Chapter 10
Levi looked at the paper sign taped next to the meeting room’s door and then back at his most recent text from Eden Frankel, his lawyer.
Eden: Yes. The judge will accept group counseling as long as you attend at least fifteen sessions, the group is led by an actual counselor, and the counselor signs off on your attendance and progress.
Even via text, Eden sounded like a lawyer, despite her having known Levi and having worked with his university’s football program for the better part of a decade.
He sighed, scratched the stubble on his cheek, and pushed open the door.
“Oh good!” called a woman who was in the middle of converting rows of folding chairs into a large circle. “The doorstop keeps losing the war against the door. Do you think you can wedge it in there a little better? An open door is always a much more welcoming door.”
“Uh…sure,” Levi replied. He found the doorstop, toed it with his sneaker to the open door, and gave it a good kick to wedge it underneath.
When he let go of the door and it stayed, he gave himself a mental pat on the back and decided this was a sign of better things to come today after his and Haddie’s text exchange last night.
“Can I help?” he asked, striding toward the woman and her mess of chairs.
He held his hand out as he approached “I’m—”
“Levi Rourke,” she interrupted, giving him a hearty shake.
His eyes widened. “Have…um…have we met?” She looked at him from behind tortoiseshell, cat’s-eye frames, her long brown hair in a braid hanging over one shoulder.
She looked around his age, which meant they could have gone to school together, which in a town this small, would make him the hugest asshole known to man for not recognizing her.
She laughed. “Hope Ellis,” she told him, grabbing his hand and giving it a firm shake.
“And no. We haven’t met. I just set up my practice about six months ago.
The…uh…pro bono group thing is kinda my marketing tactic.
But you’re not one of my regulars, and I had a chat yesterday with Eden Frankel… ” Her voice trailed off.
Levi cleared his throat and dropped her hand. “She had you google the incident. Didn’t she?”
Hope replied with a sympathetic smile, which made him groan.
“Well…there goes my anonymity.”
She laughed, and they continued to set up the chairs.
“This isn’t like AA,” she told him. “It’s not a secret meeting. It’s grief counseling. Some members of the group even meet up on their own socially.”
Levi carried two chairs across the growing circle and set them in place. “Yeah, sure. That’s fine,” he said. “Just to be clear, I don’t really need grief counseling. This is just a formality for my sentencing.”
She nodded. “You don’t have to share anything you’re not comfortable sharing, Levi. But you’ve got fifteen sessions to decide, right?”
He flashed her a devil-may-care grin and wondered if she bought it.
“Good morning, Hope!” a woman called from the entryway, and Levi let out a sigh of relief. But when he spun to see who his savior was, he stumbled back a step.
“Mrs. Higginson?”
His father’s girlfriend beamed and strode toward him with open arms. “Levi!” Before he had time to process the fact that anonymity was truly out of the question, she’d already enveloped him in a hug. “And it’s Tilly,” she reminded him.
Levi let out a nervous laugh, and Tilly finally released her embrace.
He wasn’t sure who it was that Tilly was grieving. Hell, she didn’t seem all that grief-stricken. But since she’d called Hope by name, Levi guessed she was a regular, which meant he’d likely find out more than he’d ever bargained for when it came to his father’s love life.
“Good morning, Hope,” more voices called as people filed in. Levi recognized Old Man Wilton, a widower who was now dating Mrs. Pinkney, owner of the town sweet shop aptly named Sweet, and who was a widow herself. Dawson Hayes, the former deputy sheriff who graduated with Levi, strolled in.
“Levi Rourke, as I live and breathe,” Dawson said, striding toward him. “Heard you were back in town and coaching soccer?” The statement came out like a question.
“Hayes…” Levi replied. “I heard about your dad. I’m sorry.”
The deputy crossed his arms and his jaw pulsed. “You don’t have to say that. You and your brother know he wasn’t a good man.”
Maybe he wasn’t, but if Dawson was here, that meant he was grieving.
Levi cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sorry if things have been hard since his passing.”
Dawson gave him a curt nod, seemingly satisfied with Levi’s amended response, and then strolled to an empty seat in the growing circle of group members.
When all was said and done, nine people plus Hope sat in the circle with five empty seats for the just in case-ers, as Hope called them.
“Good morning, everyone. I trust you all had a good night watching the Muskies take their first win of the season?”
