Page 29 of Tides That Bind

And here’s the thing. If I’m being honest, I often need the reminders—the alarms, the extra notes. I learned when I was diagnosed, dyslexia can do that to people. So, technically, Nate wasn’t wrong about the reminder. But what he didn’t really know is some things I don’t need to be told twice. Words with this kind of meaning are easy to read and impossible to forget.

I glance at the foot of the bed where I left the large paper shopping bag filled to the brim with all the bouquets I missed—eight, and one additional bouquet for the flowers that died with Nate in the water.

I reach into the bag for the receipt and the paper authorizing my credit card for weekly deliveries.

I won’t miss any more weeks now, even after I leave. The rest? I can’t do it. Because when Nate wrote that letter, he did so never knowing that the cause of his demise would be me.

I should,in theory, be an excellent widow.

After all, I’ve spent a lot of time on my own. I was seventeen when I ran away from my family’s circus. I lived in enough crappy apartments that I can easily fix a leaky pipe or reset an electrical breaker. And then there was my brief tenure as a military spouse when Nate was deployed. Riley might have technically been around, though conveniently never when the lawn really needed to be mowed. I was the one who handled the house.

And yet, since Nate died, I have to give myself a pep-talk every time I need to take out the trash. I don’t even know how it fills so fast now, given its just Lucas and me. It’s like it does it just to torture me.

I usually save it for the mornings when I’m rushing around with Lucas because when he’s around, I’m stronger. I have to be. I have to let him see that I can do it all, to prove I’m enough for him even though he deserves so much more.

But it’s Tuesday and trash pick-up is early Wednesday morning, so I can’t put it off tonight entirely. I just put it off until I’m ready to go to bed.

That’sallI want to do. I want to go upstairs and fall asleepand come down to the kitchen tomorrow finding the trash can empty, lined with a fresh bag, a sign Nate came home from work while I was still asleep in this god awful nightmare.

I feel it, the flood of tears threatening to drown me and push off from the counter, furiously yanking the lid of the trash can off and wrestling with the full bag, nearly ripping the plastic before I free it.

In the mudroom, I open the backdoor as I slip my feet into still tied sneakers, the canvas tongues folded uncomfortably.

“Stay,” I order, and Tides tips his head in confusion. I slip out the door, almost struggling with the weight of the trash bag. The load isn’t heavy and yet my body weeps as I carry it.

You’re stronger than this, I tell myself angrily. Strong enough to take the trash out without a second thought. Strong enough to be a mother and a father, to raise a son and make his world so beautiful he won’t realize he ever went without the one who lit it up the most in the first place.

I lug the bag down the steps to the side of the house where we normally keep the larger trash bins only to find they aren’t there. The bag slips from my hand, but before it lands on the ground, it’s swooped up. It happens so quickly, I wonder if I did fall asleep on the couch earlier and this is all a dream.

Because when I turn, it’s Riley’s familiar shadow I see walking away from me toward the end of the driveway.

“I brought them out already,” he says gruffly.

Riley’s first words to me since my husband’s death are about the trash.

My eyes pan from his Jeep parked at the garage and back to him as he walks down the driveway with the bag. I start marching toward Riley, but after he dumps the trash into the can, he turns and walks past me as if I’m not even there.

He takes the stairs up to his apartment two at a time, like he can’t get away from me fast enough.And me? I can’t get to Rileyquicklyenough. But he whooshes past me again halfway up the stairs, knocking me with a duffle bag he clumsily carries with hisuninjured arm. When I look at his Jeep, I can see the backseat is full.

Now, I’ll have an answer for Lucas when he askswhere’s Riley?

The answer will begone.

I don’t know why it steals my breath as hard as I imagine it will Lucas's.

“You’re leaving?”

The only sound Riley makes is some sort of grunt as he leans over the doors, shifting things around. I don’t know if he hears me approach from behind, watching as he struggles with only one working arm. The hard cast he had on at the funeral now is gone, replaced by a soft splint. His grey t-shirt stretching across his broad back is painted with sweat, his signature bun loose enough his dark hair nearly escapes it.

“Riley, what—”

“I’ll come by tomorrow for the fridge and have someone come clean the place.”

Riley reaches up, wiggling the surfboard until I hear the sound of a box sliding down. When he releases the board, he leans against the door, breathing heavily, clearly exhausted.

There’s a lankiness about Riley I see in the shadows, and it’s more than his normal long, lean body. I know, from the way he supports himself against the car, he’s breaking down, just like me. It’s the impact of loss, and I don’t know why it’s only hitting me now that I didn’t just lose a husband and Lucas a father.

Riley lost something in Nate too. Something big.

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