Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
LAUREN
“They’re asleep,” Morgan says as she drops a small pill into my hand and then hands me a glass of water.
“Thank you so much.” My eyes start to water as the lump rises in my throat, so I rest my head on her shoulder.
I honestly don’t know what I would have done without my cousin these last two weeks.
It’s been hell and she’s walked through it with me every step of the way, even moving into the guest bedroom as she helped me manage everything.
“It’s the least I could do,” she says. “But I’m never going to forgive your dad for riling the twins up right before bedtime tonight.”
I glance over at my dad, sitting at my kitchen table with my mom, my brothers, and my best friends’ husbands. I can tell by the way his mustache is twitching and his hands are waving that Dad’s entertaining them with the outlandish stories he’s famous for.
“Of course he did.” My lips curve up at the corner.
It’s as much of a smile as I can manage, despite my overwhelming affection for my dad.
The way he’s doted on my girls has been exactly what they needed this week.
They don’t understand that their dad is gone.
They may not even remember him, except through pictures and stories.
I wipe away a tear, wishing my parents weren’t leaving tomorrow.
Tomorrow it will be real. Everyone else will go back to their normal lives, and I will still be in this new hellscape where I’m a widow, my children are fatherless, my exciting new job offer is a distant memory, and all my friends and family—except Morgan—are across the country.
I glance around my kitchen, but no one seems to be paying attention, so I pop the Xanax in my mouth discreetly and swallow it down with the water, promising myself that this is only until I get through these first few weeks.
My doctor insists that the benefits—namely me being a functioning human capable of taking care of small children while also balancing the stress and heartbreak of this situation—mean I should continue taking it daily until I’m confident I can manage without it.
“I’m going to go get you some food. You need to eat something,” Morgan tells me.
“I’m really not hungry,” I assure her.
“You need to eat. You can’t lose any more weight.” She pauses to eye me skeptically, and I know what she sees. My collarbones jut out at the edges of this V-neck dress, my shoulders are overly bony, and my face looks gaunt.
I’m not hungry, but I know she’s right. “Fine.”
As soon as Morgan steps away, my sister, Paige, is there by my side.
“Hey, I’m hanging out with your friends in the dining room. Why don’t you come sit with us for a bit? The girls are in bed, you can relax. I’ve already poured you a glass of wine.”
“I’m fine with water,” I say, holding up the glass in my hand. I know better than to mix alcohol and anxiety medication.
“Okay, but come relax with us. You’ve been circling all evening, taking care of everyone here, when you should be letting us take care of you.
I know that caring for people is your love language,” she says as she puts a hand on each of my shoulders and looks me straight in the eye, “but right now the person you need to take care of is you.”
I don’t bother saying that keeping busy is helping me get through this.
That the simple acts of refilling people’s drinks and making sure everyone’s had enough to eat, listening to stories about my nieces and nephews, and loving on my girls—it all helps take my mind off the fact that I’m a thirty-year-old widow with two little kids and no idea how I’m going to move forward after this tragedy.
I don’t need to say any of that—Paige already knows.
Instead, I let her lead me into the dining room where Jackson, Sierra, and Petra are sitting around the long, narrow table with the sixteen high-back wooden chairs Josh picked out for this space.
It’s the kind of table you’d expect to see in a medieval movie, and I’ve always kind of hated it, but I’ve softened it up with a long ivory and gold runner and several candles in hurricane vases.
The three of them have their heads tucked together and don’t notice us approaching. “Maybe we can finally get her to move back to Boston,” Sierra says.
“That wouldn’t take much convincing,” I say with a sigh as I pull out the chair next to her and sink into it while Paige walks around the table and sits across from me, next to Petra.
“Would you really?” Jackson asks, her big green eyes lighting up with hope. It means I’d be less than two hours from her and Sierra.
I haven’t told any of them how I pestered Josh relentlessly this summer to move to Boston.
At first, he appeared to seriously consider the idea.
