“I know Janette and Michelle,” he said.
“Korby, Maggie and Terri are my friends—one writer, one florist, one teacher. They all ditched their families for the day, knowing it would be Mom’s last Thanksgiving. And instead of being dark or sad, it was awesome. I didn’t sleep that night, even though I had a full stomach. I just wanted to be with her till the sun came up. She did great. She totally had a good time. A few days after that she began sinking. Her last three weeks were pretty hard. You remember.”
“I remember.”
She stroked Tux. “She wanted to talk about it and I wouldn’t let her.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Oh, she said things like, ‘You know, when I’m gone, you should…’ And I would cut her off and say, but you’re not going, so don’t say that. I kept begging her to be positive, to fight it. But she had been fighting it and didn’t have any more fight in her. I wish I could have let her talk. Who knows what she had to get off her chest?”
“Don’t worry about that, Kaylee. I think she was at peace. She told me she’d been proud of her life, that it was a good life, that she had very few regrets. And why should she have regrets? She was nearly perfect.” He glanced at the kitty she was holding. “Is that the stray you found?”
“Tux,” she said. “He’s not the only one I found. I found a dog and her four puppies tied up in the woods not far from here. My neighbor is a part-time trainer and has a kennel and lots of supplies so she’s over there, her puppies safe from predators. I go visit with her; we call her Lady. She’s very well behaved and there’s just no reason for a person to treat her that way.”
“I’m impressed; you always avoided animals.”
“Not all animals, but I was always scared around big dogs. Especially big dogs I didn’t know, until I rented a little house from a dog trainer. He helped me get past my fear. When I found Lady, my heart melted. I’m thinking of keeping her.”
“I worry about you being alone out here,” he said.
“Actually, one of the reasons I came up here to finish the book is because people were dropping in at Mom’s house all the time. Friends, neighbors, even the UPS guy came to the door to see how I was doing. If I didn’t have someone drop in, the phone was ringing. Add that to living in my mom’s house and I couldn’t escape the overpowering grief—it never left me. I fell asleep to it at night and woke up to it in the morning. I’m anxious to get home, but even though I sorted through Mom’s things and gave a lot of stuff away, I’m afraid it’ll be just too familiar again. It’s a very contradictory feeling—don’t want it to go away, I don’t want it to be so constant in my life. It can be overpowering.”
“Why don’t you make some changes?” he suggested.
“I’ve thought about that,” she said. “I feel like I’m cheating on her. She loved that house and decorated it from floor to ceiling.”
He shook his head. “That house should reflect your taste. Maybe a few choice things to remind you of Meredith tossed in. You should hire one of her decorator friends to help you. I can help with the cost, if you need me to.”
“It’s not necessary. I have what I need. And the house is mine now.”
“Then if you find the memories aren’t letting you move forward, you can always sell it.”
“I know. I do love the house, I just loved it better when my mom was in it.”
“I feel the same,” he said. “Sometimes I drive by to look at it because I miss her.”
“Just out of curiosity, when did you realize you missed her so much?”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t an amused chuckle. “It didn’t take me too long to realize I’d made a mistake in leaving my marriage to your mother. It took a long time beyond that for her to decide she didn’t hate me for it. My second marriage was difficult and my third was a freak show. The kids seem to be good and well-adjusted in spite of that. Those marriages were supposed to make everything better, but they only served one purpose—to make me realize what a fool I’d been. Why do men who have everything blow it off and lose it all? When you can answer that one, you should write it up and charge a million dollars for it.”
“Weak ego?” she suggested.
“Half a brain?” he said. And they both laughed.
They spent another hour talking about Meredith, what a comfort she was to each of them. Over the years, Howard continued to talk to her about his business problems or work frustrations. But never his family problems. “She flatly refused to listen to any of that. She said I had made my bed and I should lie in it.” And she never mentioned any romantic problems of her own because, as she told him, that was not his concern. “But at least we were friends.”