Page 41 of The Wilder Widows

“Alice! You’re kidding?” Sylvie dissolved into laughter.

“Why would I be kidding? If Doris isn’t going to climb him like a jungle gym, one of us certainly should.”

“Alice! You’re terrible!” I shouldn’t have been shocked, but once again, she managed to drop my jaw.

“You only live once. Time you started embracing that as well, Doris. Not with one-night stands like I do but relinquishing your life to nothing but knitting isn’t living. Marge is right. It’s time to open yourself up to the possibilities.”

“Possibilities.” I let my gaze drift over the bright flowers peeking out of the ground. For a moment I wondered if it was possible, like those flowers, perhaps I could bloom again. “I never thought much about those. I was the oldest of four girls, and I spent most of my childhood babysitting and raising my sisters. Both of my parents worked, and I enjoyed taking care of them, so motherhood was a natural choice for me. But I knew when I had children of my own, I didn’t want to be away at work all day like my mother. I wanted to be home with them and enjoying every second of their youths. Teaching them and loving them. Knowing this, I never thought about college or other possibilities. I married Harold two months after graduation and started having babies the following year. That was the life I wanted, and it’s exactly the life I got. And I don’t regret one second of it.”

“But that was then,” Sylvie said. “This is now. This is the second part of your life, and you need to just be open to more. Your children are gone. Your husband is gone. You deserve to find a new kind of happiness.”

Despite Sylvie’s good intentions, being reminded that I had nothing left felt like a slap across the face. But they were gone—all of them. And even though I missed them all, I was glad my children had found their own lives. Each had gone to college, and then they had all gone off in different directions. Katie, my oldest, lived in Orlando and was happily married with two grown children and a job she loved. Abbie got a job in wine sales and traveled the world. Cindy graduated college with her high school sweetheart and followed in my footsteps as a stay-at-home mom, and they had two beautiful boys. Joe got a job as an executive in New York and lived a big life in publishing. Peter met a sweet southern girl and moved to Atlanta to marry her, and now they have one little one just under a year old. And then my youngest, Lizzie. Always the free spirit, she finished college and ever since just swung from job to job, and boyfriend to boyfriend. Each one happy in their own lives, and each one far removed from mine.

Picturing them living their best lives caused me to smile, as it often did, but then the sadness of missing them pulled my lips back down. I was alone.

“So, if you aren’t going to find yourself a young Parisian lover, what exactly is your wish, Doris?” Marge asked.

What was my wish? Even though I didn’t remember writing it, apparently a hootie was my deepest desire. But sleeping with a man I didn’t love wasn’t something I could do. No. The real wish I had was impossible. “To travel back in time and be a wife and mother again. To be needed again.”

That was it—what was missing in my life. No one needed me anymore. Even as a child, my mother needed me to help care for the younger children. Then I married Harold, and I got to take care of him. Cooking, cleaning, and making sure he could relax when he came home from a long day of work. And then my children. Each of them needed me. To be a mom. A chauffeur. A cook. A shoulder to cry. A hand to hold. And then, one by one, they each let go, each found their own way until it was just Harold left to take care of. And even that fulfilled me. Being a wife. But then... I was alone. No one needed me anymore.

“Oh, Doris.” Sylvie slung an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in tight, causing the tears to slip past my heavy lids.

“I miss being needed.”

“We need you.” Marge closed an arm around my other shoulder, and the two of them sandwiched me with their warmth.

“No, you don’t.” I swiped away a tear. “No one needs me.”

“Don’t need you?” Marge squeezed. “If it weren’t for you, who would pester us to get together for our Wilder Widow meetings? Without you, we never would have met.”

My loneliness sent me to Marge’s door a year after Harold died. I’d heard her own husband had passed away and, while I felt sad she was suffering from the loss, deep down, I was thrilled to have another widow to spend time with. Someone I could share all my new knowledge with. Someone who would maybe need me. I’d baked a batch of muffins and showed up on her doorstep that day, much like I’d done with Alice a couple years after that, and now Sylvie.

“And the muffins!” Sylvie grinned. “We need your muffins. There isn’t anyone on the planet who can bake like you do.”

Sniffling, I nodded. “They are really good muffins.”

Alice stepped to Sylvie’s side and reached her long arm around us both, increasing the pressure surrounding me. “I would be lost without you, Doris.”

“And I would be lost without all of you. I’m sorry I’m always forcing you all to get together and knit with me. It’s just that... I’m so lonely.”

“Stop apologizing,” Alice said. “We may grumble about it, but I, for one, love our Wilder Widows times together.”

“Me too,” Marge agreed.

“Me three.” Sylvie smiled. “And look at where this little group you put together has taken us. We’re in Paris, ladies!”

A heavy sigh lifted my shoulders, and I exhaled some of my sadness. “I love you, ladies. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Nor us without you.” Alice squeezed my hand. “But you still need to pick a wish, Doris.”

“Can’t ‘Go to Paris’ just be the wish?” I asked while we continued sauntering along.

“No,” they mirrored.

“Your wish has to be wild. We’re the Wilder Widows, after all! And we all know what your true wish is.” Alice arched a brow.

“Don’t start that up again! I’m not having sex with a stranger!”