Page 21 of Someone to Watch Over Me

“That’s a very good question that you’re perfectly reasonable to ask.”

“To him? ‘Hey, Tom, I know you just went through this rough ordeal, but how worried do I need to be about it happening again? Are there some odds you could give me based on your family’s hellacious history of people dropping dead in the prime of their lives?’”

Iris snorts out a laugh. “You might not want to put it quite like that, but it’s info you deserve to have before you decide whether you’re up for being more than friends and roommates with him.”

“I should move out of his place.”

“What? No, don’t do that. Not yet, anyway. Remember when Jim first died, and people told you not to make any big decisions right away?”

“Yeah.”

“This is kind of like that. You had a huge trauma last night. This is no time for big decisions.”

I put my head back against the seat, as exhausted as I’ve been since Jim died. I hate feeling like this. It brings back so many memories I thought I’d left in the past. “Is it weird to be having a grief reaction to this when no one died?”

“Not weird at all. Grief colors everything that happens after a big loss. Every single fucking thing, even the good stuff.”

“That doesn’t feel fair.”

“None of this is fair. Why is it that we had to lose our husbands while other people get to keep theirs for seventy years? Why did we have to rebuild lives we’d worked so hard to have in the first place? Why did we have to lose the one person we thought we couldn’t live without? Why did any of this have to happen?”

As I listen to her list of questions, tears slide down my face. I brush them away. Why did any of this have to happen… I ask myself that question almost every day. How did we go from being blissfully happy newlyweds with big plans and dreams to one of us being terminally ill with the cruelest of diseases?

We arrive at Tom’s a few minutes later.

Iris turns off the engine and turns toward me. “What can I do?”

I reply with a quick laugh. “You’ve already done so much, and I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.”

“What else can I do?”

“I think I’m okay for now. I need to go sit with it all and figure out what’s what.”

“Please don’t let him or his sister or anyone pressure you for something you’re not ready for.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Call me if you need me?”

“I will.”

“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll check in later.”

“Thank you for everything, Iris. Not just in the last two days, but always.”

She reaches across the console to hug me. “Any time.”

I love how she waits for me to wave from inside the door before she backs out of the driveway. What a friend.

Inside, I purposely avoid looking at the area of the upstairs living room where last night’s nightmare unfolded. I go into the kitchen, pour a glass of the iced tea that Tom brews for me and then break down all over again at the many ways he takes care of me.

He’s so incredibly good to me and has been since I first moved in. Somehow he always seems to beat me home and has dinner ready six nights out of seven. On the seventh night, he says, “Let’s go out,” and he casually takes me to dinner somewhere fun. Though these outings seem spontaneous, we’re always taken right to a table, which means there’s a reservation, which means he plans in advance.

The only exceptions to this routine are my Wednesday nights with the Wild Widows, as well as other outings with friends and my parents. Lately, I’ve started including Tom in dinner with my parents as if it was the most logical thing I could do. I have to give them credit for not asking me a million questions about him or what it all means.

They think he’s great, and he’s developed a nice, friendly rapport with both of them. Last week, my dad asked if Tom might like to go to a late-season DC Feds game with him. The question both lifted me up and broke my heart, because he used to share season tickets with Jim, and I know how much he misses his baseball buddy.

My parents considered Jim the son they never had. Witnessing his decline was as hard on them as it was on me as they helped to take tender care of him. We all put our lives on hold when he was so terribly ill, so I’m glad to see them beginning to travel again and going back to baseball games and picking up the lives they put aside to be there for us.

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