“That I do,” I agreed. Grady’s hands slipped around my waist and he clutched my sides in an effort to stay standing.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, but didn’t allow any weight to press down on him. We maneuvered our bodies around his IV and monitors. It was awkward, but we managed.
“What should we listen to?” I asked, while I pulled out my cell phone and turned it to my iTunes app.
“You know what song. There is no other song when we’re dancing,” he reminded me on a faint smile.
“You must be horny,” I laughed. “You’re getting awfully romantic.”
“Just trying to keep this fire alive, Babe,” he pulled me closer and I held back the flood of tears that threatened to spill over.
I turned on The Way You Look Tonight- the Frank Sinatra version- and we swayed slowly back and forth. Frank sang the soft, beautiful lyrics with the help of a full band, while the music drifted around us over the constant beeping and whirring of medical machines. This was the song we thought of as ours, the first song we’d danced to at our wedding, the song he still made the band at Pazio’s play on our anniversary each year.
“This fire is very much alive,” I informed him sternly. I lay my forehead against his shoulder and inhaled him. He didn’t smell like himself anymore, he was full of chemo drugs and smelled like hospital soap and detergent, but he was still Grady. And even though he barely resembled the man I had fallen so irrevocably in love with, he still felt like Grady.
He was still my Grady.
“It is, isn’t it?” He whispered. I could feel how weak he was growing, how tired this was making him, but still he clung to me and held me close. When my favorite verse came on, he leaned his head down and whispered in a broken voice along with Frank, “There is nothing for me, but to love you. And the way you look tonight.”
Silent tears streamed down my face with truths I wasn’t ready to admit to myself and fears that were too horrifying to even think. This was the man I loved with every fiber of my being- the only man I’d ever loved. The only man I’d ever love.
He’d made me fall in love with him before I was old enough to drink legally, then he’d convinced me to marry him before I even graduated from college. He knocked me up a year later, and didn’t stop until we had four wild rug rats that all had his red hair and his emerald green eyes. He’d encouraged me to finish my undergrad degree, and then to continue on to grad school while I was pregnant, nursing and then pregnant again. He went to bed every night with socks on and then took them off sometime in the middle of the night, leaving them obnoxiously tucked in between our sheets. He could never find his wallet, or his keys, and when there was hair to grow he always forgot to shave.
And he drove me crazy most of the time.
But he was mine.
He was my husband.
And now he was sick.
“I do love you, Lizzy,” he murmured against my hair. “I’ll always love you, even when I’m dead and gone.”
“Which won’t be for at least fifty more years,” I reminded him on a sob.
He ignored me, “You love me back, don’t you?”
“Yes, I love you back,” I whispered with so much emotion the words stuck in my throat. “But you already knew that.”
“Maybe,” he conceded gently. “But I will never, ever get tired of hearing it.”
I sniffled against him, staining his hospital gown with my mascara and eye liner. “That’s a good thing, because you’re going to be hearing it for a very long time.”
He didn’t respond, just kept swaying with me back and forth until the song ended. He asked me to play it again and I did, three more times. By the end of the fourth, he was too tired to stand. I laid him back in bed and helped him adjust the IV and monitor again so that it didn’t bother him, then pulled the sheet over his cold toes.
His eyes were closed and I thought he’d fallen asleep, so I bent down to kiss his forehead. He stirred at my touch and reached out to cup my face with his un-needled arm. I looked down into his depthless green eyes and fell in love with him all over again.
It was as simple as that.
It had always been that simple for him to get me to fall in love with him.
“You are the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me, Lizzy.” His voice was broken and scratchy and a tear slid out from the corner of each of his eyes.
My chin trembled at his words because I knew what he was doing and I hated it, I hated every part of it. I shook my head, trying to get him to stop but he held my gaze and just kept going.
“You are. And you have made my life good, and worth living. You have made me love more than any man has ever known how to love. I didn’t know this kind of happiness existed in real life, Liz, and you’re the one that gave it to me. I couldn’t be more thankful for the life we’ve shared together. I couldn’t be more thankful for you.”
“Oh, Grady, please-”
“Lizzy,” he said in his sternest voice that he only used when I’d maxed out a credit card. “Whatever happens, whatever happens to me, I want you to keep giving this gift to other people.” I opened my mouth to vehemently object to everything he was saying but he silenced me with a cold finger on my lips. “I didn’t say go marry the first man you find. Hell, I’m not even talking about another man. But I don’t want this light to die with me. I don’t want you to forget how happy you make other people just because you might not feel happy. Even if I don’t, Lizzy, I want you to go on living. Promise me that.”
But I shook my head, “No.” I wasn’t going to promise him that. I couldn’t make myself. And it was unfair of him to ask me that.
“Please, Sweetheart, for me?” His deep, green eyes glossed over with emotion and I could physically feel how painful this was for him to ask me. He didn’t want this anymore than I did.
I found myself nodding, while I sniffled back a stream of tears. “Okay,” I whispered. “I promise.”
