Page 26 of The Woman Left Behind

He allowed himself to splurge seven days of the year: his birthday, the Fourth of July, Halloween (he had a weakness for candy), Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and if he was invited to a Memorial Day party (which he always was).

In the meantime, he’d have a beer, or a drink, he’d chow down on a burger or dig into a steak, and he couldn’t eat a baked potato without all the fixin’s, but other than that, Harry ate clean.

“I’ll finish what you don’t eat,” he said.

“I see you dragged in the competitor’s product to mock us,” Heidi noted, dipping her head to the Aromacobana cup he still held.

And he was glad she did, because it made Lillian emit a short chuckle.

“I got two sips left so I’ll need another,” he told Heidi.

“On it,” Heidi said and walked away.

“I have some things for you,” Lillian told him, taking his attention to her.

She was pulling an envelope out of her purse.

She slid it across the table to him. “Pictures of Mom and Dad. Just in case you need them for some reason.” She hesitated, rolling her lips together. “I’ll, um…want them back.”

He took the envelope and tucked it carefully into his breast pocket, saying, “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll make certain you get them back.”

She stared at his pocket like she was going to leap across the table and reclaim the envelope.

And Harry felt that with her. He knew how precious they became when pictures and possessions were all you had left of someone you loved.

She got a handle on it, though she didn’t look him in the eye as she said, “I also talked to their dentist. Well, not to their actual dentist. He retired. But the practice is there. They think they might still have their records. I mean, they don’t. Not at the office. But they might have them in a storage unit, and they said they’d send someone to look. I’ve given permission to send them to the station if they have them. I don’t know if I actually needed to do that, but, I just…I don’t know…”

“Felt the need to do something,” he filled in for her.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. She took a visible breath and asked, “Will that make things go faster?”

“Depends on if Idaho has Rapid DNA, which has cut DNA identification time down by a lot. Though, usually a dental ID goes faster. I just didn’t expect after all this time?—”

She cut him off. “I get it.”

“Dentists usually only keep records for six years after a patient’s last visit,” Harry said quietly. “If they can locate them, we can significantly speed this up.”

“Great,” she replied, though she definitely didn’t think it was great.

Heidi showed with their coffees, set them down, and again walked away.

“Otherwise, how are you hanging in there?” he asked.

“You have to ask?” she pointed to her eyes while still avoiding his. “I put cucumbers on them, and green tea bags when the cukes didn’t work, and finally a cold cloth. And I still look like I ran eyes wide open through a dust storm.”

“Crying is healing,” he said.

“Well, I should be healed by now,” she muttered, reaching for the cream and dropping some in her mug. She then slid it across the table toward him and finished, “But I’m not.”

One thing Harry learned losing Winnie, and giving death notices, and attending funerals of people he knew, and victims he didn’t, there was nothing anyone could say that made it better.

Nothing.

When you were stuck in grief, the only thing that helped even the slightest was knowing people were thinking of you and they gave a shit.

And he was doing that.

But fuck him, he wished he could do more.

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