4

True or False: Circles are more efficient than triangles.

At night sometimes it rolls through my head—“the love of my life, the love of my life.” From the moment we met, nineteen years ago, I never went a day without feeling grateful for the grand luck of having met Fred, the great coup of having landed him. And when the love of your life is gone: what then?

But he was more than that, of course. He was also the center of our family, the grounding force, the anchor that held us in place.

When Rory was three years old, Fred quit his job as a data engineer at a Fortune 500 company to open his own one-man firm. After a shaky start, he built a strong business and did pretty well. He had boom years and bust years, but overall it worked. He was the one who coached soccer and attended PTA meetings when Rory was small, the one who shepherded our son through doctors’ and dentists’ appointments, the one who was free on Saturdays for a movie and pizza, the one who gave the sex talk, the drug talk, the respect-for-girls talk, the one who was fully there.

If I was obsessive-compulsive about work—the travel, the late hours, my head often buried in a case even when I was at home ­—­I told myself Rory didn’t suffer. After all, he had his father. Until, one day, he didn’t.

With Fred, it was unexpected. There were no warning signs, no lengthy disease, no period of getting used to it. One morning he was there, and later that same day, he wasn’t. He didn’t have time to “prepare,” and Rory and I didn’t have time to say goodbye. The abruptness was the worst part, I think: the sense of simply going about our lives, everything according to plan, until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

A car accident on the West Side Highway. A law school student, texting, crossed the divider and hit Fred’s car head-on. “Your husband died instantly,” the coroner said, as if that somehow would ease the pain. It didn’t. It doesn’t. The word “instantly” is misleading, anyway. Did Fred see the Ford Taurus barreling toward him? Didn’t he know it was coming, if only for a second? Wouldn’t he have understood, in that moment, that he was about to leave every­thing behind?

So cruel, swift, and random.

My father, on the other hand, knew for months that he was dying, although he kept it hidden from me. He promised the doctors had it under control. I have a gift for sussing out lies, half-truths, obfuscation. But with my father, somehow, my instincts failed. I think I didn’t want to believe the truth.

He must have spent hours during his final weeks writing notes on orange Post-its, placing them strategically around the house. He obviously planned for me to spend some time here. I imagine Rory’s kids will still be finding their great-grandfather’s Post-its years from now. The thought of Rory’s kids makes me smile, but the thought that Fred won’t be around to meet them makes me cry. This is part of why I’m not working.

Of course, I want to be here for Rory, to try to fill some part of the void Fred left in his life. But there’s more to my hiatus than maternal concern. I don’t want to be that agent. The one who breaks down in the office, the one who can’t cut it, the one for whom others have to take up the slack. I was always good at compartmentalizing, focusing on the task at hand, zeroing in on a complex problem and solving it methodically, fearlessly, no matter how many months or years it took.

But when Fred died, I discovered my limitations. Days after his accident, I made a mistake for which I still can’t forgive myself. That’s when I understood that I needed to step back, recalibrate, get my head together.

In the garage, on a cabinet filled with leather polish and car wax, my father has left a note: “Don’t hesitate to throw my things away. I know how you hate stuff. But keep the Jaguar. Her charms will find you. She needs a little TLC before she’s roadworthy. Go to John’s Jaguar in San Francisco. Now that I’m gone, he’s the best.”

On the box of coffee filters: “The best coffee is at Philz on Primrose.” On the desktop monitor: “Router password is your birthday. For Wi-Fi or other issues, call Mr. Beach. Good guy.”

Above the phone: “This place is not like where you grew up.” And beneath that one: “Subscribe to www.Greenfield-Neighbors.org. Wildly entertaining. An education in the strange ways of the affluent.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say out loud, half expecting him to answer. When I was growing up, anytime I found myself in a funk, he always came up with a way to distract me. I guess he decided to offer me one last distraction.

I recline in his leather chair in the living room with my phone, navigate to Greenfield-Neighbors.org, enter my email address, and hit Subscribe. My phone pings: Gray cat missing. Last seen on Hayne. Answers to “Jeeves” or “Mister Fancy.”

I click on the link and fall down the rabbit hole. For the next hour, I immerse myself in the passionately narrated dramas of the bored and entitled. Okay, maybe unfair. Like my dad always said, “There are good people everywhere, and no one passes through this world without suffering.” But the message boards do point to a certain level of insularity.

Yellow water bottle left rudely in the Designated Beautification Area on Black Mountain Rd. Does anyone know who the culprit might be? SAD that some people do not respect our public spaces! -heather22

Egyptian cotton towel embroidered with the name “Stefania.” Gently used. Paid $95 at Kashmere Kids, asking $70. -TatyanaA

Reply: My daughter is named Stephanie with a ph, which is of course the traditional spelling. I will give you $30 if you can have the monogram altered. -AshleySykes

Seeking backup SUV for nanny, seven years old tops, preferably black, kindly contact Marlene. I do NOT feel safe with my nanny driving children in her Honda. -mrscharbonnet

It goes on. For every post selling used linens or sniping about unsightly mailboxes, another offers nice furniture or paving stones “free to a good home.” Colleen Tanner and her sisters are collecting donations for the homeless shelter, and Maggie Stringer is giving away firewood. I can see how Greenfield-Neighbors.org could become addicting.

I turn off my phone, return to the garage, and crank up Social Distortion. While trying to decide which of my father’s tools to keep, I find myself worrying about Jeeves, aka Mr. Fancy. Is he okay? I have a soft spot for cats.

“Get yourself a dog,” Dad used to say. “Nobody trusts a cat person.”