Chris folds his arms. “What do you want me to do about it?”
It’s not a challenge. It’s a question.
I smile. “Do what you do best. Make the problem go away, Chris.”
* * *
An hour later, I unlock my front door and tap in the code for my security system, then remove Romeo’s leash and give him a pat on the back. I don’t bother resetting my alarm. I’m sure I’ll need it again someday, but for now, the threat against me is gone.
“Go get your bunny.”
My fierce-looking dog’s favorite new toy is a fluffy stuffed rabbit. Instead of chewing it, Romeo has taken to carrying it around tenderly and sleeping curled around it at night.
Love is an eternal mystery, I guess.
There’s a lot I should do today. My voice mail is full; I’ve gotten media requests from as far away as Hong Kong, and offers from film producers, and messages from Oprah, Hoda Kotb, Jimmy Kimmel, and dozens of others who want an exclusive interview.
MAVERICK EX-THERAPIST KILLS CLIENT.
That headline does sound pretty irresistible.
I could keep turning down the interview requests, or put in the order for the dinner I’m having delivered to eat with Lana tonight, or answer emails from a surge of new prospective clients.
D.C. is a peculiar city. My notoriety has only made me more in demand.
Instead, I slip off my shoes and walk upstairs. I turn right at the top of the hallway, heading in the opposite direction from my bedroom.
I’ve been planning this short journey for a while now. It’s surprising how long it has taken me to get here.
I open the door and walk into Lana’s old bedroom, the one with bird feeders outside the windows and photographs of Paul, Lana, and me on the walls.
The old Crosley turntable is still in one corner of the room. I lift the lid and see the last record I ever played for Paul.
Miles Davis, Out of Nowhere.
Paul used to argue that the composition is Davis’s true masterpiece. Most people prefer Kind of Blue, with the legendary John Coltrane on the sax, but the first time Paul ever invited me into his home, he played this record.
I blow the dust off the vinyl and set down the needle, listening to it bump and scratch before it settles in.
The title song is the one we danced to at our wedding.
There aren’t any lyrics. The music is pure, magnificent emotion.
I look at the space that once held Paul’s hospital bed, remembering my husband’s final words to me. He’d mouthed them through dry, cracked lips, but they were unmistakable.
I’m ready.
I’d been amassing morphine in preparation for the moment.
I always do my research; I knew exactly how much it would take, and how to insert it into his IV. When the needle was empty, I’d climbed into bed with Paul and held him in my arms while the morphine seeped into his veins.
He was gone by the time the record finished playing.
Now I step into the center of the room and close my eyes and remember. I don’t see Paul as he was during his final months—bone thin and weak, a shadow of his former self. A man I’d stopped loving long ago.
I see the husband who completely captivated me, spinning me across the dance floor in my long white dress while our guests applauded, his dark eyes promising me everything.
God, I love you, he’d whispered in my ear. Then he’d dipped me down low and scooped me back up into the air.
The space Paul inhabited is empty. It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around that.
Maybe it will always be.
I sink down onto the floor and wrap my arms around my knees.
Miles Davis’s trumpet sings to me while I cry.
Grief isn’t linear. It isn’t logical. There’s no structure or civility to it; it grabs you when you least expect it and digs in its nails until you succumb.
So I give in to it, until the final notes fade away.
Then I get to my feet again.
I look around the room, imagining it not as it was, but as it will be: with a guest bed in one corner, and a pretty rug on the floor, and a potted tree by the window. Or maybe I’ll transform it into an exercise room, with a yoga mat and treadmill and wall-mounted TV.
The space has so many possibilities.
I walk back out again, this time leaving the door wide open.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
From Greer and Sarah:
Our thanks always goes first and foremost to our brilliant editor and publisher, Jennifer Enderlin, who helped to launch this book by conjuring the delicious title and to land it with her incisive, spot-on edits. Our publicist, Katie Bassel, whose enthusiasm for us and our books lifts us up.
The amazing team beside these two women nurtures our novels through the publication process with meticulous care, boundless energy, and limitless creativity. We are so lucky to have them working on behalf of our books. Thank you to Robert Allen, Jeff Dodes, Marta Fleming, Olga Grlic, Tracey Guest, Brant Janeway, Sara LaCotti, Sallie Lotz, Kim Ludlam, Erica Martirano, Kerry Nordling, Erik Platt, Gisela Ramos, Sally Richardson, Mary Beth Roche, Lisa Senz, Michael Storrings, Tom Thompson, and Dori Weintraub.