After
AFTER
The morning after I rescue the dog, Darlene rings my phone early.
I roll over and pluck the offending device from the bedside table, then wince against the brightness streaming through the windows. How can the sun possibly be so cheerful at this ungodly hour? Can’t it show some respect for the fact that my life has been cut off at the knees?
“Hello?” I manage.
“Mina?” Darlene’s voice wavers, making her sound eighty-nine, even if she doesn’t look it. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No,” I lie.
“Oh, good. Well, I just got off the phone with your dog’s owner. He’s on his way to pick her up now. Apparently, Barley had been missing for three days. He was ecstatic that you’d found her. He made me promise to call and give you his undying thanks.”
I try to smile, but my mouth doesn’t respond. “Oh. Well, great. That’s great.”
Silence floats over the line. “Is it?”
“Of course.” All the warmth in my body drains out, leaching into the empty sheets.
“Okay, but... You’re sure you’re all right?”
I force my lips into a curve, hoping the smile will sound more genuine than it feels. “I’m sure. I’m just glad she’s going home. Thanks, Darlene.”
we hang up, I toss the phone aside and curl around my pillow. I feel as though someone could drop a pebble into me and it would keep on falling forever.
Which is ridiculous. It’s just a dog. But this newest loss stacks atop the others, another domino placed on a teetering pile that threatens to come crashing down.
The hum of a car engine interrupts my pity-fest. Frowning, I work free of the sheets, then drag myself down the stairs to open the front door. It can’t be my mother with another lasagna, not in August.
Sure enough, Kate’s shiny black Suburban crunches to a stop in my driveway. She kills the engine, then climbs out carrying a bouquet of orange day lilies and one of those round plastic containers that serves as armor for store-bought cakes.
When she reaches my doorstep, her brown eyes catalog my rumpled hair and cracked lips. “Well, you’re alive. That’s something. Did you forget how to answer the phone?”
I give her a sheepish look. I did get the voicemail she left on my birthday, but not until three days later, and by then... Well, I don’t know. I have no excuse for not calling her back.
“Sorry. I’ve been busy,” I say, then wince, because it’s so obviously a lie. Busy with what? Running until my toenails bleed? Reading Jane Austen into the early hours so I won’t have to face the heroic act of sliding between the cold bedsheets alone? Writing articles for Medical Devices Monthly , which requires so little brainpower that I could do it with my eyes closed?
Rescuing dogs I’ll never see again?
“Well, whatever’s taking up your time, it’s not working. You look like shit.” Kate thrusts the bouquet at me. “I still love you, though. Happy belated birthday. I know your mom didn’t wish you one, so here I am. Do you have coffee?”
With a half sigh, half chuckle, I usher her inside. Kate’s a mother of two toddlers, ages one and three, and her patience, already dangerously low to begin with, has now plummeted to undetectable levels. If a cup of coffee can satisfy her, I’m happy to oblige.
Whatever it takes to convince her I don’t need checking on. Even if I kinda-maybe do.
In the kitchen, I drop the lilies into a cut-crystal vase and fill two mugs from the French press. In honor of Kate’s deep-seated aversion to calories, I leave her coffee black, though handing it over undoctored makes my tongue curl.
“Thanks.” She deposits the cake onto the shiny granite island. New York cheesecake with cherries and whipped cream—my second-favorite dessert on earth, besides kettle corn, but it tempts me about as much as a plate of limp lettuce, because whipped cream always reminds me of Michael. Even now. I look away.
“Jesus, Mina.” Kate leans in, sniffing. “When’s the last time you showered?”
I clamber up onto one of the leather-and-chrome stools my husband once chose with such care. “Um...yesterday?”
Her eyes narrow.
“The day before? Maybe?”
She sighs, deep and heavy. Kate never used to sigh like that. She never used to sport dark circles under her eyes, either, or scrape her hair back into a yellow ponytail. She tells me she has to, though, or her kids will pull out fistfuls by the root.
