For Life (7 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Cassie

Grady's still in love with you.
Renée's words echo in my head and I can't do anything but stare at her.

“That’s ridiculous.” I force something I hope passes for laughter. “No way. Did Donna tell you that? Because I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s been angling for a reconciliation since we split up.”

Renée shakes her head. “I’ve seen him do it.”

“Coincidence,” I insist. “That’s not about me. His dad and grandparents are on that wall, and now—” I stop myself, horrified. “Renée, I—”

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “He’s gone, Cass, I know that. And you’re right, I’m sure Grady will love seeing his brother on that wall even more now that he’s gone. But that’s not what I meant.”

“Renée, I don’t—” But I don’t get to finish my thought, because Sophie starts fussing and Renée goes to get her up, and then the little ones pile in the door from school. Addie has a very dramatic story about a boy in her reading group, Jacob needs help with his worksheet, and Noah is being Noah. For about the millionth time I marvel at Renée’s ability to cope. Noah asks if his daddy is coming back tonight and I hear her explain calmly that he isn’t coming back and that he’s in Heaven. I try to put myself in her shoes, and I honestly don’t think I could ever do it. Divorce was hard enough. But death? I don’t think I have it in me to make it through that.

When I get back to Donna’s, she’s up playing Uno with the kids. She looks a bit more rested and she’s gotten her hair done, which is a good sign. I was shocked when we arrived and she didn’t already have her hair touched up, because that’s very unlike my mother-in-law. She’s always been meticulously groomed, so seeing her take care of herself again is reassuring.

“Dad’s at the hardware store,” Caden pipes up. I see that he’s wearing his retainer and lean in to kiss the top of his head. “Thanks for remembering, Bud.”

“About Dad?” I’ve confused him.

“No, your retainer.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

“Grady’s getting a light bulb for the oven,” Donna tells me, as though I should know the particulars of his business at the hardware store. She never broke her habit of talking to me like I’m still his wife, and she makes no bones about telling me every holiday season - thankfully, not in front of my kids - that she thinks we should get back together.

“Oh,” I reply politely. “That’s good of him.”

“You know how handy he is,” she says casually, laying down her cards. I resist the urge to roll my eyes at her. Although he is very handy, changing an oven light bulb hardly requires a great deal of skill. Even I can do that. But she just can’t help herself. I take this as a sign she’s feeling better and let it go.

Caden wins and Chloe has just dealt me in to the new game when I hear the front door and Grady’s footfall in the hallway.

“Find everything okay, son?” Donna asks when he strides into the kitchen, bringing the bite of frost with him. The faintest hint of cedar wafts around him, and I remember how much I always loved the way he smelled. He nods at his mother, then slips off his jacket and rolls up the sleeves on his flannel shirt before breaking open the package.

“You needed new windshield wipers,” he says nonchalantly as he pulls the racks out of the oven. “I picked some up, so when I’m done with this I’ll go put them on.”

“But they just replaced everything last week at the shop,” Donna protests.

“Not your car,” he grunts from halfway in the oven. “The Camry.”

The Camry
. My car.

“Um… Grady, that’s nice of you, but…”

“You can’t drive the kids around with those wipers.”

Is he implying that I’m a bad parent? That I’m careless with the kids’ safety?
My hackles rise.
“First of all—”

But he cuts me off. “I’m sure you already had an appointment set up at the dealership. But they’ll charge you way more than you need to pay, and it’ll take me two seconds.” He’s already crumpling up the trash and closing the oven door.

It’s hard to be angry when he’s obviously trying to help, but it’s so strange to have my ex-husband suddenly doing odds and ends for me as if we’re still married.

Just thank him, you ungrateful bitch
, the voice in my head hisses, and I choke out what I hope is a passable mumble of gratitude. I notice Donna watching me, and she looks… wistful? I’m reminded that she just lost her son, that family is so important to her, and that a new set of windshield wipers hardly puts me in debt to Grady, especially after some of the things that happened between us at the end of our marriage.

“I really do appreciate it,” I call after him, but he’s already out the door.

I’ve forgotten all about my conversation with Renée until later, when I’m heading out of the bathroom at the exact time that Grady is rounding the corner at the far end of the hall. And sure enough, he pauses as he passes, and I watch as his eyes focus on the same place on the wall I’ve looked a million times myself.

The place where our wedding picture hangs.

* * * *

Thursday is the funeral, and the little church where Carl and Renée got married is heaving with mourners. There are people spilling into the aisles and standing along the walls. Carl was a volunteer fireman and a baseball coach, so between his activities and his job at the plant, there was hardly anyone in town he didn’t know. Renée’s a lactation consultant for the hospital and teaches Sunday school, so her social network is almost as wide as her husband’s. An overwhelming number of people are jammed into this small space, ready to pay their final respects to Grady’s well-loved older brother.