There were some soft hoots and hollers in recognition of the football win that Levi had listened to from his truck in the parking lot.
He understood why Haddie wanted her space, yet at the same time didn’t understand why—if they really were friends—they couldn’t hash it out and move on.
“So, let’s start how we always do, with introductions, especially since we might have a new member or two today,” Hope continued.
At the mention of a new member, every head turned in Levi’s direction, which told him he was the only new member today.
“Remember to state your name and one thing about yourself that you want to share. It can be anything from the reason why you’re here to your favorite color. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“I’ll start!” Tilly cried, waving her hand in the air.
Hope nodded for the other woman to continue.
“Hi, everyone!” Tilly said with glee. “I’m Tilly Higginson, and I’m here because I lost my husband.”
Levi’s brows pulled together. “Wait, your husband died?” he asked, suddenly afraid he was stating the obvious. But Levi had met Tilly’s ex-husband, and he didn’t remember hearing anything about both his father and Tilly being widows.
She waved him off with a sweep of her hand. “Of course not,” she said. “But if you wish for something hard enough, it can happen, right?”
The small gathering of people laughed.
“You set her up for that one, Levi,” Hope commented. “But then again, she baited you.” She sighed. “So he doesn’t think we are a bunch of theoretical mourners—or non-mourners—do you feel comfortable sharing the actual reason you’re here?”
Tilly sighed. “I’m lucky. I don’t know yet what it’s like to lose someone close to me. But the man I love lost his wife about a decade ago, and I’m just trying to understand him better by talking with all of you.”
Levi’s chest squeezed. Wow. He was not expecting that, the love part or that she would give up her Saturday mornings to learn more about his father from people who’ve experienced something close to what his father experienced in losing Levi and Matteo’s mother.
“Does my father know you do this?” Levi asked tentatively, and Tilly nodded.
“He and Matteo used to come together, when Hope first got here.” Tilly shrugged. “One day Denny asked if I wanted to come along, and I’ve been coming ever since.”
Levi’s throat tightened. His father and Matteo did grief counseling. Together. And Levi had no idea. Suddenly, despite being back in Summertown for the first time in years, he felt a million miles away.
“They still attend,” Hope added, directing her attention to the still-stunned Levi. “But only on occasion, when they feel like they have something to work out.”
The air in the otherwise spacious room felt thinner, like he couldn’t fill his lungs enough to form words. So he nodded, letting everyone know he’d heard what Hope had said, but that was all he had in him at the moment.
“Why don’t we go around the circle from Tilly,” Hope suggested. “Clockwise, so we can give our new member a few minutes to get ready to share.” She smiled encouragingly at Levi, and he forced what he hoped resembled a smile in return.
Around the circle they went, Old Man Wilton explaining what a wonderful woman his wife was and having been perfectly content to live out the rest of his years with the animals on his farm—until he’d wandered into Mrs. Pinkney’s sweet shop with a hankering for one of her almond-coconut clusters just before closing, and she invited him to dinner.
“I was tired of eating alone,” Old Man Wilton told them. “Turned out she was too.”
Dawson Hayes grunted something about losing his father.
The woman next to him—Levi was pretty sure she owned the candle shop—had recently lost an aunt.
Another claimed to be from Middleton, the next town over and sometimes Summertown rival.
She was mourning her twenty-year-old dachshund named Oscar… as in Mayer Weiner.
Everyone there so readily shared a quick snippet about the person—or pet—they missed. Tilly Higginson was the only one there to support a loved one who’d experienced loss. And finally, it was Levi’s turn.
All eyes were on him, which shouldn’t have mattered.
He’d stood up in front of five classes of judgmental teens the day before and barely flinched when he went over the syllabus with his health class and had to mention the word prophylactic.
Hell, on NCAA football game days, he didn’t even notice the ESPN cameras anymore. But this was…a lot.
“Whenever you’re ready, Levi,” Hope told him when he still hadn’t uttered a sound.
He drew in a breath and opened his mouth, but he was upstaged by a metal crash and clatter just outside the door. The whole group rubbernecked in the direction of the disturbance.
Levi caught sight of a familiar running shoe and purple spandex-clad leg as the disturber tried to flee.
“Haddie?” he called.
Hope was already out of her seat and striding toward the door where a folding chair—one Levi remembered passing as he strode through the door—now lay toppled in front of the entryway.