Not that she doesn’t still look fabulous. two babies, god only knows how. Well, that’s not true. I do know. She gets up at four thirty every morning and inflicts ninety minutes of cardio on herself while the rest of her family sleeps blissfully.
Her hard-earned slenderness aside, though, she looks lessened, somehow. I even spot two different mystery stains on her navy chiffon blouse. Very un-Kate-like.
“You kind of look like shit, too,” I say. “Is everything all right? How’re the kids? How’s Tanner?”
She downs her coffee like she’s shooting tequila. With palpable desperation. “Ha. The kids’re...you know. Terrors. And Tanner’s...Tanner. Always off playing computer chess while I’m cleaning up the entire bag of flour Hunter’s exploded all over the couch or trying to stop Evelyn from eating pennies. I swear, it’s like my husband has become just another human to keep alive. Sometimes I try to remember what it was like to desperately want to have sex with him all the time, and I just can’t.”
I nod in sympathy, though I can’t actually empathize. I never stopped wanting to have sex with Michael all the time. Then again, I never cleaned up bags of flour while he hid in his office playing computer games, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Either way, I can’t help but mourn the fact that while Kate once got starry-eyed when speaking Tanner’s name, she now talks about him the same way she talks about her dog.
“But I didn’t come here to whine,” she says briskly. “I mean, I’m tired. Just...so damn tired, all the time. It’s like no matter how fast I run, I never get anywhere. But that’s a bullshit thing to complain about to you . Having a dead husband’s got to be a thousand times harder than having a clueless, alive one.”
I nod again, touched. Other people always dance around this subject, as if maybe I’ve forgotten about how my marriage ended and if they remind me, my grief will detonate all over them. Mina Drake, land mine of hazardous emotion. Proceed with caution.
But Kate has no problem speaking Michael’s name aloud. She talks about him like he’s just as real as he was. Like she’s acknowledging that I have every right to feel the way I do.
“I’m worried about you,” she says.
I fiddle with my coffee. Okay, so maybe this is going in a different direction today. “When are you not?”
“Well, never. But I’m extra worried these days. You’re too skinny. Are you eating anything?”
I make a show of dumping in generous helpings of cream and sugar. “Does coffee count?”
“No. It definitely doesn’t. And you never answer my calls anymore. Do you even talk to anyone? Ever? Because I tried emailing, too. Nothing.”
I duck my head. “Yeah. I haven’t checked in...um...a few months. Life’s so much easier if I stay off the internet.”
“Really,” she says, flat. “How come?”
I stare into my cup. Kate knows exactly why I avoid the headlines and internet clickbait—for the same reason I shop at Seagrove’s mom-and-pop grocery store, despite their failure to stock my favorite brand of kettle corn. At least there, I won’t encounter the tabloids the larger supermarket plasters everywhere. I won’t round a corner and risk confronting a face I’d rather forget. “Come on. You know.”
Kate’s scrutiny sharpens. “Is seeing Michael’s brother really that hard? Because at this point, I have to wonder if that’s just an excuse. I mean, you’ve never even met the guy.”
A bitter laugh chokes me. I don’t need to meet Grayson Drake to find the sight of him disturbing. “Maybe not, but you don’t know what it’s like to see an angry, tattooed version of your dead husband every other time you go out.”
Her mouth twists. “Okay, maybe not. But I do know holing up here isn’t doing you any favors.”
“I’m fine. Really. I’m just waiting for the world to forget its fascination with my ex-brother-in-law.”
“Then you’re going to be stuck here a long time. Especially after this latest fiasco.”
I wince. “Ugh. What’s he done now?”
“Gone on another one of his benders.” She waves a hand. “Knocked out a guy in a nightclub, or something. Honestly, I didn’t even read it this time. Just saw that he made the cover of America Weekly and Celebrity Style , looking as pissed off as always.”
“Oh, wonderful.” I sip at my coffee, then spit it back into the cup. In proving a point, I’ve rendered it undrinkably sweet. “Maybe this time, I’ll finally get lucky and he’ll do something he can’t recover from.”