I’m sweating bullets inside my sheath dress, keeping one eye on the kids, who insisted on standing in the receiving line with us, and another eye on Renée. Her sister has all four of the children in the church nursery, because Renée wanted them close but protected from the onslaught of adult grief. I’m impressed with her for making such a rational decision, but I also know baby Sophie is a voracious feeder, and at some point my sister-in-law might need to get to her child discreetly without leaking all over her dress.

We’ve already heard a thousand condolences and the service is about to start. All of us are seated in the front row, Grady to my left, Caden to my right, and Chloe between Caden and her grandmother. Grady fidgets nervously beside me.

I know he’s worked tirelessly on the eulogy. Last night when I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen he was there, hunched over the table, scribbling thoughtfully on a sheet of paper, his fingers twisted in his curls.

His head shot up when he heard me enter the room. “Did I wake you?” he asked, his voice hoarse and eyes rimmed red.

It would have been impossible, since he hadn’t made a sound, but I didn’t say that. I shook my head, filled my water glass, and then left him to his words. Now those words are folded inside his jacket pocket, carefully written out in ink and carried close to his heart.

A collage of Grady and Carl’s family sits to the left of the closed casket where the flowers are and a portrait of him on an easel is displayed on the right. There are mercifully few floral arrangements; Renée asked for donations to the fire department in lieu of flowers. But Donna is old-school, and she insisted on ordering an arrangement on behalf of the kids that spells “Daddy” in white roses. We’re smack in front of it. Propped under a bouquet on a stand with a ribbon that reads “Beloved Son” is a blown-up, grainy shot of Carl and Grady on the beach as kids. They’re about five and eight, their arms flung around each other. Both boys have summer buzz cuts, and they’re grinning wildly, as though they’d just gotten into some sort of delightful mischief. Grady is missing both his front teeth. I recall a picture I took of Chloe and Caden at about the same ages, tanned and smiling and missing teeth, and I hope with all my heart they never know the pain of losing each other.

Beside me, Grady exhales slowly, and I can tell he’s cracking. The nervous energy has been rolling off him all morning, and now he’s got to stare at the damn photo. He takes another deep breath and looks at the floor, closing his eyes. His old nervous habit of jiggling his leg is back, and without thinking I reach over and lay my hand atop his thigh, just like I used to. When I realize I’ve done it I start to pull it back, but his hand covers mine before I can make the move.

His leg stops moving and he stares at our hands a minute. Then he threads his fingers through my own and squeezes so hard I almost lose circulation. I cover our twined fingers with my other hand and stroke his knuckles, trying to soothe him.

It should definitely
not
feel natural to hold your ex’s hand, but it does. The size of it is just as I remember, the way it fits around mine as familiar as if we just did this yesterday instead of a decade ago. His grip is strong, and even though I’m the one trying to comfort him, I’m aware that holding his hand has the effect of making me feel safe. Like we’re a family again, united, facing this tragedy together. And it must be making him feel the same way, since I feel his body loosen as he relaxes just a bit. He doesn’t look at me, but I feel some of the tension flow from him all the same.

Nothing is too much to bear if we can share it. Nothing is too much to feel if we aren’t feeling it alone. I marvel about this for just a few seconds before Grady shifts in his seat and his fingers pull away from mine as he stands to deliver his eulogy. 

****

It occurs to me about five seconds after he gets to the podium that our kids have never seen Grady speak to a crowd. Although I’ve avoided him, I haven’t been oblivious to his professional career. In our local area, the environmental impact of new construction is a hot-button issue. Grady and his partner are environmental surveyors and have been in the news quite a bit lately. The last time he was on our local-access cable station, I was channel-surfing when I saw Grady by accident. For a second - maybe it was only a fraction of a second - my heart somersaulted in my chest. But then I remembered myself and tried to be emotionally detached as I watched him speak eloquently about the environmental impact of some proposed municipal project. He was confident and commanding but still accessible, every bit the man I always knew he would become even way back in high school.

Now, though, he’s out of his element. He’s not quoting facts and figures to the city council or explaining complex issues in layman’s terms to a potential land developer. His heart is laid bare, and he’s struggling to force the words out.

“My brother was my hero,” he begins, and the whole church hangs on his every word. “My first memory in the world was of my brother teaching me how to ride his bike. I think he taught me everything I know.”

We listen with rapt attention as he weaves a story of his bond with Carl from sharing a bedroom at their parents’ first little house in town to their high school hijinks and right on through to an ill-fated bachelor weekend for their mutual friend Tad, which gets a lot of tearful laughs. He mentions Carl’s sense of civic responsibility, which began as a child when he started a lost pet-finding agency and continued to his years with the volunteer fire department. By the time he finishes talking about his brother’s proudest moments as a Little League coach there are grown men openly sobbing. I look to my children and they’re gripping each other’s hands, their faces red and wet. Caden’s eyes are glued to his father as though he doesn’t want to let him out of his sight ever again.

