Chapter Eight
Ava
The morning rush is over and I take a quick break to stroll up and down McQuaid Circle. It’s something I’ve done almost every day since I started working here. And today, the routine of it is soothing. It brings a certain normalcy to the ever-changing world I live in now. I catch myself smiling as I return and look up at the giant marquee over the front doors of the shop:The Criss Coffee Corner.
Will I hand the keys over to my child one day just as Chuck and Dawn did to Trevor and me right after we got married? Will he or she love this place as much as I do?
I open the right-side door, admiring the etching on it that I sourced from a local artist a few years ago—a giant steaming cup of coffee with latte art displaying our emblem of three cascading Cs. Walking inside, my eyes rake around the place in admiration, still amazed that this career I fell into has never seemed like work.
When I look at fourteen-year-old Darla Anderson, orBugas she prefers, behind the counter, I can almost picture myself working alongside my own daughter. My eyes shift to GrayCalloway, who is several years Bug’s senior, and I try to picture my own son restocking the pastry bar.
Then I spy the picture of Trev and me off to the side, near the door to the back, and my cheery mood disappears.
It’s strange. He’s only been gone a few weeks, yet I sometimes have these moments where I forget he’s no longer here. Where it feels like this is just another typical day of me working at the coffee shop and him being overseas. Moments when I forget what I am: a widow.
I think it might take me longer than most to get used to that fact. After all, we hadn’t truly lived together for many years. I’d become used to being alone. Running the business by myself. Paying the bills. Doing the chores. Fixing whatever breaks. Basically, I’ve been the president and CEO of our home lives as far back as I can remember. I even found it a bit odd that I’d be turning over some of those duties to Trevor when he once again became a permanent fixture in my life.
I wonder if that will make it easier or harder for me to work through the grieving process.
My eyes close, thinking of the child growing inside me, knowing it’s the one thing for sure that will make it better. And theonlything that could have.
Oh, how I wish Trevor had known he was going to be a father. If only I’d have done the last embryo transfer one month earlier. Then again, part of me is sure I’d have waited until he got home to tell him the news. My lungs deflate. He wouldn’t have known either way.
“Ms. Criss?” Bug says, pulling my attention from my wayward thoughts.
“Mmm?”
She points to the door I walked through not a minute ago. When I look over, the déjà vu hits me like a freight train. Thesame two uniformed officers I hoped I’d never see again are walking toward me.
For some odd reason, maybe because I really don’t want to see their faces, my eyes focus on their shoes. Their shiny, black, military-issued shoes. Do they buff and shine them each time they have bad news to deliver?
Every step they take seems coordinated in both cadence and length, as if they practice walking in perfect unison.
With every inch closer, I wonder why they’re here. Haven’t they destroyed my life enough? What other business could they possibly have that would bring them to my doorstep once again?
“Mrs. Criss,” the man I’ve unfortunately come to know as Captain Billings says. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
My stomach knots with dread. Are they here to tell me more horrible details of his death? I shake my head. “I don’t need to know anything else.” My eyes close. “I have nightmares about what his last hours might have been like. You think I want to add to that?”
“Please,” Sergeant Navarra urges. “Do you have an office or somewhere private?”
Bug and Gray are watching, as are the five customers scattered throughout the booths and tables. The shop has gone silent, just as it did the first time these two came through my doors.
“I just don’t?—”
“Mrs. Criss,” the captain says. “You want to hear this.”
“Fine.” I spin and walk toward the back. They follow me through the storage and cleanup areas to the office. Walking inside the open door, I peek at the corner where I’ll eventually put a small crib. I blink back the everpresent tears and sit behind the desk, motioning to the two chairs on the other side.
They sit, once again, at the same time and in the same synchronized manner.
Captain Billings sighs. It’s not a regular sigh, more like air blasting from his lungs as he tries to figure out how to deliver more bad news. Which I find peculiar considering this is what he does for a living: deliver horrible, life-altering, gut wrenching news.
“It’s come to our attention that there has been a mix-up. A case of mistaken identity.”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Ma’am, Major Trevor Criss—your husband—is alive.”
