12. Conrad #4
There was no pity in her voice, nor was there a careful therapeutic tone. Just genuine interest, which made it easier for me to speak about my dead wife.
“She was terrifying,” I said immediately.
Winnie laughed softly. “A lawyer, right?”
“The most aggressive corporate attorney I’ve ever met.” I smiled despite myself. “A petite five-foot-six woman and capable of making grown executives cry.”
“I would have liked her.”
“You would’ve loved her. Collecting grudges was a hobby of hers.”
Winnie smiled at that.
I found myself talking easier than I expected afterward. About law school. About how Jade drank terrible coffee, insisting it built character. About how she always forgot where she put her shoes.
Winnie listened to all of it. Not once did she interrupt or try to redirect the conversation like most people did when the uncomfortable subject of death came up.
“What kind of law did she practice?” she asked.
“Corporate litigation mostly.”
“Did she enjoy it?”
“She enjoyed winning.”
“That counts.”
“It definitely counted for Jade.”
Winnie chuckled, then shifted a bit. “She gardened a lot, didn’t she?”
I looked over at her in surprise. “How did you know that?”
“The garden out back.” Winnie glanced out the window to the dark beyond. “I can tell it was once very loved.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the pain down. Jade had adored that garden. She’d spent weekends out there with dirt beneath her nails and sunburn on her shoulders because she always forgot sunscreen.
After she died, I’d paid landscapers to maintain it for a few months, but it just wasn’t the same. Maintaining wasn’t the same thing as loving.
“She used to drag the kids outside with her,” I said softly. “CJ hated worms. Bianca kept trying to classify everything. Billie mostly ate the dirt.”
“That sounds about right.”
I smiled tiredly. “She planted those climbing roses herself.”
“The white ones?”
“Yeah.”
Winnie looked thoughtful for a second before asking, “Do you miss gardening?”
The question caught me off guard. “I…” I exhaled slowly. “I think I stopped letting myself miss things individually.”
Understanding crossed her face immediately.
And God, there it was again. That feeling that Winnie understood grief too well.
“You’ve lost people,” I said quietly.
She was silent for a moment before answering.
“Yes.” She folded her hands loosely in her lap while looking down at them. “My mother died when I was young. When I left home,” she said softly, “I believed I would return eventually.”
Something in her tone made me shift uncomfortably. “But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
She was quiet for so long that I almost thought she wouldn’t answer. “Life happened.”
There was so much weight packed inside those two words. I watched her profile in the dim bedside light. “You never saw them again?”
She shook her head once. “My father died while I was away.”
“I’m sorry.”
Winnie smiled faintly, though sadness threaded through it. “It was a very long time ago.”
Something about the phrasing snagged oddly in my brain through the haze of alcohol.
A very long time ago.
But before I could think harder about it, the room tilted.
Winnie must have noticed because a sudden, protective tenderness filled her eyes. “You should sleep.”
“Probably.”
“You’ll thank me in the morning.”
I smiled while closing my eyes. “I already thank you constantly.”
“That’s true.”
I smiled lazily up at her. “You take very good care of us.”
Something vulnerable crossed her face, then disappeared so quickly I almost missed it.
“I like taking care of you,” she said.
I wanted to answer. Wanted to say something meaningful and devastatingly honest. Instead, I apparently fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, I jerked awake, disoriented and dry-mouthed, the room plunged into darkness.
For one confused second, I genuinely thought I’d dreamed the entire evening. The speakeasy. The dancing. Winnie in emerald green.
Then I noticed the water glass waiting beside the bed. The aspirin bottle. My shoes lined neatly in front of the dresser.
My memory returned in scattered flashes. Winnie laughing in low amber light. Her hand around mine. Talking about Jade. Talking about loss.
Embarrassment arrived immediately after.
“Oh God,” I muttered into the darkness.
Had I blacked out? Had I cried? Had I confessed feelings like a middle-aged disaster?
I pressed one hand over my eyes, trying desperately to reconstruct the night. Nothing felt fully missing though. Blurred, maybe, but present.
I remembered enough to know Winnie had stayed beside me while I talked about Jade. And somehow instead of making me feel guilty or hollow, it had comforted me.
I drank the water she’d left for me, then collapsed back against the pillows.
Sleep pulled at me quickly again. Somewhere between waking and dreaming, I saw Jade and Winnie together beneath bright spring sunlight in the garden.
Jade laughing with dirt on her hands. Winnie seated beside her on a picnic blanket wearing black despite the heat. The children running wild around them.
The dream made my heart ache, but not entirely in a bad way anymore.