Page 36 of Don't Tell Me How to Die

“Apparently, he’s come around. Dotty’s pretty sure Dad has been meeting her there a couple of times a week. She spotted a pamphlet on his desk—Comforting You in Your Time of Loss.”

“Comforting? That sounds like code for having sex.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Maggie, do you really think Dad has been walking around in a funk because he wants to get laid? He’s lonely. His marriage to Mom was about companionship, about getting on a Harley and driving wherever the road took them. All these women who have been throwing themselves at him are scaring him away. Connie might be the first one who really understands what he’s going through. So, she convinced him to go to a support group—isn’t that what Mom wanted?”

“Alone—not with a date! I don’t trust this woman. She could be another predator like Rita Walsh, trying to get inside Leon Brennan’s pants before his wife was even in the ground.”

“You know what your problem is?” Lizzie said. “You have sex on the brain.”

“And you have your head in the clouds. So, Connie got him to go to a few meetings. How do you know he’s not going back to her place afterward and banging her?”

The overhead light snapped on. “Why don’t you ask him?”

It was my father.

“Not that my sex life is any of your business, but before you start turning speculation into rumors that quickly become gospel, let me go on record. I’m not banging anybody.”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” I said.

“You should be. Your mother and I discussed three things about sex before she died. First, she gave me her blessing to have sex whenever I was ready. Second, she gave me a list of warning signs to look out for, so I don’t confuse a hot meal and a hot body with a genuine down-to-earth woman.”

I expected him to go on, but he stopped. He just stood there staring at me, his arms folded across his chest.

I couldn’t deal with the silence. “What was the third thing?” I asked.

“She said, ‘Finn, if I were you, I wouldn’t ask Maggie about her sex life. The less you know, the better off you’ll be.’”

I closed my eyes and buried my head in my hands.

“So then, you’ve been going to these bereavement meetings,” I heard Lizzie say.

“I have. Not the ones at St. Cecilia’s. I know too many people there. I’ve been going two or three times a week, sometimes at United Methodist, sometimes the Episcopal church over on Greenwood.”

I put my hands down and opened my eyes. “Are they helping?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. They say that time heals all wounds, but they also say that misery loves company, and it helps to know that other people are going through the same emotions that I’m going through. Some of us go out for coffee or drinks after the meeting, so that helps a little too.”

“Well, I guess that’s a good thing,” I said. “It gives you a chance to meet people you can hang out with—maybe go to a movie or dinner or something.”

He smiled. “Let me explain something to you, sweetheart,” he said. “I have a dozen friends who keep inviting me to go bowling, play poker, take in a ball game—the list goes on. I don’t have any trouble finding someone to do things with. But when your mother died...”

He paused and swallowed hard. “When your mother died,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes, “I lost the only person in the world I could do nothing with.”

He opened his arms, and Lizzie and I both fell into them. “Don’t worry, girls. We’ll get through this—the three of us.”

He hugged us both, told us he loved us, let go, and left the room. Lizzie looked at me, gave me a half shrug, and followed him out the door.

I dropped back down on the bed, and in that moment, as my own eyes filled with tears, I knew that I had never loved him more—or loved myself less.

TWENTY-ONE

A week later Dad invited Lizzie and me to join him and Connie for Sunday brunch at the Lakeview Lodge, a sprawling complex with a few dozen log cabins set on a lake about five miles out of Heartstone.

As soon as I met her, I could understand what my father saw in her. Like my mother, Connie was a people person, the kind of woman who seems comfortable in her own skin and can interact with almost anybody.

Introductions could have been awkward, but she made it effortless, taking each of us by the hand, telling us how many wonderful stories she had heard about Mom, and then extending her sympathies for our loss. Having been consoled by hundreds of people since my mother’s death, I know a hollow condolence when I hear one, but Connie’s was heartfelt and sincere. First impressions count a lot, and she was off to a great start.

Unlike most grownups confronted with teenagers, she didn’t fall into the “So how’s school?” trap. She’d done her homework, and with the skill of a professional interviewer she soon had me talking about my role as class president, and then, knowing that Lizzie’s goal was to become a doctor, she told us about her grandmother, who in 1928 was the only female physician in a county of more than fifty thousand people.

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