Chapter 2 #2
June let out a long breath. “Yeah, sure. This is going to sound stupid, but I’ve been fixated on what we would have done to celebrate our anniversary.
It would have been ten years. We’d always talked about going to Paris.
” Her eyes filled. “I’d made a book with photos of all the places I wanted to visit when we got there.
I’m still so angry at him, and that makes me feel like a bad person. ”
“You’re not a bad person,” Ellen said. “Just a very human one.”
Annie looked up, swiping under her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and for a second our gazes locked before she looked away.
Everett spoke next. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my marriage.
How I resented her for being sick when it wasn’t her fault.
” He looked down at his hands, folded neatly over his knee.
“I wish I’d been kinder. More compassionate.
Instead, I let her suffer and blamed her for it.
” He paused briefly. “There’s no turning back time, no matter how much we wish we could. ”
“Just ask Cher,” Mateo said. “It’s a futile wish.”
Everyone chuckled, then went silent.
Mateo shifted in his chair, the brim of his cap shadowing his eyes. “Elena texted me the day before.”
“Yes?” Ellen asked, nudging him along.
“I was at school. In the middle of an exam. I saw her name pop up, but I didn’t open it.
I thought I’d answer when I was done.” His jaw flexed.
“It was a meme. Just a stupid meme. Nothing serious. But I keep thinking, what if it was serious underneath? What if that was her way of reaching out and I missed it?”
The question sliced me open. How many times had I thought that about Nate?
He’d called me four days before he died, sounding tired.
A hint of strangeness in his voice but nothing I could pinpoint.
Then he’d made a joke about losing another job.
Nate had always been able to make hard things into a joke if he wanted to.
I’d not known what to say. So I didn’t say anything at all, just moved on to talk about the baseball game the night before.
“What was the meme?” Annie asked Mateo. “From your sister?”
Mateo blinked. “It was a cat dusted with flour, looking grumpy. We were constantly sending each other cat memes. So stupid. But, God, I miss it. Sometimes I pull up our text thread to send her something, and then remember I can’t. Ever again.”
“What would you send her?” Ellen asked Mateo.
He smiled. “I saw one the other day, actually. It was a cat teaching a kitten how to go up stairs. She would have loved it.” He paused, his mouth twisting. “I just wish I would have answered that last text. Even just a thumbs up or a heart.”
Ellen looked around the circle. “That’s one of the hardest parts of this kind of loss. We’re left with questions for which there are no answers. Things left unsaid.”
“Or things said that we wish we could take back,” June said. “I was snippy with Scott that morning, irritated that he was still in bed when I had to get the girls to school and then go to work. I’ll never forgive myself that the last words I said to him were cruel.”
Everett nodded. “I get that.”
I glanced over at Annie, who seemed to be trying very hard to keep herself from crying.
Ellen must have seen the sadness in Annie’s face too, because her voice softened. “Annie, you don’t have to share anything more tonight. But you’re welcome to, if there’s something you want us to know.”
Annie looked at her for a second and then back at her hands twisted in her lap. “I was the one who found him.”
Everyone went still, other than June whose hand flew to her chest before she caught herself.
There was a sense of deliberation in her tone, as if she were stacking blocks, one by one, worried they would fall.
“My mom was at work—at her art gallery. She was usually home before I got off the bus but she was late. My dad should have been at work but he’d stopped going months before that, which I know made my mom really stressed.
So I figured he’d be there, in bed, like he always was, but I checked on him anyway.
He was there. But he wasn’t asleep.” Her eyes shone, but her voice stayed steady.
“I don’t remember much after that. Like, the funeral.
Not a thing comes to me about it, even though I know I was there. I hate that part.”
This poor kid.
Lorrie set her knitting in her lap. “I know what you mean. I can’t remember the last meal I made for Daniel.
It probably sounds silly. He was thirty years old.
But, as his mother, I’d spent all his life worried about his nutrition.
That’s what I did for a living before I retired.
I was a nutritionist. He was born early and had trouble nursing.
From those first days until the end of his life, I was always coaxing him to eat.
I used to make these elaborate meals, full of vitamins and protein. In the end, it didn’t matter at all. ”
Annie’s mouth trembled but she covered it with her hand, taking in deep breaths.
She was so brave to be here, but I had to wonder if her mother knew she was here.
I had a suspicion she didn’t. Delphine gave off serious independent vibes.
Other than her close circle of friends, she seemed to trust no one.
“I haven’t cooked much in the eight years since I lost him,” Lorrie said. “I heat up frozen dinners from the store. Daniel would never have believed it.”
June wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand. “Unfortunately, that’s often what I feed my girls. I’m just so tired all the time.”
Lorrie picked up her needles again, but her voice was gentler when she spoke. “You’re doing the best you can, June. Your girls understand.”
“Do they?” June asked. “I’m not sure sometimes.”
“How old are they?” Annie asked.
“Sophie’s eight and Sarah’s ten,” June said. “My younger one told me the other day that she can’t remember what he looked like.”
Annie nodded, seeming to absorb June’s words on a deep level. “I know exactly what she means.”
Ellen glanced at her watch. “Our time’s almost up. Before we close tonight, I’d like to ask if anyone found something this week that helped them get through a difficult moment. A walk. A song. A routine. A book. Anything at all.”
June said she’d taken her girls to see a movie they were excited about.
“For the few hours we were in theatre, eating popcorn and watching the movie, it felt like we were just normal family. Enjoying time together. There’s something about the darkness of the theatre that makes it feel like there’s nothing else in the world except for the story unfolding on the screen. ”