The Presence of Grace (Love and Loss #2) (16 page)

That was the truth.

But it bothered
me
.

I loved Olivia and had she lived I was sure we would still be married and happy. But she didn’t. And the strangest part about being a widower was moving on and dating someone else when I never really fell out of love with my wife. In the beginning it felt a little bit wrong. But the thing about grieving is everything feels wrong, until it doesn’t. The only way to get past it is to keep moving forward.

I was sure Grace would never ask me to take down photos of Olivia, but that’s one of the things I loved about her. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who would storm in and expect my kids and me to erase Olivia from our lives. Besides being unreasonable, it was impossible. But even though Grace would never ask it of me, it didn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.

“Listen, guys, there are plenty of ways to keep your mother around. We can talk about her, talk about our memories, tell Grace all about her. I know Grace would love to hear about your mother and how wonderful she was.” The best part about that statement was that I knew it was true. Grace would feel honored if the children shared their stories of Olivia with her. “What if you each choose a photo from the living room and you can keep it in your bedroom. That way, we aren’t taking them down, but just moving them.”

“We can pick any one we want?” Jaxy asked, perking up.

“Yeah, bud. Any one you want.”

He got up from his chair and ran into the living room. “I want the one where I’m just a baby and Mom is looking at me and she’s all sweaty.” He stepped up on to the edge of the fireplace and grabbed the photo off the mantel. “This one’s my favorite because Mommy always said it was the moment she fell in love with me.”

He didn’t even have to show me the photo for me to know which one he was talking about. I’d taken the photo about two minutes after he’d been born and Olivia had refused to hand him over to the nurses. She just kept touching his chubby cheeks and saying, “He’s so beautiful,” over and over again. When the nurses finally convinced her to let them measure and weigh him, she’d just stared at him from across the room.

I shook the memory away, trying not to get too caught up in the past. My kids needed me present in that moment. Jaxy ran down the hall with his photo and I assumed he was going to find the perfect spot for it in his room.

“Ruby, is this plan all right with you?” She was nibbling on her lower lip. “Come here,” I said, crooking a finger at her. She stood up slowly and made her way toward me. When she was close enough, I grabbed her and hauled her into my lap, pulling her shoulder into my chest and wrapping both my arms around her. “Talk to me, Rubster.”

She took in a deep breath, her shoulders tightening, but then she exhaled, all the tension leaving with her breath. “I used to sit on the couch, when we first moved here, and just look at all the pictures of Mommy. In the beginning, it kind of made me sad, you know? But then, after a while, I liked seeing her there and remembering all the times we took the photos. But now that we’re talking about taking them down, I just….”

“It’s okay, Ruby. Whatever you’re feeling is totally okay. And whatever you’re afraid to say, you don’t have to be. You can’t say anything wrong in this situation.”

Her eyes lifted to meet mine and I gave her a squeeze, and then, finally, she spoke.

“I just realized, now that we’re talking about taking them down, I don’t even really look at them anymore.” I heard sadness in her voice and guilt. I knew that guilt. Sometimes, surviving came with the heaviest guilt and it came out of nowhere. You were just living your life, trying to move on, and suddenly you realized your wife would no longer be able to sit in the school pickup line and you crumble under a wave of guilt. Survivor’s guilt. I hated it, but I also knew it was part of grieving.

“You might not remember this, baby, but one of the things your mom was very adamant about was that you and your brother needed to be kids. She didn’t want you worrying about this kind of stuff. She wants you to be eleven and play outside with your friends. She wants you to stay up too late reading and not let boys pick on you in school. She doesn’t want you sitting in the living room staring at her photos. She wants you to be a kid and to be happy and playful and funny.” I felt Ruby turn her face in to my chest and I knew she was getting upset. “Baby, it’s okay to be sad sometimes, and to miss her, but you don’t have to feel bad for not missing her enough. There’s no such thing. However you feel, however often you think about her, that’s the exact right amount, sweetie.”

“I just don’t want her to think I don’t love her anymore.” She said the words on a sob and pressed her face even farther into me.

That was the part that sucked the most. I was constantly torn between wishing my kids didn’t have to deal with this grief, and being grateful they’d had Olivia for even a few years. It was a constant emotional battle and some days were harder than others.

“Your mother knows exactly how much you love her, Ruby. And photos in the living room don’t make you love her more or less, right? It doesn’t matter what’s on the mantle, it’s what’s in here.” I pressed my hand to her chest, still hugging her to me. “You carry her with you in here.”