Kate’s look turns flinty. “You don’t mean that.”
I grumble. Of course I don’t. But I have hated Michael’s brother for fourteen years, ever since he and my husband collided in Seattle and everything changed.
It was bad enough when Grayson catapulted to fame three years ago. National Geographic ’s gorgeous bad-boy photographer snapshotted himself just moments after being dug out of an almost-fatal avalanche on Mount Everest, and the picture took the world by storm. Within weeks, some nature network had snapped him up to host its newest wilderness show, which only lasted a season, but that didn’t stop Michael and me from having to field endless questions. Now, with my husband gone, the questions have stopped, but the sordid life of Grayson Drake continues to resemble a never-ending car crash the public can’t look away from. Watching him drink himself from one scandal to another while bouncing from one beautiful woman to the next has made it impossible for me to find peace.
“Look.” Kate sets her coffee down and folds her arms. “All I’m saying is you can’t stay miserable forever. It’s been half a year. Don’t you think it’s time to rejoin the world of the living? At least a little?”
I run my forefinger around the rim of my cup. I do miss my old life with a ferocity that guts me, but excuses aside, I have this sense that if I go enjoy myself in a world without Michael in it, I’m accepting that somehow it’s reasonable that one day my husband just ceased to exist.
It’s not fucking reasonable, not in any capacity.
Besides, it turns out twenty-five-year-old Michael was wrong—there is such thing as yesterday. And sometimes yesterday grows so big, so ravenous, that it eats up not only right now, but tomorrow, too.
“I just...miss him.” I spin my mug, wincing when milky coffee sloshes out. It’s so hard to keep this stupid granite gleaming all the time, the way Michael liked. “So much that I’m drowning in it.”
Kate’s expression softens. “I get that. But can I be honest with you? Like, completely honest, best friend to best friend?”
I chuckle without humor. “Is that a real question? Because the Katelyn Archer I know would never ask.” It’s actually Katelyn O’Reilly now, but whatever. I’ll never stop thinking of her by her maiden name.
“Okay then, here goes—I think you’re wallowing. And to be fair, I probably would, too. But you’re dwelling on the good parts of your marriage and forgetting the bad, and it’s keeping you from moving on. Michael wasn’t perfect, remember? You weren’t even happy those last few years. You talked about divorce.”
My stomach does a nauseating flip. I push my cup away, overcome by a sudden wish for Kate to leave. I don’t want to think about the night I came in from a rainy ten-mile run and printed out divorce papers from a site online. Or about how that manila folder is still sitting underneath my bed, and how I haven’t found the courage to throw it out because the simple act of unearthing it would make my wifely failings all too real.
I don’t want to remember that I considered leaving the man I loved so desperately, even for a second.
My voice roughens. “I wouldn’t have actually done it. I mean, yeah, our last few years together weren’t great, but only because Michael wouldn’t go anywhere. If I’d just gotten him away from work, convinced him to take a vacation again, we could’ve gone back to how things were. We would’ve—”
“Mina.” Kate’s brown eyes match her voice, soft and warm. “You realize your marriage wasn’t about who you and Michael were during that first month together, right? Or that week in Hawaii, which, before you say anything, yes, I’m completely aware was the most magical week of your life, because you’ve told me ten thousand times. I mean, anyone can pull out the stops and act all incredible and sexy while avoiding real life. But what your marriage was really about was the day-to-day stuff. About all the time you spent here, in this house, with a guy who sent you running instead of talking things out. It’s about the fact that Michael convinced you to move back to a town you’d escaped from, then buried himself up to his eyeballs in work.”