He broke out into a genuine smile then, his thumb rubbing back and forth along my jaw. “Now tell me you love me, one more time.”
“I love you, Grady,” I murmured, leaning into his touch and savoring this moment with him.
“And I will always, always love you, Lizzy.”
His eyes finally fluttered shut and his hand dropped from my face. His vitals remained the same, so I knew he was just sleeping. I crawled into bed with him, gently shifting him so that I could lie on my side, in the nook of his arm and lay my hand on his chest. I did this often; I liked to feel the beat of his heart underneath my hand. It had stopped too many times before, for me to trust its reliability. My husband was a very sick man, and had been for a while now.
Tonight was different though. Tonight, Grady was lucid and coherent, he’d found enough energy to stand up and dance with me, to tell me he loved me. Tonight could have been a turn for the better.
But it wasn’t- because only a few hours later, Grady’s heart stopped for the third time during his adult life, and this time it never restarted.
Stage One: Denial
Not every story has a happy ending. Some only hold a happy beginning.
This is my story. I’d already met my soul mate, fallen in love with him and lived our happily ever after.
This story is not about me falling in love.
This story is about me learning to live again after love left my life.
Research shows there are five stages of grief. I don’t know what this means for me, as I was stuck, nice and hard, in step one.
Denial.
I knew, acutely, that I was still in stage one.
I knew this because every time I walked in the house, I wandered around aimlessly looking for Grady. I still picked up my phone to check if he texted or called throughout the day. I looked for him in a crowded room, got the urge to call him from the grocery store just to make sure I had everything he needed, and reached for him in the middle of the night.
Acceptance- the last stage of grief- was firmly and foreve
r out of my reach, and I often looked forward to it with longing. Why? Because Denial was a son of a bitch and it hurt more than anything when I realized he wasn’t in the house, wouldn’t be calling me, wasn’t where I wanted him to be, didn’t need anything from the store and would never lie next to me in bed again. The grief, fresh and suffocating, would cascade over me and I was forced to suffer through the unbearable pain of losing my husband all over again.
Denial sucked.
But it was where I was right now. I was living in Denial.
Chapter One
Six Months after Grady died.
I snuggled back into the cradle of his body while his arms wrapped around me tightly. He buried his scruffy face against the nape of my neck and I sighed contentedly. We fit perfectly together, but then again we always had- his big spoon nestled up against my little spoon.
“It’s your turn,” he rumbled against my skin with that deep morning voice I would always drink in.
“No,” I argued half-heartedly. “It’s always my turn.”
“But you’re so good at it,” he teased.
I giggled, “It’s one of my many talents, pouring cereal into bowls, making juice cups. I might just take this show on the road.”
He laughed behind me and his chest shook with the movement. I pushed back into him, loving the feel of his hard, firm chest against my back. He was so hot first thing in the morning, his whole body radiated warmth.
His hand splayed out across my belly possessively and he pressed a kiss just below my ear. I could feel his lips through my tangle of hair and the tickle of his breath which wasn’t all that pleasant first thing in the morning, but it was Grady and it was familiar.
“It’s probably time we had another one, don’t you think?” His hand rubbed a circle around my stomach and I could feel him vibrating happily with the thought.
“Grady, we already have three,” I reminded him on a laugh. “If we have another one, people are going to start thinking we’re weird.”
“No, they won’t,” he soothed. “They might get an idea of how fertile you are, but they won’t think we’re weird.”
I snorted a laugh. “They already think we’re weird.”
“Then we don’t want to disappoint them,” he murmured. His hand slid up my chest and cupped my breast, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“You are obsessed with those things,” I grinned.
“Definitely,” he agreed quickly, while continuing to fondle me. “What do you think, Lizzy? Will you give me another baby?”
I was getting wrapped up in the way he was touching me, the way he was caressing me with so much love I thought I would burst. “I’ll think about it,” I finally conceded, knowing he would get his way- knowing I always let him have his way.
“While you’re mulling it over, we should probably practice. I mean, we want to get this right when the time comes.” Grady trailed kisses down the column of my throat and I moaned my consent.
I rolled over to kiss him on the mouth.
But he wasn’t there.
My arm swung wide and hit cold, empty mattress.
I opened my eyes and stared at the slow moving ceiling fan over my head. The early morning light streamed in through cracks in my closed blinds and I let the silent tears fall.
I hated waking up like this; thinking he was there, next to me, still able to support me, love me and hold me. And unfortunately it happened more often than it didn’t.
The fresh pain clawed and cut at my heart and I thought I would die just from sheer heartbreak. My chin quivered and I sniffled, trying desperately to wrestle my emotions under control. But the pain was too much, too consuming.
“Mom!” Blake called from the kitchen, ripping me away from my peaceful grief. “Moooooom!”
That was a distressed cry, and I was up out of my bed and racing downstairs immediately. I grabbed my silk robe on the way and threw it over my black cami and plaid pajama bottoms. When the kids were younger I wouldn’t have bothered, but Blake was eight now and he’d been traumatized enough in life. I wasn’t going to add to that by walking around bra-less first thing in the morning.
