve already had way more than your share.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Sure it is, but from here on out, I’m all about healthy living. We’ve got a lot of stuff to do, and I want to be here for all of it.”
“What do we have to do?”
“Romantic dinners, a ton of great sex, lazy mornings in bed, long hikes in the woods, lots of cool trips, and maybe someday, when the time is right, we’ll have a baby together. Then maybe we’ll like that first one so much, we’ll want another one.”
I’m laughing even as tears wet my cheeks. The life he describes sounds like paradise.
“Where in the world have you always wanted to go but have never been?”
I answer without hesitation. “London.”
“Don’t hold back on me now.”
More laughter. “I’m a freak for the royal family and all things British.”
“Then we’ll go to London as soon as we can.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. Whatever my love wants.”
“Sometimes I feel like this is all a dream, since the night we met up in that bar where I’d hardly ever been before then.”
“It was fate. Or maybe it was your Jim, bringing you someone who could love you and care for you the way he did.”
“I’d like to think he had something to do with it.” I remember something right then, something that’s been buried in the deepest recesses of my memory, overshadowed by the trauma that consumed our lives in his final years. “I told him about you once.” I struggle to piece together the details. “We were out to dinner one night talking about people we’d crushed on in high school and how we’d been convinced then that no one would ever notice us because they didn’t.”
“Point of order. Yours definitely noticed you.”
Smiling, I say, “I didn’t know that then.” He’s gazing down at me with tenderness and affection that soothes my anxiety. For right now, he’s here, he’s healthy and he’s mine. “It’s funny to think that maybe Jim knew exactly who to send my way.”
“I almost drove by the bar that night. I was late getting home, starving and didn’t feel like cooking.”
“I’m so glad you didn’t drive by.”
“Even with all this widow-maker business?”
“As long as you don’t make me a widow any time soon, it’s all good.”
He holds me tightly. “I’m sticking around for a good long time because I’ve finally got Lexi Nelson in my arms. And nothing has ever been better than that.”
My mind is much calmer after my talk with Tom. The rest of me, however, is abuzz with anticipation of the rip-roaring love affair he’s promised me as soon as he’s allowed to partake in such things. It’s amazing to realize that when Tom and I first connected, the thought of having sex with anyone who wasn’t Jim—even the former man of my dreams, Tom Hammett—was still unimaginable.
But a funny thing has happened one dinner at a time, one conversation at a time, one day at a time living under the same roof with the man I once thought I loved with all my heart. I didn’t love him then. I didn’t even know him. But now I know him, and I love him for real this time.
Before I started living with Tom, I hadn’t been on a date or even thought about joining a dating site or anything like that. Friends offered to fix me up “when I was ready.” I was never ready. I rarely ever even thought about anything like that unless one of my widow friends was starting something new, and then I might wonder for a second or two if that would ever happen for me.
Then Iris and our other friends pointed out that Tom and I had been “dating” for months. No man makes dinner for a woman every night if he’s not interested in being more than roommates with her, they’ve all said at one point or another. The keen observations were like a light going on. I started to pay closer attention to the way he tended to me. And I started to see what Iris saw from a distance.
He was interested.
Very much so.
I wasn’t ready then.
Now, though…
Now, I’m ready, or at least I think I am.
“Whatcha thinking about over there?” he asks as he drives us to my parents’ home in his truck.
“About timing and how everything revolves around it.”
“How so?”
“What you said before about what you pictured for us?”
“I hope it was okay to lay it out there like that.”
“I loved hearing how you see things unfolding going forward. I was thinking about how I wasn’t ready for any of this when we first met up and how our friendship has evolved into this new and exciting thing.”
“If you’re still not ready, there’s no rush, Lex. I hope you know that.”
“I do, and that means so much to me. I think I am ready, but only because it’s you that I’d be taking this step with.”
His scowl is adorable and comical. “I should sure as hell hope it would be me.”
“It is. Don’t worry.”
He glances over at me, seeming uncertain.
“What?”
“I want you to know that for all this time, I was hoping for where we are now, but I also was willing to step aside if you ended up falling for someone else. I never would’ve gotten in the way of that.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say.”
“But I would’ve wanted to have him killed.”
My shout of laughter echoes through the cab of his truck. I howl with it. I’ve forgotten what it was like to lose my shit laughing and how good it feels.
“Just so you know,” he adds after I catch my breath.
“You crack me up.”
“I like when you laugh.”
“I do, too. It’s been a minute since anything made me laugh like that.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“Keep it coming. Laughter is good for the soul.”
It’s also good for my anxiety, which is much better than it was earlier. Talking and laughing help. I need to remember that going forward. When Jim was ill, there wasn’t much point in talking it out, because there was nothing anyone could say to make his situation better for either of us, and there sure as hell wasn’t much to laugh about.
Not that he and I didn’t occasionally revel in the morbid humor that’d been so much a part of who we were before disaster struck. But it wasn’t as funny when the situation was dire and becoming more so all the time.
My parents are thrilled to see Tom and greet him with hugs and praise for how good he looks and how happy they are that he’s set to make a full recovery.
Like me, I don’t think they could’ve withstood another loss, even if they’re nowhere near as close to Tom as they were to Jim. They know he’s an important friend to me and appreciate the way he stepped up for me, even if they were a bit skeptical at first of his offer of a place to live. However, in the months since, they’ve seen him treat me the way any parent would want their daughter to be treated by a friend and a man, and they love him for it.
So they would’ve suffered, too, if we’d lost him.
They’re the cutest couple ever. They met in Puerto Rico when my dad, Carl, was in the navy. My mom, Valentina—or Val, as everyone calls her—was twenty years old and fell madly in love with the handsome sailor who was five years older than her. I get my light brown skin, curly hair, brown eyes and fluent Spanish from her and the athleticism that made me a track star in high school from him.
I always wanted a marriage like theirs—loving, fun, full of laughter and adventure, and I had that with Jim. Maybe one day, I’ll have it again with Tom. That thought would’ve overwhelmed me a year ago. Now, it doesn’t seem so implausible, which is an amazing revelation in and of itself.
The salmon is tasty and tender, the green beans straight from their garden and canned last summer, and the salad crispy and delicious.
“This healthy-eating thing isn’t so bad when the food is so delicious,” Tom says.
My mom beams with pleasure. She used to love to cook for Jim, who we joked ate anything that wasn’t nailed down. The first time he stayed at our house when we were in college, she offered him six different kinds of cereal for breakfast. He said, “Sounds good.” She asked which one. “All of them,” he said. We laughed about that for the rest of his life.
“What’s so funny, Lex?” Dad asks.
“I’m thinking about Jim wanting all the cereal.” I share the story with Tom and note both my parents watch him anxiously, no doubt wondering what his reaction will be to hearing a story about Jim.
Tom smiles. “I love that. A man after my own heart. My mom used to say I kept Kellogg in business when I was a kid.”
My parents seem relieved by his easy acceptance of a story from our shared past.
“Guys…” I feel the need to put this out there. “Tom knows how much I’ll always love Jim and how happy we were. He also knows it’s important for me to be able to speak freely about him.”
“I like hearing about him,” Tom adds. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him. I think we would’ve been good friends.”
There’s nothing he could’ve said that would’ve meant more to me or my parents.
“I think so, too,” Dad says softly.
Mom raises her wineglass in a toast. “To our Jim.”
Tom and I touch our water glasses to their wineglasses. “To Jim.”