Page 2 of That One Heartbreak

“Can you put it away? I’m trying to eat here,” James muttered, pretending to gag.

“And I’m trying to get dressed,” Ethan huffed. “Mom, where are my clothes?”

“Check the pile in the laundry room.” She really had meant to sort and fold all those dry clothes last night.

She really needed some coffee. And that’s when she realized that shestillhadn’t turned the damn machine on. Rubbing the heel of her hand against her eyes, she groaned when she pulled it away and saw the smudged mascara on her palm.

“Fifteen minutes,” she shouted, loud enough for them all to hear, finally switching the machine on. She’d have to take her mug to go. She pulled out the stainless steel vacuum one she bought when the kids were little.

When she was mom of the year. Before she became a widowed mom of three.

“This milk tastes weird,” James said. He’d already eaten half of his bowl of granola. Kate sighed and picked up the milk jug.

The best by date was two days earlier.

“Does it taste weird to you?” she asked Addy, trying not to sound worried. Addy shrugged. James took her bowl from her and she started to protest.

“I’m getting you a fresh one,” James muttered. “Before we all end up with food poisoning.

And there he was. Her buddy. Her bestie. He came out occasionally, when he managed to fight his way through the teenage hormones and the anger.

The boy she’d met when he was barely two years old and as cute as a button. The one she’d legally adopted when he was three after she’d married his dad and they’d become a family.He was as much hers as Addy and Ethan, and she loved him so fiercely it hurt.

He loved her, too. She knew that. They’d kept each other going over the last two years since Paul’s death.

“Thank you.” She shot a smile at James as he pulled out a fresh carton of milk and bowls, then made him and his baby sister breakfast again.

He even splashed some into her stainless steel mug before putting it back in the refrigerator.

“No problem,” he muttered. “Now, can I go to the fire station?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not this week. But I’ll think about it. Soon.”

“Why don’t we have any photos from Daddy’s funeral?” Addy asked Kate as they walked up the steps to the First Baptist Church. Kate was holding Addy’s hand, the other gripping her coffee. Could you even take a coffee cup into the church?

Surely they wouldn’t turn her away because she needed a caffeine hit.

Just to be sure, she lingered outside to finish, watching as James and Ethan caught up with them.

“People don’t take photographs of funerals,” Kate told her. Kids came up with the strangest questions sometimes. After losing Paul she’d thought she’d heard them all, but this was a new one.

And she had no idea where it had come from.

Grief was a strange thing. It ebbed and flowed like the ocean. Sometimes the tide would be so low you barely thought aboutthe loss at all, and then it would come rushing back, a tsunami of remembering.

She knew that Addy couldn’t remember Paul as much as she used to. She’d been four when he’d died. Ethan had been six and James – her poor James – had been thirteen.

More than once he’d held her as she broke down, much to her horror.

“Why don’t they take photos?” Addy asked. “I wore a special dress, didn’t I?”

“Yes…” Kate frowned.

“My friend Annabel was a flower girl. She has pictures she brought to school. She’s such a show off. She said she was a princess for a day.”

“That’s because you take photos at weddings, dummy,” Ethan said. “They’re happy things. Funerals are sad things.”

“So we can’t take pictures of sad things?” Addy asked. “We have pictures of dad in the house. Isn’t that sad?”

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