“Ben.”
Cara said the name so softly that for a second I thought I had imagined it.
Her hand was still wrapped around mine.
On the memorial screen behind the speaker was a young firefighter in dress uniform, smiling with the loose confidence of someone who had no idea a photograph of him would one day make an entire ballroom go quiet.
Cara swallowed.
“That’s Ben.
My fiancé.”
I turned from the screen to her.
Everything about the awkward blind date suddenly rearranged itself.
The tiredness I had noticed in her eyes.
The way she had reacted when I joked about our bosses interfering in our lives.
The way she had laughed freely and then seemed almost surprised by her own laughter.
“He died four years ago,” she said.
“A fire in Dorchester.”
There was nothing useful to say to that.
Firefighters become skilled at talking during emergencies.
We can give orders through smoke, calm terrified strangers, tell someone exactly where to put a hand or foot when every instinct in them is screaming to run.
Grief is different.
Grief makes almost every sentence sound inadequate.
So I did not tell her everything happened for a reason.
I did not tell her Ben would want her to be happy.
I did not tell her four years was a long time.
I just tightened my hand around hers.
“I’m sorry, Cara.”
Her eyes stayed on the screen.
“People don’t know what to do with it anymore,” she whispered.
“At first everyone understands.
Then a year passes.
Then two.
Eventually they start looking at you like you missed a deadline.”
That sentence hit me harder than I expected.
Because I knew exactly what she meant.
I had heard different versions of it for two years.
You’re still young, Tyler.
Jennifer would want you to live.
You can’t work every holiday forever.
Have you thought about meeting someone?
People usually meant well.
That almost made it worse.
Their kindness came with an invisible calendar I had apparently failed to follow.
I looked at Cara and said the thing I had barely said aloud to anyone.
“My wife died two years ago.”
She finally turned toward me.
“Your wife?”
“Jennifer.
Two years and four months.
Sudden cardiac arrest.”
I glanced toward the ballroom doors as if the memory might be standing there.
“She was taken to Boston Memorial.
I got there too late.”
Cara’s expression changed immediately.
Not pity.
Recognition.
“Tyler…”
“That’s why I froze when you said where you worked.”
She nodded once.
