“Okay. Maybe next weekend, then,” he said. He smiled, but his mouth drooped at the corners.
* * *
Mack had been very gracious over the phone. After four months, I was ready to see him again for the first time since the funeral, but a knot sat heavy in my stomach. It had been too long.
I almost didn’t recognize the man who opened the door. He’d lost weight, and his sallow skin drooped, but his lively eyes remained.
“Come in, come in,” he coaxed Bill and me.
I handed him a plateful of brownies I’d baked the night before. “I know these are late, but I wanted you to have them.”
“My favorite, dear,” he said, setting them down. “Thank you.”
Seeing him again overwhelmed me. Tears flooded my eyes as I stepped into his embrace. “I’m so sorry,” I rasped.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, petting my hair. “It’s okay. It’s been hard for all of us.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated as tears spilled onto his shoulder. “I miss her,” I whispered. “She was so good to me, and I didn’t deserve it.”
He pulled back to look me in the eyes. “How can you say that? Of course you deserve it. She loved you like her own, and there’s no reason she shouldn’t have. You brought her so much happiness.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been terrible,” I said through blurred eyes. “I’m awful.”
Mack raised an eyebrow at Bill over my shoulder. “What is she talking about?”
“She’s taking this very hard. It’s been a rough few months, Mack. In fact, this is the first time she’s cried since she found out.”
“Can you give us a minute?” I choked out. There was a hesitation before Bill agreed, but when he did, his voice pitched with a hint of bitterness.
Mack guided me to the same couch I’d sat on with Davena during our last visit. I fell rather than sat and bawled rather than cried into my hands. He handed me a box of tissues, and when I could, I looked up to face him.
“I think about her every day, Mack, and you, too. I hope you know how much you mean to me. There’s no excuse for not coming earlier.”
“I know. People grieve in different ways. You made her happy, and that’s all I could ever ask for.”
I sniffled and looked at my hands.
“Is there something the matter?”
“What kind of person am I for not visiting? You’ve been there for me through everything, and this is how I repay you? I’m terrible,” I said quietly and erupted into tears. “Terrible, terrible,” I ranted, “I’ve done something terrible.”
He scooted closer and wrapped me in his arms, rocking me back and forth. “That’s it, just let it out.”
Mack’s love was overwhelming. I wondered how it could be so strong. It hadn’t diminished in the absence of his wife, even though she’d been, and still was, the center of his world. It was my greatest fear, here in front of me. To love someone the way he had loved Davena and to lose him suddenly to something that was so wildly out of my control.
“How do you get up every morning?” I asked into his shirt.
“Reluctantly, like everyone else,” he joked. “Really, life is too short to be so unhappy. You have to let go of the past or you’re denying yourself a future. Whatever is holding you back—whatever you’ve done—you must forgive yourself.”
“What if what I’ve done is unforgivable?”
“Olivia, nothing is unforgiveable. But only you can figure out how to move forward. I can’t tell you how.”
“Did you ever doubt your love for Davena?” I asked softly.
He squeezed me closer. “We fought a lot, dear. We were very different people. Did I ever tell you that we separated once?”
I pulled back to look at him. “No.”