I flinch. Kate has just dissected my eleven-year marriage with cold, clinical precision—not surprising, since cold, clinical precision is basically her specialty. But she’s missing the bigger picture.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “I know it sounds so clichéd, but Michael was my soulmate. Things might’ve gotten hard, yeah, but I never stopped loving the man I first fell for. And that feeling hasn’t gone away. I mean, I know he’s gone. I think about that horrible box they handed me at the mortuary, how heavy it was. How when I got to the car, I couldn’t figure out how to latch it into the front seat, and then it hit me that Michael’s ashes didn’t need a seat belt because he wasn’t a person anymore. But my heart doesn’t get it. It just keeps on trying to love him like he still exists. Part of me is missing, and meanwhile, I’m just...bleeding out, day after day, with no way to stop it.”
Kate stays quiet. My throat thickens as words pour forth.
“I know you think I should go out more, but seeing Grayson only makes it worse. It’s like...an insult . A slap in the face. Like the universe took the wrong brother. Grayson has the life Michael still should, but he’s so stuck and broken-hearted over a girl who died decades ago that he’s just wasting it. I can’t even begin to tell you how infuriating that is.”
“That’s awful,” Kate murmurs. “But...do you really not see the problem here?”
“Problem? What problem?”
“You’re judging Grayson for never getting over what’s-her-name—”
“Lily.” I frown. Kate knows the basics, but not Michael’s involvement in her death. I’ve never shared that with anyone.
“Right. Lily. You’re blaming him for never recovering, but here you are doing the exact same thing.”
My nostrils flare. That’s so untrue that I don’t even know where to start. For one thing, Michael and I were married. For eleven years. And I’m not the one rampaging through the national media, punching out paparazzi and holing up in foreign hotel rooms for weeks at a time while refusing to talk to any—
Oh, god. I stare at Kate.
“Shit,” I say. “You might actually be right.”
She gives me a sorry-not-sorry smile. “Yeah, no shit. And what’s more, I think you need to be honest with yourself. Which version of Michael are you so strung out over? The one you were actually married to? Or the one who drove you to Seattle fourteen years ago? Because that guy hasn’t existed for years.”
That last sentence sucker punches me. Michael changed; it’s true. Shortly after we moved in together, he stopped reading every day. Stopped hiking and camping. Started wearing those damn button-ups all the time. As his paychecks swelled, architecture began to consume him.
Then, when Michael’s coworker Ben convinced us to move to Seagrove so they could cofound a firm specializing in high-end coastal homes, the last vestiges of my free-spirited philosopher vanished. The open conversations gave way to lavish gifts and reliable Wednesday-night dinner dates at fancy restaurants. My husband began organizing his personal life like his professional one—everything bordered by straight lines, everything in its place.
Except the vivacious adventurer I fell for still existed, deep down. I know because when I finally succeeded in pulling Michael away from work, we tumbled straight back into the intoxicating synchronicity of those early days. In Hawaii, I fell in love with him all over again, hard enough that once we returned to real life, I managed to stomach four more years of missing a man who was right in front of me.
Except a vacation like that never happened again. I hate that that’s where we ended.
The kitchen blurs. I swipe at my cheeks. “Sorry. I really should go for a run.”
When I move to abandon my stool, Kate maneuvers me back with her crazy toddler-wrangling strength.
“No, you should fucking not go for a run. Jesus, Mina. Enough of that. Michael’s gone. You don’t have to bottle things up anymore. Just sit right here, bawl your eyes out, then eat this whole goddamn cheesecake in one sitting. That’s what you should do.” She’s got her mom face on, the you’ll-do-what-I-say-and-you’ll-like-it expression usually reserved for her kids.
I study her through the haze. I could break down, here in my kitchen. But if I dribble tears all over the granite, it’ll take at least half an hour to polish it again afterward, like Michael would want.
A jolt shoots through me. As if I’m watching from outside my body, a detached part of my mind turns that logic over. At what point did I become this someone else, this person who goes running instead of letting herself feel?
The moment stretches. Something hot and red writhes in my guts. I’m angry, I realize. At myself. At Michael. But most of all, I’m livid that he died. I want to punch life in its stupid, smarmy face, because for all that Kate’s mostly right, she’s gotten one thing wrong. The man I loved was still in there. I could’ve coaxed him back to me, if only I’d had more time. I would have broken through Michael’s shell, jammed my fingers into the socket of the out-of-control power surge that first drew us together, and refused to let go. We would have lived our lives electrified, fighting for breath and grateful for every second.
