On Second Thought(51)

I loved her. I grinned at Kate, but she just sat there, a little frozen.

“I’m George,” the older guy said. “My wife and I were married for forty-three years, and she just slipped away in her sleep. Bad heart. That was last year.” He paused. “It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve made it this long without her. Every day is so long. But I can’t complain. We were lucky, Annie and me. We had a lot of good times.”

My sister gave a small squeak, and I squeezed her clammy hand.

The other women went. Janette’s husband died of pancreatic cancer on their fifteenth anniversary. “His last words to me were ‘I’m sorry to be dying on our special day,’ and I said, ‘Well, you’ve always been a selfish bastard,’ and he laughed, and then he just...sank a little into the pillow. He died at that exact moment. And I panicked, you know? Like, seriously? Those were my last words to him? So I grabbed him and shook him and said, ‘Hey! I love you, idiot!’” She laughed through her tears.

My sister’s forehead was shiny with sweat.

“You okay?” I whispered.

She nodded.

Bree’s husband died after a sheet of ice flew off the truck in front of him on Interstate 87 last winter. “It’s hardest when I try to talk about him with the kids,” she said to Kate. “Camden is four, Fiona’s eighteen months. I don’t know how to keep his memory alive. The other day, I asked Cam if he remembered the time he went fishing with Daddy, and he didn’t. He’s forgotten. And Fiona thinks Daddy is the word for picture. We went to Target the other day, and in the frame section, she kept pointing at the shelves and saying ‘Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?’”

Someone was panting.

It was Kate.

At first, I thought she was crying, but no, she was hyperventilating. Drenched in sweat, too. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Okay, slow down. In for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three.” There was the rare occasion when Candy’s profession came in handy. Panic attacks had dotted my early childhood, and she’d taught me how to breathe through them.

Kate sounded like an overheated dog in the middle of summer. “In for three, hold for three, out for three—Okay, she’s gonna faint. Lean over, Kate.”

Leo helped me maneuver her head between her legs. “I’m s-s-so-sorry,” she managed. She gripped my hand hard enough that bones crunched. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“Nah. Just hyperventilating,” I said. “Remember me and the thunderstorms?” She nodded. “Does anyone have a paper bag?”

George (I was already crushing on him) found one, and Kate held it against her mouth, her eyes wide, face white. “In for three, hold for three, out for three, hold for three,” I said, rubbing her back.

“We all lose it at one point or another,” LuAnn said. “Me, the first time after Frank died, I was watching Real Housewives. We watched it together, right? So it’s two weeks, maybe three, after he died, and I sit down and I say, ‘Frank! Housewives is on!’ and then he doesn’t come, and I actually call him again. And then it hits me. He’s dead. No more TV watching together. I freak out, just like you.”

“Our bodies sometimes acknowledge what our brains can’t,” Lileth said. I wondered what fortune cookie she got that from.

“Doing better?” I asked Kate. She nodded but kept puffing into the bag.

“So let’s get it out of the way, hon,” LuAnn said. “How did your husband die?”

Kate was in no shape to form words. “Want me to tell them?” I asked.

She nodded.

I kept rubbing her back. “He, uh...tripped and hit his head. Freak accident, really.”

“He was getting me wine,” Kate said into the bag, which expanded and contracted with each breath. “I needed more wine. Because Ainsley’s boyfriend was making a speech, and he wanted us to toast her, and I hate parties, so I drank my first glass really fast, and I needed more, so Nathan got me more, and now he’s dead and it’s my fault.” The bag inflated and deflated faster now.

There was a pregnant silence, just the sound of the paper bag. I could’ve sworn Leo was trying not to laugh.

“It’s really Eric’s fault, though, isn’t it?” I said, still rubbing her back. Soon, I would burn a friction hole in her shirt. “He’s the one who said to raise your glass. Plus, he’s an *.”

Leo did laugh then. So did LuAnn. Kate may have smiled, but it was hard to tell with the bag over her mouth.

“Speaking of *s,” Bree said, “did anyone read about that guy who ditched his girlfriend once he got over cancer?”

For a second, I didn’t remember it was me she was talking about. But no, I was the lucky girl, wasn’t I? “That was my boyfriend,” I said. “I’m Sunshine of The Cancer Chronicles.”

Bree’s mouth dropped open.

“That dickwad is your boyfriend?” LuAnn asked. “Holy crap. Want us to kill him for you?”

Turned out most of them had all read or heard about Cutting Free from the Corpse of My Old Life, not including Lileth, who was probably above social media and read self-help books instead.

I was famous.

Since they were abuzz with questions, I relayed the story of my lobster dinner, the ring, the denied credit card. The eviction.