He continued to yell at me, while I barreled into the kitchen still wiping at the fresh tears. I found him at the bay windows, staring out in horror.
“Mom, Abby went swimming,” he explained in a rush of words.
A sick feeling knotted my stomach and I looked around wild-eyed at what his words could possibly mean. “What do you mean, Abby went swimming?” I gasped, a little out of breath.
“There,” he pointed to the neighbor’s backyard with a shaky finger.
I followed the direction of his outstretched hand and from the elevated vantage point of our kitchen I could see that the neighbor’s pool was filled with water, and my six-year-old daughter was swimming morning laps like she was on a regulated workout routine.
“What the f-” I started and then stopped, shooting a glance down at Blake who looked up at me with more exaggerated shock than he’d given his sister.
I watched her for point one more second and sprinted for the front door. “Keep an eye on the other ones,” I shouted at Blake as I pushed open our heavy red door.
It was just early fall in rural Connecticut. The grass was still green; the mornings were foggy but mostly still warm. The house next to us had been empty for almost a year. The owner had been asking too much for it in this economy, but I understood why. It was beautiful, clean-lined and modern with cream stucco siding and black decorative shutters. Big oak trees offered shade and character in the sprawling front yard and in the back, an in-ground pool was the drool-worthy envy of my children.
I raced down my yard and into my new neighbor’s. I hadn’t noticed the house had sold, but that didn’t surprise me. I wasn’t the most observant person these days. Vaguely I noted a moving truck parked in the long drive.
The backyard gate must have been left open. Even though Abby had taught herself how to swim at the age of four- the end result gave me several gray hairs- there was no way she could reach the flip lock at the top of the tall, white fence.
I rounded the corner and hopped/ran to the edge of the pool, the gravel of the patio cutting into my bare feet. I took a steadying breath and focused my panic-flooded mind long enough to assess whether Abby was still breathing or not.
She was, and happily swimming in circles in the deep end.
Fear and dread quickly turned to blinding anger and I took a step closer to the edge of the pool while I threw my silk robe on the ground.
“Abigail Elizabeth, you get out of there right this minute!” I shouted loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood.
She popped her head up out of the water, acknowledged me by sticking out her tongue, and promptly went back to swimming. That little brat.
“Abigail, I am not joking. Get out of the pool. Now!” I hollered again. And was ignored- again. “Abby, if I have to come in there and get you, you will rue the day you were born!”
She poked her head back up out of the water, shooting me a confused look. Her light brown eyebrows drew together, just like her father’s used to, and her little freckled nose wrinkled at something I said. I was smart enough or experienced enough to know that she was not on the verge of obeying, just because I’d threatened her.
“Mommy?” she asked, somehow making her little body tread water in a red polka dot bikini my sister picked up from Gap last summer. It was too small, which for some reason infuriated me even more. “What does rue mean?”
“It means you’re grounded from the iPad, your Leapster and the Wii for the next two years of your life,” I threatened. “Now get out of that pool right now before I come in there and get you myself.”
She giggled in reply, not believing me for one second, and resumed her play.
“Damn it, Abigail,” I growled under my breath but was not surprised by her behavior. She was naturally an adventurous child. Since she could walk, she’d been climbing to the highest point of any
thing she could, swinging precariously from branches, light fixtures and tall displays at the grocery store. She was a daredevil and there were moments when I absolutely adored her “the world is my playground” attitude about life. But then there were moments like this, when every mom instinct in me screamed she was in danger and her little, rotten life flashed before my eyes.
Those moments happened more and more often. She tested me, pushing every limit and boundary I’d set. She had been reckless before Grady died, now she was just wild. And I didn’t know what to do about it.
I didn’t know how to tame my uncontrollable child or how to be both parents to a little girl who desperately missed her daddy.
I focused on my outrage, pushing those tragic thoughts down, into the abyss of my soul. I was pissed; I didn’t have time for this first thing in the morning and no doubt we were going to be late for school- again.
I slipped off my pajama pants, hoping whomever had moved into the house, if they were watching, would be more concerned with the little girl on the verge of drowning than me flashing my black, bikini briefs at them over morning coffee. I said a few more choice curses and dove into the barely warm water after my second born.
I surfaced, sputtering water and shivering from the cool morning air pebbling my skin. “Abigail, when I get you out of this pool, you are going to be in so much trouble.”
“Okay,” she agreed happily. “But first you have to catch me.”
She proceeded to swim around in circles while I reached out helplessly for her. First thing I would do when I got out of this pool was throw away every electronic device in our house just to teach her a lesson. Then I was going to sign her up for a swim team because the little hellion was too fast for her own good.
We struggled like this for a few more minutes. Well, I struggled. She splashed at me and laughed at my efforts to wrangle her.
I was aware of a presence hovering by the edge of the pool, but I was equally too embarrassed and too preoccupied to acknowledge it. Images of walking my children into school late again, kept looping through my head and I cringed at the dirty looks I was bound to get from teachers and other parents alike.