Page 54 of Hello Handsome
“You okay?” Jack asked.
“Water,” I said. I’d start there. I lifted my knees and leaned forward, hanging my head between them. This fear meant I was trying something new, I reminded myself, doing something different. It was a good thing, even if it felt like shit.
“Here you go,” Jack said.
“That was fast.” I lifted my head, taking the glass of water from him. It was ice cold and felt good running over my tongue. “Thank you.”
Jack sat beside me as we looked over the empty room. “I can drive us where it’s going next.”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted.
And my friend started laughing.
“Shut up.” I gave him a sideways hit to the chest. But he just laughed harder. My own lips twitched. “Stop,” I said, but it was no use. I was laughing now, too, tears sliding out the corners of my eyes.
Slowly, our laughter died down, and I used my heels to wipe at the corner of my eyes. “I needed that.”
Jack gave me a wry smile. “We usually do. Being an adult sucks sometimes.”
I lifted a corner of my lips. “True.”
He stood up and then extended a rough hand for me. I let him pull me up, and then we walked outside to my pickup. He didn’t ask, just got in the driver’s side. “Where we taking it?” he asked as I climbed in the passenger seat.
“Let me think.”
Unbuckling his seat belt, he said, “I’m gonna use the bathroom while you mull it over.”
He got out of the truck and walked to the front door. Once he was inside, I sighed and got out to inspect the furniture. It hit me that I hadn’t even cleaned out the nightstands in my hurry to get it all outside.
Shaking my head at myself, I went back inside and grabbed a hamper for the contents.
There wasn’t much in my nightstand—a bible I didn’t touch near enough, a notepad for midnight thoughts, and a little picture my granddaughter Maya had drawn for me when she was younger. The two of us stood holding hands in a pasture with horses on either side.
I smiled at the drawing, carefully placing it in my notebook so it would stay safe.
Then I glanced at my late wife’s nightstand, and my heart pounded.
Maybe the boys had been through it since she passed, but I hadn’t.
My vision blurred around the edges and my face felt hot, so I sat on the tailgate, taking a few deep breaths.
“Give me strength,” I whispered, hoping maybe Maya was listening.
Slowly, I did some box breathing like Dr. Benson taught me. Then I shuffled on my knees to Maya’s nightstand, shifting it so I could open the drawer.
My eyes instantly felt hot, seeing her things like she’d left them.
There was a small purse she called a “clutch.” I unzipped it, finding lipstick and a twenty-dollar bill inside. My eyes stung as I pulled off the cap, seeing a shade of red she loved.
I held it to my chest, knowing I didn’t have a use for it, but not sure how I’d let it go.
I set it back in the clutch and then pocketed the twenty, knowing I’d never spend it.
Holding on to her last twenty-dollar bill, a sign of hope for future purchases, felt better than sleeping in a room surrounded by her.
Then I pulled out her bible. She used to doodle in the margins. When I first saw her doing that, I thought it was sacrilegious, but she flippantly said, “God’s not yelling at me.”
I flipped through the pages, a small smile on my lips as I read the scriptures she found most important. Some part of my heart was angry on her behalf, that she believed so hard in God and still left us too damn soon.
