The Golden Couple(109)

Mourn your marriage—or what you thought your marriage was, Avery had said when they’d met for their ninth session. But don’t ever forget the possibilities life holds for you.

Marissa can’t think that far ahead.

But as she unfastens her seat belt and Skip comes around to open her car door, she does allow herself to recall this:

What did you say back when we were teenagers and you told Matthew how you felt about me? she’d asked Skip just last night.

He didn’t blush or look down. He’d simply replied, I told him the first time I kissed you, it was like the first time I saw the ocean.

Skip hadn’t asked why she’d burst into tears. He’d just hugged her.

At three o’clock sharp, the big double doors to the school open. Marissa scans the faces of the students coming down the front steps. A pack of rowdy boys are in the lead, with a teacher loudly admonishing them to walk, not run.

Then she sees Bennett.

He’s all alone.

Her heart leaps into her throat. She wants to race to him and throw her arms around him.

Then she hears a boy call out, “Bennett! Wait!”

It’s his best friend, Charlie.

Then another boy joins them: Lance, the baseball player who wears his sister’s hand-me-down pink cleats. They’re flanking Bennett, one on either side.

Bennett comes closer, and Marissa studies his face. His eyes are clear; his skin tone is even. There are no signs at all he has been crying.

She feels the tightness around her heart ease.

“Bye, Bennett!” a boy calls from a dozen yards away.

Then a small girl wearing a chic little leopard-print jacket calls Bennett’s name, waving. “See you tomorrow!” It’s Veronica, Natalie’s daughter.

As the crowd of kids disperses, Marissa sees Natalie a few yards away, leaning against her shiny Jaguar, surrounded by her usual hangers-on.

But Natalie isn’t talking to them.

Natalie is watching Bennett carefully, too.

Natalie seems to feel Marissa’s gaze. She turns and meets Marissa’s eyes.

Someday soon, Marissa vows, she will call Natalie and suggest they get together for a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine. But for now, she settles for mouthing, Thank you.

When Bennett finally arrives at the car, he is smiling.





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


AVERY




YOU MIGHT THINK, WATCHING THEM, that they’re an ordinary mother, son, and grandfather enjoying a beautiful spring afternoon at the park. But the Bishops, like the rest of us, are far more complicated than they appear.

I slowly walk toward them, along the trail that winds through the Candy Cane City park, pausing every now and then to let Romeo sniff a dandelion or—and this bit of his progress delights me—wag his stubby tail at another dog.

Romeo is healing from his traumas, but he still bears scars.

We all do. Some of ours are just more visible than others.

Marissa puts an arm around her son’s shoulders and bends down to kiss the top of his head. I wonder if Bennett is recounting the story of his rocket getting stuck in the tree, and his dad lifting him up to retrieve it.

Bennett chose this spot when Marissa asked where he wanted to go to remember his father. Matthew hadn’t spent much time with his son, but at least Bennett has a few good memories.

Bennett doesn’t seem to be grieving much, Marissa had said to me last night at Skip’s town house, when I’d seen her for our ninth session: Reconciliation.

For Marissa, like most of my clients, this means reconciling her new reality with the loss of her former life. Because if I’ve done my job right, my clients are in a completely different place—emotionally, and often physically—by this point in the process.

I told her what I tell all of my clients who are struggling with loss: Grief is a shape-shifter. It defies logic, sneaking up on you when you least expect it and leaving you empty-handed and hollowed out when you go searching for it.

Bennett knows you’re here for him, and that’s the most important thing, I’d advised Marissa. Answer any question he has, but don’t feel the need to make sense of it all for him now.

She’d nodded and reached for a tissue. Do you know what some people used to call us?… The Golden Couple.

I do know, I’d thought as I pictured Marissa and Matthew gliding into my office for their first session. They’d almost convinced me, too. Then I’d put a hand on her shoulder while she’d cried.

Her tears were mostly for her son, but they were also for herself, because even though Matthew wasn’t ever the man Marissa tried to pretend he was, grief breaks all the rules.

Marissa and I still have one final session left: Promises. The tenth meeting is when my clients embrace their new futures. I suggested we schedule it whenever she is ready. I also told her there was no expiration date. But I have the feeling Marissa will reach out to me before the end of the year. I also have a pretty good idea of who will be in her future, but Marissa needs to find her own way to him.

“C’mon, Romeo,” I say now, giving his leash a little tug.

Marissa hadn’t wanted to hold a memorial service for Matthew. Given that detectives are now investigating whether Matthew was responsible for Tina’s murder in addition to trying to kill Marissa and Skip, any public event would have turned into a media spectacle.