by Rea Frey
A few people are out enjoying the weather. She stops at the base of the trail and reads the sign: WELCOME TO BLACK MOUNTAIN TRAIL. YOU ARE HERE. She studies the red asterisk and the dotted line signifying the trail to the top. Lee had been right here. Had she read this sign? Had she had second thoughts about hiking?
Instead of taking off up the mountain, she veers off the path and over to where they found her. She will never forget the tenuous steps she took to identify her friend, disassembled, beneath that rubber sheet. The images are seared into her brain no matter how many times she tries to scrub them away. She keeps her eye out for any fallen trinkets: another ring, a bracelet, or Lee’s phone. They have yet to recover her cell. She figures it got swept away in the thicket of trees on the way down. She fingers the baggie in her pocket and edges back to the trail. She checks the time. She unspools her earbuds, opens Spotify on her phone, and decides to climb.
On the way up, thoughts consume her. The wind whips her hair around her face as Son Lux blasts its melancholy chorus. At the peak, she checks for people on the trail, says a little prayer, and casts the remnants of the baggie into the wind, a bit of blowback causing her to step aside. She will sprinkle a little more at home in a spot they all agree to. She says a few words and then begins her descent. Nature pulses around her, unthreatening yet powerful in what it can do. She absorbs it all, this backdrop of death, this sanctuary for those who find spirituality in nature. She will never think of hiking the same way again.
Back at the car, she climbs into the hot seat, now warmed from the afternoon sun, and plugs in the directions home. The car revs, and she takes the beautiful, winding roads back to the highway. She dreamed of coming here in the fall with Luca, to see all the leaves change. They would go camping, maybe. Or check out the amazing nature park.
The idea settles like sour milk. In the span of one night, so much has been ruined, taken away, and removed like a lame limb. She glances at the urn beside her, safely packaged in its box. Lee’s life has met its tragic conclusion, and here Grace is, left to handle the aftermath. She urged Lee to have a will in case something like this happened, but things like this never happened. It is the stuff of movies, those rare worst-case scenarios reserved for other people.
Yet here they are.
She tells herself to stay focused. She can’t break down. She can’t give in. She can’t wonder if things could have been different.
But the what-ifs strangle her: what if she hadn’t told her about Noah and the baby? What if she hadn’t left her with the wine? What if she hadn’t fallen?
She queues up a podcast to take her mind off of the questions. The miles roll by as she tunes in to the words of Brooke Castillo, but inside, only one question remains:
What if she had found Lee before she climbed?
41
grace
Grace meets Noah for drinks when she gets back. Every conversation has been in someone’s house, where the reminders of death and sadness drape over them. They need to get out, have a good meal, and loosen up. Grace has even thrown on a flirty red dress and high heels for the occasion.
Once in the dark bar, she rehearses her speech. Mason will come to live with her full-time. It’s Grace’s responsibility to care for Mason’s well-being, not Noah’s. She downs her seltzer and lime, crushing an olive between her teeth as it slides in salty chunks down her throat. The boys are with Carol, a new arrangement that will soon become typical. She will need her friends’ help; she has to trust them just like Lee trusted her.
A few minutes later, Noah breezes in. Despite the tenuous situation, upon his arrival, she drinks in his flawless appearance. The hair that’s neatly trimmed, the face that’s smooth and freshly shaven, the clothes that are ironed, the nails that are buffed, cuticles clipped.
“Hi, gorgeous.” He kisses her neck, and a shiver cascades from her shoulders to her hips.
“Hey, you.” She pushes her glass to the bartender and orders another seltzer and a gin and tonic for him.
“How are you holding up?”
Though they talked on the way back, she didn’t go into detail.
“I’ve been better.” She greedily eyes his gin and tonic. “The urn is beautiful.”
“That’s good at least.” His eyes are warm as they press into hers, gauging her emotional health.
“She would have liked it.” Grace crunches into a cube of ice. “So, I’ve thought about what you offered—about staying in the house—but I want Mason to come live with us now. I think it makes sense in terms of the most successful transition.”
Noah nods. “I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”
She cocks her head. “You do?”
He smiles. “I do.”
“Okay, good. I was also thinking once I get through court, maybe we could discuss a new schedule for him? I know he’s been doing the Waldorf homeschool method, but I was thinking about entering him in the Waldorf school close to my house.”
“Really?” His eyebrows lift. “That place is pricey.”
She shrugs. “I have the money.”
He exhales. “That’s a big decision though. Normally, kids with SPD don’t do well in a school setting until they’re closer to ten or eleven. But,” he’s quick to add, “the Waldorf school isn’t a traditional school. And he’s already used to the curriculum.” He tosses back his drink and orders another. The bartender slides the squat glass across the mahogany bar. “I can assess, talk to the school, and set up a tour for all of us if you like?”
“Thanks.”
He raises his glass to hers in a toast.
“We’ll start packing up Lee’s stuff, and I’ll let the landlord know we’re breaking the lease. Just know that I am one hundred percent here for the both of you. And you.” He presses a warm palm to her belly.
