The Good Widow(70)

“What are you doing here?” I ask, surprised to see him. He told me he was going to a new beer tasting room in Long Beach.

“Well, hello to you too.”

“Sorry, I just thought—” I start, then stop. “These for me?”

“No, they’re for Beth.” He smiles, and I feel my chest warm.

“Thank you,” I say, and cover his mouth with mine, trying to forget about the heart-shaped tin.

“Jacks?” I jerk back from Nick and drop the roses at the sound of my mother-in-law’s voice.

I had planned to tell Isabella everything, eventually. But each time I thought about calling her and asking her to coffee, I’d imagine her face as I destroyed the version of her son that she’d thought she’d known. It’s the same reason my mother still believes James had been in Maui for work. I know how it feels to question every memory you have of someone you love—I just wasn’t ready to do it to someone else. And now, I’m forced to face Isabella, my heart banging inside my chest, a flush coloring my cheeks. I feel caught, even though technically I’ve done nothing wrong. But still, her eyes are full of questions I’m not sure I can answer. At least not with explanations she’ll want to hear. I meet Nick’s gaze briefly, and I can’t quite read his expression—if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think he were enjoying this. The drama.

I force myself to make eye contact with Isabella, who’s standing there in her loose-fitting floral blouse and capri pants, a large tote slung over her shoulder. She looks out of place, like she meant to arrive at a farmers’ market. And maybe it’s that simple, that she no longer fits in here—into my life.

“Nick, this is my mother-in-law, Isabella. Isabella, this is . . .” I pause, not sure I can say the word. Not 100 percent sure what that word is.

“I’m Nick. Her boyfriend.” Nick extends his hand, but Isabella steps back abruptly, as if he had a disease she didn’t want to catch.

Boyfriend. It sounds so juvenile. But then again, what else is he? For a brief moment I see James leaning against the counter in my tiny kitchen wearing nothing but a pair of crisp white boxers. It’s just two weeks after I’d met him, and he’s grinning at me. And then I’m laughing and kissing him like I might never stop because he’s just asked me not to sleep with anyone else ever again. “Because we’re officially going steady. I’m your boyfriend now.”

I give Nick a look, wishing he’d have let me handle it, and he mouths to me that he’s sorry.

The three of us stand there in awkward silence, somehow all understanding it will be Isabella who speaks next.

“Jacqueline, please tell me this man is not really your boyfriend. That you haven’t moved on. So soon,” Isabella says shrilly, her brilliant-green eyes squinting just like James’s when he was angry.

When I don’t answer, her face registers understanding. He is exactly who he says he is. She shakes her head as if trying to toss away the information. She opens her mouth to say something, but quickly closes it. She stares at the ground, deep in thought. Finally she looks up at me. “Where are his things?” she asks. “I want them right now, and then I will leave,” she says, every word slow and measured. I move to the side so she can get into the house.

Beth appears and gives me a questioning look as Isabella brushes past her toward the master bedroom.

“Can you go? I need to talk to Isabella alone. And tell Nick he needs to go home too. That I’ll talk to him later—please,” I whisper to Beth as I pass her.

I find Isabella sobbing in our closet, breathing in James’s gray cashmere sweater. I start crying at the sight of her. At the grief I know she must feel but that I will never understand. The loss of a child.

“I’m so sorry, Isabella. I was going to tell you everything. I just—”

“You just what?” Isabella cuts me off. “Forgot to tell me you’d moved on?”

“No, it’s not that. If I told you, then I’d need to explain who Nick is. How I met him. And that would hurt you.”

“More than I’m hurt right now?” She continues to cry as she cradles his sweater.

“No. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. I’m so sorry,” I choke through my tears.

“It’s bad enough you never gave me a grandchild. How could you? Did you even love him?”

Yes. I loved him more than anything. But I’m not sure that was enough.

The words bubble up inside of me, but I don’t speak. I didn’t want it to be like this—I had imagined this conversation going very differently, and certainly not starting off with her witnessing me kissing Nick.

But no matter how it started, it’s time to tell her. Not to defend that I’ve begun to have some good days where James doesn’t infiltrate my thoughts, but because she deserves to know the truth about how her son died.

“Isabella, I think you should come sit down. There are things you need to know.”

“What could I possibly still need to know? After I’ve seen my son’s widow making out with some guy in a motorcycle jacket just six months after his death?”

“James wasn’t who I thought he was.”

Isabella frowns. “What are you saying? Don’t you dare slander him just so you can feel better about what you’re doing here. My son loved you. No matter what I said, he always defended the things you did,” she says, her voice rising. “James gave you everything, and you—”