I held her for a few minutes more while she cried quietly, grateful Jaxy had found something to occupy himself for a few moments. When she finally settled and pulled back, I tipped her face up to look at me, my hands around her still round, but thinning out, face.

“We don’t have to take them down if you don’t want to.”

“No,” she said, wiping her eyes. “It’s okay. But maybe….”

“What, baby?”

“Can we just leave one out? Just so that she isn’t gone completely.”

“Of course,” I said as I pressed a kiss against her forehead.

Ruby hopped off my lap and walked to the mantle, her eyes scanning over the photos. She grabbed a frame, held it to her chest, and walked back to her bedroom.

I didn’t have to see the photo to know which one it was. It was Ruby’s fifth birthday party, right before Olivia’s diagnosis. Olivia had just sung happy birthday and placed a big cake with five candles in front of Ruby. Everyone in the photo was looking at Ruby, including Olivia, but Ruby was looking up at her mother, smiling and laughing. It was one of the last moments we had as a family before everything changed. It was, quite possibly, the last untainted moment captured between the two of them.

That night while the kids slept, I packed the rest of the photos into boxes. I pulled down the huge print of Olivia on our wedding day that hung in the place of honor, wrapped it in newspaper, and stored it in the garage. I left the throw blanket Olivia had crocheted while pregnant with Jaxy on the couch, and one photo on the mantle of the four of us. Olivia would never fully be gone, and I didn’t want her to be. She would always be a part of our lives, even if it was always in the past. I didn’t want my kids to think I was throwing her away, or trying to erase her, so I left one photo up to remind us all of what we lost, but also to remind us to live a great life because Olivia couldn’t.

When I went to bed that evening, I took the wedding photo that I’d placed on my dresser when I moved in, wrapped it in one of Olivia’s scarves, and put it in the back of the closet.

A few nights later, the kids were in bed and Grace was on the couch with me. We’d had dinner then played a game of UNO with the kids that seemed to last forever, but once they were in bed, the house was quiet, and so was Grace. I was half sitting and half lying, my back propped up against the arm of the couch, legs sprawled out wide with one foot on the floor. Grace was lying on her chest, cheek resting against her hands, which were laced together and resting on my chest. My fingers were trailing mindlessly through her hair, gliding through without any effort, the motion soothing. Something was on the television, something she’d settled on, but I wasn’t paying attention and I wasn’t really sure she was either. Her breaths were even, her body relaxed.

Twenty minutes had passed and not a word was spoken.

When Grace lifted her head and met my eyes, hers were full of thought and worry.

“All the photos of Olivia are gone.” It wasn’t a question, but she was wondering about it. Perhaps she didn’t know what she was asking, or if she even had the right to ask.

“Not all of them,” I said, pushing her hair over her shoulder, allowing me to see her whole face. “The kids each picked one to keep in their room, and I left one up of all four of us. But the rest are put away. It was time.” My thumb stroked her cheek, watching as her eyes gave away all the thinking going on in her head. I brought my thumb down her face, over her chin, then up a little to feather over her bottom lip, trying to keep it from hiding between her teeth.

“I never would have—”

“I know. And that’s one of the things I love about you.”

She stilled at my words, but spoke almost immediately.

“There’s more than one?”

“There’s a lot. I find a new reason every day. Sometimes two.”

“Devon,” she whispered. I could tell my words were scaring her, but I hoped it was scaring her because she felt the same way, and not because she didn’t. So I did stop, but only because I grabbed her under her arms and pulled her up my body, bringing her mouth right to mine.

A whisper-quiet moan escaped her, but then her mouth answered mine, parting her lips and welcoming me in. My hands roamed her back, tangled in her hair, and held her close to me. Her hands found the sides of my neck and held on, her hair falling like a veil around us.

She let me kiss her, if only for a few moments, before she pulled away with a worried look on her face.

“Devon, please, we have to talk about this.”

“About what?” I asked, still playing with the hair that was draped around us. “The pictures, or me loving you?”

“Both,” she said, the word falling from her mouth on a breath.

I kissed her again, this time wrapping my arms around her and rolling her under me. I wanted her totally present for the conversation and didn’t want her wiggling away from me—either emotionally or physically. We were going to talk about this until it was clear to her that she was it for me.

