Page 87 of Under Pressure

“Well, you’re supposed to do it to a count or beat or something,” Walt said.

Harry snapped his fingers. “Right, like one,” he added a flowy beat to his counting. “—two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two—”

Don turned and glared at him. “That’s the waltz.”

Harry grinned. “It is? Huh?”

“I enjoyed the meditation,” said the guy sharing their cell—his name was Steve. Steve Adamson. His drunken stupor had worn off sometime in the night, and he’d invited himself to fully participate in their exercises for the last hour, much to Don’s consternation.

“I wouldn’t mind some more of the colorful drawings,” Chief Erickson, sitting at the front desk, lifted a picture of a mountain with a rainbow behind it that Don had drawn a while ago. The thing looked like it’d been done by a toddler.

“No, none of it’s working,” Don said. He was right, Wayne didn’t know what he was talking about. Like he was supposed to meditate his grief away; good grief.

“Well, then we’re out of options,” Walt said. “And don’t snap at us, you’re the one that asked us to help you with this.”

He had. After he’d texted the ladies of the Secret Seven to let them know they were in jail, Don had realized that maybe, just maybe, his friends were . . . right. Not about Sean and Bluebell, of course, they were supposed to be together, but, the rest of it. Don did need to grieve not only because it was normal after losing someone you love but becausenotgrieving was slowlydriving him crazy. If he’d at all been in his right mind, he never would have gone to Jonah’s house and spied through his window. He’d had absolutely no plan. Had gone there not even knowing what he was going to look for. That wasn’t like him.

As much as he’d like to say that he had his emotions under control, he couldn’t. In his years in the military, he’d learned to suppress his emotions. He’d had to in order to survive. And then, when those hard things were over, he’d come home to Amelia, who soothed all the hurts away just by being herself, by being his sunshine. Well, now the hurts were because she was gone, and as much as Don wanted to suppress it, he just couldn’t. He had no one to soothe his soul now.

“I know,” Don said. “I was hoping one of Wayne’s techniques would help.”

“Might have worked better if we’d had Wayne here to help,” Walt muttered under his breath.

“I hope we’re not here much longer,” Harry said, lifting his arm and sniffing.

Don hoped they wouldn’t be here much longer either—truth be told, they were all starting to stink. The ladies had been immediately turned away when they’d shown up to rescue the men. No amount of legalese from Rosa, threats from Nancy, or bargaining from Polly had helped. Not even Winnie’s sweet talking or Virginia’s pleas for her husband had done any good. They were stuck. But at least they hadn’t been stuck in a vehicle driving home with them smelling like they did. Like Steve. Don wrinkled his nose.

The ladies had left dejected, and the men were left hoping the judge would get back before the New Year. The three of them looked a mess from having to stay the night in here and Steve was a mess but that might be what he looked like all the time. For the first time since Don had married Amelia, he had stubble growing on his chin. It itched. And not one of them had gotten awink of sleep, except Steve who was a pretty level-headed person when he was sober. It was getting harder to ignore the guy the more he inserted himself.

“How come you haven’t opened the box?” Steve asked from his spot on the floor. “Wasn’t one of Wayne’s suggestions spending time with symbols representing the people we’ve loved and lost?”

So that’s what Wayne had meant by that. Huh . . .

Walt let out a low whistle.

Harry pointed toward Steve. “He makes a good point.”

Don stared at the shoe box that sat between Harry and Walt. When the ladies had come last night to try and bail them out, Nancy had brought Don’s shoebox from Amelia for him. At the time, he wasn’t sure why he’d asked her to bring it, it’d just come out of his mouth, right now he was glad that he had.

He’d opened all the other boxes she’d left, but not this one. He’d been putting it off and putting it off. In a sense, this was all he had left of her. Once he opened it, any surprises from his sweet girl would be over. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He wasn’t going to cry in front of his friends. Heck, he couldn’t even remember the last time he cried.

“Or you could try somatic exercises,” Steve said as he bent himself into a pretzel. “If we can get your hips relaxed, you’ll cry like a baby and get it all out.”

Don’s entire body stiffened at the idea.

Walt patted the seat next to him.

Don marched over as his friends scooted out, and lifted the box before taking a seat with it in his lap. His fingers began to tingle from where he held it, like energy flowed out of it.

Walt turned a little away from him to give him privacy as Harry leaned closer.

“One, two, three. One, two, three,” Harry said. “You sure that’s the waltz?”

Don nodded. He was positive. Johnny had made him and Amelia take ballroom dancing classes with him when he was in his mid-twenties. “Yep.”

Harry stood, still counting, and began practicing the steps.

Slowly, Don slid his fingers up to the lid and lifted. On the very top was a stack of ten to fifteen letters cordoned together with an aged elastic band. His name was written on the front of everyone. Below those was one letter for each of his kids and grandkids. A total of eighteen. He stopped when he saw the one for Sean, and pulled it to the top.

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