“I’M SORRY ABOUT your mother, Chantale,” Max said as they drove to the airport. They were halfway there and they’d barely spoken.
“In a way I’m not,” she said. “Her last days were really bad for her. She was in a lot of pain. No one should have to go through that kind of suffering. I really hope she’s gone to a better place. All her life she believed in the one after this.”
Max didn’t have anything to say to that, anything that would sound sincere and comforting in its conviction. He’d gone through the same thing right after Sandra had died. Her death had felt final, a sudden, complete stop and nothing coming after. Life had felt utterly worthless to him.
“What are you going to do?” he asked her.
“I’ll see. For now, Allain wants me to stay on and help him out. He’s in charge of everything at the moment. I don’t think he can cope. It hit him real hard.”
“Yeah, I know. I appreciate you driving me here. You didn’t have to.”
“I couldn’t let you leave without saying good-bye.”
“It doesn’t have to be ‘good-bye,’” Max said. “It could be ‘see you later’ or ‘see you soon.’ Why don’t you give me a call when you get back to Miami—” He started writing down his number, got past the area code, and then realized he’d forgotten it. “I’ll have to call you.”
She looked at him, met his eye, and let him stare right at her sadness, a pain so deep she’d lost sight of it, so intense it was on the verge of overwhelming her. He felt clumsy and stupid. Wrong move at the wrong time in the wrong place.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, whether in forgiveness or disbelief, he couldn’t tell.
They pulled up opposite the airport.
Chantale took his arm.
“Max, don’t call me. You’re not ready. Not for me, not for anyone,” she said, doing her best to smile with her quivering lips. “You know what you need to do when you get home? You need to bury your wife. Mourn her, cry, let it out, wash her ghost right out of your heart. Then you can move on.”