She let out a tiny squeal when she realized what I was doing, and I pushed up on one arm so as not to squish her beneath me. My other arm was next to her head, my hand still in her hair.

“It was time for the pictures to go, Grace. Regardless of my dating status, we don’t need a shrine to Olivia in the living room. There are still plenty of photos around the house and in the kids’ bedrooms, and I can always pull them out of the garage when the kids want to look at them. I didn’t take them down for your sake. But I’m not going to lie and say you, and my feelings for you, didn’t have something to do with it.”

“You’d be doing it even if I wasn’t in the picture?”

“Eventually.” I could tell my answer made her uncomfortable, so I simply leaned down and kissed her. I nipped at her bottom lip until she opened for me, and then swept my tongue through her mouth, trying to convey even one fraction of the way I felt about her in our kiss. It was deep, passionate, all-consuming, and made me breathless. “I don’t want to talk about the pictures anymore,” I said, pulling back slightly. Only enough so that I could speak.

“Okay,” she whispered back. “What should we talk about?”

I kissed her bottom lip again, this time tugging gently on it only because I knew she liked it. I was rewarded with a small groan from her. I smiled, moving my lips over her cheek and down her throat. “I want to talk about how much I love you,” I said against her neck, grinning when she moved her head to the side, giving me better access.

“How much?” she said, half moaning the words and half pushing them out on a breath.

“More than is reasonable,” I said, smiling against her. I placed one more kiss against her neck, just behind her ear where I knew she liked it, then pulled up to look her in the eye. “I love you, Grace. More than I think I deserve to, sometimes. I don’t know how I got so lucky to find you, to find this happiness again, but I’ll never stop trying to make you feel my love for you.”

Her hand ran up my chest, stopping right over my heart where I was sure she could feel it thumping. “I love you too. I love you. And I’m so scared,” she whispered, her eyes narrowing.

“I know,” I said, my voice matching hers. “But I promise you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. I’ll spend the rest of my life loving you, if you’ll let me.”

“I want that.”

I leaned down and kissed her again, slowly this time, letting our words seep into her, hoping they’d fill some of the cracks I knew were left behind.

“Do you remember the first night we met?” I whispered to her a while later as we lay in my bed, nothing between us except love.

“Back in Fairbanks?” she asked, drawing a circle on my chest with just her finger.

“Yeah.”

“Of course.” She looked up at me, gorgeous hair crazy and wild, eyes so blue that not even the ocean could compare.

“I remember telling you that every day I woke up and only hoped that day would be better than the last.”

“I remember that too.”

“You make every day better, Grace.”

Chapter
Seventeen

Grace

“Oh, God, that’s good.” My eyes closed and my head dropped back as I savored the first sip of coffee that morning. Devon hadn’t let me sleep at my apartment in days, and I was still paranoid about the kids finding me there, so I’d been getting up at the crack of dawn and it was beginning to take its toll.

Curling up in my recliner next to the window in my living room, I let my thoughts drift back to the night before and all the revelations Devon had shared with me. With my coffee cup resting on my knee, my hands still wrapped around it for its warmth, I let my head fall to the side, against the smooth leather of the chair. My eyes closed and immediately the images of Devon from the night before flooded my mind.

His face as he told me he loved me. The way his eyes stared right into mine as he moved over me, inside of me. The sincerity in his eyes as he spoke of our future together and what he saw for us.

The sound of my phone vibrating against the wood of my end table snapped my eyes open, and I saw Shelby was trying to FaceTime me. I accepted the call and then smiled when her face appeared on my screen.

“Hey, you,” I said.

“Oh, look, you’re alive and answering your phone. And at your own house, believe it or not.” Her tone was playful and teasing, but I still blushed, a little embarrassed to be one of those people who disappeared at the beginning of a new relationship.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you kidding? Do not even think of apologizing. You can make everything up to me by telling me, in explicit detail, everything that’s been happening while you haven’t been returning my calls.” Shelby sat down on her own couch, pulled her fuzzy blanket she’d had since college over her legs, and got comfortable with her own cup of coffee. “Spill,” she demanded.

“I don’t really know what to say.” I laughed, blushing even harder.

“Did you sleep with him?”

My mouth dropped open in surprise at her forward question, but then I snapped it closed when I remembered that Shelby was anything but subtle.

“That’s pretty personal,” I said, trying to keep the answer from being evident on my face.

“So, that’s a yes.” She let out a happy squeal and I could see her bouncing up and down on her couch. “Was it amazing? Mind-blowing? Did you have an out-of-body experience?”

