She sucked her teeth and dropped flat onto the mattress, pressing the framed photo to her chest, hugging it.
Xander felt so right in her home, even righter with her children.
If only her heart would catch up to that fact.
two
RYLEE
“I visited Carter’s grave yesterday,”Trinity, one of the members, started, a small smile pulling at her lips. “I know it’s a tiny step?—”
“That’s ahugestep, Trinity,” Rylee assured, nodding and holding a warm smile on her lips. “Major.”
Rylee remembered the first time she visited Lennox’s grave after his funeral. It was much sooner than Trinity. His gravestone had not been placed yet since the soil was unstable. But it was the spot they’d lowered him into, so she knew he was there. And she’d always remember the clench in her chest, the weight of the silence. It wasn’t a small thing.
Trinity released a little laugh then inhaled a deep breath. “I haven’t been to it since the funeral two years ago.”
Rylee nodded once more.
“But something in me said,just go, Trinity. You know?”
“I knowallabout that little voice,” Eden, another member, voiced. “Once it starts, you can ignore it but for so long.”
“Until it becomes all you can hear,” Rylee added.
And everyone released a variety of reactions, all in agreement.
It was a cold Sunday morning in Brooklyn, but the temperature in the Cobble Hill bookstore’s basement was warm and cozy.
Between tall shelves of books lining every wall, the windowless room felt more like a safe haven than anything or anywhere else.
Which was Rylee’s goal.
Candles flickered on intentionally placed small tables. Their soft glow mingled with the scent of vanilla, old books, and paper cups filled with coffee or chamomile tea that lingered like special guests in the air.
It was familiar and a signature of The Hope Collective meetings.
It was Rylee’s contribution to the community of people who had lost partners and spouses to brain aneurysms. They’d meet every other week in the bookstore’s basement, sit within the circular armchair layout Rylee intentionally created at the guidance of her therapist, Liz Peters, who popped in on the group every so often. And the group members would speak their truths. Share their experiences on how they were coping with their losses, offer up resources that helped them on their lifelong healing journeys they never knew they would ever have to embark on. Tears were shed. Comfort was given. It was a safe space.
The group members often thanked Rylee in tears for putting the group together, stating that without it, they weren’t sure how they’d go on.
But what they didn’t know, and that she often told them, was that they were as much help to her healing as she was to theirs.
“Anyone else wanna share something?” she asked, her beautiful brown eyes moving about the space, landing on everyone present.
“Yeah,” the deep voice emerged to Rylee’s right. “I do.”
And when she glanced that way, her eyes came to rest on another group member. Yusuf Baldwin.
Yusuf had joined not long after his wife, Parris, passed. She’d had a surgery that had gone wrong, one he hadn’t wanted her to take. Grief clung to him like a second skin back then, and he credited the group for helping him to not only cope with the loss but to continue on with life.
“Please, Yusuf, go ahead.”
Yusuf smiled, then ran his hand down the top of his head.
“So…umm…” He chuckled nervously. “After I’m done here, I’m going to stop by my girlfriend’s place to let her know about a trip I’ve got planned.”
Rylee smiled at that, her deep dish dimples dotting her cheeks.
