CHAPTER TWO

Bri found herself standing before the platter of rolled cold cuts while she swayed like someone well on her way to drunkenness. She hadn’t even had a drop yet. She gobbled six or eight or ten pieces of genoa without realizing she was doing it until her mouth tasted like she’d been sucking on metal. She didn’t even like genoa.

“You should sit.” Shelly again, of course, telling her little sister what she should be doing, how she should grieve, how she should handle the death of her husband.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re inhaling cold cuts like one of those starving African children with the distended bellies.”

“Leave me alone.”

Shelly held her gaze a moment, debating the best retort. Bri waited, blood pressure rising. She could see herself grabbing the platter and whacking Shelly across the face, could even imagine the cold cuts flying through the air to thwack against the wall and leave little grease stains behind.

“People want to eat,” Shelly said. “You standing here is freaking them out.”

She was about to respond that she wasn’t freaking anyone out when she turned and there stood a dozen or more people milling around in her living room who looked away in unison and then she almost said, Well, fuck all of you, I’m the one grieving, but instead she walked into the kitchen.

Shelly’s husband Matt, leaning against the kitchen counter, slurped at a can of Budweiser. He nodded to her. “I’m so sorry, Bri,” he said and belched. His face flared red.

Bri turned away.

Kat and Donny Curtis and Eliza and Fulton Wolf, the extent of Bri and Ward’s friends, offered more hugs and promises to call. The Curtises lived next door in a Georgian Colonial nearly identical to her own. Donny and Ward had been members of the same frat and Donny looked like an aging frat boy with his square jaw and cocky stride. As usual, Kat wore too much makeup. The Wolfs were across the street in a cute white bungalow with a wide front porch. Eliza would call—she always did. In adulthood, Eliza was the closest thing Bri had to what kids called a “bff.”

Eliza was fit, always out jogging in yoga pants, and wore her blonde hair short. She hadn’t let it grow long since before her Peace Corps days in Africa. Bri would tell her later of Shelly’s comment about starving kids with distended bellies. She hugged Bri again and whispered in her ear, “I’m here for you.”

Fulton wrapped his lanky arms around her and squeezed. He smelled of cologne and she clutched him tighter for a second before realizing what she was doing and relented, regretfully letting the masculine aroma drift away.

Kat took Bri in a celebrity hug where their bodies never touched and their faces maintained a safe gap from the threat of smearing makeup. Bri almost kissed the air to complete the gesture.

Donny put a hand on Bri’s shoulder but made no move to hug her. He stood taller than Fulton, wider in the shoulders, and smelled just as nice. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Ward was a great guy.”

She thanked him and wondered what would happen if she kissed him hard on the lips. Kat might scream. People would turn and gasp. Shelly would lead her off to her room, make her take some Tylenol PM, or at least some Xanax that Big Sis always seemed to have, and she’d suggest that maybe Bri should talk to somebody. Maybe she should even go back to Dr. Fix-It-All. But what was there to talk about? Ward was dead, not her. She had needs, dammit.

She chuckled.

“You okay?” Donny asked.

“I’m sure you have to get back to Priya,” Bri said. She tasted the genoa trying to come back up. Priya was their adopted child, right from India. Indian children are the new Asian, Kat sometimes joked.

Donny finally let go. Kat said to call her for anything, any time, and Bri nodded and assured them she would—just fucking leave already.

Is that what you want, Bri? a voice in her head asked. To be all alone? Is it really? Because if so, just wait until tonight when all the sympathizers and huggers are gone. The house will be so quiet then, so dark, even with all the lights on. Think about what you’ll want then.

Bri grabbed a wine glass and almost knocked several others off the table where Shelly had crowded Bri’s collection. All the bottles of wine stood in varying states of depletion. She should go to the liquor store to get some fresh bottles and, while she was at it, some real drinks: bourbon, scotch, vodka, tequila, whiskey. Shit that could make a difference.

A hand grabbed her elbow.

It belonged to Jacob Moore, Ward’s lawyer.

What was with all the touching? She was a widow not a damn plush toy.

His face was smooth with eyes that endlessly surveyed, always scanning for potential clients. Not yet thirty, he had risen through the ranks of some high-profile firm with meteoric speed because, as Ward had said many times, That boy’s a killer. A genuine razor-toothed shark.

“Bri,” he said and tilted his head. “I’m so very sorry.”

“Thank you, Jacob.” She wanted to tell him to shove it, though not because he was being insincere (maybe yes, maybe no), but because she was tired beyond belief of hearing how sorry everyone was, how so very sorry.

“If there’s anything—”

“Thank you.”

Unlike Fulton and Donny’s sweet aromas, Jacob’s cologne burned like something acidic.

He paused, swallowed, smiled. “There’s some things I have to review with you. Forms to sign. Things you need to know. Decisions to be made.”

“Of course,” she said, eyeing those half-filled bottles of wine.

“It won’t take long. I have the documents in my car.”

Was he serious? Did he really want her to read some legalese she wouldn’t understand and sign her name in triplicate (not to mention initial here, here, and here) so he could rest easy tonight in full confidence that the big boys at the law firm would be pleased?

“Only take a minute,” he said. That smile again—young, greedy, razor-toothed shark.

“Fuck off, Jacob,” she said.

His jaw dropped and she covered her mouth against a ripple of juvenile laughter.

“Aunt Bri?”

Endrah stood next to her. She wore a cute black dress and, as usual, she was wearing the pearls Bri had given her.

“Yes, honey?”

“I’m sorry about Uncle Ward. I’m sorry he died.”

Bri bent down to be eye-to-eye with Shelly’s nine-year-old daughter. “I know, honey,” she said. “I’m sorry too.”

Endrah’s hands went to her necklace and caressed the pearls. Bri wanted to tell her those were saltwater pearls, very expensive, not the freshwater discount pearls sold in the mall.

“Can you give your aunt a hug? She needs one.”

The little girl embraced her around the neck. She squeezed with the fierce intensity only a child can get away with. Bri collapsed into this hug as she hadn’t any of the other ten million hugs she’d endured today. I wish you were my daughter. Unlike the other times she’d had this thought, Bri suffered no stomach-knots of guilt.

“Thank you,” Bri said. “That’s just what I needed.”

Endrah smiled, fingers touching those pearls, and ran out of the room.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three: Grief Ritual, Part 2