Within Reach

“I’ll make a note in my phone and I’ll call him before the party, okay?”

“Thank you, Auntie Angie.” Eva hugged her again. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

They returned to the kitchen with Charlie walking between them. Michael was scraping vegetables into a saucepan before adding a store-bought jar of pasta sauce.

“Can I play with the iPad, Dad?” Eva asked, already sidling toward the couch.

“Half an hour, max.”

“Okay,” Eva said, rolling over the back of the couch and down to the seat.

It was such a classic Billie move that for a moment Angie was stunned. Grief stung the back of her eyes, and for long seconds she could do nothing but stare at the floor. When she dared glance at Michael, his face was utterly expressionless, but somehow she knew that he had been equally affected by the small moment. Suddenly he looked much older than his thirty-five years—old and weary and defeated.

The impulse to go to him and simply wrap her arms around him was overwhelming, but they had never had that kind of friendship. They were comfortable and familiar with one another, yes, but they both sat toward the shy end of the personality spectrum, especially where physical stuff was concerned. Billie had been the hugger, and she’d trained Angie to first accept and then reciprocate her ready affection, but it was not a skill that had transferred easily to the other relationships in Angie’s life.

She started setting the table and after a few minutes Michael spoke up.

“Dinner’s about ten minutes away. Would you mind watching the kids for five while I grab a quick shower?”

“Of course not. Go for it.” She shooed him away.

He gave her a half smile as he left. She finished setting the table, then started on the kitchen. By the time Michael returned wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt, she’d stowed the various foodstuffs in the pantry, emptied the dishwasher and whittled the debris covering the counters down to a stack of paperwork.

Michael’s gaze flicked around the room before finding her. She tensed, worried she’d overstepped, but he simply gave her a small acknowledging nod.

“Thanks, Angie.”

Between the two of them they wrangled Charlie into his high chair. Michael cut his pasta into small pieces and let it cool before offering the bowl to his son. Charlie stabbed at the plate with his Winnie-the-Pooh cutlery, sending food flying. Michael asked Eva about her day at school and her afternoon at her friend’s, saying all the right things in response to her questions, keeping up a semblance of normality.

It was all so subdued and colorless and joyless Angie wanted to weep.

Afterward, she gave Eva the I Love NY T-shirt and lip gloss she’d picked up for her, as well as a funky pair of high-top sneakers.

“Fresh off the streets. No one else will have these for months,” she assured Eva.

“They’re so sparkly.” Eva twisted the shoes so their sequined details reflected the light.

Angie handed a plush toy hot dog to Charlie, along with a miniature version of Eva’s T-shirt. Lastly, she slid a T-shirt Michael’s way. He raised an eyebrow, obviously surprised he’d been included on the gift list.

“I saw this and thought of you,” she said by way of explanation.

He unfolded the T-shirt and read the inscription: Trust Me, I’m an Architect. He smiled his first genuine smile of the day. “Very cool.”

By eight o’clock the kids were down for the night, despite much pleading on Eva’s behalf to “stay up late because Auntie Angie is home.” A stern look and a few words in her father’s deepest tones sent Eva scurrying off to bed, leaving Angie alone with Michael.

“Sorry, my hosting skills are a little rusty. I forgot to offer you wine with dinner. There’s a bottle in the pantry if you want a glass…?” Michael asked.

“I’m good, thanks. I’m kind of detoxing after New York.”

“Lots of partying, huh?”

Again, he was saying the right things, but he wasn’t truly engaged. Rather than answer, she studied him for a long beat before starting the conversation that she owed it to Billie—and Michael and Eva and Charlie—to have. Even if it made her uncomfortable to force her way into sensitive territory.

“How are you, Michael? I mean, how are you really?”

“I’m fine. We’re all good.” He said it so automatically she knew she was getting his canned response to well-wishers and relatives.

“You don’t look good to me. You’ve lost weight, you’re living in this house like it’s a cave, you’re shuffling around like a zombie.”

His chin jerked as though she’d hit him and it took him a long time to respond. “We’re fine.”

She glanced at her hands, wondering how hard and how far to push him.

“Have you thought about going back to work early? I know you took twelve months off, but they would take you if you wanted to return early, wouldn’t they?”

The thought had occurred to her as she’d watched him prepare dinner. Most men preferred to be doing something rather than sitting around contemplating their navels.

Michael’s already stony expression became even more remote. “I took the time off for the kids. They need me to be around.”

“They need you to be a fully functioning human being first and foremost, Michael. Did it ever cross your mind that having all this time to think isn’t good for you? God knows, it would drive me crazy. If you went to work, you’d get some of your life back. Some of who you are.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Angie, but we’re all doing fine.” He stood, clearly wanting to end the discussion.

Angie hated confrontation—usually went to great lengths to avoid it—but she hated what she saw happening to Michael even more.

“You think this half life is doing any of you any good? When was the last time you left the house to do anything other than drop Eva at school or go to the supermarket? When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?”

For a moment there was so much blazing anger in his eyes that she almost shrank into her seat. She understood his anger—his wife of six years had died suddenly and brutally from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, leaving him to raise their two children alone. He’d lost his dreams, his future, the shape of his world in the space of half an hour.

But the fact remained that life went on. Michael was alive, and Billie was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Certainly living in some sort of shadow world wasn’t going to fix things or make them better.

So she stood her ground and eyed him steadily. “I know it’s hard. I think about her every day. I miss her like crazy. But you stopping living isn’t going to bring her back.”

Michael swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet space. He stared at the floor and closed his eyes, one hand lifting to pinch the bridge of his nose. She didn’t know him well enough to understand his signals—she’d only known him when he was happy, not when he was deeply grieving, and she had no map to help her navigate this difficult territory.

“If you want to talk, if you want to rage, if you need help around the house, if you want to burn it all to the ground and start again… Tell me,” Angie said. “Tell me what you need, Michael, and I will do whatever I can to make it happen.”

She held her breath, hoping she’d gotten through to him. After a moment he lifted his head.

“I need my wife back.”

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Angie’s knees were shaking. She couldn’t even remember standing, but she must have in those last few, fraught minutes.

Moving slowly, she gathered her purse and let herself out of the house. Her sandals slapped hollowly on the driveway as she walked to her car. She threw her bag onto the backseat but didn’t immediately drive away. Instead, she crossed her arms over the steering wheel and rested her forehead against them. The sadness and emptiness that never really left her welled up and her shoulders started to shake.

I miss you so much, Billie. In so many ways. I’m sorry I couldn’t help him. I’ll keep trying, but I’m not like you. I don’t have your touch with people. But I’ll keep trying, I promise.

Angie breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting for control. She’d had these moments off and on for the past ten months; she knew how to weather them. After a few minutes the shaky, lost feeling subsided, she straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A few minutes after that, she started her car and drove home.