CHAPTER 3

Remy Landon stood in the hallway, trying to remember why she’d come upstairs. She walked into her bedroom, hoping it might trigger her memory, and then realized she hadn’t made the bed yet . . . and it was almost two o’clock! She started to smooth the sheets, and as she fluffed the starboard pillow, she thought of Jim. She always thought of Jim when she made the bed—it was as if there was a short circuit in her brain and the simple act of fluffing his pillow triggered it. And it was always the same memory, from their wedding night.

“Do you mind if I take the starboard side?” Jim asked uncertainly. “You can have the port. . . .”

She smiled at his use of nautical terminology in reference to their bed, but she wasn’t surprised—Jim loved sailing. “Only if I can be captain,” she teased, remembering the game Port and Starboard from her childhood.

“You can always be my captain,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

“Captain’s coming,” she teased.

“Aye, aye, captain,” he said softly, kissing her neck.

“I think you’re supposed to salute,” she murmured.

“I am saluting.”

She felt him press against her and smiled shyly. “I guess you are. . . .”

Jim had been gone twenty years now, but every time Remy made the bed, the same memory filled her mind, and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to stop it.

She propped Thread-Bear, the old teddy bear Jim had given her when they were dating, against the pillow and walked around to open the window. It was a beautiful day—perfect for gardening—but she would definitely need to change first. She pulled open the cardboard box—out of which she’d been living for almost two weeks now—and decided, since it had been reaching eighty degrees every day, it was safe to transfer her turtlenecks and jeans into the box and her T-shirts and shorts into the bureau. Her mother had always warned her not to make the switch too soon because it would jinx the weather. It was the same with flannel sheets—if you put cotton sheets on before mid-May, the temperature would surely drop and there might even be a frost!

Remy rummaged through the box. She’d been wearing the same clothes forever, and every season, when she dragged the box out, she promised herself she’d get rid of some of the things she didn’t wear anymore—jeans that were way too tight, turtlenecks that were so saggy they should be called hipponecks, sweaters that were pilly—and treat herself to some new things, but then she’d think of all the elderly women who worked at the thrift store. Those hard-working ladies certainly wouldn’t appreciate a box of sweaters and jeans dropped off when it was eighty degrees out, or capris and tank tops in October, so she always ended up packing everything back into the box and telling herself she’d try to lose some weight over the summer and fit into those jeans again. Just because it hadn’t happened yet didn’t mean it couldn’t.

Remy pulled out her favorite gardening shirt—a threadbare heather-gray T-shirt she’d bought at the Middlebury College bookstore when she’d gone back for her fifteenth class reunion—and shook it open. It had been the year after Jim died—and although some of her classmates had known, others hadn’t. “Where’s ol’ Jimbo?” they’d asked jovially, and then their faces dropped when she’d explained that Jim—her beloved, sweet Jim—had died of a sudden heart attack. “He had a ninety percent blockage in his left artery,” she’d explained, just as it had been explained to her. “Yes, a true widow maker,” she’d agreed, nodding uncertainly. Even though she’d heard the term widow maker before, she’d never associated it with Jim’s artery. And then fresh tears had welled up in her eyes and her classmates had hugged her and told her how sorry they were, and how strong she was to come to the reunion so soon after his death.

But Remy hadn’t felt strong. She’d felt miserable. And after her classmates walked away, she watched them nodding in her direction and knew they were quietly warning one another over their chardonnays and cabernets not to make the same unfortunate mistake of asking her about Jim. And suddenly, feeling as if she couldn’t breathe, she’d mustered a weak smile, excused herself, and fled to her car. Why had she thought she could handle it? She’d driven to her hotel, slipped off the new dress she’d spent hours picking out, left it in a crumpled heap on the bed, and driven all the way back to Wellfleet, where the house had never felt emptier.

Remy unbuttoned her blouse and pulled the T-shirt over her wavy silver hair. Thank goodness that was all behind her. In the years since, she’d raised three children, refurbished their old house, volunteered at the library—a position from which she’d recently retired—and hardly ever dwelled on the life she and Jim might have had. And if she decided to grace her old classmates with her presence at their next upcoming reunion, she’d be able to show them that life hadn’t gotten the best of her. She’d gotten the best of life!