“Why did you leave me, Grady?” I whispered to the darkness. “I can’t do this without you.” Anger bubbled with the grief and made me feel sick. This was impossible without him. These kids, this house, my life was impossible without his help.
I turned to my side and hugged one of his pillows. I let my tears soak the cotton that no longer smelled like my husband or bore his imprint.
It was nice that Ben had helped me, but what I really wanted was to not need Ben’shelpat all. What I really wanted was my husband here with me to help every single day.
Chapter Ten
Emma picked up on the third ring, “Hello, sister dearest.”
“Are you ready?”
I heard her muffled sigh on the other end of the phone. “This is not my first date, Liz. I’m ready.”
I had convinced Emma to give Ben a chance when she helped take the kids trick-or-treating a couple weeks ago. We’d canvased the neighborhood with Blake as the Hulk, Abby as Michael Phelps’s little sister, Lucy as a princess andJaceas a pirate. Emma had filled in for Grady. After we put the kids to bed, we’d spent the night crying together over buckets of Halloween candy while scary movies played in the background.
It hadn’t been one of my finer moments.
But after we stopped by Ben’s house and he passed out full-size Twix bars to all of the kids, Emma had finally agreed to text him about getting together. They had flirted in the doorway while I stared at the candy bars thinking what a bachelor move. Who passes out fifteen grams of sugar to a two year old?Single men in their thirties.That’s who.
The Twix bars never made it to the morning. They were part of my Grady therapy. Somewhere around midnight, I retracted my negative feelings for Ben’s naïve generosity.And then enacted them again after I got on the scale the next morning.
“I know, I’m just nervous,” I confessed.
“You’renervous?”
I chuckled at her incredulous tone.“For you!I just want this to go well.”
She laughed with me. “What if Ben’s a total weirdo? Like he has a collection of doll heads or he brings his mom to dinner? You’ll have to come rescue me at the restaurant. Then you’ll have to move away from him.”
Even the mention of moving out of this house hurt my chest. “He won’t bring his mother to dinner. We’ve sort of seen him on a date before, remember?”
“No defense for the dolls’ heads?”
“Well, I’ve never actually been in his house. There’s no way for me to know for sure.”
“Liz!”
“I’m just kidding,Em. He’s so nice. You’re going to have a great time.”
“He’ll at least be nice to look at.” I nodded my head, even though she couldn’t see me. That was true. “What are your exciting plans for the night?” she asked and sounded genuinely interested.
“On a Friday night?What else is there to do besides pop a bag of popcorn for each of us and cuddle up on the couch?”
“Oooh, what’s on the queue?”
“Sword in the Stone.It’s one of the few movies all of the kids can agree on.”
“I love that movie,” Emma sighed. “I kind of wish I was hanging out with you guys tonight.”
“What? No way! You’re going to have so much fun.”
“You’re being pretty pushy about this date.”
I bristled a little at her comment. “I am not.”
“You are.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
