“Yes, but . . . are you sure? I don’t want to be accused of stalking.”
“It’s okay. Besides, I just this minute remembered that I forgot to give Monica the sixteen dollars I owe you.”
“Yeah, well. I didn’t want to say anything but . . .” He coughed deliberately, then grinned.
Smiling, I walked up to the checkout register. “Two medium drip of the day.” I turned to Luke. “How do you take it?”
“Black with three sugars.”
“Three?”
“Don’t judge.”
I ordered two oatmeal cookies in addition to the coffee. When we sat down at a table near the window, I handed one cookie to Luke, then took the other for myself and broke it in half, wrapping the leftover piece in a napkin. It wasn’t until I slipped it into my purse that I felt Luke’s eyes on me.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what? Oh, this?” I asked, glancing at the cookie half. “It’s kind of a habit. I was overweight growing up, really fat and completely miserable. I tried dieting, but it just didn’t work for me. I love to eat too much. Cutting out my favorite foods wasn’t a realistic option for me, but portion control was. When I ate out, I started dividing everything I ate in half, saving the rest for another meal. That, along with the addition of regular walking and a few more green vegetables, did the trick.”
“You didn’t cut the portions in half at The Fish House. You ate everything. In fact, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I was kind of impressed. I’d never seen anyone eat that many oysters.”
“Oh, well. Oysters are kind of a weakness of mine.” I broke a corner off my cookie. “That along with everything else. No kidding, I really do love to eat. Most of the time I work hard not to overdo it. But The Fish House was an exception, a special occasion.”
Luke lifted his brows. “Yeah? What was so special?”
“Monica was paying.”
Luke’s laugh was more like a deep bark, a cross between an enthusiastic seal and a big dog.
“I’m sorry,” he said when I didn’t join in.
“Don’t be,” I said, forcing a smile. “I meant it to be funny.”
Luke sipped his coffee. “So . . . how are you holding up?”
“I’m fine. Really,” I said, responding to his doubtful look. “Nan came to the funeral. That helped a lot.”
“She’s your other support group buddy, right? Monica has talked about her. She sounds pretty cool.”
“She is,” I confirmed. “And she’s more than a buddy, she’s my friend. I’m not sure that I understood what being a friend really meant, and how important it is to have them, until now. Nan’s husband was killed in a plane crash, so she’s terrified of flying. She flew all the way out to Minnesota anyway, because she thought I might need her. Turns out I did, even more than I knew.
“But, that’s Nan. She’s so tuned in, so wise. She’d hate hearing me say that, but it’s true. And it’s not just because she’s older. Nan and my mom are about the same age, but my mom—” I shook my head. “Well, let’s just say that age and wisdom don’t necessarily go hand in hand. But Nan seems to know what I need almost before I do. She never talks at me or lectures. Sometimes she asks questions, but mostly she just listens. And yet, without saying a word, she’s able to make me understand where I’m going wrong.”
“She sounds like more than your friend. She almost sounds like your guru.”
“Oh, she’d really hate hearing that,” I said, smiling. “But you might be right. Anyway, it was so good to look up and see her there. It helped a lot. And the funeral did, too, in a way, hearing everybody tell their Jamie stories. It was good to know that other people have good memories of him too.
“But,” I sighed, “it’s good to be home. This has been such a long road.”
“I was surprised when Monica said you were going back to work already,” Luke said. “You sure you don’t need some time?”
“Time for what? To sit home and be miserable? It’s better to keep busy, you know? Get back into a routine.”
I bit into my cookie. It tasted like sawdust, sawdust and raisins.
“Hey, do you have the time? Gavin’s at an off-site meeting, but I shouldn’t stay away from the office too long.”
Luke frowned. “You still didn’t get a new battery for your watch?”
I opened my mouth and started to make up a story, a lie, but I just didn’t have the energy for it, or the inclination. I didn’t want to lie to Luke.
And, for some reason, I wanted him to know the story. I wanted him to understand.
“It’s not the batteries. It’s broken. Jamie gave me this watch, an anniversary present, when we went on our last camping trip together, hiking in the North Cascades. It was drizzling when we started out in the morning, but the rain wasn’t that bad. We’d seen worse. But, after we stopped for lunch, it really began to pour. And the wind was blowing so hard, it sounded like a freight train. I’d never seen rain like that. We decided it was too dangerous to keep going, so we turned around, started back down the mountain. But about halfway down, I slipped and fell over a steep embankment and twisted my ankle. Jamie climbed down to get me. I told him not to, that I thought I could crawl back up, but he didn’t listen.
“He wasn’t being stupid. Jamie was a good outdoorsman and always carried rescue gear in his pack. He tied a rope around the trunk of a good-sized tree and came down to get me. On another day, if it hadn’t been raining so hard, it would have been no problem. But it was pouring, just pouring, and the ground was sodden. When he was a few feet away from me, the trail above us
