Page 34 of Heartbreak Hill

“You should be.”

Their gazes met. “Why? So I could say words to him that he wouldn’t hear? So I could tell him how I should’ve been there, with him, but bailed at the last minute because I didn’t want to run? I have a lot of guilt right now, Nadia. I can’t help but think that if I was there, maybe it’d be me you’d be mourning and not him. That his girls”—Kiran paused and pointed to the other room—“wouldn’t be missing their daddy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I have nothing to lose,” he told her. “I don’t have a wife waiting for me or two little girls who need me. Bachelor life here,” he said as he pointed to his chest. “If I hadn’t gone out the night before, I wouldn’t have been hungover, and I would’ve been there.”

“Kiran—”

He held his hand up. “It’s my guilt, and I need to live with it. Whatever guilt you have about not calling me, let it go. I honestly didn’t deserve to be there.”

“Don’t say that. He would’ve wanted you there.”

“I appreciate you saying that, and maybe someday I will believe it. Right now ...” He shook his head.

“Kiran,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have guilt over something you couldn’t have prevented. Rafe did what Rafe always did.” Even as Nadia spoke, the word “hero” popped into her mind. As much as she didn’t want it to be true, Rafe was a hero. This still didn’t mean she wanted his efforts broadcasted or brought up again next year. Or theyear after. She and her family needed to heal. They needed to find some semblance of normal, and that wouldn’t exist if they had a constant reminder of the man they’d lost.

“Mommy?” Lynnea came into the kitchen, interrupting Kiran and Nadia. Lynnea beckoned her mother to come to her level. Nadia knelt and then found herself smiling at what Lynnea said to her.

Nadia remained crouching. “You can ask him.”

Lynnea leaned into her mother and rested her head on her shoulder, almost knocking Nadia over. “Do you want a brownie?” she asked Kiran.

He squatted, bringing himself to eye level with Lynnea. He reached out and touched the hem of her shirt. Kiran had uncle status in the house but had yet to develop a close bond with Lynnea. He was closer to Gemma, being that she was older and would often go places with Rafe when Kiran was around.

“Did you make them?”

Lynnea shook her head.

“No? Who did?”

“Grandma Cleo,” she said after taking her thumb out of her mouth, and then it went right back in. Nadia frowned at the sight, knowing it wasn’t going to be an easy habit to break. Nor tackle. If sucking her thumb brought her daughter comfort, she’d leave it for the time being. Besides, she had more pressing issues to deal with, like planning a funeral, which could wait until tomorrow.

“You know, I think I’d like one.”

Lynnea ground her face into Nadia’s neck and then pushed away from her mother. Lynnea took Kiran’s hand and led him out of the kitchen. He turned, gave Nadia one last look, and smiled softly at her.

Nadia leaned against the cupboard and slid the rest of the way down until she sat on the cold, hard floor. She listened to her family, their chatter and laughter, in the other room and wondered when she’d laugh again. Not a chuckle here or there, but a full-on belly laugh thatbrought happy tears and side aches. The kind of laugh you told your friends about. The kind you shared with someone special.

Her someone special was gone. Her rock. The person she counted on the most. Never in her wildest dreams did she think at thirty-five she’d be a widow with two small children, having to learn to live without a partner.

ELEVEN

NADIA

It had been a week and one day since Nadia had last heard Rafe’s voice. Since he’d last told her he loved her, kissed her, held her in his arms. She’d gone through a barrage of emotions. Sadness, loneliness, longing, and anger. This one, along with complete and utter heartbreak, was at the forefront of her feelings. Not a second had gone by when she hadn’t thought of her husband. Alive and vivacious to cold and dead. Every time she pictured the love of her life, she saw him as she last had, in a bed with wires and machines keeping him alive. All she saw was the double doors that had swallowed him as she stood there, watching as the doctors wheeled him away to harvest his organs.

Now, she and her family were being asked to attend a memorial and to meet with the driver, who wanted to express her sincere remorse for the accident. Not accepting fault for not keeping her car properly maintained. Deep in her mind, she knew it had been an accident. It was, however, avoidable, and she couldn’t help but think the person should be held accountable. Nadia hadn’t even buried her husband yet, and the city wanted to unite and show the citizens how the people of Boston were strong and would recover. How Rafe’s legacy would unite a community. How the organizers would learn from the tragedy and move on.

Nadia would not recover. There was nothing for her to rebuild. Her husband was gone. The life they’d planned out for themselves, blown to bits. Shattered.

She didn’t want to be there, but her parents had insisted. This tribute was supposed to be cathartic. It would help her begin her healing process. She thought it was a waste of time. The last thing she wanted to do was see where her husband had died. Yet there they were, sitting in black folding chairs, under a tent, listening to the mayor talk about the city Rafe had loved so much. Aside from family, she didn’t know anyone sitting behind her. Maybe they were the other people, the ones who had been hurt when the car broke through the crowd.

Lynnea whined and tugged on Nadia’s arm. She picked her youngest up and held her. In a week, Lynnea had gone from a sassy spitfire who tested her mother’s every nerve to a child who didn’t want to speak to anyone, who whined more than she had as a toddler, who was a shell of herself. And then there was Gemma—their formerly loving, vivacious daughter who’d wanted to dance and sing and always had a smile on her face but now spit venom, hit her sister, and insisted on slamming her door repeatedly while screaming at the top of her lungs.

As a family, they needed counseling. Nadia knew this. They would not survive without it. Her family had told her the girls were mourning in their own way, which Nadia understood to an extent, but they needed help coming to terms with what had happened to them. All she had to do was pick up the phone. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Maybe next week or next month.

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