Within Reach

* * *

MICHAEL STOOD ON THE DECK, breathing in the cool night air. Trying to calm himself.

Angie was so far out of line it wasn’t funny. While she’d been off drinking mojitos or cosmos or whatever the cool drink was these days in New York, he’d been staring his new reality in the face. She had no idea how he felt, no clue what he went through every frickin’ day.

The moment the thought crossed his mind his innate sense of fairness kicked in. She may have been in New York for six weeks, but before that Angie had been a rock, standing by his side and doing anything and everything she could to make things bearable after Billie’s death. More important, Angie understood more than anyone what losing Billie had meant to him, to his life. She and Billie had been more like sisters than friends. They had finished each other’s sentences, said the honest thing when it needed to be said and been each other’s best cheerleaders. Angie was trying to piece her life together, too. Trying to work out how to live in a post-Billie world.

That still didn’t give her the right to critique his life. It definitely didn’t give her the right to tell him he was a zombie or that he was living a half life or to tell him what his kids needed.

When was the last time you did something because you wanted to rather than because you had to?

He ground his teeth together, wishing he could expunge her words from his mind. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to lift his head and look around and see that life was going on around him. He wanted…

He wanted the impossible. Billie, with her huge smile and her even huger heart. He wanted her laughter echoing in the house again. He wanted to wake up in the morning and turn his head and find her lying next to him instead of an empty pillow. He wanted to kiss her lips and smell her perfume. He wanted to lie in bed and have her press her cold feet against his calves to warm them.

He wanted. And his want was never going to be satisfied because his wife’s aorta had dissected as a result of high blood pressure, a catastrophic cardiac incident that had meant she was dead before they reached the hospital. Billie was dead and gone, turned to dust. All he had left were the children they had made together and his memories and the house she’d turned into a home for them all.

Not nearly enough.

He sank to the deck, pulling his knees loosely toward his chest. It was cold, but he wasn’t ready to go in yet. Angie had stirred him up too much.

He stared into the darkness, aware, as always, of the silence within the walls behind him. Billie had been the noisiest person he knew. She’d hummed when she washed the dishes, sung in the shower, galloped around the house. Getting used to the new quiet had been but one of many small, painful adjustments he’d had to make over the past ten months.

He exhaled, watching his breath turn to mist in the air.

“Daddy?”

He glanced over his shoulder. Eva stood in the sliding doorway to his bedroom wearing nothing but her nightie, her arms wrapped around her body.

“You shouldn’t be out here. It’s too cold.” He pushed himself to his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“I could ask you the same question. You’ve got school tomorrow.” He laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her around and guiding her to her bedroom.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

They entered her bedroom and she walked dutifully to her bed and slipped beneath the duvet. “Can you tell me a story?”

“You need to sleep, Eva.”

His daughter was a night owl and a master of distraction and procrastination. If he let her, she’d be up half the night, demanding stories and anything else to delay putting her head on her pillow.

“Oh, all right.” Her tone was hard done by and world-weary and he couldn’t help but smile.

He kissed her forehead. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

He pulled the quilt up so that it covered her shoulders. He started to straighten, but Eva’s hand shot out and caught a hold of his sweatshirt.

“You won’t forget about Imogen’s party, will you, like you forgot about the movies and roller skating?” she asked, her eyes fixed on his face.

He frowned. “What movie?”

“You said you’d take me to see Miley Cyrus’s new movie. Just like you said you’d take me skating with my class.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her he didn’t know what she was talking about—then suddenly the memory was there, clear as day. Eva, cajoling and pleading, her hands pressed together as though in prayer, promising to do all her chores on time without him having to ask if he would please, please, please take her to the movies. He’d said yes, unable to deny her anything that might give her pleasure.

Then he’d forgotten to follow through on his commitment.

They need you to be a fully functioning human being first and foremost, Michael.

Guilty heat rose up his neck and into his face as Angie’s words echoed in his mind. He’d been too busy being defensive and pissy to actually listen to what she’d said, but it was impossible to ignore the anxiety in his daughter’s big brown eyes now.

“I’m sorry I forgot, sweetheart. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“I know, Daddy. You miss Mummy, don’t you?”

“I do. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to let you down. I promise I won’t forget Imogen’s party, all right? We’ll put it on the calendar.”

“I asked Auntie Angie to remind you, too.”

Michael winced inwardly. No wonder Angie had felt compelled to say something.

“Good idea. And maybe we could catch that movie this weekend.”

“It’s not on anymore.”

“Then we’ll watch it when it comes out on DVD. Make a night of it with popcorn and everything. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

He kissed her forehead again and waited till she’d snuggled beneath the quilt before leaving the room.

He made his way to his bedroom and sat on the end of his bed. He scrubbed his face with his hands, exhausted. A perpetual state since Billie’s death. He thought about what Angie had said and Eva’s anxiety.

He needed to get his shit together.

It had been ten months since Billie had died and he needed to stop simply surviving and start living again—if not for his own sake, then for the kids. Because forgetting the Miley Cyrus movie hadn’t been his first screwup.

Only last week, he’d woken up, pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, then made Eva’s lunch and set her backpack by the front door, ready for the school run. He’d gotten her out of bed and into her uniform, strapped Charlie into the car. All part of their morning routine, a routine he did without thinking about it, day in, day out. It was only when he’d been backing out of the drive and the news had come on the radio that he’d realized it was a Saturday.

No doubt if he cared to sift through the past few months, he’d be able to find dozens of similar examples. What had Angie called it? A half life.

Highly appropriate, since he felt like half a person. As though he’d lost some essential part of himself when he’d lost Billie. He’d always been too quiet, too introverted, too inclined to get lost in his own head and his work, but Billie had dragged him into the world and made him engage and taught him to live as though he meant it. As though every moment counted.

But Billie was gone. And he was not, and the kids were not.

Life went on.