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Though things had changed nowadays. Back then, I’d be gone for hours in the summer months without my mom knowing where in the hell I was, but now kids were rarely out of their parents’ earshot anymore. When Carmen’s nephew came to live with us one year, all he wanted to do was play video games and text his friends. She’d try to push him out the door to ride his bike, but I told her to let him be. I could see how his family issues were weighing heavily on him.
I tipped my head back and guzzled half the bottle, and the cool liquid felt good going down.
A dog started barking somewhere down the street, which only caused others to follow suit. It was a busy neighborhood, which didn’t bother me the way it had Carmen. She’d always wanted to get away from the noise of the city and live someplace with more land. I actually didn’t mind our small yard so much as our style of house. I wanted a place with more character, maybe something I could help restore or remodel, maybe near Shaker Heights. Hell, I’d even consider moving to Lakewood or Rocky River on the west side if the taxes didn’t kill me. Except the joke in Cleveland was that once you were established, you didn’t cross the Cuyahoga River. There was this ridiculous rivalry based on which side of town you lived on.
My stomach tightened as I remembered that Carmen had been driving on Dead Man’s Curve heading west to meet a work friend when she was sideswiped by a truck and smashed into the concrete barrier. She died instantly. If that wasn’t enough to keep my ass firmly on this side of town, I didn’t know what was.
I’d live vicariously through my friend Delaney instead. He and his son, Grant, had some family thing at Edgewater Park today, and I remembered how pretty that drive on the Shoreway had been whenever I’d ventured that way.
When my phone buzzed with a message from the dating app I’d downloaded, I smiled even as my gut churned. We could always meet somewhere halfway.
Instead of responding, I decided to take more time to think my reply through. It was a big step. I’d originally joined out of curiosity, but I’d been too chicken to do anything about it. Until now. No one could replace Carmen. She’d been my everything. But someone different, with traits that didn’t remind me of her, might help curb my loneliness.
The two-year anniversary of Carmen’s passing had come and gone a few months back, and though it’d hurt like hell, at least I had family and friends, as well as my grief group, to cushion the blow. I’d joined it upon the recommendation from my doctor during a physical. I’d been suffering from chest pain, which turned out to be due to anxiety rather than a heart condition as I’d feared, and I’d been grateful for the advice ever since.
On the actual anniversary of her death, I’d met Carmen’s parents at the cemetery, and we’d laid flowers on her grave. Afterward, I’d headed straight to a bar on Coventry, where I’d met Delaney, who’d become my closest friend from the grief group. Over a few drinks, he let me talk his ear off about Carmen and how much I’d enjoyed being married to her. I missed the intimacy most of all, which may be the reason I was feeling pretty pent up lately.
Fuck. I rubbed my hand over my stubble, enjoying the rough feel against my fingers. I’d let my beard grow since Carmen’s death, a bit of a rebel move, I supposed, since she liked me clean-shaven. I wondered if Delaney would confess the same—his beard was shaggier than mine.
The truth was, the house was too quiet without her, which was why I worked way too much at Worthy’s Salvage Shop, the business I’d inherited from my grandfather—Marcus Worthy II—who had inherited the place from my great-grandfather. It was the first Black-owned business in the neighborhood, and I’d vowed to keep it running for that reason alone, though I also loved it.
My dad had died from a sudden heart attack when my sister and I were preschoolers, and Mom worked two jobs to keep food on the table. When I was old enough, I’d ride my bike to Worthy’s after school to help with anything Grandpa needed while my younger sister stayed with my cousins at my aunt’s house. I loved working with my hands, and over the years, I’d learned to restore all kinds of stuff that had been passed down for generations, from upholstered chairs to music boxes and even church pews.
When my grandfather had gotten too weak to keep the business afloat, I took over. I kept it old-school while also making sure things were up-to-date, with a few exceptions like the rickety cash register I couldn’t bear to part with or the shop sign that had to be a hundred years old but the customers seemed to like.