All I could do was blink in response.

“Oh, no. Was it terrible?” she asked, concern written all over her face.

“No,” I exclaimed loudly. “It wasn’t terrible at all. It was… wonderful.” The blush crept back over my face so I hid it in my arm, the warmth burning in my cheeks.

“Oh, Gracie, I’m so happy for you.” Shelby’s voice was softer and I looked up. “Now, tell me all about it.”

I laughed and took another sip of my coffee, letting her squirm in her seat. “Shel, you know I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Okay, fine. You can skip all the sexy details, but I wanna know how everything is going. Talk to me. I have to live vicariously through you! I’m wilting away here in Fairbanks all alone. Every single man over twenty-five is either still living with his parents or a complete douche nozzle. So, tell me about Devon and how wonderful he is.”

“It’s hard to explain,” I started, unable to find the exact words. “He’s patient and caring, and a wonderful father, and God, so sexy.” I think for a moment, trying to get the words straight in my mind. “Before I ran into Devon a few months ago, I thought I had my shit together, you know? I was moving on, had my dream job, was making a life for myself here. But then Devon shows up and all of sudden I’ve got more insecurities than I know what to do with, and I feel like a crazy person.”

“What do you mean?”

“Devon’s a single father and a widower.”

“Right. And?”

“So, logically, he should be the insecure one in the relationship, right? He should need the time and the coddling and the reassurance. He should need things to go slow. But it’s like all the roles are reversed and even though I thought I had my shit together, being with him—even though it’s wonderful—is making me go a little crazy.”

“How so?”

“Last night when I got to his house, he’d taken down most of the photos of his wife. And there had been quite a few. It was pretty noticeable they were missing.”

“Okay….”

“So I kind of flipped out on the inside.”

“Why?” Shelby asked, laughing.

“Because I don’t want him to think that I want to take her place! I don’t want his kids to think I want to take her place either!”

“So you would have liked him to leave the photos up forever?”

“No, I just wish it didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Maybe it doesn’t.”

“Listen, my situation with Jeff was very different from Devon’s with his wife. I know, without a doubt, I’m done with Jeff. I want nothing to do with him, at all. And even though this makes me a
terrible
person, it’s hard to think about the idea that Devon would choose to be with Olivia over me.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Shelby started, and I knew she was going to say something nice and supportive, and I didn’t want to hear it.

“I feel like shit for even thinking these thoughts, but I can’t help it. How do you know, when your wife dies, that it’s time to move on? How can he be so serious about me so quickly, when he hasn’t been with anyone since? What if he realizes he’s made a mistake and he’s not over her? I’m just supposed to hope for the best? I’ve put my heart on the line like that before and it didn’t end well. Not for me, anyhow.”

“Grace,” Shelby whispered, trying to keep me from plummeting into the dark, emotional abyss I was currently circling. “Things with Devon have got to be complicated—dating a man with children always is—but you have to either trust him, or let him go, honey.” The idea of letting him go made my stomach roll and turn over. “I can’t imagine what it would be like.”

“How can he be in love with his wife one day, watch her
die
, and then fall in love again? I mean, I know in theory it happens, but I never thought I would be in this situation. How does someone ever really get over the death of their spouse?” I was asking the universe because I knew Shelby didn’t have the answer. Neither of us did. Devon probably didn’t either. Which was almost what made the whole thing so damn frustrating. I would never know, for sure, where I stood in comparison. Was he with me only because she was gone? If she were still alive, would they be together? And if so, what if we’d met then? Would he have left her for me? What if he and I were together first and then he met her? There were so many unanswerable questions, so many variables that I would absolutely never get a firm consensus on because Olivia had died. I let out a hard breath, then shook my head. “Man, I am such a bitch.”

“You’re not. This is a hard situation and you’re just being honest. That’s what best friends are for. You get to say all the wrong things to me so you don’t say them to Devon and screw everything up. You don’t want to screw everything up, do you?” Her question was serious and I knew she wanted an honest answer.

“No, I don’t want to screw everything up. But I also don’t want to be emotionally torn to shreds in a few weeks when he realizes he’s still in love with his wife. Ex-wife. Dead wife. Shit.” I pulled my knees up to my chest, placing my coffee cup on the table.

