about the other woman he touched, other than satisfying my need to feel in control, to shove my proof in his face and say Ha! I know what you did!?
Death has a funny way of putting life into perspective for us. And what had once been so important to me — that need for vindication I held so tightly on my drive home — didn’t seem to matter now. There was really only one thing that did.
I loved him.
That emotion was easy to pin down.
And because it was the only thing I could truly grasp, I held onto it tightly, knuckles white and aching. Carlo Mancini was my husband, and I, his wife. He was my everything — and that was still true, regardless of who else he’d shared a bed with.
So, I pulled back from his embrace, and kissed his lips — lips I always thought would be only mine to kiss — and I told him I loved him. I told him I was there. I held his hand and told him that, come what may, he had me by his side.
And by his side I stayed, until the very day he died.
Somewhere in that warped, whirling span of time, I think a part of me died, too.
I watched cancer wither my strong, commanding husband into nothing but skin and bones. I watched his eyes grow hollow, his lips ashen, his hands weaken where I held them in mine. Every day that I looked in the mirror, I watched my own eyes change, a hardness settling in. I watched a twenty-nine-year-old girl become an old woman in just weeks — weeks that felt like years, but flew by like days.
And on the day of his funeral, I watched a girl younger and prettier than me mourn him from the back row of our church.
She cried the same tears that I did, though I swore her heart was in more pain than mine. Because she had the satisfaction of being the other woman, of being the one he couldn’t live without — so much so that he was willing to risk his marriage, his reputation, his life that he had built. She knew without a doubt that she had been his world, that she had been the last face in his mind before the light was extinguished and he faded off into nothing.
I didn’t have that same comfort.
I had casseroles from neighbors and life insurance policies from lawyers and a house full of things that smelled like him. I had a down payment on a condo downtown that I’d secured, thinking I would be walking away from him, away from his infidelity. I had an empty hole in my chest where a young heart used to beat, where love used to grow like flowers, now turned to weeds.
I had a secret to keep, one that would eat me alive every second it dwelled in the dark, unspoken depths of my mind.
And I had a plan.
To preserve control over my future, over my heart, my soul, my well-being, over the life I would lead after my husband — I had to eliminate the factors that were uncontrollable. It was just that simple.
And right there, in that first-row pew, with my dead, cheating husband’s mother’s hand in mine, I made one simple plan, with one simple rule.
Never fall in love again.
It was more than just a plan, more than just a goal. It was a promise.
And it was one I vowed to keep.
Gemma
eight months later
“No.”
I only had one word for my best friend-slash-boss as we flowed with the crowd spilling out of Soldier Field, the warm, early-September air sweeping over us. Despite the fact that Belle and I had sweat through most of the Chicago Bears preseason game until the sun finally went down, I still smiled, reveling in the last few weeks of summer.
Soon, the heat would fade, and the Illinois winter would hit with all the subtlety of a Mack truck.
I was in no rush to be greeted with the kind of cold that hurts your face. Still, while I would miss summer, it was fall that was my favorite season. It had always held a special place in my heart for many reasons — my birthday, Halloween, pumpkin-spiced everything, and, most of all, football.
“Shut up. You don’t get to say no to me,” Belle snapped. She swept her long, strawberry-blonde hair off her shoulder before looping her arm through mine. “In our friendship, I’m always right. And trust