“Neither do I,” I reply with a laugh, and I feel a deep and soulful understanding between us. We both know what it means to love and lose someone but to somehow find the strength to keep on living. “Text me when you’re heading out?”

“I will.”

With that, he gets into his car and drives off.

I go inside the house to find my mother on the sofa, acting nonchalant, waiting to hear everything. It’s kind of like being in high school again, and I revel in the afterglow of my first date in over twenty years.

I kick off my shoes, sit down beside her, and tell her about my evening.

“He really does seem like a wonderful man,” Mom says. “And he’s not hard on the eyes either.”

I laugh, and we watch TV in silence for a few minutes. Then I turn to her again.

“Mom, why didn’t you ever remarry after Dad died? Did you ever think about it?”

She considers my question with a sigh. “Oh, looking back on it, I think I probably worshipped your father too much. I figured that I’d already had the best. Anything else would have been a disappointment.” She waves a hand through the air. “And I was far too romantic about my grief as a widow. I thought it would be disloyal if I was ever with someone else—like I was cheating on your father, because I’d vowed to love him forever.” She turns her gaze back to the TV. “I still do love him, but I’ve been alone for more than twenty years, and sometimes I regret that I didn’t find someone to spend the rest of my life with. It would have been nice to have a partner and go traveling. I always wanted to see Venice. I might have, if I’d had someone.”

“I’ll go to Venice with you,” I tell her. “Just say the word, and we’re there.”

She turns to me and smiles. “That’s good to know. I’ll file that offer away.”

We gaze back at the TV again. “Rome would be pretty amazing too,” I mention.

“For sure.”

“Let’s think about it.”

“Okay,” she replies. “We’ll do that.”

Over the next few days, I spend time with Nathan, his girls, and the dogs. On Thursday evening, he invites me to watch Jen’s basketball game at the junior high school, and then we all go out for supper. The weather is crisp and sunny on Friday, so we take the dogs for another walk along the nature trails at the Ovens Natural Park, where we gaze in awe at the breathtaking sea caves in the cliffs.

All the while, I feel comfortable around Nathan, and my physical attraction to him grows more intense with each passing hour. As we stand at the rail, peering into Cannon Cave and listening to the tremendous boom of the waves as they explode onto the rocks inside the cavern, I find myself imagining what it would feel like to kiss Nathan again—to really kiss him, and not just on the cheek. I’m dying to find out, and I’m surprised that I’m not more fearful of those emotions. Maybe I’m closer to being ready than I think I am.

I suppose my understanding that life can end in the blink of an eye and should therefore be lived to the fullest trumps my fears.

When Zack flies home from Ontario, I drive to the airport to meet him, and the moment I see him coming down the escalator with his backpack slung over one shoulder, looking grown-up and happy, I feel a motherly pride that overtakes me. He smiles, and we come together for the best hug of my life. We embrace and rock back and forth with love for the longest time. There are still tears in my eyes as we leave the airport and get into the car.

He fills me in on residence life and his classes, and I’m thrilled to hear how much he’s enjoying his education at Western.

“You made the right choice,” I say, reaching across the console to squeeze his hand. “I’m so happy for you.”

When we arrive at my mother’s place, he gets another bear hug from her, and then the food comes out. Mom offers him a chicken sandwich and cookies and anything else his heart desires.

“It feels good to be home,” he says to me with a smile from across the kitchen table as he devours a coconut macaroon.

I reach for his hand again. “It’s good to have you here.”

Winston trots over to rest his chin on Zack’s lap, and Zack feeds him the last bite of his cookie.

Thanksgiving dinner is not quite as joyful as the first day of our reunion. It’s difficult with only the three of us—Zack, Mom, and me. The house feels quiet and somber compared to other years when Alan carved the turkey at the head of the table and made us laugh when the juices splattered all over the tablecloth.

Today, I find myself thinking about all our family traditions, the good times when Zack was small, and I miss the laughter. I know Zack is having similar thoughts as we eat dinner and struggle to talk about things that don’t remind us of what used to be.

After dinner, he seeks me out in the kitchen, where I’m loading the dishwasher. “Mom, do you think we could go to the cemetery today?”