“My brother was the kind of man every one of us wishes he could be.” Grady chokes a bit at the end, then clears his throat and pauses, gathering strength. I watch him look at Caden and take a deep breath. Caden gives him a weak smile and Grady presses on, his fingers gripping the edges of the lectern as he continues without even glancing down at his paper.

“His whole life is a testimony to the importance of family and community, of love and loyalty. If he were here this morning, at someone else’s funeral, he’d want you all to hug the ones closest to you and tell them you love them. Because there isn’t anything in the world more important than that.”

I tell myself that his gaze at the end is for Chloe and Caden, but his expression of regret and heartbreak isn’t anything I can explain away. It’s about loss, and not the loss of Carl.

It’s the loss of
us
.

CHAPTER NINE

Cassie

The rest of the day is a blur. After leaving the church, I send my kids home with Renée. Chloe insisted on being there to help her with the little ones, and Caden - as if fearing he too might lose a sibling - has been stuck to her like glue since we got to Delaware. Although people are sharing memories and catching up and it’s a mostly happy event, my kids were emotionally worn out from the funeral, so it’s just as well they’re not around.

Close to two hundred people had been at the funeral, and most of them came back to the house. There were people in and out all day, so many that Donna finally retreated to her bedroom when things started to die down. I chatted with everyone, did some catching up with old friends from high school, and played the hostess as best I could. It felt both strange and oddly comfortable.

By the time everyone leaves, the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in it. There are water bottles and half-empty cups and party plates in every nook and cranny, and my feet are aching in my heels. Although I’m exhausted, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving this mess. Knowing Donna, the second I turn my back she’ll be out of her bed and down here on her hands and knees. It has to be clean before she sees it. As it is she’ll probably give it another pass over of her own - something I ceased to be offended about long ago.

I bring a cup of tea to Donna in her bedroom, and then I set about packing up the leftover food in storage containers. Grady comes in from outside, and I hear the shake of a plastic bag and some rustling as he starts collecting the stray items from the living room and dining room. Then he strides into the kitchen and starts tying up the kitchen trash.

There’s a moment when he walks in, still in his black suit trousers, the sleeves rolled up on his shirt, when my breath catches at how good-looking he is. Even after all these years, I’d have to be blind not to notice. My physical attraction to Grady was once clouded by anger, but with the anger gone it’s getting harder and harder for my brain to block out all the things I’ve always found sexy about him. I notice little things I'd forgotten - the tiny cowlick at his hairline that Chloe shares with him, the shape of his thumbs, the small mole just below his right ear.

When I touched him at the funeral, what should’ve been awkward felt like a homecoming. Our thighs pressed together, my hand in his, the comfort we passed to one another as though it was second nature. Grady and me, a united force, a team once more, something we haven't been in years, especially not at the end of our marriage.
That was really us, once
, I think before shoving that thought right out of my head because it’s too much to consider. Much too much. I finish wiping the counters down as Grady bags the trash in silence beside me.

Although he was stoic through the funeral and did a great job of talking to everyone today, he’s starting to fray a bit at the edges. The day is taking its toll on him. I watch his hands while he’s tying the bags and notice they’re shaking a bit. Shadows have formed under his eyes, and I wonder if he’s slept at all.

“Have you eaten anything?” I ask quietly.

He shakes his head, a brusque movement.

“If I make you a plate, will you eat it?” I put my hand on his arm and he stills but I can feel him tense under my touch.

Without looking at me he nods slowly, hands moving again on the bag. “That would be great, if it’s not too much trouble,” he says.

“Not at all. It’ll just take me a second.” I pull out some of the leftovers I just wrapped up. There’s lasagna, which is his favorite, so while he takes the trash outside I fix him a plate: salad, lasagna, and a bit of crusty bread with butter. I pour myself a glass of red wine and pull a beer out for him.

When he returns to the kitchen to wash his hands in the sink I hand him the cold bottle, but he shakes his head and doesn’t reach for it. “I’ll just grab a glass of water.”

“Oh. You sure?”

He stops and looks right at me. “Cass, I don’t drink anymore,” he says, as if I should know this.

“Wait, like ever?”

“Ever.”

“Since when?” I blurt, hoping I don’t sound as incredulous as I am.

Grady turns to pull a glass out of the cabinet, and his silence is long enough to feel significant. Long enough to make me think I have said something very, very wrong. He fills his glass with water from the tap, and his voice is low when he finally says, “I haven’t had a drink in ten years.”