She sat in the driver’s seat, stared at the odometer.
Death is an inevitability. Aubrey knew that. People will die, and the essence that was their soul will go wherever they believe it will go, and a new life will join the world in their place. Wax and wane. Yin and yang. Even her car would die one day, and she’d have to remove yet another link to her previous life.
Perhaps this was what she’d been waiting for. Perhaps the fact that Josh had been declared dead would help her find the internal fortitude to finally move on. If the state agreed, then she could mourn and grieve properly, and wake to a new day, a new life.
As if there were any way to move past this.
Home was ten minutes from school. She managed to get there without forgetting a single stop sign.
The house on West Linden Avenue was looking a bit shabby around the edges, not that it had ever looked smart and polished. Aubrey did the best she could, relied on the kindness of the people around her to help with the projects she couldn’t manage on her own, but the harsh winter had stripped away the last vestiges of paint around the eaves and bleached the shutters, making the whole outside look shaggy and worn. She’d have to paint before summer was over.
She’d been forced to give up their gorgeous house in leafy, tony Green Hills to pay her legal bills. The house on Woodmont was one they’d dreamed of and saved for, scrimping even more than usual. A no-interest loan made it reachable, if not affordable, on their meager salaries. A house to grow into, Josh said, hinting at a future filled with love and laughter and the pitter-patter of tiny feet.
The day they’d closed had been triumphant. They’d moved in with hardly any furniture, just enough to make it look like someone was squatting in the house. That first night, they’d had pizza and a bottle of Korbel champagne, the best they could afford—the only they could afford—and built a fire in the fireplace even though it was still warm outside. They made love in front of the fire, and fell asleep in the midst of their own party.
Content.
Their house belonged to someone else now, and Aubrey lived in the shabby little house on West Linden, on the other side of the highway, because the life insurance policy underwritten on Josh was tied up since there was no body, and Aubrey had been forced to sell their dream to make ends meet.
Moving away from their house tore her heart apart. Even though she knew he was dead, a little voice in the back of her head whispered, When he comes home, he won’t know where you are.
Angels are supposed to follow you everywhere, though. Watching, guarding, caring.
Someone would show him. Tell him.
Or not.
Looking forward wasn’t the hardest element of the path she was on; the overlying specter of making a mistake, of doing something that would sever the connection with her previous life, had drowned out all her other worries and concerns.
And yet today, coming home felt different. Was it acceptance? Sorrow? Freedom?
She couldn’t put it into words, didn’t even try, defying the therapist’s orders that she accept each emotion as it came to her, examine it minutely, then let it go so she wouldn’t get dragged into the undertow of sadness. A handy tool if one was truly able to disconnect from the moment-by-moment, all-consuming emotions that came with losing your husband.
She pulled into the concrete drive, turned off the car and let it settle, then headed into the kitchen, dropping her bag on the counter as she went.
She heard the scrabble of nails, the joyous woof. Winston, their—her—Weimaraner, came wiggling into the kitchen. He pushed his wet nose into her hand and turned his sleek blue-gray body sideways into her legs, a warm, weighty comfort. Without Winston, she didn’t know if she would have made it through. More than a companion, he’d become the man in her life, a platonic four-legged husband.
She dropped to her knees and gathered him close.
“How’s my baby?” she crooned, rubbing her fingers into his silken ears. He arched his neck in pleasure, rewarded her attentions with a gentle lick on the nose, then went to the door and sat expectantly, blue eyes smiling.
He’d always been a happy dog.
They’d found him in a box on the side of the road, one Sunday when they’d gone on a drive in the country, down Highway 96 into Williamson County. Green grass, and cows, and a puppy. Aubrey had spied the small gray tail sticking out of the cardboard. Josh had pulled the car to the shoulder to investigate. The puppy, thin, tired, looked up at them with such trust, there’d been no question about keeping him. They’d bundled him home, fed and watered him, trained him to a pad, and been worshipped in return. They named him for Churchill, Josh’s childhood fascination.