Page 9 of Ebbing Tides
“Today would’ve been our wedding anniversary,” she said, her gaze holding on to the precious items in my hand. “I thought I was doing okay. I thought I could come up here and have a nice week with Charlie and Stormy without thinking about him, but …” Her voice trailed off to make way for an embarrassed burst of laughter. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. You have to get to work, and I’m just babbling on like an idiot. You don’t evenknowme. Jesus, I need to shut up.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her, closing my hand around her husband’s things. “I promise I’ll take good care of these.”
She gave me a weak smile, and I was even more desperate now, more than before, to show her I understood. To prove that I got it,truly. That I was also a member of the world’s shittiest club.
“And for the record, if it makes you feel any better, there will eventually be anniversaries that don’t completely suck,” I said. “I mean, it always hurts like hell, but the shitty moments become more unpredictable. Anniversaries …” I pursed my lips, thinking about my own anniversary coming up. “They still hurt, but they become more routine, I guess. More, um … expected.”
Melanie’s gaze shifted from sadness to curiosity. I knew she wanted to ask, but I also suspected that she wouldn’t. So, I answered before she had the chance to walk away.
“My wife died. Almost ten years ago.”
“I’m very sorry,” she replied, nodding.
“And I’m very sorry about your husband.”
She pulled in a deep breath and was about to say something when her attention was pulled toward the cottage. The front door opened, and Charlie stepped outside.
I guessed it was time to lock the cemetery gate, and it was time for me to take up my position.
“I should get back to my kids,” she said with a flustered laugh. “But … thank you.”
What exactly she was thanking me for, I didn’t know. But I smiled anyway and said, “You’re welcome. And I’ll drop these off, um … what day are you leaving?”
“I leave in a week. So, next Sunday.”
“Well, then I’ll be here next Sunday to return these to you.”
“Great,” she said, and for maybe the first time since I’d picked her up, she gave me—not my dog,me—a genuine smile. “Have a good night, Max.”
“You too, Melanie.”
She turned to leave, then hesitated. Her head tipped as she glanced back at me, her eyes meeting mine with a burning question, one I thought I knew.
Have we met before?
But then she seemed to let it go as she smiled—but, oh my God, thatsmile—and then she jogged away from the truck and caught Charlie’s attention on his way to his own car.
“Where the hell did you go?” he asked with a laugh. “I was ready to send out the search party.”
“It’s okay,” she replied and turned to wave at me. “Max rescued me.”
I turned to look at Charlie as I rolled up my window. I offered him a slight wave as his eyes met mine, and he waved back.
The interaction was over, and she disappeared into the house. Another moment passed, just drifting through my whirlwind of a life. But as I drove down the one-way road, lined with trees and headstones and the remainders of snow, the world seemed just a little brighter than it had when I left my house.
CHAPTER THREE
From an early age, we were encouraged to find someone to share our lives with. A wife. A husband. Someone to raise a family with, grow old with, die with.
With.
This was what we were taught—or at least, most people were—and that a life wasn’t full or worth a damn unless you were accompanied by another person on this journey that would always, ultimately, end in loneliness.
I’d had a late start when Laura and I rekindled our romance—if you could even call it that in the beginning—in my early thirties. I thought I’d found myperson—and one who came with a built-in family, no less. I devoted my entire heart and life, every second, everyintention, to Laura and her girls. Everything I did was done with them in mind, and, oh my God, I loved them, and how fucked up it was that I was only given a handful of years to call them mine?
I had told myself I deserved it, told myself it was karma for the lives I’d destroyed and taken, and I never gave my heart permission to open up again.
It was a dangerous game of Russian roulette to fall in love. I knew that better than most … except for maybe Charlie’s sister-in-law, Melanie.
