Page 101 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

It can’t be true. I refuse to believe it and I won’t. You promised me you’d be back. You said we’d be a family. Why did you lie? We had your funeral a month ago. We buried some of your clothes, books you liked to read, and the stones you collected at Pebble Beach. It was weird. One good thing about not burying a body is that you still have hope. I still picture you somewhere out in the country, simply lost, and pray each night that one day you’ll find your way back. Any falling star I see, that’s my wish as well. That you’ll be back.

Mackenzie’s doing well. I don’t think she understands what happened, just that her Mommy and the rest of the family are sad. I don’t want to tell her that you’re in heaven. I don’t want to steal her hope, either. Without seeing you in that coffin, I don’t think I’ll ever stop hoping. Please… Nicholas… come back. Come back to our little girl and me. Please…I… I don’t want to do this on my own. I can’t.

Yours always,

Joelle and Mackenzie

This was the first letter of many that I didn’t mail; instead, I kept them in an old shoebox under my bed.

Ihadn’t thoughtthat birthdays would be the most difficult. I mean, who thinks of those things? For Mackenzie’s second birthday, we invited family and closest friends only, including her godparents, Carter and Molly.

This spring had been delayed and we still had snow on the ground. Come to think of it, it had been a very depressing year, but how could it not have been? Nick was gone. Some nights, I had dreams of him coming back home. Other nights, I’d dream that he’d shifted into a Merman and was swimming free in the ocean he passed away in. The only time I got any peace was when I sat on the shore of Pebble Beach. I felt Nick’s presence with me then, not on a spiritual level, but connected, as if he were on the other side of the globe, but still alive. It gave me hope.

“Hey, where do you want the balloons?” Carter asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. Molly took Mackenzie for a walk while we decorated the house for her surprise. She was back only for the weekend, for the birthday. Except that the moment my daughter left, I sat in the corner of a couch and didn’t move. When Mackenzie was not around, I allowed myself to feel the depth of Nick’s passing and what it meant for our family. Those were the times when I pulled open the closet door where his clothes were still hanging, stepped in, and locked the door behind me, losing myself in his scent, pretending he was there with me.

At night, when Mackenzie went to bed, I would go up to the rooftop where we used to watch the night sky. I’d stopped crying, though. At least that was a good thing. But living where he had his entire life was definitely not easy. Every time I turned around, something reminded me of Nick. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to remember, I did, but being reminded that the love of my life was dead while reading a happy bed time story to my daughter tore me apart.

At some point, I stopped referring to him when I spoke to Mackenzie. Nick’s death didn’t seem to affect her as much, but I thought it was because she had never really known him. All she’d ever know of her father was the empty grave we visited. I, on the other hand, merely lived through the motions of each day, the glimmer of light that was my old life only sparked by my daughter. Without her, I was lost and in torment which was slowly turning into anger at the world around me. I wanted to scream that life wasn’t fair. I wanted to rip apart anything in my hands. I wanted to go drown in that ocean to be with Nick.

“Earth to Jo.” Carter gently tapped my shoulder. “Balloons?”

“Oh, ahm, wherever you put them will be fine.”

Carter crouched in front of me. “Jo, you gotta stop this. It’s been almost a year.”

A year filled with grief, doubt about my future, and constant reminders of Nick, while my memories of him were beginning to blur. I didn’t want them fading; I wanted to keep them intact. I needed to remember the color of the shirt he’d worn at graduation, the length and shape of the scar over his left brow, how his hair felt when I combed my fingers through it, and the way he used to look at me when no one else was paying attention.

“I know. I know. It’s just… you know, maybe we should have had the birthday elsewhere.”

“This is Mackenzie’s home,” he whispered.

“I want to move on, for her at least, but I can’t. Not when everything around here is reminding me of Nick.”

“It will get better.”

“You know, sometimes I feel like part of me died that first time he left me for his training, but I held on to hope, and Nick came back. We were so happy when he came back. I felt complete.”

“Are you still holding onto that hope, Jo?” Carter asked, gently smoothing his hand over my arm, forcing me to join the real world. That would have been fine if the real world was a better place. It used to be. Then I found out that Nick died, and my life had been forever changed.

“The last thing that a human being should lose in life is hope.”

He thought about that for a moment, before nodding. “You’re right, so long as you’re not hurting that beautiful girl of yours.”

“I would never hurt Mackenzie.”

He turned me toward him and wiped a tear off my cheek.

“I know. That’s not what I meant.”

By that time, Molly had returned with Mackenzie. I could hear them laughing out in the front yard. I got up, wiped away my tears, and straightened my dress before turning back to Carter.

“Do you really think I may be hurting her?”

“Not on purpose.”

“Okay. I think I need a change.”

He narrowed his brows but didn’t say anything, because the front door opened. We sangHappy Birthday, gave Mackenzie lots of kisses and hugs, cut her cow cake, and watched her happily open her gifts — many of them with patches of cow patterns, some black and white, some brown and white.

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