Page 9 of Don't Call Me Sweetheart

Since George’s death, holidays had been divided between the two sets of grandparents. We spent Christmas with my parents. Thanksgiving was always with George’s parents, since my parents preferred to spend the holiday skiing in Utah rather than eating turkey. George’s sisters always came home for Thanksgiving with their own families, which made it a lot of fun. Together, everyone cooked a traditional American feast, with a few Guatemalan flavors thrown in.

“My nephew will be here for Thanksgiving. He is coming from Antigua to stay with us for a few weeks,” Juan said as they all gathered around the table to eat. “Daniel. He and George were born in the same year, but they only met once. Did George tell you about him?”

Had George ever mentioned him? I stared at my plate. I couldn’t remember. It had been so long ago, and we had been so young. If I had known then that he wouldn’t be around to make new memories with me, I would have held on to those old moments a little tighter. I would have paid more attention in the moment and memorized the details. My sharpest memories were closer to the end, when we had argued constantly.

The things I didn’t want to remember were so much clearer than the good times.

That was something I kept to myself. No one knew that George had asked for a separation shortly before he died. Not his parents, not mine, and not Jessica. Everyone thought our marriage was perfect. We were the greatest love story Hart’s Ridge had ever seen, looking back through the purifying lens of death.

I couldn’t bear to tell them the truth, that what had started out as first love had crumbled under the pressure of growing up too soon. Of being Jessica’s sole caregiver while George was in basic training and then deployed. Of being married before I was allowed to even rent a car or drink a glass of wine. Of feeling trapped, on both sides.

“George told me about visiting family in Guatemala for Christmas,” I said, dodging the question of whether George had mentioned Daniel, in particular. “He always wanted to go back and take Jessica there.”

Juan beamed. “Daniel has good memories of that time too.”

“He never married.” Maria clucked her tongue with sympathetic disapproval. “But perhaps he will have better luck here in Hart’s Ridge. There are more opportunities here.”

Kate looked up from her pupusa, startled. “More opportunities than in Antigua?”

Most of George’s family had left Lake Atitlan for the cities of Antigua and Guatemala City, but even the lake towns had a population that beat Hart’s Ridge by at a couple hundred thousand. It was hard to imagine Daniel would have an easier time finding true love in a small town in North Carolina than in a midsize city.

“More opportunities to find the right woman,” Maria said. “George found you here, didn’t he? Maybe it will be the same for Daniel.”

That wasn’t the ringing endorsement that Maria thought it was, not to mention that George had found me here for the simple reason that we both lived here, and age-appropriate dating options weren’t always so easy to come by in a town where cows outnumbered people.

Like most of my thoughts these days, that one would cause damage if I let it out, so I kept it to myself.

“I would be happy to show him around Hart’s Ridge and introduce him to people,” I offered.

Maria gave Juan a smug, sidelong smile before nodding her approval. “Perfect. I was hoping you would say that. I’m sure Daniel would prefer the company of people his own age. You could take a lesson from him, Kate. He hasn’t given up on love.”

I laughed. “He’s only thirty-two! He’s not an…what’s the male equivalent of old maid?”

“Bachelor,” Jessica supplied.

I frowned. “That’s not the same thing at all. It’s not unflattering.” It also didn’t imply decayed virginity, a thought I would have said out loud to Jessica, but I bit my tongue in front of Maria and Juan.

“Yeah, Mom.” Jessica rolled her eyes. “That’s the patriarchy.”

Maria sighed. “My point,” she interjected, “is that you are also young. You should date, Kate. Ten years is enough to mourn any man, even one as wonderful as my George.”

Under any other circumstances, I would agree. Ten years was more than enough. In fact, until yesterday, I had agreed. The only thing that truly kept me from dating was the lack of men available to date. I wasn’t mourning. Or, rather, I would always mourn the death of Jessica’s father, but I wasn’t consumed with grief. Not the way Maria thought I was.

But last night had showed me that I wasn’t ready to date, not by a long shot. People who were ready for a relationship didn’t burst into tears during sex. I wasn’t mourning, but I was…broken. Somehow. And I would have to fix that before I could date anyone.

The problem was, I didn’t know how.

Chapter 4

Max

There was something about the first bell of the day, I reflected, as the chime echoed through the building, warning students that they had five minutes to get to class or they would be marked tardy.

The first bell was a promise. The classroom was both bigger and smaller than the world outside it, but for seven hours a day, it was the only thing that mattered.

It didn’t matter if you were mad at your parents or your best friend wasn’t speaking to you or you broke up with your girlfriend. It didn’t matter that as the last of five foster kids, you had to sleep on the lumpy couch with suspicious stains of unknown origin, and it didn’t matter that you never unpacked your garbage bag of belongings because you never stayed anywhere longer than four months anyway.

None of that mattered, because when the first school bell rang every day, there was only math and geography and history and English. Focusing on those things meant a future where trash bags of belongings didn’t exist. The first bell sounded like hope.

---