But now we can’t. That chance is gone, leaving me with nothing except a grayscale existence in which I haunt this perfect house day after day, chained by a grief that refuses to die.
I guess I’m that land mine after all, because I cry. Just normal tears at first, then great, wrenching sobs that scald my lungs.
Kate folds me in a hug. She smells like sour milk and expensive perfume, and I hold on for dear life.
When my shudders finally subside, she pulls back, her fingers combing through my unbrushed hair. “The thing is, Mina, you can do this. You’ve done it before, remember? Back when Margo died... Well, shit. You handled that so much better than I did.”
I sniffle. I’ve never told her about how I found solace in the woods that summer. Kate, practical to a fault, would only side-eye my attempts to explain. Even Michael, who once revered the forest, outgrew his love of nature years ago.
I don’t know a single person who would understand.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Kate continues, “but maybe you need a vacation. Throw a dart at a map, even. Who cares. Just...get out of this awful house.”
I peer around at my glass-and-steel castle. “You love this house.”
She waggles her hand in a kinda-sorta gesture. “ Loved. Past tense. And only because Michael was in it. It made sense on him, you know? But seeing you here alone, it just seems...sad, somehow. Sterile.”
I look again, struck by the realization that nothing in here belongs to me. Michael was the one who chose the white lacquered cabinets, the modular sofa, the sleek steel-wire chandelier. Not a single item reflects my tastes. It’s almost like I’m an absentee in my own home.
“You could start over,” Kate says.
A prickly ball lodges in my throat. “What? Like, just forget Michael existed?”
“I’m not saying forget . I’m saying move forward. Live your life while you still have one.”
I recoil at hearing my husband’s long-ago ideas coming out of Kate’s mouth. Kate, who’s never done anything other than exactly what she was supposed to and now has everything I don’t.
“Maybe you should start dating again,” she says gently.
I cringe. “That’s over with.”
“It might be good for you.”
“Are you nuts? No. I mean, look at my mom. She never got over what happened to my brother. And it’s been almost forty years. This is the same thing, Kate. If I even tried to fall in love again...” I shudder. “Just no. It would be like a joke, compared to the first time.”
“Then don’t compare it to the first time.”
I level her with a look. “That part of my life is over. And please don’t bring it up again.”
“Okay, fine.” She deflates. “There probably aren’t any guys out there who’re into bags of bones with nineties troll-doll hair, anyway.”
I flip her the bird.
She nudges the cheesecake. “Just promise me you’ll eat something, at least, okay?”
I eye it for a long time. “Later,” I finally say.
She sighs. “Liar.”
“Really. I will.”
“Okay. I’ll hold my breath. Walk me out?”
In the driveway, I wrap her in a desperate hug. Just minutes ago, I wished for her to leave, but now I want to clutch at her leg and beg her to stay.
God, I’m a mess.
I hide the internal chaos behind a smile and watch the Suburban trundle off. Then I go to the mailbox. I haven’t checked it in ages, and a giant stack has built up. A crisp mailer from the US Department of State sits right on top.
I grimace. My new passport. The one I only renewed because I’d been drinking that evening.
I have no idea what I was thinking.
Back in the house, I toss the pile on the counter and tote the unopened passport up to Michael’s office. By his filing cabinet, I squint down at the envelope.
Throw a dart at a map . Start over .
Maybe I could have, once. But I’m a different person now, one who’s made choices that can’t be unmade. One whose yesterdays weigh too much to simply shrug off.
I open the file cabinet and shove the passport inside. I intend to go precisely nowhere. I’m staying right here, until I figure out how to manage this ravenous, gnawing grief, like any normal person would.
Except that’s when I spot Michael’s folder, tucked into the very back of the cabinet. The one I had no idea existed.
The one that explodes my entire life.