When Melody and I got to the house, Victor was on the phone with the restaurant, talking with his head chef. I pictured Spencer standing in the gleaming, stainless steel kitchen of the Loft. He was the muscular man who’d saluted me the night Victor and I first met. During a conversation with him a few weeks later, I thought he looked more like he belonged in a wrestling arena than a restaurant, but he was actually an incredible cook, blending ingredients in a way that seemed to hypnotize customers into returning for more.
“What did you do?” I asked him once after sampling a particularly decadent cream of wild mushroom soup he’d made. “Sprinkle cocaine in this? It’s totally addictive.”
“No, ma’am,” Spencer responded with a slow smile. “Only love.” For a big man, he was soft-spoken and a little shy—the consummate gentle giant and an excellent reminder that a person’s appearance doesn’t define the truth of who they are.
“Ew,” I joked. “Don’t tell the health department that.”
Now Melody and I unloaded all the food she had prepared the night before into the commercial upright freezer we kept in our garage, keeping out one lasagna and a container of cookies for us to eat today. After that, we put the suitcases in the kids’ rooms and went to go talk with them while Victor finished his conversation with Spencer. I carried the blanket Max had requested and one of Kelli’s sweaters for Ava. When we entered the den, I saw that they were sprawled out next to each other on the curved leather sectional, still in their pajamas. Their glassy eyes were glued to the huge flat-screen across the room, but the TV was off. They were staring at nothing. Ava was loosely holding Max’s hand and seeing this unexpected act of tenderness toward her brother, I choked up again.
“Hey, guys,” Melody said, stepping over to sit down next to Ava. “I’m so, so sorry to hear about your mom.” She reached out and rubbed Ava’s arm, and Ava jerked away. Melody didn’t pull back after Ava’s reaction; instead, she drew Ava closer and gave her an enormous hug. I expected Ava to yank herself out of Melody’s arms—they’d only met a few times when Melody happened to stop by when the kids were with us for the weekend—but instead, Ava began to cry and softened into my friend’s embrace. Melody held her close, rubbed her back, and pressed her cheek into the side of Ava’s head.
Seeing this, Max leapt off the couch and threw himself at me, his skinny arms tight around my hips. I stumbled back a step, surprised by this sudden outpouring of affection, but then found my footing and dropped down to the floor and took him into a tight embrace, wrapping his mother’s blanket around him. Neither child spoke a word, but Melody looked at me, tears brimming in her eyes. Ava looked over to me, too, and saw her mother’s red sweater in my grasp. I held it out to her.
“I thought you might like to have this with you,” I said, keeping one arm around Max, who was sniffling into my shoulder.
Ava hesitated, then slowly extricated herself from Melody’s arms. She stared at her mother’s sweater, an unreadable expression on her face. “That was her favorite,” she whispered. “Dad bought it for her.”
“Then you should definitely keep it.” I smiled gently, trying to ignore the slight twist in my stomach that arose with the picture of Victor and Kelli together. In normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have bothered me, but after seeing that book in her room, I felt the tiniest bit insecure.
Ava lifted her eyes to mine, her bottom lip trembling as she took the sweater from me. “She might be coming back,” she said, her voice slightly muffled as she held it over her nose and mouth. “Maybe the hospital made a mistake.”
Max chose this moment to look up at me, his nose running, his blue eyes bright with tears. “That happens, right? I’ve seen it on TV. They think it’s the person who died, but they’re wrong.”
I gave Melody a helpless look, and she stepped in. “I wish it worked that way, honey. But the doctors are sure it was your mom. I’m sorry.” Both kids began crying again, and Melody and I held them close.
Victor rushed in from the kitchen, cell phone in hand. He stopped short when he saw us. I gave him the smallest of reassuring smiles and mouthed the words, It’s okay. He nodded but still sank to the floor behind me, wrapping his own long arms around both me and his son. He pressed his damp cheek against mine and the heat from his body enveloped me.
As Victor held us, I experienced the briefest flicker of hope that I could do this. If I could be here now, in a painful moment like this, I could be here always. Maybe I would learn how to find my way through this with the kids instead of in spite of them. Maybe being a mother wasn’t nearly as scary as I’d made it out to be.
