She’s finishing a masters in counseling and participating in internships to get her license. It’s been good for her. She’s more thoughtful and comes up with unexpected insights. Still, the niece who asks questions with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer continues to show up on a regular basis.
Alongside the niece who takes criticisms instantly to heart, given the hurt that flashes across her face when my joke lands with a thud.
“I’m sorry—I know you want to help.” When I hug her back, the initial tension mostly dissipates, but there’s a murky tinge to her lilac scent. Faint, because she uses aids Max helped refine to ensure her perfume stays within acceptable limits. However, I’m close enough, and I know her scent well enough that I can’t miss it.
She feels or fears I’m rejecting her help. Or perhaps that’s something I use as an excuse, because words spill out before I can call them back.
“I miss Max, but I always feared he’d go first. I spent so many wasted hours worrying that I grieved his loss early and hard. Now, there’s just an emptiness in my life, my heart.” Pulling back an arms’ length, I sit on the bed and rub a sudden pang between my breasts. “But the hardest thing is, I don’t knowwhat comes next. It all seems more emptiness, stretched out to eternity.”
The mattress squeaks as Anamaria settles next to me, warm against my shoulder and hip where we press against each other.
“Emptiness or openness to new possibilities?”
“I don’t know. Do the words matter?”
“Yes and no.”
Silence settles over us like a mantle, a heavy cloth of time and space that leaves room for thought, thatmakesme think. Emptiness versus possibilities. It was emptiness, but maybe it’s shifting to possibility. The whole point is that I’m not dead, so I might as well live and find out what comes next.
There’s a scary thought.
“All that time and worry about Max dying first, and I never put any thought into what I’d do after.” No tears on my face—I’ve cried them all out—but I swallow a sudden lump in my throat.
“Do whatever you want.” Anamaria nudges me, her scent returning to its usual soft loveliness. “You’re healthy, with solid finances and a family that will support you. Take a chance on something new.”
“Maybe.” Even to my ears, my voice sounds more enthusiastic than expected. I lean my head on her shoulder. “Thanks for staying, even if only to push me to talk.”
“Well, maybe not just for that.” She hunches and rubs her head against mine.
Another edge of decay tinges her scent and something in her tone rouses me to pull back and swivel to face her, though her head still hangs low.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Anamaria looks up and makes a face, wrinkling her nose. “One of my roommates started her heat a bit earlier than expected, before she could make it to an Omega Center, so she’s hunkering down in the apartment.”
“Does she have everything she needs?” After living through Max’s heats for nearly four decades, I have a good idea of the supplies needed: food, drinks, and cleaning supplies, of course. But above and beyond those, either a sufficient array of sex toys or enough living, breathing, and—equally important—trustworthy partners.
“Yeah, she’d already planned to have a couple of beta friends who live across the way keep an eye on things and on the pack who’ve started courting her. They’re seeing her through it as a test run of how they get along.” Anamaria fidgets; the mattress swallows some of the movement, but it still vibrates beneath me.
Her apartment complex offers excellent security and a great location close to public transportation, shopping, restaurants, and bars—basically anything young, lively women might want. The trade-off was space, as I’d discovered when she hosted Corin, Max, and myself for a meal shortly after she moved in, bare months before his collapse. She and her roommates might have their own bedrooms—little more than rectangular boxes—but lived almost on top of each other.
Taking a guess, I ask, “Would you like to stay here until her heat is over?”
Bebe would ask outright to come home. Caity would assume she could. But dear, sweet, responsible Anamaria was never quite sure, for which I blamed her mother.
At least I got to see the delight on her face when Corin confirmed her welcome.
Anamaria’s encouraging words echo in my mind for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Both she and Corin know me well enough to give me space and time to think, though Corin interrupts my reverie to make sure I come down to dinner, drink another thick smoothie, and otherwise consume enough calories for the day.
All the while, different possibilities dance through my head, alone and in combination.
The goals I formed with Max still shine brightly, of course: building and expanding the business to help ensure omegas such as him and Anamaria can shape their lives as they want. I’m still amused by the way the girls described us as practically business saints—but I get a lot out of it too, not least the ability to feel virtuous. It’s something I value enough to want to preserve.
But they’re not the dreams I started with, and certainly not all I wanted out of life.
He left—died—and all my plans cracked into a dozen pieces. The future is empty, open, and terrifying.
Fragments of old dreams well up, mingling with the shattered futures including Max. Sudden longing floods me, hunger for the kind of life I turned away from when I chose him—because I did actively choose in the end, even if I didn’t realize it when Dan asked me to go forhiminstead.
