I agreed, “Yeah, he was.” Until he ghosted me. Sometimes I hated my heart for understanding why he ghosted me. I hated that I understood grief deeper than most.
“But I don’t like the idea that he was in your apartment,” Dad said.
Uncle Landon was pouting, too. “Yeah, I don’t even know this guy.”
It was clear the men of the family had very differing feelings about Ash and me reconnecting than the women. While the girls were smiling ear to ear, Dad and Uncle Landon wore the sourest looks I’d ever witnessed.
Dad grumbled. “He was a nice boy. I don’t know what kind of man he grew into, and—”
“He’s the kind of man who saved my life, that’s the kind of man he is,” Grandma Claire said, winking in my direction.
Dad grumbled some more. “That doesn’t give him a free pass to—”
“Yes, it does!” all us women said in unison.
Uncle Landon patted Dad’s back. “We’re outnumbered, buddy.”
“Figures.”
They both continued to pout, but the girls drowned them out.
“So when are you two hanging out again?” Ellie asked.
“This coming Saturday, we are having dessert,” I replied.
Lorelai swooned and wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “I bet you two are having thesweetestdessert,” she said suggestively.
“Lorelai!” Dad and Landon barked.
I giggled to myself as Lorelai tossed her hands up in confusion. “What?! He’s hot!” she argued. “I don’t remember him being that hot before!”
Lorelai wasn’t wrong. Ash had grown in many ways. His once wild hair was tamed and groomed. His body was rock solid. The veins in his arms were very apparent when he raked his hands through his hair. His biceps looked as if they were ready to burst out of the seams of his T-shirt.
Not that I noticed.
Nope. Not at all.
The remainder of the night went on with a lot of laughter and joy, just like every Spaghetti Monday had. I smiled as I put on one of Mom’s favorite records and we continued the conversation that evening.
I hoped there was a heaven, solely so Mom could look down on us to see how we missed her every single day. And I hoped that when she heard the records, she danced, too.
42Ash
I had a bad week at work. Unfortunately, it came with the job’s territory. Some weeks were the most rewarding weeks of a person’s life. Others came with so much sadness that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I watched three people die yesterday. Then I saw two grieving mothers and an elderly woman who lost her soulmate.
You’d think being in my profession, in the city where I stayed, death would become easier to handle, but it didn’t. It simply ate at my soul. Still, I was trying my best to shake off the heavy feeling before going to see Karla. I didn’t need her to see my sadness; I wanted her to believe the lies of happiness I was trying to feed her. Since my father passed away, I’d had a lot more sad days than happy ones. The only thing that kept me going over the past few days was the fact that I had a dessert date coming up with Karla.
She made it easy to pretend I was happier than I was, and this date was something I needed.
Well, not a date-date, but a friend date. Friends. We were simply old friends.
I showed up to her place a little before eight, ready for laughter and lightness. I couldn’t do anything heavier than that. Not after the week I had.
The moment Karla opened the door, she gasped as her eyes locked with mine. “Oh no!” she said. “Are you OK?”
Did she see the heaviness in my eyes?
I narrowed my stare, trying to play it cool. “What do you mean?”
