Chapter 3
It took every ounce of energy she had to keep her eyes open, to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, to slip her feet into her slippers. The swath of sunlight creeping its way around the edges of the window shade told her it was morning. So, too, did the rumble of the garbage can as Jeff wheeled it down to—
Rocketing forward, she pushed the corner of the shade to the side in time to see Emily wheel the can to a stop against the curb before heading back across the street, her gait void of its usual zip.
Emily.
She’d known it couldn’t be Jeff. Yet, for one disoriented second, she’d almost let herself believe the past five days had been some sort of heinous nightmare rather than her new reality. The echoed slap of the shade against the windowsill as she sat back in the otherwise silent room said otherwise. So, too, did the undisturbed sheets on the other side of the bed . . .
Reaching back, she pulled Jeff’s pillow against her nose and chest. There, in the tear-dampened folds of the feather-soft fabric, she could smell him—his shampoo, the faintest hint of his cologne, his very being.
For hours after everyone had finally left the repast, she’d buried her face in the same softness, her sobs broken only by her repeated requests—each one hoarser than the one before—for a single do-over from the same God Pastor Pete had always said could do anything.
But He hadn’t.
Jeff was gone . . . The kids were gone . . . Her mom was gone . . . And she—
The vibration of her phone against the top of the nightstand startled Dani into wiping the latest round of tears from her cheeks with one clumsy swipe of her non-pillow-hugging hand. A glance at the screen had her reversing her initial vow to let it go to voicemail.
Still, when she lifted the device to her ear, she found she had nothing to say.
“Dani? Are you there?”
She made herself nod.
“Dani?”
Realizing her mistake, she lowered her chin to the top edge of the pillow and closed her eyes. “I . . . I’m here.”
“Oh, thank God,” Emily said on the heels of an audible whoosh. “I was worried when I didn’t see you at all yesterday, but Rob said I needed to give you a little time.”
She lifted her head, kneaded the skin beside her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “You saw me yesterday,” she whispered. “And, about that . . . Thank you. Thank you for getting everyone out the way you did. I just couldn’t do it all anymore—the stories, the awkward hugs, the pity. It was too much.”
“It’s Friday, Dani. That was Wednesday.” Emily paused, coughed. “I took your garbage out to the curb for you just a few minutes ago. I didn’t want you to miss it with all the empty tins and stuff from the caterer still in the can. But don’t worry, Rob or I will put it back inside the garage after they come and empty—”
“Wait. What?” She inhaled against the pillow one more time and then gently shifted it back into its place beside her own, Emily’s words looping round and round in her thoughts. “I think you’re off a day, Em. It’s only Thursday.”
“No. It’s Friday. The Friday paper is sitting in front of me on the table right now.”
“What happened to Thursday?” she asked, rising to a stand.
The silence that met her question lasted a beat, maybe two. “Do you want me to come over? I don’t have to pick Bobby up at school until eleven thirty.”
She knew Emily was still talking. She could hear the rise and fall of her friend’s voice just as surely as she could feel the rise and fall of her own breath. Only her breath was coming faster, her chest beginning to pound.
If Emily was right, and it was Friday, Dani was supposed to make the run to pick up the boys from morning kindergarten. It was her turn. Next week it would be Emily’s. She’d arranged it that way so she wouldn’t have to drag Ava—
“Emily, I’m sorry, I have to go. I don’t feel very well.”
It was true; she didn’t. The same queasiness that had driven her from bed a few times during the night was back, hovering, threatening.
“Have you eaten?” Emily asked.
Had she? She didn’t think so. But then again, if Emily was right about it being Friday, she’d lost track of an entire day somehow. Just like she had when—
“Because if you look in your freezer,” Emily continued, almost breathless, “you’ll find all sorts of things you can warm up in the microwave. I could even do it for you, when I come over.”
“Please don’t come,” Dani managed past the tightening in her throat. “I’m not hungry.”
“Then we can talk or just sit together if you’d rather. Whatever you need.”
“Whatever I need?”
“Yes, whatever you need.”
“Can you pick Spencer up when you get Bobby?” Dani asked. “Can you take a picture of me and Maggie painting the mailbox together so I can send it to my mom?”
