six-month-old with the ease of someone comfortable around kids. The infant was fascinated with a man to look at.
“Patricia said I would find you here.”
“I hide out here most Sundays,” Rae replied, tempting Kyle’s sister Kim with a set of infant car keys. She had been keeping up with infants and toddlers for the last hour and a half with her teenage helpers. She couldn’t believe he’d shown up here of all places. She pushed her hair back as Kim reached for it again.
“Like kids?”
“Babies,” Rae replied matter-of-factly.
“They grow up fast. Emily was barely walking when I saw her last. Now she’s reading,” James commented.
“Six years is a long time.”
Rae snagged an infant who was in danger of falling backward and scooted him over to lean against her knee. James nudged a ball over to him with his foot.
“Thanks.”
“It is always this lively?”
Rae smiled. “No one is crying so this is calm. But I normally do have two more adults to help keep order. They’re both out with the flu. Thanks for the offer to help.”
“My pleasure. I wanted to thank you for the Chicago Bulls tapes.”
She was surprised and pleased that he had sought her out for something so simple. “Kevin said you were a fan.”
“Your packages would make my week and that of my entire crew.”
She looked down at the infant she held, embarrassed. “I’m glad you liked them.”
“I’m afraid I’ve been thinking about you for two years by your nickname,” James added.
His remark made her look up. “Really?”
He smiled. “We named you Rachel the Angel.”
Now she really blushed. “They were just game tapes.”
“They meant a lot to us. I promised the guys I would convey their thanks.” James set the rocker in motion.
Rae had no idea what to say. “Should I apologize for not liking hockey?”
Her question brought a burst of laughter.
Rae left work Monday night after nine, stopped at the grocery store for a deli pizza and a six-pack of soda, and on impulse picked up a carrot cake. She needed to grocery shop to actually stock her cabinets but didn’t have the energy.
She had decided she really, desperately, wanted a break. She was going to read a good book tonight, set her alarm to let her sleep an extra half hour and try to rebuild her energy. It was bad when she started the week exhausted.
She put the pizza in the oven, forgot and then came back to set the timer, walked down to the den as she poured the soda over ice. She wrinkled her nose and chuckled softly as she tried to drink around the fizz. She was parched.
Work would not be so bad if it were simply not so long. She had given up trying to record her hours in February; tracking her time had been one of her New Year’s resolutions. Knowing she was averaging 64.9 hours per week did not make coping with them any easier.
The library shelves were packed with books she considered worth keeping—thrillers and suspense and mysteries intermixed in the fiction, medical texts, financial texts and law references taking the rest of the space. She had a hard time choosing, there were so many books she would like to reread. She finally pulled down a hardcover by Mary Clark.
She settled into the recliner, kicking the footstand up. This was the way she liked to spend an evening.
She opened the book.
A small piece of red colored paper fluttered down between the arm and the cushion of the seat.
Rae shifted in the seat, balancing her drink and the book in one hand to reach the item.
A Valentine’s Day card.
Leo’s bold signature signed beneath his “I Love You.”
The sob caught her off guard, emotion rushing to the surface before she could stop it.
No. No, she was done crying!
She wiped at the tears with the back of her sleeve, caught a couple deep breaths and forced them back. No. No more. She was done crying.
She got up.
It was hard, and her hand wavered, but she resolutely tucked the beautiful card in the box on the bookshelf where she kept the pictures she had yet to file in her scrapbook.
She wasn’t going to let a card do this to her. It was beautiful, and there was no one to send her I Love You cards anymore, but she wasn’t going to let the card affect her this way. No. She couldn’t.
The desire to read was gone.
She left the book resting on the armrest of the recliner and returned to the kitchen. The pizza had barely begun to cook.
Was it possible to simply decide to stop grieving?
She leaned against the counter and watched the pizza cook.
Was it possible to simply decide not to grieve anymore?
Rae rubbed her burning eyes and reached to the medicine cabinet for the aspirin bottle. Her head hurt.
God, I’ve decided I’m not going to cry anymore. My head hurts, my eyes hurt, and crying over the fact I flipped open a book and had a Valentine’s Day card he sent me fall out has got to stop. My life is full of reminders of him. He was in my life for ten years. He’s there, in scrapbooks, in snapshots, in little knickknacks around the house. He fixed my car, and helped build my bookshelves, he even tried to teach me how to make pizza. Work is filled with reminders of him, he is there in every decision and in every stock position we hold. God, I’m not going to grieve anymore. You’ve got to take away the pain. But I’m through crying. He’s gone.
She felt like she had been sideswiped by the same semi that had killed Leo.
When the pizza came out, she ate one piece and put the rest into the refrigerator, not hungry, not caring that she really needed to eat more than she had been in the last few months.
She took a hot shower and let the water fill the room with steam, cried her very last tears until she felt hollow inside, and quietly said goodbye.
She was going on with life. She only hoped it held something worth going on for.
“What do you think?” Kevin asked, leaning against the side of the construction trailer.
James looked out over the eighty acres of land Kevin was turning into a new subdivision of affordable homes and felt slightly stunned. “Kevin, you have done wonders with the business in six years.”
His friend laughed. “Believe me, it has more to do with