I didn’t want to jinx it by getting anyone else excited before I knew whether it was possible, so I kept my mouth shut.
And as summer faded to fall, Josh seemed less and less interested in the discussion.
When he finally vetoed the idea, I was glad I hadn’t said anything to anyone else, even if it meant I had to stew in my sadness alone.
At least I hadn’t gotten anyone else’s hopes up only to disappoint them.
I take a deep breath and tell them about the rejected idea. “I wish I could have gotten him to agree to it then.”
It turns out my argument for moving—that aside from my cousin Morgan, everyone else I loved lived within three hours of Boston—wasn’t as compelling as his argument for staying—that we’d just built this beautiful house in the mountains overlooking Park City, and that he needed easy access to skiing.
“What would be different if you had?” Sierra asks as she sweeps her long blond hair over her shoulder.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have gone on that trip.
Maybe Washington, or Idaho, would have been too far away.
” I know how unlikely that is. Josh has traveled the globe for skiing as long as I’ve known him.
“But even if he had, at least I’d have Paige there with me, and you and Jackson would only be two hours away.
” Even though Sierra still travels all around the world with Beau for his snowboarding, they do consider New Hampshire to be their home base, and they spend a lot of time there with Jackson and Nate.
“And with the rest of my family in Maine, and Petra in New York . . .” I drift off as I try not to think about what it’s going to feel like tomorrow when they all leave, but the tears fill my eyes anyway. “I wouldn’t be all alone.”
“Okay, so how do we make this happen?” Jackson asks. She loves a good challenge, and I can already see the plan coming together in her mind. “What do you need us to do?”
“I mean, can you sell this house for me and find me a new place in Boston? Preferably something a little more . . .” I glance around at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the dining space and the lofted ceilings of the attached living room.
This house is beautiful, but it’s so Josh that sometimes I have a hard time seeing anything of myself reflected in our home. “I don’t know . . .”
“A little more you?” Petra suggests.
“Yeah. Maybe something more modest? Something homey where the girls and I can be comfortable, and I don’t have to worry about them getting lost if we play hide-and-seek.”
“I’m on it,” Jackson says, picking up her wineglass from the table.
“Or at least, I’m going to get Nate to help with this.
There’s a realtor he worked with when we lived here, and she is amazing.
I bet she could sell this place in two seconds.
” Before Jackson and Nate bought Blackstone Mountain, the ski resort in New Hampshire where they’d met and raced as teenagers, Nate had built himself what we jokingly refer to as a small real estate empire.
“We’re going to find you the perfect new place in Boston, and then we’re all finally going to be close enough to see each other more frequently. ”
I allow myself to feel the flicker of excitement that lights in my chest at this possibility. There’s nothing left for me in Park City, and the thought of starting over closer to friends and family brings the first sense of hope I’ve felt since Josh died.
But then, a shadow falls across the table and when I look over my shoulder, my mother-in-law is standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. And she does not look pleased.
She’s gone as quickly as she appeared, without saying a thing. It’s par for the course—her disapproval of me weighs heaviest in her silence.
“Someone doesn’t love that idea,” Paige mutters under her breath.
“I can’t imagine why,” I say quietly enough that there’s no way I could be heard from the kitchen. “It’s not like she’ll care if I stay or go.”
“What about the girls, though?” Sierra asks. “Do you think she’ll feel like you’re taking her granddaughters away?”
I practically snort. “The only thing she’ll miss is the opportunity for photos with them, so she can post the pictures on social media and all her friends can tell her what a great grandmother she is.
” In truth, she’s seen the girls twice in the last six months—once in the fall for Josh’s birthday, and then on Halloween because it was the first time the girls were old enough to dress up and trick-or-treat.
“So don’t factor her opinion into your decision, then,” Petra says. “You’ve got to do what’s best for you, and given everything that’s happened here, maybe a fresh start is the right choice.”
Sierra puts her hand on my forearm where it rests on the table.
