Page 61 of Someone to Remember
I love him madly, deeply, desperately, all of which makes me vulnerable in a way I never would’ve chosen to be again. But when love is standing right in front of you, daring you to take the risk, what else can you do but live and love and hope for the best?
He comes out of the bathroom, fresh from the shower, whistling a jaunty tune as he strolls bare-ass naked into the bedroom that’s become ours over the last few months. We even went to the store to pick out new bedding and towels that are “ours” to replace the ones that were just mine. Like everything we do, Trey made that fun by joking about the various patterns and which ones were chick-only and which ones were for chicks with dudes.
The lease on his townhouse expires at the end of next month, but he’s mostly moved out already. Trey lives with us now. He’s part of our family. He’s helping to raise my children. He drives them to practices and picks them up at friends’ homes after sleepovers. He knows all their friends’ names and has inside jokes with most of them. Even homework has become more bearable because he’s willing to help wherever he’s needed. Thankfully, he gets algebra and geometry, which is such a blessing because I’d be in big trouble with that on my own.
As he gets into bed and comes to my side to snuggle up to me, I wish he wasn’t here—and that’s a first. I’m well aware of why I’m feeling this way tonight, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with.
Trey, being Trey, picks right up on my unusual lack of enthusiasm for bedtime. “Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to sleep somewhere else tonight?”
I glance at him, trying to determine if he’s pissed, but the only thing I see is the usual loving support I always get from him. “No.”
“Any time you need some space from me and/or us, all you have to do is say so. I understand there’re parts of you I don’t have access to, and that’s okay. But I’m right here if I can help.”
My chin wobbles and my eyes fill as he says the perfect thing, as usual. “Thank you.”
He takes my hand and laces his fingers through mine.
I can’t stop thinking of Taylor’s face, flat with shock and disbelief, reminiscent of how I felt the day we lost Wes. When tragedy comes with no warning, it seems to take longer to accept. For weeks after Wes died, I didn’t believe he was really gone. I didn’t have months or years of terminal illness to prepare me for his eventual death.
That morning, I’d had sex with my perfectly healthy, almost-forty-year-old husband, who later went to do some work in the yard and came in gasping for air before dropping dead in the mudroom. My scream brought the kids running toward us. I’ve regretted that scream every hour since then. If only I’d held it together, I might’ve spared them from witnessing their father’s death. But I had literal seconds to process that he was dying right in front of me.
It’s been a long time since I dwelled on the events of that day. They tend to live in a back corner of my mind that I keep sealed off so I wouldn’t be regularly retraumatized as I worked so hard to rebuild our lives without Wes. We’ve done a good job of that, in my humble opinion, but Taylor’s tragedy has reopened the old wounds, as much as I wish that wasn’t the case.
I have a whole new life, one that I love as much as I loved the old one. I love Trey the same way I loved Wes, with mywhole heart and soul, and my kids do, too. Life is good for all of us, the way I once wondered if it ever would be again. We did it. We survived something that could’ve destroyed us all, and we did it with courage, perseverance and determination to rediscover joy and optimism. We did it with the help of so many people who made sure we were ready when Trey came along.
And now… My sweet, sweet friend Taylor is back to day one a second time, and the very thought of it is almost more than I can bear to imagine. She’s been one of my closest people since we were introduced in the aftermath of our initial losses by a mutual friend who thought we might benefit from having someone to talk to who understood.
Oh, how we benefited. Taylor and I hit it off from the first time we met for coffee and quickly became everyday best friends. I was one of her attendants when she married Will, whom I also adored. My heart is shattered for both of them and their kids.
But especially for Taylor. The thought of her having to rise up from the ashes—a second time—and guide herself and her children through another tragic loss is just so abhorrent to me that I feel like it’s happening to me, as crazy as that sounds. That’s how deeply I feel for her.
A sob erupts from my chest.
Trey wraps his arms around me and holds me as I dissolve into grief and heartbreak.
It’s so fucking unfair.
I wish I could run away and hide from this situation, but I’d never leave my dear friend at such a time. I’ll stay and support her every step of the way, but my heart is broken once again, and it won’t be put back together overnight.
Iris
I haveto tell Lexi about Taylor’s loss before our usual weekly meeting tonight, but she’s been so deliriously happy since she and Tom got engaged last weekend that it’s making me sick to think about making that call.
“You have to tell her,” Gage says over morning coffee after he took the kids to school.
“I know, and I’m not sure why I’m being such a wimp about it. She barely knows Taylor.”
“But the news will upset her anyway, and that’s why you’re putting it off.” He leans in, his expression as serious as it ever is. “Can you see the toll this takes on you, love? This is what I’m talking about. You feel a responsibility to tell Lexi news that’ll be devastating to her, which means first, you have to be devastated on her behalf.”
He’s the wisest person any of us knows, and he sees me in a way that Mike never did, as much as I hate to compare them. Gage has the “benefit” of having lived through one of the worst tragedies I’ve ever heard of, which has given him hard-won insight and understanding of the human condition that Mike never had.
