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Even though I catch myself thinking about her now and then. I tell myself it’s the change I’m going through now that makes me so nostalgic. Everything is different, and at times like this, I feel more alone than usual.
It will blow over. It always does.
Chapter 4
Natalie
“I’m so glad you’re doing this,” Michelle says when we walk into the mall together. “It’s high time you start looking after yourself.”
She sounds just like Dianne when she says it, but I don’t comment.
“I’m still not used to having enough money to splurge,” I say instead.
“It sounds like you had a rough time before you started with us.”
I nod. It was a lot worse than either Michelle or Raven knew about. Neither of them knows how much my life has changed. It’s still difficult for me to spend money on myself frivolously, but it’s a process. Dianne keeps encouraging me to put myself first, and now and then, I take the steps to try and do it.
In the five years since David passed away, it only now feels like I’m crawling out of my shell. I’ve been moving around in a fog for so long.
“How is Kylie doing?” Michelle asks. “She has to be one of my favorite kids. Kylie and Ava feel like my own kids, sometimes. Or like family.”
Ava is Raven and Noah’s daughter, Kylie’s cousin. She lives in France and the two girls only see each other when Noah and Raven come to visit. But Michelle dotes on both of them—Michelle worked in France alongside Raven for a long time before she transferred to New York.
“She’s doing great,” I say. “She loves school and now that I get to spend more time with her, she’s really coming into her own. It’s amazing what a difference just being home more can do.”
“I know all about it,” Michelle says. “I can see the difference in how Ava is now that Noah and Raven are together and she gets to see more of her mom, too. How does Kylie cope without her father?”
I swallow hard. After all this time, it’s getting easier to talk about David and being without him, but it still catches me off guard when someone asks.
“She doesn’t remember him. She was too young. I guess it’s a blessing in disguise—she doesn’t have to worry about dealing with the grief of the physical loss of him. Sometimes, I wish she remembers him just so we could reminisce. She reminds me so much of him.”
“It’s good she doesn’t have to struggle, I agree,” Michelle says.
When I think about all the therapy I’ve been to I’m glad Kylie doesn’t struggle with it. I am sure when she is older, she will have things to process around his death, but for now, it seems okay.
“Are you going to date again?” Michelle asks. “It might be good for Kylie to have a man around.”
I shake my head. “My therapist says it’s a good idea to try, but I thought about it—that’s all she asked. I don’t think I can. I know it’s been so long since David…I just can’t do it.”
We walk into the first store and look at shoes. I need a couple of pairs of shoes—mine are almost walked through and now that I work in the fashion industry, I have to look the part.
I sit down and try on a pair of heels.
“I like those on you,” Michelle says. “Not too high, so you can wear them around the office, too.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“You really should try dating. I agree with your therapist. It will be good to crawl out of your shell.”
I smile and shake my head. “I tried that. It didn’t work out well.”
“Really?” Michelle takes a pair of boots from the shelf and tries them on. I put the heel I tried back in their box and put them aside—I’ll probably take them. Michelle hands me another pair of boots, a different color than the ones she chose.
“Tell me about it,” Michelle encourages. “Was it recent?”
“Fairly,” I admit. I hesitate, not sure if I want to share, but I decide to confide in Michelle. She’ll never judge me. I’m harder on myself than everyone else is.
When I tell Michelle about Mason, she gasps and sighs in all the right places.