“You know I want you close by. I miss you like crazy. But . . .” She takes a deep breath.
“I also don’t want you to do anything rash while you’re grieving.
I’m sure Boston is appealing right now, as a fresh start and a way to be closer to us and your family.
But you and Josh had a great life here, in this home.
Are you sure you want to walk away from those memories? ”
My eyes meet Petra’s across the table, and she raises her eyebrows and gives me a little nod. Tell them, the look says.
I take a deep breath, considering how freeing it could feel to finally unload the truth on my friends rather than having to hide behind a wall of lies. “Things may have appeared better than they actually were.”
“What do you mean?” Paige asks, right as Morgan sits down next to me and slides a plate of food in front of me.
I pick up the fork from the plate and stab a piece of kung pao chicken.
“Things have been a little rocky between Josh and me for a while now.”
There’s no collective gasp or anything, but I can sense the surprise that pops up around the table as I tell them about how things started changing when we became parents.
“I kept setting milestones in my mind, like ‘when the girls get to X point, things will be better between us.’ But Josh only traveled more. It felt like . . . like he was trying to escape. And every time I brought it up, every time I mentioned wanting and needing him to be around more . . .” I swallow as my eyes fill with tears.
“He gaslit her into thinking she was clingy and insecure,” Petra fills in for me. My friends look at her, clearly surprised she’s speaking ill of someone who just died, but I get it: she’s the one who was there when I went through this.
“When Petra figured it out, she convinced me to go to therapy, which did help a bit. But I wanted Josh to go with me, too, and he refused.”
Morgan puts her arm across the back of my chair and squeezes my shoulder.
“I should have known,” she says. “I’m here all the time. I should have realized.” Her voice is small, and I hate that I’ve made her feel like she’s done anything wrong in this situation.
“No, I kept it pretty well hidden. I didn’t want anyone else to worry.” I wipe away the tears that are streaming down my face, and my voice cracks when I admit, “I thought maybe a big change, like moving to Boston, could be a fresh start for us as a family.”
The silence in the air is tangible, like a weighted blanket that hugs you so tightly it starts to feel oppressive.
“I want you close by,” Paige says, “but if Boston is where you wanted a fresh start with Josh, is it the right choice for you now?”
“That’s a good question.” I push the food around my plate. “I wanted to be back in Boston because it had everything I needed—career opportunities, family, and my best friends close by. All of that is still true.”
“It sounds good,” Sierra says, “but I still think you shouldn’t make a big, life-changing decision so soon after . . . everything. Maybe give it a little time. I just don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it. Right now, the thought of being here in Park City once you all leave,” I say as I glance around at my friends and my sister, “has me feeling a little . . . trapped.”
“Lauren,” Jackson says, and I brace myself for the truth bomb she sounds ready to drop. “You can’t fill from an empty well, and if the last couple years have been as draining as they sound, you’re empty. Please lean on us. Let us feel your pain with you and help you through it.”
Her words are so similar to Paige’s earlier concerns about me taking care of everyone but myself that I wonder if they’ve already all talked about this without me. And I also wonder if maybe they’re right?
“All right,” Paige says, and I can tell by the strained sound of her voice how choked up she is. “It’s official. You have the best friends in the world. And also, I’m staying.”
I can feel my eyes bulge. “What do you mean, you’re staying?”
“I’m going to change my flight and stay for another week or so. Morgan’s practically been living here for the last two weeks. I want to be here,” she says when I start to shake my head no, “to help out too.”
My first inclination, of course, is that I don’t want to inconvenience her. But I do want my sister around. “You really don’t mind?”
“Mind spending more time with my sister and nieces? Yeah, that’s a real hardship,” she says, brushing my concerns away with a sweep of her hand through the air.
My friends all offer to take turns coming out here and staying with me if I need them to, and for the first time since they all moved away, I feel like I truly have people in my corner. Maybe I’ll get through this okay after all.