it. Certainly living in some sort of shadow world wasn’t going to fix things or make them better.
So she stood her ground and eyed him steadily. “I know it’s hard. I think about her every day. I miss her like crazy. But you stopping living isn’t going to bring her back.”
Michael swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet space. He stared at the floor and closed his eyes, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose. She didn’t know him well enough to understand his signals—she’d only known him when he was happy, not when he was deeply grieving, and she had no map to help her navigate this difficult territory.
“If you want to talk, if you want to rage, if you need help around the house, if you want to burn it all to the ground and start again… Tell me,” Angie said. “Tell me what you need, Michael, and I will do whatever I can to make it happen.”
She held her breath, hoping she’d gotten through to him. After a moment he lifted his head.
“I need my wife back.”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Angie’s knees were shaking. She couldn’t even remember standing, but she must have in those last few, fraught minutes.
Moving slowly, she gathered her purse and let herself out of the house. Her sandals slapped hollowly on the driveway as she walked to her car. She threw her bag onto the backseat but didn’t immediately drive away. Instead, she crossed her arms over the steering wheel and rested her forehead against them. The sadness and emptiness that never really left her welled up and her shoulders started to shake.
I miss you so much, Billie. In so many ways. I’m sorry I couldn’t help him. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not like you. I don’t have your touch with people. But I’ll keep trying, I promise.
Angie breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting for control. She’d had these moments off and on for the past ten months; she knew how to weather them. After a few minutes the shaky, lost feeling subsided, she straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A few minutes after that, she started her car and drove home.
* * *
MICHAEL STOOD ON THE DECK, breathing in the cool night air. Trying to calm himself.
Angie was so far out of line it wasn’t funny. While she’d been off drinking mojitos or cosmos or whatever the cool drink was these days in New York, he’d been staring his new reality in the face. She had no idea how he felt, no clue what he went through every frickin’ day.
The moment the thought crossed his mind his innate sense of fairness kicked in. She may have been in New York for six weeks, but before that Angie had been a rock, standing by his side and doing anything and everything she could to make things bearable after Billie’s death. More important, Angie understood more than anyone what losing Billie had meant to him, to his life. She and Billie had been more like sisters than friends. They had finished each other’s sentences, said the honest thing when it needed to be said and been each other’s best cheerleaders. Angie was trying to piece her life together, too. Trying to work out how to live in a post-Billie world.
That still didn’t give her the right to critique his life. It definitely didn’t give her the right to tell him he was a zombie or that he was living a half life or to tell him what his kids needed.
When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?
He ground his teeth together, wishing he could expunge her words from his mind. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to lift his head and look around and see that life was going on around him. He wanted…
He wanted the impossible. Billie, with her huge smile and her even huger heart. He wanted her laughter echoing in the house again. He wanted to wake up in the morning and turn his head and find her lying next to him instead of an empty pillow. He wanted to kiss her lips and smell her perfume. He wanted to lie in bed and have her press her cold feet against his calves to warm them.
He wanted. And his want was never going to be satisfied because his wife’s aorta had dissected as a result of high blood pressure, a catastrophic cardiac incident that had meant she was dead before they reached the hospital. Billie was dead and gone, turned to dust. All he had left were the children they had made together and his memories and the house she’d turned into a home for them all.
Not nearly enough.
He sank to the deck, pulling his knees loosely toward his chest. It was cold, but he wasn’t ready to go in yet. Angie had stirred him up too much.
He stared into the darkness, aware, as always, of the silence within the walls behind him. Billie had been the noisiest person he knew. She’d hummed when she washed the dishes, sung in the shower, galloped around the house. Getting used to the new quiet had been but one of many small, painful adjustments he’d had to make over the past ten months.
He exhaled, watching his breath turn to mist in the air.
“Daddy?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Eva stood in the sliding doorway to his bedroom wearing nothing but her nightie, her arms wrapped around her body.
“You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold.” He pushed himself to his feet.
“What are you doing?”
“I could ask you the same question. You’ve got school tomorrow.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her around and guiding her to her bedroom.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
They entered her bedroom and she walked dutifully to her bed and slipped beneath the duvet. “Can you tell me a story?”
“You need to sleep, Eva.”
His daughter was a night owl and a master of distraction and procrastination. If he let her, she’d be up half the night, demanding stories and anything else to delay putting her head on her pillow.
“Oh, all right.” Her tone was hard done by and world-weary and he couldn’t help but smile.
He kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
He pulled the quilt up so that it covered her shoulders. He started to straighten, but Eva’s hand shot out and caught a hold of his sweatshirt.
“You won’t forget about Imogen’s party, will you, like you forgot about the movies and roller skating?” she asked, her eyes fixed on his face.
He frowned. “What movie?”
“You said you’d take me to see Miley Cyrus’s new movie. Just like you said you’d take me skating with my class.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about—then suddenly the memory was there, clear as day. Eva, cajoling and pleading, her hands pressed together as though in prayer, promising to do all her chores on time without him having to ask if he would please, please, please take her to the movies. He’d said yes, unable to deny her anything that might give her pleasure.
Then he’d forgotten to follow through on his commitment.
They need you to be a fully functioning human being first
