Rebecca’s eyes were on Morgan and Katie. “Did you ever want to have more than one child? Sometimes I feel like Morgan is an only child, she and my older daughter are at such different stages.”

“I definitely wanted more than one,” said Sherri. She had wanted four children, but Bobby said only one. Too much noise made him twitchy; chaos threw him off. He liked everything just so in the house, and even Katie’s possessions, her shoes tossed here and there, sometimes put him over the edge. For a criminal, he was very fastidious. Or maybe all criminals were fastidious. Sherri had never surveyed the other wives about that in particular. Though some of them volunteered marital secrets without being asked for them, so Sherri knew more than she wanted to know about, for example, Tony Cancio and the toe fetish. She wished she could un-know that one.

Maybe it was the alcoholic seltzer talking, or maybe it was the beauty of the summer day, lulling her into an unwarranted state of complacency. Sherri felt, almost, like Rebecca was someone she could confide in. That was a dangerous feeling, and it had to be stopped at all costs. There was no person anywhere Sherri could confide in. She cast about for a change in subject, and her eyes caught on Rebecca’s wedding ring. “What did you say your husband does?” asked Sherri.

“He’s gone,” said Rebecca. She twisted her wedding ring.

“Like, for good?” Sherri asked. Absconded? A deserter?

“He died,” said Rebecca. “Eighteen months ago.”

13.

Rebecca

Rebecca had it down to a brief explanation, like a school report with a time limit. “He had a ruptured brain aneurysm at Logan airport, after a flight from Dubai. He managed a contracting company and he was in charge of a long-term project there. He was completely healthy. It came from out of nowhere; it was a huge shock.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Sherri. “Really? I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” The dichotomy between the bright, hot day and this news of a death would probably make Sherri clam up. Rebecca was always doing that, she felt—injecting her tragedy into someone else’s sunshine.

She lifted her eyes to meet Sherri’s and said, “How would you have known? We just met. It’s a perfectly normal question.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sherri repeated. “I can’t even imagine. I thought my situation was hard.”

“Your divorce,” said Rebecca.

“Yes,” said Sherri. “My divorce. And the move. But all of that pales in comparison to this—I can’t even imagine.” She paused. “It must help, to have so many friends around, for you, and Morgan too. People seem really nice. The other day, Katie was invited to Brooke’s house to swim with Taylor.”

“Oh, Brooke,” said Rebecca, rolling her eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Rebecca. “Brooke’s great. Everybody’s great. When it first happened people were so supportive. So supportive. Casseroles, carpools, the whole bit.” She rummaged in the cooler and cracked a second seltzer, offering one first to Sherri, who shook her head. “I just feel like we’ve come to the end of our time limit. Like we had six months, maybe a year, to get through it and then everyone expected that we’d all be back to normal. But we’re not normal. I don’t think we’ll ever be ‘normal’ again.” She made little air quotes around the word normal. “Mourning isn’t a quick process.”

“No,” said Sherri decisively. “It isn’t.” She said that like someone who knew, and that felt to Rebecca like an unexpected kindness, like a cool hand laid against a hot cheek.

The first twelve months after Peter’s death had been a nest of confusion and anxiety, both of these coupled with a bone-deep, mind-numbing fatigue that nothing seemed to help. Rebecca could get nine hours of sleep, or four, or none at all, and in all cases she dragged herself through her days, especially at school, going through the motions of “getting back to normal” while wondering where she could find a quiet corner in which to lie down, and close her eyes, and forget, and remember.

Her friends were wonderful for the first three months, caring enough for the next three, and after that point she began to sense their fatigue with her fatigue. Oh, they tried to hide it! But she was starting to drain their emotional reserves. They were ready to have the old Rebecca back: they were ready for her to move on.

Rebecca had decided that she would never move on. She wouldn’t Tinder or Match or Zoosk or Bumble. She wouldn’t swipe left or right. She wouldn’t accept the invitations of her friends when they asked if she wanted to come to a barbecue where there might be a recently divorced man from North Andover who was “definitely looking.” (Looking for what, specifically? Rebecca wanted to ask, but didn’t.) Rebecca had had two chances at love, first with Alexa’s father and then with Peter, and look what had happened. She’d used up all of her turns. Happily ever after was not in the cards for her.

As the one-year anniversary approached, Rebecca’s therapist suggested she try a grief support group in Haverhill. She gave Rebecca a printed list of options. Rebecca liked the therapist, and she retained some of her old schoolgirl eagerness to please. She took the list, and she promised she’d go.

She walked into the first meeting and saw a half dozen people sitting in a semicircle. She saw a man at the snack table who looked vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t place him. He was looking at her in the same I-think-I-know-you way. She nodded, and he nodded, and together they perused the tray of store-bought cookies. Rebecca wasn’t surprised to find cookies: she had learned that when people didn’t know what to do with your grief they settled on feeding you.