of you,” she said by way of explanation.
He unfolded the T-shirt and read the inscription: Trust Me, I’m an Architect. He smiled his first genuine smile of the day. “Very cool.”
By eight o’clock the kids were down for the night, despite much pleading on Eva’s behalf to “stay up late because Auntie Angie is home.” A stern look and a few words in her father’s deepest tones sent Eva scurrying off to bed, leaving Angie alone with Michael.
“Sorry, my hosting skills are a little rusty. I forgot to offer you wine with dinner. There’s a bottle in the pantry if you want a glass…?” Michael asked.
“I’m good, thanks. I’m kind of detoxing after New York.”
“Lots of partying, huh?”
Again, he was saying the right things, but he wasn’t truly engaged. Rather than answer, she studied him for a long beat before starting the conversation that she owed it to Billie—and Michael and Eva and Charlie—to have. Even if it made her uncomfortable to force her way into sensitive territory.
“How are you, Michael? I mean, how are you really?”
“I’m fine. We’re all good.” He said it so automatically she knew she was getting his canned response to well-wishers and relatives.
“You don’t look good to me. You’ve lost weight, you’re living in this house like it’s a cave, you’re shuffling around like a zombie.”
His chin jerked as though she’d hit him and it took him a long time to respond. “We’re fine.”
She glanced at her hands, wondering how hard and how far to push him.
“Have you thought about going back to work early? I know you took twelve months off, but they would take you if you wanted to return early, wouldn’t they?”
The thought had occurred to her as she’d watched him prepare dinner. Most men preferred to be doing something rather than sitting around contemplating their navels.
Michael’s already stony expression became even more remote. “I took the time off for the kids. They need me to be around.”
“They need you to be a fully functioning human being first and foremost, Michael. Did it ever cross your mind that having all this time to think isn’t good for you? God knows, it would drive me crazy. If you went to work, you’d get some of your life back. Some of who you are.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Angie, but we’re all doing fine.” He stood, clearly wanting to end the discussion.
Angie hated confrontation—usually went to great lengths to avoid it—but she hated what she saw happening to Michael even more.
“You think this half life is doing any of you any good? When was the last time you left the house to do anything other than drop Eva at school or go to the supermarket? When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?”
For a moment there was so much blazing anger in his eyes that she almost shrank into her seat. She understood his anger—his wife of six years had died suddenly and brutally from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, leaving him to raise their two children alone. He’d lost his dreams, his future, the shape of his world in the space of half an hour.
But the fact remained that life went on. Michael was alive, and Billie was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Certainly living in some sort of shadow world wasn’t going to fix things or make them better.
So she stood her ground and eyed him steadily. “I know it’s hard. I think about her every day. I miss her like crazy. But you stopping living isn’t going to bring her back.”
Michael swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet space. He stared at the floor and closed his eyes, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose. She didn’t know him well enough to understand his signals—she’d only known him when he was happy, not when he was deeply grieving, and she had no map to help her navigate this difficult territory.
“If you want to talk, if you want to rage, if you need help around the house, if you want to burn it all to the ground and start again… Tell me,” Angie said. “Tell me what you need, Michael, and I will do whatever I can to make it happen.”
She held her breath, hoping she’d gotten through to him. After a moment he lifted his head.
“I need my wife back.”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Angie’s knees were shaking. She couldn’t even remember standing, but she must have in those last few, fraught minutes.
Moving slowly, she gathered her purse and let herself out of the house. Her sandals slapped hollowly on the driveway as she walked to her car. She threw her bag onto the backseat but didn’t immediately drive away. Instead, she crossed her arms over the steering wheel and rested her forehead against them. The sadness and emptiness that never really left her welled up and her shoulders started to shake.
I miss you so much, Billie. In so many ways. I’m sorry I couldn’t help him. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not like you. I don’t have your touch with people. But I’ll keep trying, I promise.
Angie breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting for control. She’d had these moments off and on for the past ten months; she knew how to weather them. After a few minutes the shaky, lost feeling subsided, she straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A few minutes after that, she started her car and drove home.
* * *
MICHAEL STOOD ON THE DECK, breathing in the cool night air. Trying to calm himself.
Angie was so far out of line it wasn’t funny. While she’d been off drinking mojitos or cosmos or whatever the cool drink was these days in New York, he’d been staring his new reality in the face. She had no idea how he felt, no clue what he went through every frickin’ day.
The moment the thought crossed his mind his innate sense of fairness kicked in. She may have been in New York for six weeks, but before that Angie had been a rock, standing by his side and doing anything and everything she could to make things bearable after Billie’s death. More important, Angie understood more than anyone what losing Billie had meant to him, to his life. She and Billie had been more like sisters than friends. They had finished each other’s sentences, said the honest thing when it needed to be said and been each other’s best cheerleaders. Angie was trying to piece her life together, too. Trying to work out how to live in a post-Billie world.
That still didn’t give her the right to critique his life. It definitely didn’t give her the right to tell him he was a zombie or that he was living a half life or to tell him what his kids needed.
When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?
He ground his teeth together, wishing he could expunge her words from his mind. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to lift his head and look around and see that life was going on around him. He wanted…
He wanted the impossible. Billie, with her huge smile and her even huger heart. He wanted her laughter echoing in the house again. He wanted to wake up in the morning and turn his head and find her lying next to him instead of an empty pillow. He wanted to kiss her lips and smell her perfume. He wanted to lie in bed and have her press her cold feet against his calves to warm them.
He wanted. And his want was never going to be satisfied because his wife’s aorta had dissected as a result of high blood pressure, a catastrophic cardiac incident that had meant she was dead before they reached the hospital. Billie was dead and gone, turned to dust. All he had left were the children they had made together and his memories and the house she’d turned into a home for them all.
Not nearly enough.
He sank to the deck, pulling his knees loosely toward his chest. It was cold, but he wasn’t ready to go in yet. Angie had stirred him up too