Page 134 of The Single Dad

“How do you feel?” she finally asks, her voice low.

“Better than I have any right to,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her to pull her closer. “Because of you.”

Her eyes warm, her fingers threading gently through my hair. “Good.”

She kisses me again, deep and unhurried, and I inhale her scent as I stroke her hair.

She’s becoming more of a fixture in my life, in Archie’s life, and I don’t know how I’ll ever let her go.

Chapter 41

Cole

The next week is spent making funeral arrangements and dealing with the other logistics surrounding my father’s death. My father wasn’t a man with a large social circle, and the rest of our family is long gone, so the responsibility is left to me.

The funeral I have in mind is simple, small, and unobtrusive. I haven’t spoken to my father in years; a few times, in moments of grief-fueled bitterness, I think to myself that I’d be completely justified in letting these arrangements fall to the side. Letting Kerry take care of it, instead of me.

But each time, the feeling of anger subsides, and I’m left hollow. Of course I need to do this myself.

It’s a hard week, but it’s made easier by Riley, who now spends every night in my bed. She’s always there for me, sweet and kind and supportive, with a rare optimism that makes things seem a little less dark.

And when I need to work out my emotions—when I take her, hard and unyielding—she responds to me as if she needs it as badly as I do.

She meets me where I am and begs me for more. At this point, I’m completely addicted to her; she’s like a drug to me. Some people turn to pharmaceuticals to get through times like these, but I don’t need to. I have her.

Midway through the week, I have to face the hardest challenge of all: explaining this whole situation to Archie.

I can’t avoid doing so. Archie is old enough that he needs to be told about things like this. He didn’t really know his grandfather, but he will be at the funeral, and I feel that I owe him a full explanation.

I walk Archie into the front sitting room, the place where he spends hours working on paintings with Riley. She has a fresh masterpiece sitting casually on her easel by the window—this one is abstract, splashes of color that, for some reason, manage to evoke the New York skyline.

I sit Archie down on the couch. He looks up at me in bewilderment. Usually, on a Thursday afternoon after getting home from pre-K, he’d run straight to the fish tank to check up on Swimmy. This is a break in a routine for him.

Plus, he’s an intuitive kid. He’s been able to sense the grief hanging around this house, even if he hasn’t said anything about it.

“What’s going on?” he asks, wide-eyed.

“Something happened last week that I need to tell you about,” I explain heavily. God, this is hard.

“What?”

“Do you remember your grandpa?”

He hesitates for a moment—it’s been a long time—then nods, slowly. “Yeah.”

“Grandpa died last week,” I say.

Archie frowns, confused, and doesn’t respond.

“When I say that Grandpa died, I mean that we’re not going to be able to see him again. He went away, somewhere we can’t follow him. Do you understand?”

For a few moments, Archie’s expression is puzzled, his brow furrowed. Then he says, “Why can’t we see him anymore?”

“When people get very, very old,” I begin to explain, “they eventually… stop, and then we can’t see them anymore.”

My father wasn’t very old, just a lifelong alcoholic, but I don’t say that to Archie. The kid’s going to be confused enough as it is.

“But why not?”

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