Now that she had started, she couldn’t stop the words or their shrillness any more than she could the tears she felt streaming down her cheeks and into her mouth, each question, each image, hitching her shallow breaths. “Can you scoop Ava off the ground and put her into my arms so I can take her up to her room and read her favorite book to her again and again? Can you have Jeff stop on the second step from the top in the garage so I can wrap my arms around his neck and be at the exact right height to kiss him full on the mouth?”
The silence in her ear was back, but still, she pressed on, her words giving way to broken sobs. “And while you’re doing whatever I need . . . can you . . . can you rewind my life back to that morning . . . and make me keep them home . . . with me? Or . . . have me go with them . . . so none of this would’ve happened . . . or . . . so . . . I could be with them now . . . instead of here—alone?”
“Oh, Dani, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I’d take it all away if I could; you have to know that.”
She knew Emily was crying. She could hear her friend’s sniffles intermingled with her own. But when everything about her was literally numb, it held little effect. “Emily, I have to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Off the phone. I just can’t do this anymore.”
“I could come over later if that’s better. Maybe when Rob is home and he can be here with the—” Emily’s words fell away.
Dani picked them up. “You need to be with your kids, Emily. And with Rob. That’s where you should be—where you should want to be. Always. Not looking for time alone so you can come over here, or get your hair done, or-or”—she pressed her fingers to her lips in a futile attempt to stop their trembling—“get a massage, or sit at a bistro table staring out at grapes of all things. Because those thoughts? Those wishes? That time you think you need so badly? You just might actually get it.”
* * *
She sat on the bottom edge of the twin-sized bed and pulled the discarded sock to her cheek. Was it just six months ago they’d redecorated Maggie’s room, taking it from the teddy bear motif of her kindergarten days to the more frilly and fanciful space of a still sweet and innocent third grader?
The wall color had been easy: princess blue—the same princess blue as the comforter. The trim had been painted a crisp white that popped against the wall just as the white and silver dust ruffle and pillow sham did against the bedding. The window seat where Maggie loved to sit and read boasted a slew of throw pillows in blues, whites, and silvers. And the floating shelves the contractor had built for the wall across from the bed helped put the exclamation point on the room’s underlying theme with a place to tuck a tiara, a magic wand, and the jar of pixie dust Dani had made with silver glitter.
Closing her eyes, she let herself remember the moment she and Jeff had led Maggie up the stairs to see her newly finished space. Maggie had been so excited to see it she’d bounced up and down on her feet, waiting for Dani and Jeff to open the door. And when they had? The child’s pure joy had been so real, so heartfelt, the mist that always seemed to find its way into Dani’s eyes during such moments had been reflected in Jeff’s, as well.
Soon, the moms of Maggie’s friends had begun calling, asking to stop by and see the room they’d heard so much about, with more than a few who did saying it belonged in a magazine. Yet now, as Dani took in the desk and the shelves Maggie could reach, she began to notice things she hadn’t put there during the decorating phase.
A Barbie doll, dressed in a princess-like dress, sitting on the edge of one of the floating shelves . . .
A seashell Dani recognized from their last trip to the beach . . .
A—
Clutching the sock to her chest with her left hand, Dani stood and made her way over to Maggie’s desk, her gaze riveted on a drawing taped to the wall. Behind, and slightly to the right of the princess desk clock, the artwork depicted a little girl with brown wavy hair Dani knew to be Maggie, sitting at a table with a rolling pin in one hand and a flower-shaped cookie cutter in the other. The light brown circle on the table in front of her was clearly rolled-out dough. On the round face was a smile that stretched from ear to ear. Behind the drawn Maggie was a drawn Dani, her brown hair sitting atop her shoulders, her cheeks rosy, her smile a near perfect match of her daughter’s.
She lingered her gaze on the drawing through a few more thumps of her heart and then wandered over to the window seat and its view of the backyard. How many times had she come into this room and found Maggie reading in this very spot?
Hundreds . . .
How many times had she watched Ava or Spencer climb up next to their big sister for cuddles and a story?
Hundreds . . .
How many times had Maggie begged to wish on stars with her before bedtime only to give up and make one by herself when Dani said she already had everything she wanted?
Hundreds . . .
She tried to stifle her answering sob with the sock, but it was futile. Maggie would never read in this spot again. Ava and Spencer would never again wander into this room in search of their sister. And all those wish-making requests she’d turned down? They, too, were gone. Forever.
“Oh, my sweet, sweet Maggie, I have a wish now,” she managed between strangled sobs. “I wish I could have all of you back.”