Page 8 of On the Line

He’s here, but I don’t have to be nice to him. He certainly doesn’t deserve that from me.

CHAPTER4

LAUREN

“They’re asleep,” Morgan says as she drops a small pill into my hand and then hands me a glass of water.

“Thank you so much.” My eyes start to water as the lump rises in my throat, so I rest my head on her shoulder. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without my cousin these last two weeks. It’s been hell and she’s walked through it with me every step of the way, even moving into the guest bedroom as she helped me manage everything.

“It’s the least I could do,” she says. “But I’m never going to forgive your dad for riling the twins up right before bedtime tonight.”

I glance over at my dad, sitting at my kitchen table with my mom, my brothers, and my best friends’ husbands. I can tell by the way his mustache is twitching and his hands are waving that Dad’s entertaining them with the outlandish stories he’s famous for.

“Of course he did.” My lips curve up at the corner. It’s as much of a smile as I can manage, despite my overwhelming affection for my dad. The way he’s doted on my girls has been exactly what they needed this week. They don’t understand that their dad is gone. They may not even remember him, except through pictures and stories.

I wipe away a tear, wishing my parents weren’t leaving tomorrow.

Tomorrow it will be real. Everyone else will go back to their normal lives, and I will still be in this new hellscape where I’m a widow, my children are fatherless, my exciting new job offer is a distant memory, and all my friends and family—except Morgan—are across the country.

I glance around my kitchen, but no one seems to be paying attention, so I pop the Xanax in my mouth discreetly and swallow it down with the water, promising myself that this is only until I get through these first few weeks. My doctor insists that the benefits—namely me being a functioning human capable of taking care of small children while also balancing the stress and heartbreak of this situation—mean I should continue taking it daily until I’m confident I can manage without it.

“I’m going to go get you some food. You need to eat something,” Morgan tells me.

“I’m really not hungry,” I assure her.

“You need to eat. You can’t lose any more weight.” She pauses to eye me skeptically, and I know what she sees. My collarbones jut out at the edges of this V-neck dress, my shoulders are overly bony, and my face looks gaunt.

I’m not hungry, but I know she’s right. “Fine.”

As soon as Morgan steps away, my sister, Paige, is there by my side.

“Hey, I’m hanging out with your friends in the dining room. Why don’t you come sit with us for a bit? The girls are in bed, you can relax. I’ve already poured you a glass of wine.”

“I’m fine with water,” I say, holding up the glass in my hand. I know better than to mix alcohol and anxiety medication.

“Okay, but come relax with us. You’ve been circling all evening, taking care of everyone here, when you should be letting us take care of you. I know that caring for people is your love language,” she says as she puts a hand on each of my shoulders and looks me straight in the eye, “but right now the person you need to take care of isyou.”

I don’t bother saying that keeping busy is helping me get through this. That the simple acts of refilling people’s drinks and making sure everyone’s had enough to eat, listening to stories about my nieces and nephews, and loving on my girls—it all helps take my mind off the fact that I’m a thirty-year-old widow with two little kids and no idea how I’m going to move forward after this tragedy.

I don’t need to say any of that—Paige already knows.

Instead, I let her lead me into the dining room where Jackson, Sierra, and Petra are sitting around the long, narrow table with the sixteen high-back wooden chairs Josh picked out for this space. It’s the kind of table you’d expect to see in a medieval movie, and I’ve always kind of hated it, but I’ve softened it up with a long ivory and gold runner and several candles in hurricane vases.

The three of them have their heads tucked together and don’t notice us approaching. “Maybe we can finally get her to move back to Boston,” Sierra says.

“That wouldn’t take much convincing,” I say with a sigh as I pull out the chair next to her and sink into it while Paige walks around the table and sits across from me, next to Petra.

“Would you really?” Jackson asks, her big green eyes lighting up with hope. It means I’d be less than two hours from her and Sierra.

I haven’t told any of them how I pestered Josh relentlessly this summer to move to Boston. At first, he appeared to seriously consider the idea. I didn’t want to jinx it by getting anyone else excited before I knew whether it was possible, so I kept my mouth shut. And as summer faded to fall, Josh seemed less and less interested in the discussion. When he finally vetoed the idea, I was glad I hadn’t said anything to anyone else, even if it meant I had to stew in my sadness alone. At least I hadn’t gotten anyone else’s hopes up only to disappoint them.

I take a deep breath and tell them about the rejected idea. “I wish I could have gotten him to agree to it then.”

It turns out my argument for moving—that aside from my cousin Morgan, everyone else I loved lived within three hours of Boston—wasn’t as compelling as his argument for staying—that we’d just built this beautiful house in the mountains overlooking Park City, and that he needed easy access to skiing.

“What would be different if you had?” Sierra asks as she sweeps her long blond hair over her shoulder.

“Maybe he wouldn’t have gone on that trip. Maybe Washington, or Idaho, would have been too far away.” I know how unlikely that is. Josh has traveled the globe for skiing as long as I’ve known him. “But even if he had, at least I’d have Paige there with me, and you and Jackson would only be two hours away.” Even though Sierra still travels all around the world with Beau for his snowboarding, they do consider New Hampshire to be their home base, and they spend a lot of time there with Jackson and Nate. “And with the rest of my family in Maine, and Petra in New York ...” I drift off as I try not to think about what it’s going to feel like tomorrow when they all leave, but the tears fill my eyes anyway. “I wouldn’t be all alone.”

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