Good as Dead(41)

“I see. I guess two, then?” I said.

“You can always order more,” she said quickly, and I tried not to panic that I would not know how to do this. “Just have the funeral home call me,” she said kindly. “I’ll coordinate all the paperwork with them.” And then she hung up.

I looked over at my husband’s dresser. There was still a cup of coffee on it, in the stout #1 DAD! mug Savannah had bought him last Father’s Day. I picked it up and peered inside. The coffee had evaporated, leaving a thick layer of sludge on the bottom. There was a crescent-shaped stain where his mouth had been. I could still see the tiny vertical imprints of his lips.

I slid my hand under the handle as I had seen him do a thousand times. As I cradled the mug in my palm, I imagined his hand on top of mine, pressing it into the cup’s gentle curve. I closed my eyes and imagined him holding me steady, like he always did.

“Don’t let go,” a voice called out, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was mine. Who am I talking to? There was no one there but me. Those hands that had held me, steered me, loved me, were rotting in the morgue, along with the shoulders I used to lean on and the eyes that always saw beauty in me, even on my ugly days.

I gripped the mug with both hands and pulled the cold ceramic shell to my chest. “Don’t let go,” I repeated, then realized maybe the command was meant for me? My husband wasn’t hanging on to this life anymore, the morgue lady made that crystal clear. But just because he had slipped away, didn’t mean he was out of my reach. We were soul mates, I knew it from the moment we met. The soul was eternal—my Sunday school teacher taught me that. Gabe was not gone, he had just moved on. I couldn’t bring him back, but I could follow him where he went.

I opened my eyes. I’d lived in this apartment for fifteen years, but suddenly nothing about it was familiar to me.

I didn’t belong here anymore, that was clear.

The only question was how far I would have to go to find home again.





CHAPTER 22


I had taken three of the Vicodin they had prescribed me, which meant I should have seventeen left.

Savannah was at a track meet. Normally I would have gone, but when I thought about trying to navigate slippery metal bleachers with a leg that could barely bend, I lost my nerve. I had a temporary handicap placard, but sometimes they just parked you in an open field. Everybody had a reason for “needing” to park close—I have stuff to unload, I have my dog in the car, I need to be somewhere right after. I couldn’t expect special privileges, even with the placard. And I wasn’t good on uneven surfaces, I’d found that out the hard way.

“Take one every four to six hours as needed for pain,” the label said. I popped off the top, then poured the pills out onto a plate—one of my old CorningWare ones, not one of the fancy ones from Pottery Barn, though this arguably was a special occasion. The pills were chalky and white, and left a powdery residue on my fingers. My brother had died from an overdose. One might conclude it ran in the family.

I gazed out the front window, into the yard. I never did find out what kind of flowers those were. I might have enjoyed doing some gardening when my knee was better. I had a good instinct for plants. Back at our old place we sometimes grew tomatoes on the fire escape. We always had the best ones. They were so sweet we ate them like apples, right off the vine.

I thought about Savannah, about how easy it was for her to settle into this new life. Logan was the center of her universe now. They spent every waking minute together, I rarely saw her without him. If Gabe were alive, he’d insist on meeting the parents to be sure they were kind and decent people. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just knew there was nothing I could do if they weren’t. Savannah would find a way to hang out with Logan whether I liked his parents or not. Plus there was no way Logan’s mom and dad could be more despicable than me. I was a worthless, limping, lying gold digger. They were certainly a step up, if not a whole staircase higher than I was.

I missed my alone time with Savannah, but I was grateful she had found a boy to love and hoped it would last. I started dating Gabe when we were sixteen. People think you don’t know what love is at that age, but I’m living proof that some people do. We were together for two years, then apart for the next four. He was more appealing in the letters he wrote me than any man I met while he was deployed, and I married him the moment he got back. We were twenty-two. Savannah was born that very same year.

I knew their relationship was barely three weeks old, but I could tell by how she looked at him that Savannah was head over heels. He made her happy down to her bones—a good antidote for being with me. I felt relieved when she texted to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner or until late, because then she wouldn’t have to see me crying, which I did almost daily. I also didn’t have to worry about infecting her with my pathetic self-pity. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be free.

I knew that she loved me, but with Evan paying for everything, she didn’t really need me anymore. I certainly wasn’t providing for her, quite the opposite. If anything, I had become a burden. Her future was bright. Mine was an abyss.

I hadn’t heard from Libby since our dinner party last week, and I knew why—I was a complete and total bore. We were probably close in age, but she had way more in common with Logan, who knew about politics and faraway places and what to say at dinner parties. Libby and I struggled to find anything to talk about beyond our favorite recipes and the weather. Any hope I had of us being friends was gone by dessert. I couldn’t relate to her stories about heading off to college and starting a career. And I had nothing to offer her but lies.