Page 56 of It's a Widow Thing

“It is. It’s also fucking terrifying.”

Lucy nodded slowly, taking it all in. “Maybe you should ask what your widow group thinks. You have your meeting tonight, right? They always seem to have good advice.”

“Yeah.” She glanced at her phone. “I actually need to leave soon. Although I feel a little like I’m running to Mom with boyfriend problems. It seems like I should have this figured out by now.”

“Does anyone ever completely figure out love? I mean, isn’t uncertainty baked into the equation?”

Now it was Sabrina’s turn to freeze as Lucy’s words tumbled around in her head. “I suppose you’re right.”

Lucy patted Sabrina on the shoulder. “You’ll figure things out. You always do.”

Sabrina helped Lucy close up the shop, then headed straight for Orla’s and the meeting. In the cab on the way there, she let the blur of the city occupy her mind. She needed a break from so much intense thinking.

She arrived at Orla’s door a few minutes early. “I know it’s not time for our meeting yet, but I was hoping you might have a minute or two for me. I could use a sympathetic ear.”

Orla stepped aside to let Sabrina in. “Actually, everyone’s already here. Kendra told us all what’s going on. She thought you might need some extra support.”

“Wow. Okay.” Sabrina felt a bit like the cavalry had come to her rescue. “That’s great.”

“Can I get you a glass of wine?” Orla asked as Sabrina removed her coat.

“You know, as good as that sounds, I think I need to keep my thinking as straight as humanly possible.”

Kendra was standing in the doorway of Orla’s living room, her head knocked to one side. “So? How are we holding up?”

“Okay. But I have a lot to catch you guys up on.” Sabrina walked into the room where Leticia, Aurora, and Daisy were waiting.

“Kendra told us about Michael’s heart attack,” Leticia said, her eyes wide and expectant. “Is he okay?”

“I think we also need to know ifyou’reokay,” Daisy added. “It sounds like you’ve been through the wringer.”

“We’re both hanging in there. Thank you for asking.” Sabrina plopped down in her seat next to Kendra and started in on the one thing she knew these women would understand—the part where it all became about life and death. She told them about the moment she realized what was really happening. “It was like a switch was flipped. I just sprang into action. All I cared about was making sure he was okay.”

The widows nodded. They knew. Good God, they knew.

She told them about pulling over and getting to the hospital. She painted a picture of the scene in the E.R. “The adrenaline started pumping and that was enough to get me through it, even when I was scared to death. But the second they took him back to open the blockage, it all hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“The weight of what was happening?” Orla asked.

“Yes. What could be waiting on the other side of all of that. Loss.”

“I understand what you’re saying. And believe me, we have all been there in one way or another. But that’s not necessarily true in Michael’s case.” Kendra reached over and grasped Sabrina’s forearm. “He’s a very healthy guy. Millions of people live with what he’s living with. And for a very long time.”

Sabrina held up her hand. She appreciated the reassurance, but there was more she needed to get off her chest. “I know. You’re right. But I think that the hardest part of becoming a widow was having my eyes opened to the reality. That eventually, we all lose someone we really, truly love.” She sucked in a breath as the tears started to slowly roll down her cheeks. “When I was with Andrew, and everything was new and we were happy, I had every reason to believe that it would go on forever. It was what we told each other. I would tell him that I would always love him. And he told me the same. But then the end came and that went away.”

The other women didn’t say anything at first. They simply nodded again. That was such a huge part of what Sabrina loved about this group. They got it. On a molecular level. When she’d lost Andrew, lots of people told her that they knew how she felt. But this group of women understood that no one could fully understand another person’s grief. Every loss was different. Maybe you loved the person deeply, but things had been rough. Maybe you’d stayed together for the kids or because your mom liked them. Maybe you were able to say goodbye. Maybe you weren’t. Maybe you’d had a fight that morning. Maybe you’d just made love. Those moments—good and bad—were all portals into a reality no one could understand until they arrived.

“It’s true. It’s so, so true,” Kendra said.

Sabrina swallowed hard, wiping away tears and trying to compose herself. “Michael told me this weekend that he loves me. While he was having chest pains. Like I’m seriously wondering if it gave him a heart attack.”

“What did you say?” Aurora asked.

“I focused on the problem at hand. I didn’t worry about his words. And then the minute the doctors and nurses took over, I had this realization that I love him, too. But I didn’t say anything because I was worried that I was working with flawed logic. That my brain was telling me that if I just said that I loved him, it would save him.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Sabrina,” Orla said. “I think your brain and your heart already know more than well enough that love wouldn’t be enough to save him.”

“Yeah. I guess. I never thought of it that way.” Sabrina sighed as she wrapped her head around that. It was true. She was painfully aware of that fact. “Here’s the other issue. The thing that’s really bothering me. There’s still a part of me that feels like I’m betraying Andrew by being in love with someone else. When is the guilt ever going to go away?”