My stomach clenches. I turn to face him, but I can’t seem to find words because I don’t want to go to the cemetery. Not today. I’ve had such a good week, finally feeling as if I’m moving on.

Besides that, I’m not sure how easy it will be to pay my respects at Alan’s grave, to show reverence when I haven’t yet been able to forgive him and I’m not sure I ever will. I’ve kept up the pretense all year, but I’m running out of energy in that area. I’m afraid I’m just not that good of an actress and one of these days I’ll accidentally let down my guard and Zack will see through me.

Zack frowns. “Come on, Mom. It’s Thanksgiving. I think we should lay some flowers or something.”

I turn away, close the dishwasher door, and press the start button. “That’s a wonderful idea,” I say, with my back to him. “We can snip some hydrangeas from the backyard.”

“I’ll get my jacket,” Zack replies.

As soon as he’s gone from the kitchen, I take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds, steeling myself, because this has to happen. I need to go to the cemetery and grieve for my late husband. For my son’s sake, if not for mine.

Twenty minutes later, Zack and I are standing at Alan’s grave, looking down at the headstone in silence. Zack lays the white flowers on top and steps back.

“Mom,” he says without looking at me. “I know you’re mad at him.”

The lining of my stomach feels like it might catch fire.

He turns to me. “You’re trying to hide it from me, but I can see it, and I get it. It’s Dad’s fault you had the accident, and that’s why you have sleep issues now, and it’s why you had to give up being a surgeon. I’m mad at him too, but he never meant for any of that to happen. I mean . . . you have to give him a break, Mom. I agree that he was an idiot for getting behind the wheel that night, for sure, but he just found out he had cancer. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

I shake my head. “He was more than an idiot, Zack.” I’m half tempted to let it all come spilling out, but I bite my tongue and do what I always do—gloss over the real truth. “He drove drunk. He broke the law. There’s never any excuse for that. I’ll probably always be angry about what he did. Besides, even without that, it’s complicated.”

Stop, Abbie. Don’t say anything more.

“No, it’s not. You loved each other, but now it seems like you’re forgetting all the good times we had. You never want to talk about him.”

It’s true. I haven’t wanted to talk about Alan lately. Not with Zack.

He stares down at the gravestone. “Despite what happened, I’m glad that he was my dad, and I’ll never stop loving him, no matter what he did.”

I feel a bit sick because I’m not sure what to say. Part of me wants to grasp this opening, to confide in my son once and for all so that I won’t feel like a pressure cooker anymore. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? I don’t want to spoil all those happy memories that are such a comfort to Zack just to let off my own steam. He’s so sure of himself and his feelings right now. I don’t want to destroy that.

“You guys were the best parents ever,” he continues, “and I’m so lucky, because a lot of my friends never had what we had. Their parents hated each other, and they fought all the time, or they got divorced. At least we had a happy home.” Zack pinches the bridge of his nose. “I know he wasn’t perfect, Mom. He made a really bad mistake. But he loved us.”

I stare down at the gravestone and think of Alan in his coffin under the ground, and I have to admit to myself that Zack is right, in some ways. Alan may have been cheating on me, and he committed a terrible crime by driving under the influence, but he did love us. If he didn’t, he would have left me for Paula a long time ago, or he wouldn’t have tried to end it with her when he found out he was dying.

For the first time in almost a year, my anger over Alan’s infidelity isn’t at the top of my mind, maybe because Alan has already suffered the worst possible punishment. He’s dead now. He’s six feet under. He’ll never see his son graduate from university or get married, and he’ll never hold his future grandchildren. He’ll never again enjoy the fragrance of fresh spring rain or a full-bodied wine or the delicious aroma of coffee in the morning. He’ll never see another sunrise.

Alan knew he was dying. I wonder if he wished he could have just one more day to make everything right when they pulled him out of the wreck. Would he have confessed his affair to me after finally putting an end to it? Or was he traveling to Lunenburg that night to be with the woman he truly wanted? Was the guilt too much to bear?

I’ll never know, and that’s what has been ripping at my insides since the day I found out about his affair.

Suddenly I’m on my hands and knees, weeping over my husband’s grave and wishing he hadn’t been taken from us. Maybe there was a chance he and I could have worked everything out and grown stronger through the hard times. I don’t know.