Page 59 of Someone to Remember
“I’m sure she’d say so if that happened.”
“Would she, though?” I ask. “I think she’d soldier on, even if she was buckling under the weight of it.”
“Maybe we should talk to her about that at some point.”
“We may get the chance at Wednesday’s meeting. I’m sure Taylor’s loss will be first on the agenda.”
“Definitely. Do you think she’ll come back to the group?”
“I don’t know her well enough to say what she might do. I hope she does if she thinks it would help.”
“I do, too. Well, I’d better get to bed. Gotta work in the morning.”
“Thanks for calling and for giving me a push.”
“You got it. Text me any updates.”
“Will do.”
I’m so thankful for friends like Naomi who understand the struggle to move on and give me a push when I need it. Mark would be pissed with me for standing in place for so long after he died, even if I’ve had my hands full raising the son he never got to meet. My love was a get-things-done kind of guy, and sitting still was never his thing. I wonder sometimes if he’d already be remarried if I’d been the one who died.
He sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here years later, alone and lonely, trying to take the first step toward a new life.
Or maybe he would. Who knows? Grief makes a mockery of even the most confident people. Mark loved me passionately, so maybe my death would’ve wrecked him the same way his did me. He was so larger than life that after all this time, I still can’t believe he actually died. If you’d asked me before the skiing accident that took him from us if he would die young, I would’ve laughed. I would’ve said, “No chance. He’s invincible.”
Of course, no one is invincible, and we learned that the hard way. His poor brother… Mark died at his brother’s bachelor party, and though he and his fiancée were eventually married in a smaller, scaled-back wedding, the marriage didn’t last. It was doomed from the start by grief and guilt. I’m still in touch with my ex-sister-in-law, who’s suffered almost as much as I did over losing the man she loved to the same tragedy that took my husband.
Eh, enough of this morbid shit. Time to get serious about finding my chapter two. With that in mind, I get back on my phone to read the flood of messages I’ve received, hoping to find that diamond Naomi promised me.
Kinsley
I’ve debated this endlessly,to the point of madness, really. Lately, all I’ve thought about is reaching out to Luke, oneof the newer members of the Wild Widows. He lost his wife and the mother of his four children to colon cancer.
My husband, Rory, died of pancreatic cancer, so I have an idea of what Luke endured. I want to tell him I get it, that I understand some of what he went through and offer any help I can.
Today of all days, with the news from Taylor heavy on my heart, I should be worried about my own little family and not thinking about Luke and his kids. But the desire to reach out gets stronger by the day and hasn’t been dampened in the least by today’s tragic news.
One thing is keeping me from going for it.
Well, two things.
The first is that he hasfourchildren. The oldest is eight, and the youngest is three and a half. Christian, my eldest child, is eight, and my Maisy is six. That’s a lot of little kids underfoot.
Second thing… is the spark of instant attraction I felt when I first met him at Iris’s house the summer before last. That hasn’t happened since Rory died. I haven’t had so much as an ember of interest in any other man, so to have a full-blown spark is unsettling, to say the least.
Luke is gorgeous, with light brown hair that always looks like he’s been running his fingers through it, golden-brown eyes and a smile that belongs in toothpaste commercials. Not to mention the rippling muscles that were visible through the button-down shirt he wore to Iris’s gathering. When Lexi’s boyfriend, Tom, fainted at Iris’s house that night, Luke jumped into action to help Tom.
While everyone was naturally focused on Tom—who was thankfully okay—I watched Luke and was impressed by his quiet competence and obvious skill as a doctor.
He’s been to a few meetings since then, but I’ve thought about him every day since the first time I met him, wondering how he’s holding it together with four young kids and a busy job that must keep him away from home for long hours. I wantto know about his wife, Isabella—he called her Bella—and what she was like. He said she was diagnosed when expecting their youngest child, Phoebe, and postponed treatment to safely deliver her daughter. She died when Phoebe was eighteen months old.
I found him on Instagram and devoured his posts about losing his love and raising their children alone, and after reading his heartfelt posts, I was more than halfway in love with him, which is another reason I haven’t reached out.
I feel like a weirdo stalker with a high school crush on the big man on campus.
Ridiculous.
And getting worse by the day.
