People bring casseroles and lower their voices and give him space.
My grief is the other kind.
The guilty kind.
The kind that comes with a question mark—if you hadn’t asked her to dinner, if you’d canceled, if you’d driven to her instead.
The kind that no one brings casseroles for because what do you say to the best friend?
What do you say to the reason?
You don’t say anything. You just stop calling back.
I sit in the truck for three minutes.
That’s my limit.
Three minutes to fall apart, then hands on the wheel and move.
I still need feed.
I’m not walking back into that store while he’s in there, so I drive to the agricultural supply on the other side of town—costs more, worse selection, but nobody inside that store will look at me and see a dead woman’s ghost.
I load five bags of senior feed into the bed of my truck by myself because that’s how I do everything.
By myself.
The teenage kid behind the counter offers to help and I say no thanks before he finishes the sentence.
It’s not pride. It’s practice.
You learn early when you can’t depend on anyone that the fastest way to get something done is to stop waiting for help that isn’t coming.
Rose was the exception.
Rose was the only person in my life who showed up consistently, who called when she said she’d call, who was where she said she’d be.
Until the one time she wasn’t.
I drive back to Earl’s.
Unload the feed.
Stack it in the barn.
Check the horses.
Fix a loose board on the third stall where the old gelding keeps leaning.
Sweep the aisle.
Clean tack.
Keep moving.
Earl’s on the porch when I come out of the barn, sitting in the rocker with a blanket across his lap, even though it’s barely cool enough to justify it.
The chemo does that—messes with his thermostat, makes him cold when he shouldn’t be.
