Chapter 19
Henry
The memory still lingers, but what haunted me more than the echo of my voice being swallowed by the mountains was the silence that followed.
Jacob hadn’t been there with his trademark grin to say, I never doubted you.
Jacob always believed in me. Even when I doubted myself, he never wavered.
And if he could trust me to climb that mountain, then surely, I could trust myself to pull off this poetry evening.
The event was definitely attracting attention.
I’d like to think it was a testament to the solidarity in our town—and even the neighboring towns, for the urgent need for grief counseling groups.
But if I was being honest, I’d also witnessed Rita standing at the library entrance accosting patrons with flyers, and Gill swore he convinced the entire retirement village to secure tickets with the promise of free chocolate bars.
I had yet to check with Lillian if they would make the menu.
Even so, Mayor Ashcroft was coming, and I’d managed to secure Max’s clinic as a sponsor for the event, which felt fitting, considering it was really a community outreach program.
And, as if guided by some unseen hand, an anonymous donation had miraculously appeared in the library return box, the one and only welcome item I’d found in there to date.
If Jacob could see me now, he’d be grinning that same grin, clapping me on the shoulder, and saying, See?
I never doubted you. But despite all the excitement and anticipation that swirled around our poetry evening, we were now faced with a shadow.
Winnie was slipping away from us, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.
I’d known Winnie prior to her joining the grief group.
She was a regular library patron. Each month, like clockwork, she would arrive in search of the latest books on birds; she was particularly fond of warblers and hummingbirds.
Her visits were always accompanied by an abundance of bird facts, which she eagerly shared each time she wandered up to the front desk to greet me, along with all manner of stories from her travels around the world when she was younger.
When her husband left, Winnie disappeared.
I didn’t see her for quite some time, and I missed looking up from the front desk to see her eccentric self walking in through the doors, a great big smile on her face.
Eventually she returned by way of the grief group.
Usually Emerson was with her, and together they would borrow books on birds, but also books of poetry.
Knowing that Winnie wasn’t going to walk through those library doors again was a painful reminder of life’s comings and goings.
Winnie had asked Wren and I to pack up some of her belongings at the house.
She didn’t have any family left, and had told me that there were things she wanted passed along to specific people.
Of course, when I had to pack up Jacob’s things, I’d wondered where they would go, what would become of them, and who would own them next.
“I donated most of Lucy’s belongings,” Wren said beside me. “But I kept her favorite sweater.”
I turned to her. “Isn’t it strange to think that someone else might have those things now…and to them it might just be a T-shirt or a vase or a book, but to us it was so much more.”
“My father used to say that it was just a sweater,” she replied, “but it still smelled like Lucy for so long afterward. It was more than a sweater; it was a way to remember her.”
“Do you wish you’d never gotten rid of her things?” I asked.
“No,” she replied after a moment. “Because they did just become things in the end.”
“I still thought that holding on to all his stuff would keep him here, tie him to me somehow,” I said, “but the more time has gone past, the more I have thought that perhaps that isn’t how it works at all.”
Wren sat down on the edge of Winnie’s bed, picking at the brightly colored wool of the crochet blanket.
“I tried to tie myself to Lucy too,” she said.
“I tried to keep her memory alive. I thought about her all the time; I would see her wherever I went, I felt her, dreamt of her, willed her back into existence so much that it blurred everything.”
I stopped gathering items from the closet, and I moved to sit down on the edge of the bed next to Wren.
“But now I wake up every morning and instead I see Olivia,” Wren continued. “And I feel so happy. But then I think of Lucy, and I can’t picture her face as clearly, and it crushes me. I don’t know how I can be so happy and still so sad at the same time. I don’t know what to do with that.”
“They say if you name things, they last longer, as if by holding that name upon your lips and speaking it into the world, they’re still here, still alive. I said Jacob’s name every night before I closed my eyes, but Jacob isn’t here anymore. Neither is Lucy. But Olivia is.”
She smiled softly. “I know she is,” she replied.
I paused for a moment before adding, “You know, there are things I’ve told you about Jacob that I haven’t even shared with Max. I don’t know why, exactly. I just…trust you.”