Relief slithers through her. She’s been so on guard, like she has to protect something that isn’t quite hers. The knots in her shoulders loosen. “It’s all going to work out.” She says it as much for him as for herself.
“It is.” Noah canvasses the room, landing on a few older couples swaying to Sinatra. “Want to dance?” He hops off his stool and offers his hand.
Grace hasn’t slow-danced in ages. Her fingers fit neatly into his. He spins her onto the open floor, her red dress twirling into a small bowl of fabric. Her limbs soften. The future blends with her worries and then evaporates: the baby, the living arrangements, Mason, Luca, her and Noah’s future, coparenting with Chad, everything.
For this moment, she wants to be nothing more than a woman with her boyfriend on a dance floor. Noah eases her to his chest. They move, tender and slow, song after song, preparing themselves for their new reality, but clinging to this simple moment—just the two of them—for as long as they possibly can.
42
noah
He holds Grace. Her body fits so perfectly against his. His mind is a flurry of activity: his grief for Lee, the possibility of not teaching Mason anymore, his absolute excitement over the baby, his protectiveness over Grace. While he wants to plan his and Grace’s future, everything has stalled. She doesn’t seem excited about the baby. She doesn’t even want to talk about it, and while he understands, he worries for her health. The questions keep him up at night: what if she doesn’t feel connected to this child? What if she sabotages her own happiness because of how Lee died?
He wants to remind Grace that they must move forward; they can’t ignore all the wonderful things that are about to happen. He knows she takes loss as personally as he does; when you lose a sibling, it’s like losing a best friend. And now she has lost her best friend, and he can’t relate to that exact experience. All he can do is continue to be here for her, Mason, and Luca.
He holds her tighter, and her heart thumps against his. His body responds to the sensuality of her red dress. The relaxed fabric, her body hot and inviting beneath it. They haven’t made love since Lee died, and their previously adventurous sex life has waned since he found out she was pregna
nt.
He recalls the first time they slept together. As Grace shed her clothes, gone was the relatively composed woman he’d come to know. In her place was a woman who demanded to be tied up, spanked, choked, and talked dirty to. She constantly urged him to push the boundaries. He was wildly attracted to that part of her and relieved he could be so free. He hadn’t really been that way since …
“What are you thinking about in there?” Grace blinks up at him, her eyes heavily hooded and cheeks flushed. Her bottom lip is wet from where she must have just licked it. She has no idea how sexy she is or how much he loves her, though he hasn’t said it yet. He isn’t sure he’s ever really been in love with a woman before Grace.
Yes, she is a few years older. Yes, she has a child and a clown for an ex-husband. Yes, she is now the guardian of her best friend’s child. But the way she has handled everything is not lost on him. It’s what he wants from a partner. It’s what he wants for the rest of his life: her.
“I’m thinking about how nice this is.” He leans down to meet her lips with his, and his stomach knots and releases. “How good you feel.” He adores everything about this woman. The intensity of it scares him. He wants to marry her, knew it almost immediately, but he doesn’t dare bring it to her attention. Not yet. He has to tread lightly, let the grief fade, and then he will ask.
“What else are you thinking?” She nuzzles his neck with her lips.
“I’m thinking that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“Really?” She pulls back, her long, white neck exposed. He resists the urge to trace every curve of her delicate throat with his tongue.
“Really.” He gazes into her beautiful eyes, mesmerized as always by her pronounced cheekbones, her full, wide mouth, her ivory skin. The curls, wild and free, that seem to float around her shoulders. Her body underneath the clothes—a real woman’s body full of scars, marks, and curves. He loves that she doesn’t diet, isn’t self-conscious or obsessed about looking a certain way. She’s comfortable in her skin, and that’s one of the things he loves most about her. She is sure of who she is.
He waits for her response, hoping he hasn’t revealed too much. Though he can be himself, he’s always afraid he’s going to come on too strong or chase her away. He knows how fiercely independent she is, and that she doesn’t need a man to feel complete.
“I feel the same way about you.” She kisses him again and loops her arms around his neck. Her fingers tickle his scalp until his entire body ignites.
“Let’s go home,” he whispers. He doesn’t know which home they will go to, but he wants to make love to her now.
She pulls back and her eyes flash with desire. “Your place or mine?”
“Wherever you’ll have me.” His mouth finds hers again. He loses himself in the middle of the bar. He gathers the fabric of her dress in his fist. The music fades. The rush of blood fills his entire body until all he can think about is getting Grace alone.
43
grace
The door squeaks on its hinges. Grace waves hello. It’s so odd that Noah is answering Lee’s door, that they are packing up her friend’s belongings to haul off, donate, or sell. She motions behind her. “Yard looks great.”
The front has been freshly mowed. The weeds have been pulled, the hedges trimmed, and the walkway swept and tidied. Lee’s lease is null and void at the end of the month, but they still have to spruce it up to re-rent.