“Listen, from everything I’ve ever heard about Devon, and from the few times I spent any significant time with him, I can tell you I think he’s a really decent guy. Like, a really
good
guy, Grace. And I don’t think he’s going to break your heart. I do think it’s really important that you talk to him about this. Only he can tell you exactly what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling.”

My mind drifts back to our conversation the night before on his couch and I shut my eyes, groaning. I didn’t really want to have that conversation again, but I knew she was right. I had to tell him why I was pulling away. If I didn’t, eventually I would pull right out of his grasp and he’d have no option but to let me go.

“Don’t sabotage a good thing because your ex-husband did a number on you. Don’t let Jeff and that Jessica bitch have that much power over you.”

I had to laugh at Shelby’s obligatory best-friend-mistress-hating skills.

“You’re right. I know you’re right. But….”

“What? Spit it out.”

“What if I say all this to him and he thinks I’m a terrible person. I
feel
like a terrible person.”

“Grace, Devon loves you. He probably realizes there’s something wrong and is waiting for you to be comfortable enough to tell him what it is. Put the man out of his misery. The sooner you tell him what’s bothering you, the sooner he can make you feel better with his penis.”

“Shelby!” I couldn’t help the laughter that escaped me, and eventually there were tears streaming down my face. “You’re the only person in the world who could say something like that to me and make me laugh. Those words from anyone else would just be wrong.”

“Hey, it’s my job to make you laugh. It’s also my job to tell you when you’re being dumb. You’re not being dumb yet, but if you don’t tell him about all this, you’ll be on your way there.”

“I know.”

“When do you see him next?”

“I’m supposed to go over there after my shift tonight.”

“I expect a full report tomorrow. And not just a report about the conversation, although that’s important. I put in my best friend time today, doled out my best advice, and I require compensation in the form of sexy details.”

“Sexy details? What kind of details are you looking for?”

“General girl talk. Length. Girth. Stamina.”

“I’m not talking to you about his
girth
.” I couldn’t even say the word without blushing.

“Fine. Be that way.”

I sighed, then smiled.

“Thanks for being an awesome friend, Shel.”

“Takes one to know one,” she said, winking, making me smile even wider.

Work was uneventful, but for the first time all summer I found myself irritated with the bar scene. The tips were good and it helped bridge the gap between the end of one school year and the beginning of another, but there were only so many ways you could tell drunken twentysomethings that you weren’t interested in going home with them. Also, the guys who ordered drinks with sexual titles always seemed to think that if you heard them say those words, you would magically fall into bed with them. If I never heard another man order a Sex on the Beach or a Buttery Nipple, it would be too soon.

Halfway through my shift, the bar was packed. The music was loud and the people were rude, and even though it was no different than any other night, it all just rubbed me the wrong way. Next summer I needed to consider finding something different.

A loud crash at the front door caught my attention and I turned to see what was happening, but all I saw was Randy wrestling someone out the door. I shook my head. Randy didn’t have to throw someone out every night, but it happened more often than I’d imagined it would. A woman at the end of my bar caught my attention when she waved at me, signaling she wanted to order a drink. I wiped the bar on my way down to her, and then got back to work.

An hour later, Randy appeared at my bar.

“Hey, Grace. Time for break.”

“Okay,” I said, my head tilting with my confusion. Randy was never the one to send me to break.

“Let me walk you back to the break room.”

Nodding, I followed him down the darkened hallway. When we stepped into the small break room he turned around to face me.

“Earlier I had to throw a guy out of the bar.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Was he causing problems?”

“It was the guy who attacked you out back a few weeks ago.”

His words made all the hair on my arms stand up and my heart plummet to the bottom of my lungs.

“What?”

“Yeah. I saw him a few seconds after he got in, and I grabbed him like
that
.” He said the words with a snap of his fingers. “I don’t care if you pressed charges or not, he’s not allowed in this bar. But I wanted to let you know he came back. I can’t be sure he would have bothered you, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance.”

“Thanks, Randy. I appreciate it.” My stomach was rolling and I was suddenly queasy.

“Did you end up filing a restraining order?”

I shook my head. “I guess I figured I didn’t need to.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

“Yeah. I think you might be right.”

“You okay to stay and finish your shift? You can leave if you need to.”

“No, I’m all right. I just need a few minutes.”

Randy nodded. “You let me know if you need anything, and I’m walking you out to your car tonight after shift.”

“You always walk me to my car after shift.”

“Damn straight,” he said, giving me a friendly wink.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, darlin’.”