Wren was quiet for a moment.
“It’s not easy for me to let people in,” I continued. “I’m always the fixer, not the one who needs fixing. But honestly, Wren, you seem pretty good with power tools.”
She laughed loudly—like a honk—and immediately covered her mouth, eyes crinkling. “Sometimes we meet people and things just click,” she said, still smiling. “Maybe we’ve met in another life, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
I wondered if all of us in the grief group had met in previous lives.
As if on instinct, I picked up a necklace from the bedside table.
“Winnie wore this all the time,” I said, running my thumb over the bright orange and green beads.
“She would strut into the library on a mission, and it always caught the fluorescent lights.”
“You should keep it,” Wren replied. “If it means something to you.”
I sighed. “I am not so sure I can let that kind of hurt in again.”
“Well, perhaps you aren’t letting it in again,” Wren said, standing and opening another cardboard box.
“I think that grief stays with us. Lucy’s death was not just one day,” she continued, “it wasn’t the day of the accident, or the day in the hospital when I woke up and found out she’d died. It was and has been every day since.”
She folded a pair of jeans and placed them in a bag.
“It wasn’t just Lucy I mourned either. I mourned the life we were supposed to have, the dreams we were supposed to achieve.
And her family.” She added, “For so many years they were my family, too, but when she died, the devastation divided us, sent us all in different directions.”
I stood again and opened the bedside table drawer; it was filled with postcards. Some dated sixty years ago. They were all scrawled in Winnie’s handwriting, pictures from towns and cities far from Everston. I handed some to Wren.
“Perhaps there are some things we could keep?” I said.
She looked down at them. “Do you know what Winnie said to me, during those early days I came to the group?”
I shook my head.
“She hadn’t said a word to me, and then suddenly she asked if I thought talking in circles with strangers made the dead any less dead.”
I snorted, and nearly dropped the postcards I was holding. “That cheeky little—yes, well, that does sound like our Winnie.”
“And then she invited me and Olivia over for chicken pot pie with Emerson.”
“Trying to set you up?”
“I suppose,” she replied. “Although I’ve never asked how she knew.”
“She is rather perceptive,” I responded.
“She stopped by the house not long ago,” Wren said, a small smile tugging at her lips. “She was giving me advice on what color I should paint the window frames. She suggested this wild shade of turquoise, and then to add polka dots along the side wall.”
I laughed. “Turquoise? Polka dots? That really sounds like Winnie. She’s always loved bright things.”
Wren chuckled softly, her gaze distant, as if picturing the house with the vivid color. She continued to pile things into the cardboard boxes. “I have a little update for you,” she said, almost bashfully, not looking at my face.
She moved across the room to her tote bag, pulled out a notebook, and handed it to me.
I looked at the pages: there were at least fifty arranged poems. There was a loose sketch of two birds on the front cover. I was briefly lost for words.
“I mean—” I stammered, “I’m floored you’ve managed to write all of this already!” I looked at her. “You just came out with all this?!”
She shrugged. “Just some thoughts,” she replied.
I had a feeling Wren was downplaying her so-called hobby, but I didn’t press her.
“Just so you know, I’ve been holding up my end of the project too,” I said. “I’ve been looking into the self-publishing thing, and I think I know how we can print a small number of copies on our own!”
“Amazing!” she said.
“I was thinking we could give a copy to everyone who comes to the poetry evening,” she added.
I felt my face light up. “Oh, see, that’s a good idea. The promise of a free book!”
“We’re actually doing this, Henry! I’m excited,” Wren said.
She smiled and resumed digging into Winnie’s closet, pulling out a leather jacket.
“She really does have amazing taste,” she said, running her hands over the sleeves.
I found a cashmere scarf and wrapped it around her neck, then forced her to try on some oversized sunglasses from the eighties, as well as a fedora.
Wren was laughing as we danced around the bedroom in Winnie’s clothes. We filmed the fun to send to Winnie, knowing she would find it all rather humorous. Suddenly, my phone vibrated with a text from Emerson. It only said two words.
She’s gone.