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“Hey.” I look over my shoulder when they walk into the kitchen as I place a plate in the dishwasher. “Did you guys put away your pj’s?”
“Yes,” Luna and Rain answer at the same time.
“Brush your teeth?” They both nod in answer. “You guys get thirty minutes of iPad time.” I look over at the clock to see the time. “I’m going to finish doing the dishes and cleaning up, and then we’ll go do some back-to-school shopping.”
“Where is Grandpa?” Rain asks, looking around. “Did he leave?”
“Yeah.” I turn back to look at the running water, not sure I can take it if there is fear on their faces. The past three weeks have been a learning curve for all of us. They also still sleep in bed with me like they did the night Benji died. Baby steps, I keep telling myself, one thing at a time. Step one was getting Eddie not to come over every day. Step two will be sleeping in our own beds. “He forgot he had a golf game. So it’s just us.”
“Okay,” they both say as they sit on the couch, each of them with their iPad. I quickly finish up the dishes, controlling my breathing in and out so I don’t have a panic attack.
“I’m going to get dressed,” I tell them, jogging up the stairs to my bedroom. I make the bed and keep the kids’ pillows on it even though it doesn’t go with my bedding set, then make my way into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I look over to the other sink. I haven’t touched it since the day of the birthday party. From the day before he died.
His razor is on the side, his toothbrush tossed in front of the sink. His aftershave is down on the other side. I spit out the toothpaste and rinse my mouth before placing my toothbrush in the cabinet, ignoring the way I want to go over to his side and throw all his shit out.
Instead, I move over to my closet, grabbing a pair of light blue jeans off the hanger and sliding into them. They used to be skintight on me, but in the past three weeks, I’ve lost about fifteen pounds. I grab a white T-shirt that also fits looser than it did a couple of weeks ago. Slipping my feet into flip-flops, I walk out, turning off the closet light and looking into the dark closet in front of me.
My heart speeds up before I can even stop my feet from moving to his closet. My hand reaches out to turn on the light, but before I do it, someone asks, “Mom, is it thirty minutes?” My hand drops before I switch on the light.
“Time to go.” The hand slaps my thigh. I look at the dark closet once more before walking out of the room.
We spend the whole day at the mall, going from store to store. The entire time, I’m keeping a brave face up. The whole time trying not to think this is going to be the first year when Benji doesn’t take the kids to school in the morning. Before he started not being himself, he was the most amazing father. When he wasn’t on the road, he would drive the kids to daycare before heading to the rink.
“Do we want to grab something to eat?” I ask them when we walk out of the mall, my hands full of bags.
“Can we have pizza?” Luna asks as she steps into the SUV and buckles herself into her booster seat.
“Sure,” I say, putting all the bags into the trunk before pressing the button to close it and making our way home.
I’m almost done unloading the SUV when a car pulls up behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I see it’s Brittany. She’s married to Cole, a player who played with Benji. “Hey.” She kicks open her driver’s door before reaching over and grabbing what looks to be a baking dish from beside her. “I knew I should have called before I came over.” She gets out and closes the door with her hip. “I just thought…”
I smile at her. We have hung around together since our husbands played on the same team. Her two girls are each a year older than my girls, so they are always together when we go to the games. “This is a nice surprise.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t come by,” she says, and my stomach gets tight. Will there ever be a day when people don’t apologize to me? “But it’s summer break, so we went up to the cottage for a couple of weeks.”
“That’s okay,” I respond. “Do you want to come in?”
“I’d love to but my parents are down, so I have to get back.” She laughs. “There is only so much of my parents Cole can deal with.”
We walk up the steps to the house, and both girls are excited when they see her. She walks in like she always does and places the food down on the island. “We’re having pizza,” Luna informs her.
“Sorry.” I look over at Brittany.
“Oh, please.” Brittany shoos away with her hand. “This can freeze, and you can eat it when you want.”
We talk for a couple of minutes before her phone rings. “Sorry, I have to go.” She frowns. “But I’ll call you sometime next week to catch up.”
We walk her to the door, and once she leaves, I look at the bags. “Okay, grab your stuff and take it to your room,” I tell the girls. “I’ll order the pizza.”
The girls and I sit side by side at the island as we eat pizza, and when it’s time to take showers, they head in together. I walk back downstairs, grabbing three black garbage bags, and head upstairs to the closets. I throw them in Benji’s closet, turning and going to make sure the girls are okay.
I wrap them both in towels. “Get your pj’s on, and we’ll put a movie on,” I tell them, knowing they will probably fall asleep midway through. It takes thirty-five minutes before the girls are out, and I’m a pack of nerves the whole time.
I sneak out of the room; my only thought is getting through this mission. “I will not waste away,” I whisper once I’m in front of the closet. Standing here, my whole body practically trembling, I lift my hand and flick on the light. I didn’t even come in here when the funeral home needed a suit. Eddie did. I inhale, smelling him. At the same time, my heart comes up to my throat, and I think I’m going to be sick.
I quickly put my hands on my knees, trying not to hyperventilate but failing miserably. “You can do this.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I look over, ignoring the wetness on my face. I walk over to the suits hanging on the side. So many suits, but they all look the same to me. I reach my hand up to touch the sleeve, slowly slipping it off the hanger. The silk inside the jacket slides through my hand and lands on the floor on my feet. The little plastic bag slips out from the inside pocket, right where his name is embroidered. Two white pills. My hands shake like a leaf on a tree in the middle of a windstorm. I pick it up, holding it in my hands.
“You chose this over your girls,” I say out loud, the sadness I felt not too long ago turning into anger. So much fucking anger, I walk over to another suit and rip it off its hanger, the hanger swinging back and forth as I search the pockets finding it empty, tossing it onto the floor with the first one. I move from one suit to the next until all his suit jackets puddle around my feet, and I hold twenty-seven little plastic baggies. I move from the suits, walking over to the T-shirts. Throwing them all on the floor, I look for more. His jeans are the next to go, finding more fucking bags, but this time with cocaine in them. Every single piece of clothing he had in that closet is now on the floor.