Grace steps inside. The last week blurs from memory. Only a few days ago, she stood in front of the judge in her best suit, guardianship papers in hand. Her whole support system waited in the wings for the good news. It had been a frighteningly easy process. The judge had rushed through the docket, barely making eye contact over his spectacles, before cracking his gavel for the next case. Grace had glanced at her lawyer to make sure she understood what had just happened, and Kim had simply nodded and shuffled papers back into a file.
“And that’s that. He’s all yours.”
Grace had rushed out of the sterile room into the hall to find Mason obsessively bouncing a ball against the wall, while Alice, Carol, and Noah met her with expectant faces. Afterward, they’d gathered at Shelby Bottoms with muffins and coffee under Lee’s favorite tree to scatter a few ashes. She’d given the urn to Mason, and it was the first time she thought he might actually be able to get closure.
Now, Grace steps into Lee’s kitchen and closes the door. It still smells like her: hair products and stale coffee. She and Noah have already packed as much as they can, the furniture sold, donated, or dumped. Tonight is for stacking boxes and dismantling her studio, which hasn’t yet been touched. “How are you feeling, gorgeous?” He kisses her and pulls her close. “I missed you today.”
“Me too.” Their wild night from the bar comes back into focus. The uninhibited sex. Her requests. The physical pleasure. Those moments have been too few and far between since the pregnancy and Lee’s death.
“Want something to drink?” He releases her and opens a cabinet.
“Sure, water’s fine.”
He pours her a glass. “How’s Mason?”
“Asleep. Alice came over to watch him.”
“Good. Hope he sleeps tonight.”
“You and me both.” Mason’s night terrors have challenged her previously uninterrupted sleep. Lee used to talk about them, but she never understood their severity or prevalence. She’s been researching different remedies. She assumes, like with everything else he’s dealing with, that it will just take time. She takes the chilled glass, and the icy water shocks her lips. He slices a lemon on the cutting board and squeezes in a few drops.
“Fancy,” she jokes.
“I think we’ve made good progress, don’t you?” They walk from room to room. Most of Lee’s belongings have been stripped, tossed, or boxed.
“Shall we tackle the studio?”
“Yep.” Noah stops in the kitchen and refills her glass. “I was thinking once we get that cleared out, we can just stack all of the boxes in there, since it still has the garage door.”
“Sure.” Grace imagines loading all the boxes into a van and taking them somewhere. Never coming back to this house. Never driving down this street. The finality of it consumes her.
In the studio, they clear the boxes to one side of the room. As she pushes cardboard across cement, memories hurl themselves to the surface of her brain. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Noah lowers a stack and wipes his hands on his jeans. “I know. I can’t either.”
“She really liked you, you know.” Grace hasn’t said the words; hasn’t talked much about Lee since she died, hasn’t wanted to admit that she is really gone and Grace is here in her place, in her house, about to mother her child.
He straightens. “I really liked her too.” He groans as he heaves another stack along the far wall. “Just not in the way she expected.”
She appreciates his honesty. “True. It’s so strange that you both grew up here and never met each other before I introduced you.” It’s strange that you never made a move is what she really means. “Did you ever know any of her friends or anything?”
“Not that I know of.” He shrugs. “We didn’t run in the same circles.”
Grace tries to imagine Lee and Noah going for coffee or hanging out, but can’t. She busies herself with packing products into their own boxes and labels them to donate to local salons. She tapes the top of one and carries it to the wall.
They pack in silence over the next hour, and Grace wishes she’d left the speakers hooked up. She finally swipes her phone, opens Spotify, and cranks the volume to capacity. “Well, that’s far from impressive,” she jokes.
“Here.” Noah plucks a plastic cup from Lee’s desk and deposits the phone into it. The sound amplifies through the room. “Instant speaker.”
“Thanks.” She looks around. “Want to take a break for a second?” She sits cross-legged on the rug. “You know, I bought this rug with Lee. I joked that it was l
ike having a giant sheep at work.” She runs her fingers through the threads. “She didn’t want a rug because of all the hair she had to sweep, but I insisted vacuuming would be less work. And the cement would get so cold on her bare feet in the winter. She always preferred being barefoot.” She chokes on her words and shakes her head. “Sorry.”
Noah sits beside her. “It really doesn’t seem real, I know. I don’t think it ever does.” He glances at her. “When you lose someone, I mean.”
She wipes away her tears. “You mean Wyatt?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s crazy to me we both lost siblings. That’s rare.”
Noah hesitates. “How come you never talk about her?”
Noah has asked a few questions about her sister, but Grace always deflects. “Same reason you don’t probably. Too painful.”
“Makes sense.” He glances at her. “Were you close?”
She shrugs and plunges her fingers back into the rug. “At one time, yeah. But you know how it is when everyone in your family is so consumed with their own lives. You miss things.”
Noah exhales and nods. “You certainly do.”
“Do you think you ended up working with autistic kids specifically because of Wyatt?” She releases the rug and folds her hands into her lap.
“Probably. But I’ve always been good with kids. Kids like Wyatt and Mason. I have a knack for it, I guess.”
“I can see that. You always seem in control.”
